This paper examines the impact of key evangelical leaders and institutions on James Montgomery Boice’s (1938–2000) early ministry, focusing on his transition from academia and editorial work at Christianity Today to his pastoral call to Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.
After Boice’s doctoral training and ministry experience in Basel, Switzerland, he emerged as a promising leader in an aging evangelical movement. Boice’s relationships with Donald Grey Barnhouse, Carl F.H. Henry, and Frank E. Gaebelein shaped his sense of calling and paved the way for him to pastor one of the most storied congregations in America. Henry’s mentorship prepared Boice for a broader evangelical platform, Barnhouse’s legacy provided a pastoral model, and Gaebelein’s counsel played a direct role in Boice’s call to Tenth in 1968. Drawing on Daniel Silliman’s insight that “evangelicalism is an imagined community, organized by communication networks,” this study will demonstrate how these connections catalyzed Boice’s rise to prominence.
By the late 1960s, American evangelicalism was undergoing a leadership transition. As George Marsden has observed, “By 1967…it was becoming impossible to regard American evangelicalism as a single coalition with a more or less unified and recognized leadership.” Boice was well positioned to step into this shifting landscape. By situating Boice within the evolving leadership dynamics of mid-century evangelicalism, this paper will argue that Boice’s early ministry navigated the tension between inheriting a fractured yet prominent new evangelical tradition and pioneering a renewed model of urban ministry in center city Philadelphia. Incorporating never-before analyzed archival material, this study will assess the impact of Boice’s ministry during the years 1966–1968 on the trajectory of American evangelicalism in the final decades of the twentieth century.