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He was a pathetic old man who in his younger days was on top of the heap of evangelical evangelism. At 86, after writing Farewell to God that sought to explain his reason for leaving the God of his youth, he whimpered to a Christian journalist, “I miss Jesus.”  However, he only knew about Jesus but never knew Him.

Charles Templeton made a profession of faith at 19 in a Nazarene Church and did evangelistic work for three years in Canada, Michigan, Indiana, New York, and a few other northern states.  He decided to leave the road and founded a church in Toronto with his family and a few friends in 1941. At their first service (on Sunday night), they had 112 people and the next Sunday morning they had 27 in attendance. Within six months, the 1200 seat building was full even on Sunday nights with people turned away. Moreover, the new pastor only had a ninth grade education! Here was a young man to keep an eye on.

Chuck Templeton was a handsome young man with amazing abilities and unlimited potential. He was an early friend of Billy Graham (both in their twenties) whom he met backstage at a Chicago Youth for Christ rally in 1945 held at the Chicago Stadium, packed with 20,000 teenagers. As Graham was being introduced to preach, he leaned over to Chuck and said, “Pray for me Chuck, I’m scared to death.”

Chuck left Chicago and returned to Toronto to organize Toronto Youth for Christ (in addition to his church work) and immediately had the largest YFC rally with over 2500 teens each Saturday night!

During the 1940s, Youth for Christ was snowballing in the large cities of North America. The Toronto rally, led by Chuck Templeton, was the largest. Following the Chicago rally Templeton, Graham, and others formed Youth for Christ International with Templeton as one of the three vice-presidents. Immediately Billy Graham was hired as evangelist-at-large at Chuck’s recommendation.

A young Chicago preacher, Torrey Johnson, (whom Chuck repeatedly called “Johnston” in his book, Charles Templeton: An Anecdotal Memoir) was appointed to lead a team to Europe to promote YFC, and Graham and Templeton would do the preaching, alternating each night. Stratton Shufeld was scheduled to do the music during the rallies.

The media were very cooperative with this tour as proved by the Hearst newspapers providing a reporter and photographer to favorably cover every move of the dynamic young group. Life magazine did the same thing with Time and Newsweek providing additional coverage! For three weeks, no building was large enough to seat the teens who attended the rallies throughout Europe.

In 1946, the National Association of Evangelicals listed Templeton as the “best used of God” superseding even Billy Graham. However, Chuck was having major doubts as to the validity of the Bible and those doubts increased as he read infamous works of famous skeptics. He wrote in Charles Templeton: An Anecdotal Memoir, “I picked up Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason. In a few hours, nearly everything I knew or believed about the Christian religion was challenged and in large part demolished.” In the next ten days, he read Francois Voltaire’s The Bible Explained at Last, Bertrand Russell’s Why I am Not a Christian, the speeches of atheist, Robert Ingersoll, including  The Mistakes of Moses, and some of the writings of David Hume and Thomas Huxley.  Chuck was now doubting his beliefs and believing his doubts!

Young Chuck Templeton was on a roll, on top of the world, had the world by the tail and was making his mark on the religious world. No one could know that Chuck spent sleepless nights and often-disturbing days doubting his faith. He was preaching to thousands of people at YFC rallies and to a large church each Sunday, yet he was not sure what he believed! He even doubted the truthfulness and validity of the Word of God!

Chuck’s major problem was with the Genesis account of creation. On page 6 of his book that detailed his “farewell to God,” he wrote, “I had always doubted the Genesis account of creation and could never accept the monstrous evil of an endless hell….”

Chuck thought that maybe his problem was that he had no training so he applied to Princeton Theological Seminary; however, seminaries only accept college graduates. Nevertheless, Templeton had good connections and was accepted as a special student; again proving that it is not what you know but whom you know that matters in many instances. Chuck resigned his thriving church and moved his family to New Jersey.  

After graduating from Princeton, Chuck was hired by the National Council of Churches to represent them in “preaching missions” across the U.S. where he normally preached to up to twenty thousand people nightly. However, his secret doubts continued to haunt him. Chuck’s son said, “He went to the seminary to learn more and came out an agnostic.” That happens all the time!

