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Rather than duplicate the abundant biographical info readily available on the internet, we will leave it to readers to satisfy their own curiosity regarding the details of the life and ministry of "Billy" Sunday (1862-1935). Simply keep in mind that like every Christian evangelist, "Billy" Sunday had his own share of both non-Xian and Christian detractors. However, few single attacks contain more falsehoods and greater slanders than that authored in 1917-18 by WatchTower Pilgrim Scott Anderson published with the approval of J. F. Rutherford in "The Overland Monthly", which we excerpt below.

Starting as a lay preacher in the early 1890s after having left his career as a professional baseball player, "Billy" Sunday eventually was ordained as a "minister" by one of the Presbyterian sects in 1903. However, Billy Sunday always considered himself to be "non-denominational". Billy Sunday was generally orthodox and conservative for his time period, but occasionally took a liberal bent on then current issues like women's rights. Probably due to his lack of formal education and seminary training, Sunday was often criticized for his preaching style and choice of "street" language, which some might equate to that of Pentecostal preachers. Sunday's sermon delivery often resembled his previous deliveries of jokes and tall tales in his baseball team's locker room.

To the ire of Charles Taze Russell and his Russellite followers, and later, Joe Rutherford and his Rutherfordite followers, "Billy" Sunday gradually was hailed as the greatest traveling evangelist during the first four decades of the 20th century. CTR and his early Pittsburgh followers were familiar with William Sunday due to Sunday having played parts of three seasons for Pittsburgh's National League baseball team, the "Alleghenys", from 1887-90. When traded by Chicago to Pittsburgh, William Sunday was a recent convert to Christianity, and Sunday's having given up womanizing, gambling, drinking, smoking, cussing, and carousing was highlighted in the newspapers, which also brought public attention to the lifestyles of Sunday's teammates and other professional baseball players. Such likely played the main role in Chicago trading Sunday to Pittsburgh.

By the time that Charles Taze Russell was being chased out of Pittsburgh in 1909, evangelist Billy Sunday's occasional visits to Pittsburgh were welcomed events by most area residents and newspapers. CTR and the Russellites undoubtedly were jealous of Billy Sunday's public appeal and success. While thoroughly dishonest King Charles Taze Russell lived like royalty on money donated by nutjob followers who believed in an impending Armageddon, all while claiming absolute poverty, Billy Sunday honestly acknowledged taking an appropriate salary from the voluntary offerings given to his ministry at their public revivals by regular, everyday folks who did not believe Sunday to be the biblical "faithful and discreet slave". Sunday, his wife, and four children had two homes in Indiana and Oregon, and lived an upper middle class life style. Unbelievably, CTR and the Watchtower Society insinuated dishonesty by Sunday, while CTR's followers openly slandered Sunday, simply because Sunday was not a game-playing fraud and conman like CTR. 

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"[E]stimates on the work of the Rev. Billy Sunday a year after his meetings show a cost of about six hundred dollars per soul, with doubts entertained respecting the saintship of even these." -- CHARLES TAZE RUSSELL, Weekly newspaper advertisement, January 28, 1912.

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The Overland Monthly

January 1918

BILLY SUNDAY is well known, popular and wealthy. He has realized his hopes, reached his goal, received his reward and seems perfectly satisfied with himself and his achievements. Nature endowed him with some splendid gifts. He has applied himself most assiduously. The temper of the world in this generation is soil particularly adapted to his type of genius and ambition. "Billy" Sunday would not have been possible at any other time in the Christian era. The gross materialism of our day, the unprecedented lack of faith and reverence for God and holy things, and the pleasure-seeking mania of all classes of society he has capitalized, and all these have contributed heavily to his phenomenal success. Without the French Revolution there could have been no Napoleon Bonaparte. Without the prevailing substitution of Churchianity for Christianity and the fearful world conditions resulting therefrom, there could have been no "Billy" Sunday. And like the "Little Corporal" he has not saved the country, but used a crisis as a stepping stone to personal glory; but the idol of the French met his Waterloo and St. Helena, and Churchianity's idol cannot much longer ride on the crest of the wave, for the wave itself is breaking.

