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Armerding, Hudson T.

 Person

Biographical Statement

Hudson Taylor Armerding was born to Carl and Eva Mae Taylor Armerding in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 21, 1918. He and his three younger sisters were raised in Albuquerque, Dallas, and San Diego. During Hudson’s childhood, his father served Native American communities and was an itinerant preacher in the American Southwest.

In 1937, he began his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College, graduating in 1941 with a degree in history. Fellow students regarded him as an outstanding scholar and campus leader. Hudson went on to earn a master's degree in International Affairs from Clark University Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1942. The day before graduation, he was sworn into the United States Navy.

For three years during World War II, Armerding served on the USS Wichita, a heavy cruiser in the Pacific Theater. This experience shaped him; his awareness of God’s guidance and protection endured throughout his life.

The Wichita participated in 11 naval engagements, including the invasion of Okinawa. During his service in the Pacific, Armerding was promoted to Senior Grade Lieutenant. After Japan surrendered in August 1945, Armerding and his unit liberated a prisoner of war camp south of Nagasaki.

While serving in the Navy, Armerding spent time on leave in Wheaton, Illinois, with his parents. His father was then serving on the advisory board of the Central American Mission and was on the Bible faculty at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.

On these visits home, Hudson courted Miriam Lucille Bailey, a 1942 Wheaton graduate and faculty member of the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music. Miriam was celebrated for her exquisite voice and had opera training in New York City. The two corresponded while Armerding was in the Navy. They were married on December 26, 1944 while he was on a short leave from the Wichita.

After the war, he returned home to his wife and attended the University of Chicago, earning a Ph.D. in history in 1948.

After graduating from the University of Chicago, Dr. and Mrs. Armerding resolved to serve as missionaries in China. The couple, already the parents of two young children, moved to Boston to study Chinese at Harvard University. The Armerdings’ plan, however, was blocked when in October 1949 the People’s Republic of China was established, and the Armerdings’ sponsoring mission withdrew staff from the newly Communist country.

When he heard of the Armerdings’ obstructed plans, the president of nearby Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts invited both Dr. and Mrs. Armerding to join Gordon’s faculty. Dr. Armerding joined the history faculty; his wife became a music professor there.

While at Gordon College, Dr. Armerding joined the Naval Reserve, retiring in 1966 at the rank of Commander.

After a semester of teaching at Gordon, Dr. Armerding was asked to serve as acting dean of the college – an appointment that soon became permanent. For a time, he served as acting president of the college as well.

While he was acting president, Dr. Armerding met then Wheaton College president, Dr. V. Raymond Edman. Dr. Edman asked Dr. Armerding to return to Wheaton to join the history faculty.

About a year after accepting the position at Wheaton, Dr. Armerding was asked to become the College’s first provost. Two years later, he was inaugurated as Wheaton’s fifth president, serving from 1965-1982.

During his tenure as president, Dr. Armerding established the Faith and Learning Seminar, in which Wheaton faculty continue to participate to this day. Faculty members from that era remember an intellectually rigorous president who grew the College’s enrollment.

During the difficult years of the Vietnam War, Dr. Armerding wrestled with the challenges of leading a college community. He worked, despite his military background, to accept with grace those students who protested the war.

During his tenure, a new library, science building, and the Billy Graham Center were constructed on Wheaton College’s campus.

An ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, Dr. Armerding wrote countless sermons, commencement addresses, and articles during his tenure at Wheaton and throughout the course of his life. He authored A Word to the Wise (Tyndale House Publishers, 1980), The Heart of Godly Leadership (Crossway Books, 1992), and The Hand of God (Wheaton College, 2004).

Dr. Armerding served as the President of National Association of Evangelicals (1970-72) and President of the World Evangelical Fellowship. He was Director of the American Association of Presidents of Independent Colleges and Universities; Chairman of the Board, Columbia International University; and Executive Committee member, Christian College Consortium. He also served on the U.S. Council of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship and was on the Board of the Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1997, the National Association of Evangelicals presented Dr. Armerding with the J. Elwin Wright Award for his contributions to “evangelical cooperation through international and national efforts.”

In 1985, Dr. Armerding was diagnosed with lymphoma. After multiple treatments his cancer went into remission, and for the last 18 years of his life, Dr. Armerding remained cancer-free.