He received favorable exposure from America’s major outlets such as Newsweek, Time, Chicago Sunday Tribune, and Maclean’s magazine and he did a four-part series for NBC television network. He later went to work for the Presbyterian Church USA heading up their Department of Evangelism. That was followed by a weekly television show, “Look up and Live” on the CBS network.  Wow, Chuck had really hit the big time, but his doubts continued and he started to slip deeper into the dark, dangerous cavern of unbelief.

Chuck’s life was spinning out of control although no one would know it by outward circumstances.  He preached a week at Yale University and counseled with some students, one being a young man from a wealthy and influential family. The student, quarterback on the football team and captain of the Yale debating team, had many doubts and in a lengthy session with Chuck, Chuck put him down with his Bible knowledge and debating abilities.

Templeton’s first reaction at overpowering the student was elation followed by anger and self-reproach. He felt that he had meddled with the student’s life while he (Chuck) harbored horrendous doubts in his own heart. He decided to end the whole charade and walk away from everything.  Therefore, he resigned from the Presbyterian Church position and his CBS television show that had been renewed. In 1957, with an automobile and $600 dollars in his jeans, he and his family drove back to Canada where he began. He was now cut off from all his friends and associates he had made in the ministry, unemployed with no prospects, and had stepped into the blackness of apostasy.  He was now an unbeliever in the God of the Bible!

After leaving the ministry (for which I commend him and which all unbelievers should do), Chuck worked as executive managing editor of the Toronto Star, director of news for the Canadian Television Network and wrote twelve books.

He wrote Farewell to God to justify his unbelief. It is an amazing, self-serving book that deserves to be looked at if for no other reason but to warn all of us about the danger of questioning the validity of the Bible, especially the first few chapters of Genesis.  His purpose was to justify his rejection of faith in Christ and the Bible.

In writing his book, he seemed to be operating under the Latin  motto, only slightly altered, “I will either find a discrepancy; or I will make one.” He made plenty. It is a matter of dishonesty. Keep in mind that Chuck, like all unbelievers, had to justify his unbelief.  He fell into Satan’s trap of always giving credibility to “intellectuals” and questioning the Word of God. I have discovered (there are scores of examples) that it is better to accept the Bible against science, archeology, and history realizing that those disciplines will eventually catch up with the Bible!

Templeton’s  book is filled with errors, proving that Chuck was not as sharp as everyone thought or he and his editors were very careless if not incompetent.  Every time the word “judgment” or “judgmental” is used (ten times), it is misspelled! No doubt, that word is the most misspelled word in the English language but that is no excuse for the author, his proofreaders, and his editors.  My position is that if Chuck was so careless about something as foundational as spelling, what other failures were there in his approach, his thinking, and his life. (I saw the same thing in his book, Charles Templeton: An Anecdotal Memoir: many errors, inconsistencies, etc. He has Winona Lake, Indiana in Wisconsin and other errors.)    

He also incorrectly makes Billy Graham a graduate of Bob Jones University but Graham never finished there. He was graduated in 1940 from Florida Bible Institute (now Trinity College with a  Th.B. and from Wheaton College in 1943 with a B.A. degree in Anthropology.

Chuck was riding a toboggan slide deep into apostasy. He went from doubting the Genesis account of creation to writing in his book about a God who would consign more than half of the people who had ever lived to an eternal hell as being a “monster beyond imagining.” It is incredible what positions men take when they do not believe in the truthfulness of the Word of God.

In his chapter, “The Bible versus the Facts” he does not deal honestly or scholarly with the “facts.” He states that “every physicist in the world” rejects the Genesis account. First of all, he did not know “every physicist” in the world, nor did he interview every physicist.  It is a dishonest and inaccurate statement to suggest that every physicist believes that the universe evolved.

He did the same thing with anthropologists, geneticists, and geologists proving that he was desperate to support his unbelief. But it was a massive overreaching and was not at all successful.  