Had Mr. Sunday achieved success as an actor, politician, business man or Chatauqua lecturer his faults would have been less conspicuous, his course less reprehensible and his influence not so blighting and withering. But he has had the audacity to pose as a representative of Christ and God, while parading his talents and receiving the worship and gold of the people. For twenty-one years he has played a continuous ball game, with the people in the bleachers, with the preachers as out-fielders, with Christ as pitcher, God as catcher, the Devil the ball, and "Billy" always at the bat and collector of gate receipts. "Billy" has outclassed Herod. Herod was unable to influence Jesus to work miracles for his amusement, while "Billy' uses God, Christ, the Bible, Heaven, hell, the Devil, slang and near profanity to amuse the people, win their applause and coin. With this general view of the gentleman, let us now proceed to analyze his character, message, methods, language and influence.

A visit to the tabernacle should convince any one that egotism is the chief element of Mr. Sunday's character. He is extremely self-conscious, dominates every feature of the meeting, keeps himself always in the spotlight -- standing, shifting from one foot to the other or moving about on the stage, manipulating a book or a handkerchief while a prayer is being made, or a solo sung, or some one else is speaking. He gives the impression of being very impatient with everything except his own part in the meeting and of his determination to keep the attention of all riveted on himself while the other necessary features are in progress. In his sermons and prayers he seems equally jealous of God, Christ, Apostles and Prophets, lest they inadvertently might share a bit of the glory. As an expert penman sometimes writes beautiful sentiment while displaying his penmanship, as the birdman describes graceful figures while demonstrating his skill in the air, so Mr. Sunday sometimes says flattering things of Deity while exhibiting his genius at word painting and the coining of epigrams, but it always appears incidental to his one object of self-glorification, and "Billy," not God, gets the applause. He squeezes the juice out of the orange of glory and gives God the rind. Christianity and celestials are used as tail for "Billy's" kite. The ambassador forgets the sovereign and takes all of the honor unto himself. The Bible says that Lucifer coveted the crown of the Almighty, and thus history repeats itself. Yes, if Mr. Sunday were at a wedding he would want to be the bride; if at a funeral he would want to be the corpse, and the fact that he "gets away with it" is no compliment to his admirers.

Such men as Paul, Luther and Savonarola have recognized the strength of the enemy and the length of the fight, but this evangelistic Mont Blanc has the "Devil on the run" before he reaches town, and "hell for rent" soon after. He depends more on the force of suggestion than on the power of truth. He hypnotizes rather than Christianizes, and like all high-powered egotists cannot endure criticism or opposition, but regards all who differ from him as personal enemies, and raves at them as "imps of hell." This superlative egotism and intolerance have led many good people to believe Mr. Sunday obsessed.

His sermons during a two months' campaign cover a variety of subjects; his illustrations prove him a close observer and widely read; his message is a hodge-podge of dark age theology, politics and social reform; he preaches a God whom he has created in his own image, different from the one manifested in nature and revealed in the Scriptures -- an arbitrary, revengeful, swaggerish, sensational Deity, a kind of universal bully, Who uses slang, gives unlimited poetical license to his pets on the firing line, and finds His chief pleasure in a good game of ball and in anathematizing and damning His foes. 

The Christ he preaches has a lot of pardons to place and in the evangelist's own pet phrase, "doesn't give a darn" who accepts or rejects them. He would just as soon lock the iron doors on you as to open the pearly gates to you. The Bible furnishes him a lot of stories, not very familiar to his hearers and which when translated into slang and acted out on the stage make a hit with the audience. The good Bible tells us the sentence resting on the human race as the penalty for father Adam's sin is death, and that God having loved the world and Christ having redeemed the race by His sacrificial death, the whole human family is to be awakened from the dead, be given a favorable opportunity for learning righteousness and obtaining everlasting life. But Mr. Sunday spits fire and brimstone at his audience for eight weeks at a time and declares there is to be no mercy shown to any of earth's millions except a handful of trail hitters of the Gospel Age, and all the rest of the race is to be roasted and toasted, broiled and sizzled for evermore, while "Billy" and God recount their exploits to the amazement of angels and a few saints in heaven. This evangelistic Samson with his hell-fire jaw bone of an ass slays the trail hitting Philistines, heaps upon heaps, and to question his God-dishonoring theology is to come immediately into possession of a "through ticket to hell;" and he declares he would like to be there to fire the furnace. If there were such a place he probably would experience no difficulty in getting a position there, but thank God, "Billy" will come up in the second resurrection, and be given a chance to learn the loving character of God and His gracious plan for the race, to learn reverence for his maker, and live forever. He ought to expunge from his Bible the wonderful words, "God is love," and "Justice is the foundation of His throne," or expunge from his preaching his blasphemous eternal torment theory. He wages relentless war against one class of devils and cooperates with another bunch-hurls thunder bolts at the liquor and Sabbath breaking demons while the demons of pride, ambition, irreverence, false teaching and vulgarity are ever with him in his public ministration.

