Mordecai+Fowler+Ham,+Jr


 * [[image:mordecai.jpg width="207" height="330"]] || **Mordecai Fowler Ham, Jr.** (April 2, 1877 – November 1, 1961), was an American [|Independent] [|Baptist] [|evangelist] and [|temperance movement] leader. He entered the ministry in 1901 and in 1936 began a [|radio] broadcast reaching into seven southern states. Early in his ministry, he was ordained at [|Burton Memorial Baptist Church] in [|Bowling Green], [|Kentucky].

The son of Tobias Ham and the former Ollie McElroy, Ham was born on a farm in [|Allen County] near [|Scottsville] in southern Kentucky, north of the [|Tennessee] state line. Descended from eight generations of Baptist preachers, his namesake grandfather was Mordecai F. Ham, Sr. He once stated that "From the time I was eight years old, I never thought of myself as anything but a [|Christian] . At nine, I had definite convictions that the Lord wanted me to preach...." Ham studied at Ogden College in Bowling Green and relocated to [|Chicago], [|Illinois] , where he engaged in business from 1896 to 1900. There, he married the former Bessie Simmons in July 1900. In December 1900, he closed the business to devote full-time to the ministry. [|[1]]

One target of Ham's sermons was [|alcohol] abuse, particularly before the adoption of the [|Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution]. He believed that problems involving liquor could best be resolved by conversion to Christianity and the placement of new believers in churches which stress abstinence of alcoholic beverages. [|[1]]

Ham was publicly and virulently [|anti-Semitic] and [|anti-Catholic]. [|[2]] He was "a revivalist who considered [|Jews] 'beyond redemption'". [|[3]]

In 1928, though many in his congregation were [|Democrats], Ham supported [|Republican] [|Herbert Hoover] for the [|American presidency] : "If you vote for [|Al Smith] , you're voting against Christ, and you will all be damned". Smith was the [|Roman Catholic] and Democratic [|governor of New York] who lost the election to Hoover.

In November 1934, [|Billy Graham] was converted under Mordecai Ham's preaching in a revival in [|Charlotte], [|North Carolina]. Through Ham's influence with [|William Bell Riley] in [|Minneapolis], [|Minnesota] , Graham was launched onto a national and international platform of influence and prestige among evangelical ranks. Ham had held his greatest number of meetings in [|Texas]. Graham joined a Texas church, First Baptist of [|Dallas], then the largest [|Southern Baptist] congregation in the nation and pastored by [|W.A. Criswell]. [|[1]]  ||
 * || https://urbanlegendsofbarren.wordpress.com/2016/03/21/battle-front-messages-bowling-green-kys-mordecai-ham/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordecai_Ham ||