One of the best known and perhaps stranger preachers died last Friday. Perry F. Rockwood, best known for the radio program People's Gospel Hour was two weeks shy of his 91st birthday.
Ordained a Presbyterian during WWII, Rockwood later broke with the church when he charged it with "apostacy." He went on to craft a six day a week radio show that was and still is, to say the least, intriguing. He was one of those "Bible newspaper" guys who waved a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other and tried to co-relate the two.
Rockwood was also a huge proponent of the King James Only movement and kept insisting to his death that any and all any other English translations were heretical -- an odd theory since the KJV is riddled with translation errors and even disrespective of Hebrew grammar and poetry rules, and Rockwood broke with the Presbyterians around the same time the Dead Sea Scrolls and other manuscripts were discovered in Judea and Samaria; such discovery the basis of many modern translations and corrections of earlier ones.
In a world where evangelism is almost completely America-centric, he put Canada on the map for millions of listeners around the world. While I may have had many issues with his doctrinal approach, one could not doubt his devoutness to those beliefs. I'm sure Rockwood and the scribes of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures will have many dinner arguments on the other side.
"May the Lord bless you, and make you a blessing." -- Perry F. Rockwood.
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