Isaiah, a true Prophet of God, said, "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up and His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim and one cried unto another and said, 'Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory," but Mr. Sunday addresses the Most High as an equal if not an inferior, puts slang in His Mouth and makes Him a silent partner in the big evangelistic corporation of which "Billy" is boss and manager. He preaches social reform rather than repentance arising from a Godly sorrow for sin, and never urges full consecration to do the Father's will even unto death, without which there is no acceptance with God. The Galilean Prophet taught that we should love our enemies, overcome evil with good, turn the other cheek. "Billy" lionizes himself by threatening physical violence to many offenders, favorite expressions being, "They will get a fight out of me," ," "I will put my fist under their nose."

At one point in his sermon he preaches patriotism and praises the soldiers and sailors, at another point in the same discourse he is sending them as fast as they die for their country to a devil's hell from which there is no recovery, for the whole bent of his teaching is that only trail-hitters, those who make a formal confession of Christ in the presence of $Billy" Sunday, can be saved and all the rest go "not to hades or Gehenna, but to hell." That is poor consolation for the brave dying soldiers and sailors for their loved ones at home. His theology is a delusion and a snare. He says that "it is a good thing for some people that he is not allowed to be God for fifteen minutes." To this we all agree. Besides, if once on the throne he would never consent to abdicate.

His campaigns are managed with the skill of a P. T. Barnum. The first thought is to get the crowds and keep them coming for the full time. The organization is almost as complete as that under which Solomon's temple was built. Thousands who attend never return, but the big machine, by careful manipulation, brings in from near and far enough new delegations nightly to fill the depleted ranks. The large delegations for whom reservations made are given prominence by the introductions given them, and incidentally (?) their firm gets several hundred dollars worth of advertising, which brings vividly to mind the words of the indignant Christ, "It is written, My Father's house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a house of merchandise."

Mr. Sunday makes the statement that a large fund has been provided by the liquor interests with which to bribe preachers and newspapers to oppose him or at least withhold their support, "and thus he binds them to him." He has choice seats reserved for the special delegations, has their favorite hymn sung, flatters and honors them in many ways, then on the principle of "one good turn deserves another," "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours," these honored delegations are called on to become trail hitters and lead the way en masse, and "Billy's" invitation is so easy and furnishes the opportunity of shaking hands with the evangelist and returning his compliments, that they seldom refuse; but oh, what a travesty on the religion of Jesus who said, "Sit down first and count the cost, if any will come after me let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." He so adroitly combines patriotism and religion as to make it appear that not to become a trail hitter is to declare one's self an enemy of the Stars and Stripes.

He declares to the world that he receives as compensation for his services only the free will offering on the last day of the campaign, while the fact is that the last week of the campaign is gold gathering week, during which Sunday committees comb the city and surrounding towns with a fine toothcomb for the coin of the realm, for the benefit of this self-sacrificing (?) follower of Him "who had not where to lay his head." This fellow-servant of him who said, "Silver and gold I have none, but such as I have I give unto thee," this arrogant, covetous, evangelistic cock of the walk leaves the city loaded with treasure, much of it from the earnings of the poor, and in addition to this the newspapers report that when he left New York he carried with him one of John D. Rockefeller's shirts.

