A Charge to Keep

The folks in Earl Gladstone Hunts early life helped shape this East Tennessee leviathan - a giant, a bridge builder, a preacher in the Methodist itinerant ministry - one who occupied the episcopal office for twenty-four years. He is also an educator - college president, and evangelist - President of the Foundation for Evangelism. Throughout his ministry his central theme was telling the message of Jesus Christ, His birth, life and teachings, sacrificial death and resurrection, to an anxious, disoriented world. In the "Bridge Builder" chapter, Hunt is likened to a bridge with tensile strength allowing traffic in both directions. The biographer relates a number of areas that seemed almost impossible to bridge. Yet with respect for those with whom he worked, he diplomatically built those bridges. While driving on icy roads, if one overcorrects in any direction, it could bring disaster. Bishop Hunt has steered with a strong, steady hand through many treacherous roads. Racism was addressed all across his tenure but he names the homosexual issue as the one that stimulated the most mail response. Hunger, the Bomb, disintegration of family life, drugs, poverty, housing, struggle for freedom, excesses of affluence, and he even addressed the process of episcopal elections. He considered the most important assignment of his career the task of working with a committee and preparing a statement that would reflect the needs of Wesleyan tradition in the contemporary world. His experience as a College President, his commitment to evangelism and his visibility within the church was providential for the Foundation for Evangelism. The chairs of evangelism in the seminaries will insure that his contribution will live in the lives of seminarians for decades to come. Dr. James Logan has done a masterful job of reporting on one of the heros in the faith. Bishop Hunt is not only tall on the outside - he is tall on the inside. Would that there were hundreds more like him!