Falling to a sophomoric level, Chuck made much of the two accounts of creation then  wrote that God’s “original intention was that Adam mate with one of the animals, the woman was an afterthought.” Of course, that is a total fabrication and does not deserve much comment. It shows again, how pathetic and desperate he was to support his unsupportable position.  In his other book, he wrote that Fundamentalists believe that Adam and Eve’s sin was, “commonly believed to be of sexual nature.”  In all my ministry, I never met or heard of one Fundamentalist or Evangelical who believed that! He also wrote that we teach that Gideon made the sun “stand still in the heavens.” No, wrong again, Chuck.  He was very uninformed or very careless.  

Templeton then attacked God’s omniscience when he pointed out that God did not know where Adam and Eve were hiding in the Garden. Chuck wrote, “He seems to have no idea where the first man and woman are hiding and has to ask where they are and what they have been up to.” That is disingenuous if not dishonest of Chuck. Again, he was stretching to find anything he can use against the Bible to justify his unbelief.

He then attacked God’s omnipotence by pointing out that God got tired of his creation work and had to rest on the seventh day! It is getting embarrassingly silly for a grown man to make such dumb statements.
    Then Chuck goes after Noah and suggests that Noah and his family could not have constructed the ark since there were no hammers, saws, axes, etc., but had only the “crudest of tools.” That is an assumption (of evolutionists) not an argument for disbelief.

Now he displays incredible ignorance when he asked, “How, pray, does one go about capturing two of each, confirm that they are male and female, transport and then house them in segregated enclosures?” How could a man preach much of his adult life after graduating from a major seminary and not know that Genesis 7:9 says, “There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.” Furthermore Genesis 6:20 promised Noah that “two of every sort shall come unto thee.” The thought that Noah and his family chased down all the animals, insects, snakes, birds, etc., is astounding folly. I am beginning to think that Chuck was a total mental incompetent or incredibly dishonest in order to justify his unbelief.  

The next problem exceeds the previous assaults upon credulity and common sense. He wrote, “How, in seven days, could this tiny group construct this enormous ship, etc.?” Where did he come up with seven days to construct the ark?  (What did Chuck’s editor do to earn his fee?)  

Then Chuck suggested that the flood covered the earth higher than the Himalayas, but surely he knew that the mountains were formed during and after the flood.

Templeton seemed to enjoy denigrating God’s men as with Abraham when he told his wife to tell Pharaoh that they were brother and sister. Chuck manufacturers out of thin air the idea that one of Abraham’s  motives was expecting Pharaoh to show his gratitude by throwing business toward Abraham. The Scripture is clear that Abraham is concerned with his life. Chuck charges that Abraham “acts as a procurer for the Pharaoh, requires his wife to perjure herself and become a court prostitute.” Not supported by Scripture. The truth was bad enough.

Chuck had no more confidence in the New Testament than he had in the Old. He alleges that the Gospels were “second-or third-hand, and were written long after his [Christ’s] death by men who never saw or heard him.” Let’s see, there was Matthew, Mark, Luke, (“having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first”) and John.  All four writers were imbued by the Holy Spirit to keep them from error, and either knew first hand of the events they reported or knew those who where there.  Chuck’s problem, other than not trusting Christ as Savior, is that he never believed he preached an infallible Book.

He tells us that the bloody slaughter of the infants by King Herod  did not happen because it is not mentioned in any of the secular literature of the time. However, Chuck is not aware that politicians were careful in the historical records to tout their success in constructing roads, bridges, temples, and their achievements in diplomatic negotiations but at the same time erased all their personal foibles, faults, and failures.  Of course, there would be no mention of the incredible butchering of babies! What politician would want posterity to know of such barbarity?

Templeton displays incredible shallowness or ignorance by positing that Christ was alienated from his family because he was “Mary’s little bastard” and thereby resented her and the circumstances of His birth. He wrote, “Mary left town and went off to Bethlehem for the birth of the child.” No, they went to Bethlehem because Joseph was “of the house and lineage of David” to be taxed as per government order. Mary and Joseph did not flee Nazareth because they were ashamed since they had no reason to be ashamed. Also, why would Mary endure nine months of taunting, then run away for the baby’s birth? Chuck was not thinking clearly, but then unbelief does that to the mind, plus reading Paine, Voltaire, Hume, et al. will produce terminal brain rot.