The "Billy" Sunday corporation is guilty of the most brazen-faced commercialization of religion the world has ever known, but his defiant rejoinder is, "It is nobody's business what I do with my money." When one who poses as an ambassador of Christ prostitutes the holy calling, becomes a buffoon, deceives the people as to what it means to be a Christian, and by sensationalism and manipulation wins worldly fame and sordid fortune, it is everybody's business, and conscientious thinking people should protest. I praise the New American Woman Magazine for taking up the fight on behalf of an outraged city and nation against this religious imposter, this "uncircumsized Philistine, who has defied the armies of the living God."

The Bible says, "By your words shall you be justified and by your words you shall be condemned;" "From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Then this arch vendor of slang and mouthpiece of the demon of vulgarity stands condemned in the sight of God and pure-hearted, clean-minded, refined people. He possesses a large vocabulary, at times uses choice English, but many of his stories and much of his language is taken from the bottom of the verbal garbage cans of the saloon and redlight districts. Some mothers are keeping their boys away from the tabernacle because they were learning to swear.

He ought to close his joint or put over the doors, "No minors allowed," but of course Mr. Sunday swears to the glory of God. Paul spoke of those who do evil that good might come, and says their condemnation is just. God is not that hard up for glory. I would give in this article some examples of the language of the gutter that he is such an adept at using, only that my own modesty, my respect for the refined readers of this high class magazine and my desire to suppress rather than disseminate these filthy Sunday vaporings, forbid. No gentleman would allow the language the evangelist uses on the stage in the presence of multitudes, used in his home before his wife, sons and daughters. And on certain nights when many special delegations give their yells in the tabernacle one is reminded of the orgies of the heathen and feels that pandemonium has broken loose.

Yes, he gets the crowds, but so do Ringling Brothers, but they are honest enough to call theirs a circus, and "Billy" is not; they admit they are not in it for their health, but he will not; they bleed the city only one or two days for seeing their white elephant, but the Sunday white elephant refuses to check his trunk to another point for two long months. The crowds would not keep up ten days if it were left to their own volition, but the big organization keeps bringing in new blood to keep the attendance up, and we are informed that heads of firms often bring pressure to bear on their employees to attend, presumably for advertising purposes. A gentleman in Buffalo said to me, "Mr. Sunday leaves town at the psychological moment. If he had staid here one week longer he would have been as common as any man in town."

He and his party are making a fine thing out of it from the standpoint of fame and finance. The local ministers get a two months' vacation on full pay, the churches have an eight weeks' carnival, during which they indulge the vain hope of valuable accessions at the close of the drive, the newspapers have eight weeks of paradise, the railroads haul the delegations, the business firms get good advertising at reasonable rates, the people get through ticket to heaven (?) for the small consideration of hitting the trail, God and Christ have the biggest fraud carried on in their names that has been perpetrated since Tetzel toured Europe selling indulgences. The last state of that city is ten times worse than the first. There is not much faith and reverence left in the world, anyway, and "Billy" Sunday is destroying the bit that remains. The closing of a few saloons and a little moral reform will never atone for counterfeiting throughout this nation the religion of Jesus, for selling religious gold bricks to thousands, for damaging spiritually and in many cases irreparably multitudes of his countrymen and all clergymen, church members and people generally who are duped by him and aid and abet his low type, high priced propaganda are particeps criminis.

Two months ago at a great mass meeting in Temple Auditorium I warned the people of this city against the Sunday peril -- many heeded and were saved. Now when the gentleman is on the ground in the midst of his campaign I sound the alarm again, and to you in other cities as well on whom this evangelistic colossus has designs. "Whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet and taketh not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head." I have told you the truth, not the whole truth, but nothing but the truth. My hands are clean, and I find comfort in the thought that "a word spoken in season how good it is, it is like apples of gold in baskets of silver." I have nothing but kind wishes for Mr. Sunday, would like to see him converted, filled with the spirit of Christ, and with reverence and love proclaiming the glad tidings, but otherwise would suggest that he return to his apple orchard in Oregon, raise fine Missouri Pippins and Arkansas Blacks, rather than be dealing out to the people apples of Sodom in the name of the Lord. But the clock in heaven has struck, he sees the handwriting on the wall, his star will soon reach the horizon, and when this strange age that is now closing in tumult is over there will be no more poverty, war, kings, demagogues nor freak evangelists, but in the coming golden age, the whole earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