From 1985-1999, Dr. Armerding served as the vice president of the Quarryville Presbyterian Retirement Community in Pennsylvania, where he and Miriam Armerding resided. He was counselor in residence there until 2006, when he moved to Windsor Park Manor Retirement Community in Carol Stream, Illinois. Hudson T. Armerding died on December 1, 2009 and was preceded in death by his wife of 62 years, Miriam Bailey Armerding, on July 1, 2006.

Dr. Armerding was survived by his five children, Carreen Smith ’68; Hudson Taylor II ’70; Paul ’75; Miriam Swisher ’76; and Jonathan ’79; as well as 18 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren.

Found in 9 Collections and/or Records:

Christianity Today Records

 Collection
Identifier: CN 008
Brief Description Correspondence, memos, forms, financial reports, minutes of meetings, study papers, clippings and other records of the Evangelical Christian publishing organization. The records describe the founding of the organization to publish the magazine Christianity Today and its creation or acquisition of other publications such as Campus Life, Leadership, Leadership 100, Partnership, and Your Church. Besides material on the editing, publishing and distribution of these periodicals, the files also...
Dates: Created: Majority of material found within 1930, 1954-2002

Collection 105 Oral History Interview with Paul D. Votaw

 Collection
Identifier: CN 105
Scope and Contents Oral history interview with Paul Dean Votaw (1917-2007) in which he describes his childhood; education at Wheaton College, Dallas Seminary, and Princeton Seminary; and missionary activities in Syria and Lebanon. The time period covered by the interview is roughly 1917-1954.Reverend Paul Votaw was interviewed by Robert Shuster on March 4, 1980, at the Graham Center offices in Wheaton. The first ten minutes of the interview are barely decipherable due to technical difficulties. The...
Dates: Created: 1980

Collection 111 Papers of Charles H. Troutman, Jr.

 Collection
Identifier: CN 111
Scope and Contents Correspondence, minutes, reports, manuals, and other records documenting Charles Troutman's career in Christian ministry among university students, first with Inter-Varsity in the United States and Australia and then with Latin America Mission. This collection also contains a great deal of information on evangelical Christianity in the United States, Australia and Latin America; Troutman's letters from his service in the Pacific in World War II; and reports and other information relative to...
Dates: Created: 1924-1992

Collection 180 Papers of Carl Armerding

 Collection
Identifier: CN 180
Scope and Contents Diaries, correspondence, scrapbook, travel documents, oral history interview, sermons and other materials documenting Carl Armerding's career and ministry, especially his work as a Bible teacher, preacher, and leader of Central American Mission.Interview topics covered include Armerding's family background, education, recollections of Billy Sunday, Gipsy Smith, Henry Ironside and Will Houghton, missions and evangelism in Honduras and the Bahamas, speaking engagements, teaching...
Dates: Created: 1903-1987

Collection 192 Papers of Harold Lindsell

 Collection
Identifier: CN 192
Scope and Contents Collection contains correspondence, reports, meeting minutes, manuscripts, and other materials documenting the career and life of Harold Lindsell as a theologian, author, speaker and editor, dating primarily from his becoming Associate Editor of Christianity Today magazine in 1964. Collection contents contain considerable information on Christianity Today, Wheaton College, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Westmont College, the Simon Greenleaf School of Law, and Lindsell's research on the...
Dates: 1938-1994

Collection 588 Oral History Interview with Richard C. Rung

 Collection
Identifier: CN 588
Scope and Contents

Oral history interview wtih Richard C. Rung, in which he describes his memories of Percy Crawford and King's College during Rung's tenure on the faculty at King's College. The time period covered by the interview is 1955-1963.

Richard Rung was interviewed by Robert Shuster on August 14, 2003.

