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There was no Protestant church in America more renowned fifty years ago than First Baptist Church. God-fearing Southern Baptists from around the country took their summer vacations in Dallas just to attend Sunday services in the historic sanctuary, which was built in 1890. They stared, awestruck, at the towering stained-glass windows, the burnished pews, the thick red carpet, and the choir dressed in red robes, and they gasped when the church’s granite-jawed pastor, W. A. Criswell, often wearing an all-white suit, strode up to the pulpit, accompanied by great musical fanfare. Criswell was a gifted orator, quoting long passages of Shakespeare (and, of course, the Bible) from memory. His voice was so loud that he never needed a microphone. After 50 years in the pulpit, he retired…

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