by Doug Kutilek
Amzi Clarence Dixon (1854-1925), largely forgotten today, was a leading Baptist in his day and the only man to pastor both Moody Memorial Church in Chicago and Spurgeon’s Tabernacle in London. Born in Shelby, NC, in the decade before the American Civil War, he was a pastor’s son. At age 12, he was one of 200 converts in a revival meeting conducted by his father. He graduated from Wake Forest College (where he experienced a call to the ministry at age 19), and then applied to Spurgeon’s Pastors’ College, but Spurgeon writing in reply strongly urged him to pursue ministry preparation in America. Dixon subsequently spent some time studying at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, then located in Greenville, SC.
Dixon was tall and lean, with black hair. He always had a full moustache as an adult. His voice was strong and clear.
While pursuing his formal education and for some years afterward, he pastored a series of churches in North Carolina. So impressive was he that he was offered the presidency of Wake Forest College when just 28. He declined, to continue his work as pastor and evangelist. The next several decades found him pastoring in succession churches in Baltimore (eight years), Brooklyn (11 years), Boston (nine years), Chicago (Moody Church, five years), and London (Metropolitan Tabernacle, eight years). Though none of these pastorates was of remarkable length, nevertheless in each case, the churches experienced numerous conversions, increasing baptisms, and significant growth in membership, besides a spiritual maturing of the congregations. The London pastorate, half of it during the dark and extremely trying days of World War I, was the most demanding but also the most fruitful.
Dixon was first and foremost a zealous evangelist, fervently and energetically seeking the conversion of the lost, both through his own congregations and through evangelistic outreaches in widespread locations. He was a strong proponent of prohibition, and an unrelenting opponent of both Darwinism and its rationalistic outgrowth, the destructive higher criticism of the Scriptures.
As Dixon’s reputation grew and spread, he was constantly invited to speak at major Bible conference centers, Northfield and Winona Lake among them. He was part of the rising tide of premillennialists in the latter 19th century. He had a growing circle of good friends in ministry — D. L. Moody, A. J. Gordon, J. Wilbur Chapman, A. T. Pierson, Thomas Spurgeon, Charles Alexander, and more.
As a thorough student of Scripture and one whole-heartedly and unyieldingly committed to the great fundamental doctrines of biblical Christianity, it was only natural that Dixon should be approached by the Stewart brothers, Milton and Lyman, of Union Oil Company to edit a series ofarticles by outstanding conservative Christian scholars defending these great fundamental truths against the attacks of apostates and modernists. The articles were published (1910-1914) in 12 paperback volumes (later bound in four) and titled The Fundamentals: a Testimony, and distributed free to some 300,000 preachers, Bible teachers, professors, missionaries, and students. Dixon edited volumes 1-5 before assuming his London pastorate. He was succeeded as editor by Louis Meyer (volumes 6-10), then R. A. Torrey (volumes 11-12) who saw the work through to completion. It was, of course, from the title of these books that Curtis Lee Laws soon coined the term “fundamentalist” to identify those prepared to wage battle royal in support of these doctrines and against their adversaries.
After his London pastorate, Dixon was involved in wide-ranging evangelism and conference speaking (including internationally) for several years, closing out his ministry as pastor of a new church plant in north Baltimore.
With such an outstanding resume and record of genuine accomplishments, it is somewhat surprising that Dixon is largely forgotten today. This is likely due to a combination of causes. First, he had no long-term association with any single church (as did Criswell, Truett, and Spurgeon) or religious institution (as did Broadus and Boyce) which might perpetuate his name and conserve his papers, nor has anyone undertaken to champion his memory by reprinting his published works (consisting almost entirely of sermons), with only a very limited few being republished since his death. Nor, to my knowledge, has anyone undertaken a new effort at writing his life; the account by his widow is very good and leaves very little to be desired, though copies are now scarce, and relatively expensive to acquire.
A one-column account of Dixon’s life can be found in Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists, ed. by C. J. Allen et al. (Broadman, 1958), vol. I, p. 377. Eric Hayden, A Centennial History of Spurgeon’s Tabernacle (Pilgrim Publications, 1971), pp. 40-43, details Dixon’s years in London. A. C. Dixon: the Romance of Preaching by Helen A. C. Dixon (Putnam’s Sons, 1931; 324 pp.) is the standard full-length biography, written with complete access to Dixon’s journals, letters, and other papers.