As to the death of Christ, Chuck again seeks to make Him less than God by suggesting that if He were God, then He knew that He would be raised and go to the Father, yet He pleaded with the Father to be “released from his mission.” Chuck totally missed the point of the Garden experience: Christ was not fearful of death, but agonized over being made “sin for us…that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  
    Chuck again is mistaken when he accuses the Gospel writers of reconstructing the Garden events that they did not actually see. He wrote, “The apostles report seeing ‘his sweat, like great drops of blood, falling on the ground.’” Chuck alleges rightly that the disciples could not have seen Him sweat. Same with His blood but a simple reading of the event proves that the writers never reported “seeing” the sweat and blood, only reported it! There is a difference, you know.  He makes a similar charge suggesting that the disciples could not have overheard His prayer, but they never said they did. They reported, under Holy Spirit inspiration, Christ’s prayer.

Templeton wrote, “There is no mention of Jesus in the Old Testament.” “Nor is there any mention of him during the Creation.” But Christ is seen in the creation as Genesis 1:26 says, “Let us make man….” Christ is seen in Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac, in sacrifices, etc. Isaiah 7:14 clearly says, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” But there are others, many others.

There are 456 major Old Testament prophecies fulfilled regarding Christ, and while His name was not mentioned, there is no question to an honest person that the references are to Christ! Look at His place of birth in Micah 5:2, the time of His birth in Daniel 9:25, the manner of His birth Isaiah 7:14, His betrayal in Psalms 41:9,  the manner of His death in Psalms 22:16, various peoples’ reactions in Isaiah 50:6,  and His burial in Isaiah 53:9.  Please be assured that I could have provided many additional verses for the above. The chance that one man could fulfill all those prophecies would be more zeros than you can write on a page! Obviously, Chuck was a man who refused to be convinced by the facts.

Chuck makes much about the alleged discrepancies surrounding the resurrection of Christ, but many scholars have reconciled the Gospel accounts without any problem. Chuck either was ignorant or chose to disregard the simple and convincing expla-nations.

Then on page 120 he charges Paul with saying “the resurrected Jesus appeared first, not to Mary Magdalene, but to Peter and then to the Twelve.” Paul did not say that Christ appeared “first” to Peter.  Chuck did not seem to understand that Paul omitting the women at the tomb did not deny they were there! Paul’s choice of not mentioning them was the Holy Spirit’s call, not Paul’s.

Then Chuck misquotes Matthew when he wrote; “at the moment of Jesus’ death there was a major earthquake.” However, Matthew did not mention the earthquake being “major.” It may have been since it split the temple veil and opened some graves, but Matthew did not say so. Chuck did. I’ll take Matthew’s version over Chuck’s.

Then Chuck finally hits pay dirt on page 120 and 121! He finally deals with an issue that good men have struggled with for centuries: the dead who were resurrected and were seen walking in Jerusalem! Matthew 27:52-53 is a legitimate item for discussion. Chuck asks why such an event is not recorded in any other portion of the Bible or in secular history. Chuck writes: “Here,…in the flesh, alive and ecstatic with excitement, is a group of resurrected men and women, fresh from the grave with the answers to life’s ultimate questions, and no one lists any of their names or seems to have asked them what happens after death….” He adds, “not one word of it in history.”  

All right, Chuck finally has a point that requires a discussion if not debate by reasonable people.  We have some dead people who were raised from their graves  and appeared in Jerusalem and we assume that they had recently lived and died. We don’t know how many were raised or why all the saved dead were not raised. What criteria did God use to decide on who would rise and who would not? Did they have bodies like Lazarus or immortal bodies? Did those people live until they died again (if they had bodies like Lazarus) or did they walk around in eternal bodies for an unknown period of time? Did they appear to Jews only, Christians only, or to everyone?

Remember that God is not obligated to answer all our questions or any of our questions. Matthew’s main purpose was to reveal what Christ was experiencing on our behalf and especially how it related to the Jews.

Chuck takes the approach that raising the dead is impossible so the Bible is not reliable. However, it should be understood that there were many early Christian writers who testified to physical resurrections long after the resurrection and ascension of Christ! Quadratus, the first Christian apologist and disciple of the Disciples, (who preached in the early 100s) said that some who had been raised from the dead “even reached our times.”  Ireneaus, a half century later, wrote of resurrections in Christian Churches. Many of the less reliable writers of the Apocryphal books referred to the raising of the dead long after Christ’s time. And with time and the canonicity of Scripture, those and other miracles ceased.   

