F leroy forlines biography of barack
Theological Commission, “The Apologetics of Leroy Forlines Published”
A new book, The Apologetics of Leroy Forlines, by F. Leroy Forlines and J. Matthew Pinson, was recently published by Welch College Press, according to Matthew Bracey, managing editor of Welch College Press.
“The book has met with much enthusiasm and praise,” Bracey said. “We’re proud of this book and believe it honors the legacy that Mr. Forlines has left to us on the topics of apologetics and worldview thinking.”
Forlines, Professor Emeritus of Theology at Welch College, served on the Commission for Theological Integrity for fifty years, most of those years as chairman. Pinson, chairman of the Commission for Theological Integrity, serves as president of Welch College.
As detailed on the book’s dust jacket, “In The Apologetics of Leroy Forlines, J. Matthew Pinson brings together select writings of F. Leroy Forlines on apologetics and the knowledge of God. He begins the volume with a lengthy essay on the apologetics of the foremost systematic theologian of the modern Free Will Baptist Church and the contemporary Reformed Arminian movement.”
“I welcome this new book from my distinguished friend and scholar J. Matthew Pinson, which explores my previous writings on apologetics,” Forlines said. “In this book Pinson has brought together some of my writings on apologetics and epistemology from my book The Quest for Truth, introducing them with a lengthy opening chapter of his own on my approach to these matters. I highly commend Pinson’s essay, which excellently sums up my approach to apologetics.”
Forlines added, “The ideas in this book are timely. In the last thirty years, postmodernism has displaced modernism in the intellectual world, which has profoundly affected the discipline of apologetics. This book emphasizes how important it is to understand the changes that postmodernism has brought relating to evangelizing people and reaching them for Christ. The same kind of apolo He was waiting with 22 pages of typed and hand-written material when I walked into the conference room 20 minutes early for our interview. His driver’s license says he turned 80 last month, but his hungry eyes tell another story. Bushy silver hair, a razor-edged voice, the disciplined mind of a man who has read much and thought more—F. Leroy Forlines is in a hurry and on a mission. Never mind that he retired in 1992 as theology professor at Welch College. He forgot to turn in his office key, and still teaches on a part-time basis. He is now Professor Emeritus at Welch with a worldwide classroom. When the Soviet Union disintegrated toward the end of the 20th century, Forlines began lecturing in the Ukraine and Russia. Since 1996, he has made seven trips behind what was the Iron Curtain teaching an emerging generation of Russian Baptist pastors. His hard-earned academic credentials (three graduate degrees in theology), coupled with sterling character and a 58-year ministry, mark Leroy Forlines as a complex statesman-theologian, oft-published author, entertaining party guest, personal counselor, and international lecturer. But if you listen closely, an eastern North Carolina accent slips through as he explains the effects of postmodernism and barbarism on American culture. He is still John and Leta Forlines’ oldest son, one of five children (pictured above, center) raised to work long, hot hours on a tobacco farm outside Winterville during the Great Depression. “I also worked as a grease monkey at Elbert Smith’s Esso Station,” says the elder statesman of Free Will Baptist theologians. Those early years sweating in tobacco barns and that greasy business at the Esso Station launched Leroy’s six-decade ministry as a preacher, professor, and author. Franklin Leroy Forlines was conv I have lost count of the great Free Will Baptist leaders and individuals I have heard say Leroy Forlines had a profound impact on their Christian life. Teacher, writer, speaker, thinker, and short-term missionary, all of these were chapters in one of the greatest books in Free Will Baptist history. God continues to use his spiritual legacy in all of these roles, educating and inspiring many generations of Christians. His passage through the brief span of time given to all men and women has left a lasting and extremely significant footprint for many generations of disciples who have followed and are following his lead. Leroy Forlines had felt a call to the ministry as a teenager. He was born in 1926 in Greenville, North Carolina, the eldest son of John and Leta Forlines. Early in his life, he worked as a mechanic at Elbert Smith’s Esso Station. In October 1944 at the age of 17, he converted to Christianity. Two years later he decided God was calling him to preach. So, in 1948 he moved to Nashville to begin his education for the ministry Welch College During his time as a student, he preached his very first sermon on a downtown Nashville street corner. It was also during his early years that he was deeply impacted by L.C. Johnson’s class on Arminian Theology. Throughout these college years, he had a strong role in student body leadership, serving as the president of his 1952 graduating class. After graduation, Leroy Forlines immediately entered the ministry, serving as pastor of First Free Will Baptist Church in Newport News, Virginia from June 1952 to August 1953. He resigned this role and returned to Welch College to join the teaching faculty. He continued in that role full-time for almost 40 years. In 1957 he met and fell in love with Carolyn Le Fay Gilbert. They married and had two sons, Jon and James. During those early years in the professorship, he was continuing his own education. He attained his M.A. from the Winona Lake School of A tribute to the life and ministry of Leroy Forlines, published by Jack Williams in the December-January 2007 issue of ONE Magazine.
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In Memorium: Remembering F. Leroy Forlines
By Matthew J. Pinson, President, Welch College
F. Leroy Forlines, ordained minister and Welch College Professor Emeritus of Theology, died December 15, 2020, at age 94. He was the greatest Free Will Baptist systematic theologian, and his mark on Free Will Baptist life and thought is inestimable.
Born to John and Leta Forlines in 1926 and raised on a tobacco farm in eastern North Carolina, Forlines was converted in 1944, six weeks before his 18th birthday, during a revival meeting at Winterville FWB Church conducted by R.N. Hinnant.
In fall 1946, Forlines answered the call to the ministry while serving as an auto mechanic. Two years later, he entered Welch College, graduating in 1952 with the bachelor of arts degree. Forlines later said, “That experience changed my life forever. The most important thing that happened to me during those years was my decision I would believe what the Bible says, regardless of what I thought, or what others might say.”
Beginning with a course taught by Welch founding president L. C. Johnson, Forlines began to develop his singular theology, his greatest legacy to Free Will Baptists and the larger Evangelical community. He clarified and fleshed out a theology stemming from 17th century English General Baptists. Forlines melded the theology of Jacobus Arminius with that of American Reformed thinkers such as William G.T. Shedd and Charles Hodge. His work forged a unique synthesis, restating the Reformed-Arminian thought of English forebears such as Thomas Helwys and Thomas Grantham.
After a year pastoring in Newport News, Virginia, Forlines began his academic career at Welch College, where he taught, chaired the Bible and Theology Department, and served as dean of men an