The Day Of Itching Ears
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam
For the professing Church the day of theological controversy has passed. Ecumenism is now the word on every tongue. Church leaders appear to have become convinced that the stifling confusion in the Church can be overcome only by all of us getting together, minimizing our differences and emphasizing those doctrines on which we all agree. As a result some of the most important doctrines of Scripture are neither denied nor affirmed; they are ignored. But little matter, for the objective now is not to be true to the written Word of God, but to see to it that the Church is“strong” and commands the world’s respect.
Ecumenism, sad to say, has made significant inroads among evangelical believers too. All too seldom do men of God stand up to defend by the Scriptures the truths they believe and proclaim. Theological debate has given place to the dialogue, in which two individuals or groups sit down together to discuss their differences and see if there is not some basis for agreement. This appears generous and objective but too often convictions are compromised and the truth watered down by such undertakings, with the result that the Spirit’s power is sacrificed for numerical strength.
No man of God can speak in the power of the Spirit when he places anything before the Word and Will of God. Nor can the Church ever be truly united and strong unless she puts God’s Word and Will first and takes her place in the world as Christ’s embassy on alien territory (See II Cor. 5:20).
Pastor Cornelius R. Stam, 94
Pastor Cornelius R. Stam, 94, founder of the Berean Bible Society and a popular radio evangelist in the 1970s, died Sunday, March 9, of cancer at his home in Carol Stream.
Pastor Stam was raised in Paterson, N.J., one of eight children to Dutch immigrants. His father, Peter, had been a standup comedian in Holland who was inspired to start ministering by reading a translated Bible he was given to help him learn how to speak English. All eight of the children worked in some type of ministry-related field after helping their parents run the Star of Hope Mission in Paterson.
Pastor Stam’s father “was a great influence,” said Pastor Stam’s stepdaughter, Grace Frizane, “simply because his father involved the family from early on, taking them out on the streets of Paterson and showing them the need.” Pastor Stam worked in the mission with his parents after high school while also preaching at a church in town. In 1933, one of his brothers, John, while on a mission in China, was beheaded, along with his wife, by communist forces who were battling China’s government–an act that caused an international uproar at the time.
In the late 1930s, after hearing Pastor J.C. O’Hair preach about the teachings of St. Paul, Pastor Stam moved to the Chicago area to work in O’Hair’s North Shore Church. In 1939 he and several other evangelist pastors helped found the Milwaukee Bible Institute, which is now the Grace Bible College in Grand Rapids, Mich. In 1940, Pastor Stam founded the Berean Bible Society, which puts out various publications on worship. It was based in Elmwood Park until it moved to Germantown, Wis., in 1993. During the 1970s, his radio show, “Bible Time,” played on more than 100 stations. Pastor Stam’s popularity, said a colleague, Pastor Ricky Kurth of the Berean Bible Society, was due to a powerful voice “and the gift to make the word of God, even deeper things, just simple for people.” Besides his stepdaughter, there are no immediate survivors.
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