Even famous historian Edward Gibbon admits to the raising of the dead. He wrote, “In the days of Irenaeus, about the end of the second century, the resurrection of the dead was very far from being esteemed an uncommon event that  the miracle was frequently performed on necessary occasions, by great fasting and the joint supplication of the church of the place, and that the persons thus restored to their prayers had lived afterwards amongst them many years.”  (Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, D. M. Low, Ed. Harcourt, Brace and Co. N.Y. 1960, p. 61.)

The Jews believed that when Messiah came there would be a general resurrection at that time, so it is reasonable that Matthew, the Gospel with a Jewish emphasis, would report this unusual event of graves being opened and dead being raised.

Furthermore, Ezekiel 37:12-13 promised, “Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves.”

In light of the above, we can understand Lightfoot’s quote of a Jewish rabbi: “R. Jeremiah commanded, ‘When you bury me, put shoes on my feet, and give me a staff in my hand, and lay me on one side; that when Messias comes I may be ready.” (cited in Lightfoot, Commentary of the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, in. loc.)

So the Jews expected graves to be opened and the dead raised whenever Messiah was revealed, but Chuck (and many others) want to know why nothing was recorded in secular history of such an incredible event? Who knows? There could be many contributing factors, but Christians must start with the premise that it was an actual event as recorded by Matthew. I have some possibilities that could be part of the answer.  Firstly, if you lived in Jerusalem, of course, it would be worth your time to check out such an event.  No doubt the occurrence  was written in some private journals and public papers; however, let me remind you that Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A. D. by the Romans. The Temple was burned and havoc ensued. An artifact could be uncovered tomorrow detailing the very incident recorded by Matthew. On the other hand, it may be that Jews, not wishing to add credibility to Christianity had banned all written discussion of the incredible miracle that took place following Christ’s death.

Secondly, if you were a Roman official or writer and heard of such an event in Jerusalem, would you think it true or would you say, “Those crazy Jews come up with all kinds of religious propaganda.” Romans and Greeks could also have the same motive as the Jews: do not discuss the possibility of raising the dead since it adds proof to the claims of the followers of Christ.  

Isn’t it strange that unbelieving men always assume the Bible to be wrong and must be authenticated by extraneous material. I choose to believe the Bible and question much extraneous material.

Whatever the full explanation of tombs being opened and the dead being raised, Christians have no problem with simply saying, “We can’t have all the answers, but the Bible records the miracle so I believe it. I don’t need secular support to believe it happened as Matthew wrote.” Chuck could not say that because he was not a Christian.

Then Chuck pulls out the tattered, threadbare, argument of Christians killing Christians and others, especially during the Middle Ages. This excuse for unbelief is so elementary (yet used by almost all unbelievers) that I hesitate to answer it: All professing Christians are not Christians!  Church leaders (especially of the Roman Catholic Church) have committed incredible atrocities for hundreds of years and all real Christians have been blamed by uninformed people. There  would be a few exceptions to the rule that Christians were not killers and tyrants. Bible-believing Christians should not be intimidated by anyone since we have been the defenders of the oppressed for two thousand years.

Furthermore, if it were not for Bible-believing Christians many of the most revered organizations and accomplishments in the world would not be a reality. America owes its beginning to the Pilgrims and Puritans who laid a strong foundation for this nation. The abolition of slavery in the British Empire was accomplished by a dedicated Christian legislator who spent his adult life to accomplish the feat. The nursing profession, the concept of free enterprise, discovery of America, special position of women, charity and the Good Samaritan concept, orphanages, defeat of cannibalism and criminalizing of suicide, the founding of the YMCA, YWCA, the U.S. educational system, our major ivy league colleges, and hospital system, are all a result of Christian activity.  

Name three great institutions or concepts originated by atheists. All right, name one!  

Chuck then made an arrogant, asinine statement when he wrote of Christianity, “It is not a faith for the scholar or the contemplative.” I suppose atheism is a good “faith” or worldview to follow! The poor atheists don’t have any holidays although they do get real solemn on the anniversary of the founding of the ACLU. Chuck was not only an unbeliever, but he was also a fool.