But in the meantime let us not mistake darkness for light, vaudeville for religion, a goat pen for a sheep fold, a charlatan for a prophet of God. Americans, awake! Many of you, while perhaps too busy accumulating wealth, have been unwittingly swept off your feet religiously by a storm from the nether regions, but it is yet possible for you to regain your poise and recover your standing with God. The adversary has played his trumps, used his most promising instrument, and made a bold stroke for the worship of this nation by trying to strip Jehovah of His majesty, Christ of His dignity, and the people of reverence and obedience, by having this religious buffoon tour this country and try to make God out such an one as himself. It will require repentance in sackcloth and ashes for all of the encouragement given him, to make amends for the wrong that has been done, but this is your reasonable service. What you need is not eight weeks of religious intoxication, but a lifetime of religious sanity.

If you must have amusement you would far better go to a high class theatre for it, since there it is more decent and not given in the name of the Lord. There is no sawdust trail to heaven, no vulgar road to God. Resolve this day that never again will you darken the door of a "Billy" Sunday tabernacle, but will do all in your power to tear down in this land the many altars he has built to his fire God Moloch. Life is earnest, life is real; do not desecrate that which is sacred; better try to make playthings of cyclones and forked lightnings than to make sport at the expense of the Eternal. He says to such: "I will mock when you call, I will laugh when your fear cometh, my glory I will not give unto another." But God is very gracious to the upright. He will give grace and glory to the reverent and obedient, therefore humble yourself under His mighty hand and He will exalt you in due time. Do not sell your birthright for a mess of pottage, stand by all that is wholesome and ennobling, prize purity and dignity, pin your faith not to a pulpit trickster, but to Him Who marshals the host of heaven and calls the stars by name. Let there be a healthy, lofty public sentiment that will make the world safe for freedom and Christianity.

Finally, are "Billy" Sunday's converts converted to Christ? They vanish like a vapor. "Men do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles."

The Los Angeles Examiner reports the death of a neighbor of Billy Sunday, named Harry Monroe.

"'Accept my deepest regret,' Sunday wired. 'He will be missed by everyone. Thousands call him blessed. Last night at the hour he died I heard a sound from heaven. It must, have been Harry. I will never forget him.'"

The business men of Columbus were highly pleased with their contact with the Bible Students; and many of them in their advertisements spoke kindly concerning them. On Monday following the close of the convention the following appeared in the Ohio State Journal, published at Columbus:

"Well, the Russellites have come and gone, and this and the Billy Sunday revival are the two biggest 'jolts on religion' that Columbus ever had, and this is the way I compare the two:

"Billy preached hell fire, damnation, torture and brimstone, after making his enterprise safe from any chance of financial failure by raising money in advance and, after raising huge sums of money from all classes, rich and poor, left our city in a financial panic, the merchant's trade being ruined during his stay and for some time afterwards. On the other hand, the Russellites preached a more wholesome religion and scattered money all over our city in homes where a little money is a 'new stake' as many people are out of work and needed the cash. Furthermore, every Russellite had the very sweetest manner toward every one.

"Russellites, call again. You'll find us at home. Many would say Billy left a bad taste. The Russellites were much better."

THE Cleveland Press, after witnessing a Billy Sunday meeting at Elyria, pays the veteran evangelist the following putative compliment:

"As a spectacle, Sunday is fair. As such, he ranks with movies, vaudeville, jazz orchestras and the modern descendant of the ancient medicine show. His faults in the jazz field of entertainment are the faults of the jazz age, prejudice in place of thought, ignorance in place of intelligence, emotion in place of logic, noise and buffoonery in place of real art and real humor. As an entertainer in the jazz age, Sunday has done well. He is reputed to be a millionaire. His claims to being a religious leader are another matter. In the history of religion he ranks just one step above voodooism. True religion to us is marked by its quest for truth, without prejudice, without hatred, with tolerance, with love, and with broad understanding, Sunday's appeal is to prejudice, intolerance and ignorance."