Dr. James Willingham

Interestingly enough, concerning the Battle of the Bulge, in the Sandy Creek Association, Dr. Parkerson and I had a fascinating fellow minister and friend, the Rev. William Schillinger, a graduate of Eastern Baptist Seminary and the Philadelphia College of the bible. He was a retired minister from the old Northern Baptist Convention as well as the Southern Baptist Convention. He had been a chaplain in Patton's Third Army. While staying with a Germany family, he was given some maps from the other army which he recognized as being plans for a battle. He turned them over to G-2 (the intelligence unit of Third Army). This was about two weeks or so before the Battle of the Bulge. Thus, when Patton said, he could have his army out of the line of battle and on the road to relieve Bastogne in 48 hours, he was speaking on the basis of preparation.
A further item of interest. The G-2 officer who received those plans was interviewed by the Sanford Herald at some point (in the 70s I think - I saw the article, but do cannot recall all the details).
Rev. Schillinger's mother was descended from German Moravian settlers of Old Salem. One of his relatives was the theologian for the Moravians,Rev. Spangenburg (sp?). I saw his book on doctrine once and failed to buy it much to my later chagrin.
Dr. Parkerson was once looking at a commentary on John by Arthur Pink which I saw on his desk. Rev. Schillinger was going to finance the publication of that work (he was independently wealthy and later left Eastern Seminary a half-million dollars with my encouragement - he had set it up to give the money but had been distressed about some theological issues and discussed the matter with me. I encouraged him to continue as he had planned), when Dr. Pink found a royalty publisher named Mr. I.C. Herndeen (sp.?) of Pa. Also Rev. Schillinger in his first church had the General who investigated the battle of Little Big Horn for the War Dept.(which preceded the Pentagon). A further fact about Rev. Schillinger: he was a teenager and working for the Philadelphia Stock Exchange the night they received the information by telegraph about the sinking of the Titanic. Rev. Schillinger gave me his sermon notes and some of his books. He had already sold his complete collection of Pink's journal, Studies in Scripture which provided much of the materials for many of his books that have since been published.
Rev. John Robinson, then pastor of Pittsboro Baptist, and I conducted the funeral for Rev. Schillinger who was a very intensely compassionate minister. I relate this to Dr. Parkerson's materials as information for some future researcher and for the interest of the present readership. It is interesting to know how many are connected with various events in history. My brother-in-law's father (a deacon whose name is on my ordination papers as a part of the council) was in the Battle of the Bulge as was my next door neighbor in St. Louis. Being a historian (I hope), matters of history do interest me greatly.
I commend Dr. parkerson for his passing reference to that historic battle and the weather. Few realize the great sacrifices that have been made by so many to maintain our freedoms. In my second pastorate in Missouri, a member of the church loaned me the pictures he had taken with an old Browning box camera of one of the smaller concentration camps in Germany. He encouraged me to take them home and study them. They gave me nightmares, and they left no doubt in my mind about how right the Bible was on man being a fallen, sinful, and depraved being.
Sandy Creek and North Carolina Baptists growing out of the labors of those converted in the First Great Awakening and experiencing the Second Great Awakening and helping to launch the Great Century of Missions have in their theological, historical, and practical backgrounds the materials that could be once more fanned into the flames of a Third Great Awakening, a visitation for which I have been praying ever since the Spring of 1973. God grant us such a reviving, then, then, our children and grandchildren might be able to continue to enjoy some of the freedoms that we have enjoyed for the past three centuries. Dr. Parkerson's comments on children and the illustration from the Peanuts Comic strip are well-taken. God grant us to pass on to those children clear-cut instructions from the word of God even a lucid presentation of the Gospel.

posted Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:07 PM | Report Abuse