Templeton never really understood the love of God because he says that it would be immoral to love a rapist, killer, a Stalin, or Hitler. He assumes that to love one is to condone one’s sin or crime. Moreover, he obviously did not understand the different actions of a person and of the government toward those who are criminals. I had a preacher-friend many years ago whose brother robbed, raped, and killed an elderly woman and was sentenced to die in the electric chair. The Christian loved his brother but realized that he had to pay for his crime, and deserved to die. He did not oppose the state putting his brother to death! Some things trump love!
    Then Chuck attacks churches who take an anti-homosexual, pro-biblical position when he asks, “Why may these sinners not come with other sinners to the altar?” There is no problem with homosexuals coming to the altar if it is to confess, repent, and then turn from their sin. However, Chuck wanted them to partake of communion along with dedicated Christians. No way.
    As Chuck winds down his literary diatribe against everything Christian, he wrote: “Adam and Eve had three children, all male,” however, Genesis 5:4 clearly tells us that Adam…begat sons and daughters.” But Chuck seemed to be perturbed that God did not consult him and take his advice about naming some of the daughters and wives of the early Bible heroes.  

He accuses God of trimming “his sails to the prevailing winds” in relation to Solomon’s foreign marriages. On page 184, he wrote: “The shrines to Solomon (sic) wives’ gods were built not simply for worship but for the convenience of foreign traders in town to do business.” Of course, many of Solomon’s marriages were for political advantage, but it is incredible that Chuck would suggest God’s complicity in those marriages. Was not Chuck aware of I Kings 11:9 specifically informing us of God becoming angry with Solomon’s acquiescing to his wives’ demands to build personal chapels for their pagan gods?

Then, in desperation or needing to pad his book, he writes that God “callously requires Jephthah to keep his vow and sacrifice his only daughter.” However, God did not require Jephthah to make the vow or keep it.  Both were Jephthah’s decision. Bible scholars have debated for centuries over that incident but one thing is sure: it was Jephthah’s decision, not God’s.  It is interesting that some Bible scholars teach that Jephthah was honorable in keeping his vow, but I think he was despicable first in making the vow, then in keeping it.  It is simply nonsense to argue that any vow should be kept even if was a wicked vow. What would they say to members of the mafia who vowed allegiance to the criminal organization or those who made vows to secret societies? Jephthah did a stupid, sinful thing and to make God involved in any way is mishandling the Scripture.   

Finally, Chuck ends his book calling the incident of the rich man in hell (Luke 16) a parable. He did not know that parables never provide names. He uses this as an excuse to take one more swipe at a holy God. “The idea of an endless Hell is a  monstrous concept….To be tortured forever, with no hope for a reprieve, is barbarous beyond belief and can only be dismissed as ancient sadistic nonsense.” Well, Chuck now knows  how wrong he was about God and hell.

Charles Templeton was a very gifted man who never visited Calvary and experienced forgiveness of sins. Thousands of people heard him preach the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (even though he did not believe it) and placed faith in Christ. Yet, Chuck never made it himself!

In an interview with journalist Lee Strobel before Chuck’s death, Strobel asked whether he would like to believe, and Chuck responded, “Of course! If I could, I would. I’m eighty-three years old. I’ve got Alzheimer’s. I’m dying, for goodness sake.”

I am afraid that there are thousands of preachers like him who are going through the motions in preaching to others. What a tragedy  to lead people to the Living Water and not personally partake.

Note that his first and major concern was with the Genesis account of creation. Like Chuck, too many people in good churches do not have a solid foundation and don’t have many answers for people who are genuinely confused. Alas, many pastors are confused or uninformed so it is no surprise that their church members are.  

Templeton’s Farewell to God was a desperate attempt by an unbeliever to denigrate the Bible to justify his own unbelief. If only Graham or others could have given him the answers to the “problems” in Genesis relating to creation, maybe he would have trusted Christ in the forgiveness of sins. Instead, Templeton stumbled through the first part of his life believing his beliefs and doubting his doubts and ended up the last part of his life doubting his beliefs and believing his doubts. And died an apostate. So Sad.