bwaughWhen people speak of the Reformation the date of its start is considered October 31, 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his theses to the church door in Wittenberg. However, as Heiko Oberman’s book Forerunners of the Reformation points out there were forerunners of Luther extending into the late Middle Ages who provided important foundational elements for his work. When Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) members think of the organization of the denomination it is rightly believed to be 1973, however, it also has influential forerunners even though its field of influence was less than Luther’s, one of whom was Bill Hill.
William Edwin Hill, Jr. was born in Richmond, Virginia, July 29, 1907, to Zaida (English) and William Hill, Sr., who was a Presbyterian minister. Young Bill’s great grandfather and grandfather were also Presbyterian ministers. Through the course of thirty-two years of ministry Bill’s father served churches in Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina. As a child Bill suffered acute rheumatoid arthritis (Stills Disease) which caused severe pain all over his body. He endured the disease until he was about seven years old when its intensity subsided, but he had pain all his life and his physical growth was affected because he would mature to be shorter and slighter than the average man. When a teenager he was called to the ministry, so following graduation from Davidson College he studied theology at Union Theological Seminary, Virginia, before accepting a call to the West End Presbyterian Church, Hopewell, Virginia in 1929. He also served First Church, Hopewell, from 1933 to 1943. Through his years at West End, Bill Hill was able to minister to a primarily blue-collar congregation that grew to over a thousand members.
As the years of ministry passed Hill became increasingly concerned about the doctrinal direction of his denomination, the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), because of the influence of theological liberalism, higher criticism of the Bible, and the social gospel. He observed that there were many ministers who did not believe the Bible was inspired and inerrant, nor did they believe the work of Christ on the cross was necessary for redemption from sin and fellowship with God. The supernatural was set aside for what was considered a reasonable faith agreeable with science and driven by social concerns rather than the true gospel concerning Christ and the grace of atonement. The state of his church troubled him greatly and as he discussed issues with other ministers, he realized something needed to be done. In conjunction with his West End pastorate, he began holding special services in churches. Hill found that he had taken on a sorely needed ministry because there were too many invitations to accept them all, so he resigned from West End in 1958 to work as a full-time evangelist. In response to growing demand for special services he established Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship (PEF) in 1964. By 1968 five evangelists joined Hill, Preston Sartelle, William L. Mosal, Jr., Sam C. Patterson, Reuben Wallace, and George A. Hudson. Beginning the next year PEF held annual week-long family conferences that met during the summer in Montreat, North Carolina for the purpose of reinvigorating and challenging Christians to mature in discipleship and evangelism.
Hill wanted to expand the PEF ministry to include foreign missions, but to do so, the work would have to be approved as a parachurch ministry by the Board of Foreign Missions of the PCUS. The situation with the denomination’s Board was troubling because some missionaries had either left the field on their own or were sent home because of their unwillingness to follow Board directives contrary to the historic gospel. A similar situation had occurred thirty years earlier when J. Gresham Machen headed a group that created the Independent Board for Foreign Missions (IBFM) because it was clear that his denomination would not commit to purging modernism on the mission field. Machen was tried and convicted of supporting the IBFM, so Hill and the directors realized the weighty implications of establishing an independent missions board. After good faith attempts to submit to the governance of the Board of Foreign Missions and work out a satisfactory arrangement, the PEF directors decided to press on and investigate overseas opportunities. Finding the prospects positive, the directors established, circa 1970, the Executive Commission on Overseas Evangelism (ECOE). When the PCA was formed some assets and personnel of ECOE became the basis for Mission to the World, however, this was achieved after debate at the General Assembly concerning the commitment of some ECOE personnel to the Westminster Standards.
As members of the PCUS continued hoping for changes in the theological direction of their denomination, it became clear to many presbyters and their flocks that something had to give because the gospel could not coexist with the theological direction of their denomination. During the annual PEF summer meeting at Montreat in 1971 attendees were informed that some concerned Presbyterians were forming a Steering Committee for a Continuing Presbyterian Church. Four organizations provided three commissioners each to represent their views on the Steering Committee. The four organizations were, Concerned Presbyterians, The Presbyterian Journal, Presbyterian Churchmen United, and PEF. The Steering Committee meetings combined with local informal gatherings provided mutual support for churches as they considered leaving their presbyteries for a new denomination. When the PCA was formed, Hill entered the new church as an honorably retired minister from Hanover Presbytery, PCUS. The following year he resigned as Executive Director of PEF. The First General Assembly convened at Briarwood Presbyterian Church, Birmingham, Alabama, in the fall of 1973.
November 28, 1983, Bill Hill passed away from a heart attack after fifty-five years of ministry. He is buried in Appomattox Cemetery, Hopewell, Virginia. He was survived by his wife of fifty-two years Victoria, two brothers, and a sister. His publications were primarily articles for church publications except for the book, God’s Hidden Mystery, which is a study of Colossians that was released in 1983 just a few months before his death. Kennedy Smartt, who recently became a centenarian, said this about his predecessor at West End Church.
Bill Hill exemplified the qualities of faith and courage as magnificently as any man I have ever known. He was Daniel and the three young men compressed into one, wearing a black suit and a black bow tie. He believed God was able—and proved it—to the amazement of friend and foe alike. And he had foes, both local and across the church, because of the firm and uncompromising stands he had taken both in the public arena as well as the courts of the church.
But Bill Hill also had the courage to face the consequences of his convictions, neither flinching nor apologizing. He stood only five feet tall, but he was a giant among men. Future generations, reading and hearing of his accomplishments, will unconsciously picture him as a man who stood head and shoulders over his fellows. And all of us who knew him and loved him will wholeheartedly agree.
Hopefully this brief biography brings honor to the memory of William Edwin Hill, Jr. and his early contributions to establishing the PCA and Mission to the World. Another legacy is that PEF, currently named Reformed Evangelistic Fellowship in Bristol, Tennessee, continues as a nonprofit faith mission unassociated with the PCA that trains God’s people to do evangelism according to the Bible.
Barry Waugh
Notes–Photographs are provided courtesy of Wayne Sparkman of the PCA Historical Center, St. Louis, Missouri. The header showing the First General Assembly at Briarwood Church in Birmingham has been edited for size and two persons leaving via the aisle have been removed; the back of the head in the foreground is believed to that of Moderator Jack Williamson. Hill’s biography is Otto Whittaker’s Watchman, Tell it True: The Life and Here-I-Am-Lord Times of Bill Hill, Manassas: Reformation Educational Foundation, 1981; information about the forming of PEF and ECOE and Hill’s being associated with Machen by some of his PCUS contemporaries is found on pages 86-87, 192-93, 414-16, & 436. The quote from Kennedy Smartt was found in The Presbyterian Journal, Dec. 21, 1983, p. 9; other remembrances in the issue are from, Jimmy Lyons and Charles W. McNutt. Interesting and helpful is, “Oral Interview Dr. William Hill, by Mrs. Georgia Settle at his home in Hopewell, Virginia, March 20, 1981”; transcribed typescript from cassette tapes held by the PCA Historical Center, St. Louis, Missouri. Also used was, Frank J. Smith’s The History of the Presbyterian Church in America, Silver Anniversary Edition. Lawrenceville: Presbyterian Scholars Press, 1999; Smith’s more detailed account of the PEF, ECOE, and the PCA is on pages 50-58. If you would like to read more about Machen and the IBFM the appropriate chapter from The Presbyterian Conflict by Edwin H. Rian is available on the Orthodox Presbyterian Church website HERE.