Dates: Created: 2003

Herbert J. Taylor Papers

 Collection
Identifier: CN 020
Brief Description Correspondence, photographs, reports, publications, posters, minutes of meetings, and other documentation of Herbert J. Taylor's long involvement in the leadership of such organizations as Child Evangelism, Youth for Christ, Christian Service Brigade, Pioneer Girls, Young Life, National Association of Evangelicals, Fuller Seminary, Christian Workers Foundation, and Inter-Varsity as well as his role in the planning and development of Billy Graham's Chicago crusades and of Key '73. Other...
Dates: Created: Ca. 1916-1979

Wheaton College Billy Graham Center Records

 Collection
Identifier: CN 003
Brief Description Correspondence, proposals, reports, minutes, programs, publications brochures, budgets, audio tapes, clippings, photographs, and video tapes related to the founding, ground breaking and dedication and continuing work of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College as a research and training center in evangelism, and its ongoing activities. Includes audio and video recordings of Center-sponsored conferences (on themes including evangelism and evangelistic preaching, outreach to various...
Dates: Created: 1919-2011

Wheaton College Revivals Collection

 Collection
Identifier: CN 514
Scope and Contents

Oral history interviews, questionnaires, reports, videos, and other materials relating to spontaneous revivals on Wheaton College campus in the twentieth century. There are restrictions on some material in this collection. The collection primarily documents the March 1995 revival at the College, largely through oral history interviews conducted during or shortly after the event; also included are thirteen follow-up interviews conducted two years after the revival.

Dates: Created: 1936-1997; Other: Majority of material found in 1994-1995

Filtered By

  • Subject: Evangelistic work -- United States. X

Additional filters:

Subject
Evangelicalism. 6
Evangelicalism -- United States. 5
Evangelistic work -- Congresses 5
Missions -- Congresses. 4
Preaching. 4
∨ more
Religious institutions. 4
Catholic Church. 3
Church and social problems. 3
College students in missionary work. 3
College students. 3
Ecumenical movement. 3
Liberalism (Religion) 3
Mass media in religion -- United States. 3
Missions -- Interdenominational cooperation. 3
Women 3
Women -- Religious life. 3
Youth 3
Abortion 2
Abortion -- Religious aspects. 2
African Americans. 2
Authors and readers -- United States. 2
Bible. 2
Catholic Church -- Protestant churches. 2
Children -- United States 2
Children -- United States -- Conversion to Christianity. 2
Children -- United States -- Religious life. 2
Children. 2
Christian leadership. 2
Church and state -- United States. 2
Church and state. 2
Church growth. 2
Church work with prisoners. 2
Church work with students. 2
College students -- United States 2
College students -- United States -- Religious life. 2
Conversion. 2
Evangelistic sermons. 2
Evangelistic work -- Australia. 2
Evangelistic work -- Canada. 2
Evangelistic work -- Central America. 2
Evangelistic work -- China. 2
Evangelistic work -- Japan. 2
Evangelistic work -- New Zealand. 2
Evangelistic work -- North America. 2
Evangelistic work -- Philosophy. 2
Fundamentalism. 2
Homosexuality. 2
Liberalism (Religion) -- United States. 2
Mass media in religion. 2
Missions -- Central America. 2
Missions -- Educational work. 2
Missions -- Guatemala. 2
Missions. 2
Pentecostalism. 2
Persecution. 2
Sermons, American. 2
Theology 2
Wheaton College (Ill.) -- Alumni. 2
Wheaton College (Ill.) -- Faculty. 2
World War, 1939-1945. 2
Youth -- Religious life. 2
Youth -- United States 2
AIDS (Disease) 1
African Americans -- Social conditions. 1
Arab-Israeli conflict. 1
Arabs. 1
Athletes 1
Athletes -- United States 1
Athletes -- United States -- Religious life. 1
Berlin (Germany) 1
Bible colleges 1
Bible colleges -- United States. 1
Boys -- United States 1
Boys. 1
Boys. -- United States -- Societies and clubs. 1
Businessmen -- Religious life -- United States. 1
Catholic Church -- Central America. 1
Catholic Church -- Evangelicalism. 1
Catholic Church. -- Syria. 1
Chicago (Ill.) 1
Children. -- United States -- Societies and clubs. 1
Chinese students. 1
Christian drama. 1
Christian education -- United States. 1
Christian education. 1
Christian life. 1
Christianity and culture -- United States. 1
Christianity and culture. 1
Church and social problems -- Central America. 1
Church and state -- Lebanon. 1
Church and state -- Syria. 1
Church growth -- Central America. 1
Church renewal -- United States. 1
Church renewal. 1
Church work with Hispanic Americans. 1
Church work with prisoners -- Florida. 1
Church work with prisoners -- United States. 1
Church work with students -- United States. 1
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