PINK, Arthur Walkington (1886–1952)

There has been some interest from a few people in the many writings of Arthur Pink, so I thought I would give you some information about him. Below is what comes out of the Dictionary of Evangelicals.

British Baptist minister and author, was active in the pastorate and also in an itinerant ministry in the United States and Australia from 1910 to 1934, when he withdrew from public ministry to return to Britain. Eventually he settled in the Outer Hebrides and devoted himself entirely to a writing ministry for the remainder of his life; the majority of his works were published only after his death.

Arthur W. Pink was born in Nottingham on 1 April 1886. His parents were Nonconformist Christians, who sought to raise him as such. Young Arthur’s education was extensive, and he applied himself with discipline. However, he was not yet a believer.

By the age of twenty-two Pink was a successful businessman, but still not a Christian. He was a rising leader in the Theosophy Society and was being considered for leadership in the movement. He was scheduled to speak twice at a conference in his home town. When he came home after speaking the first time, his father quoted to him Proverbs 14:12, ‘There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.’ This verse sent him into his room, and he emerged a converted man, who then went and preached the gospel to the Theosophy Society.

Following his conversion, he plunged himself into the study of Scripture. He rejected formal training, being convinced that the theological colleges were teaching errors. He did, finally, in 1910 travel to the United States to study at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, but he left before completing his first summer semester. A strong individualistic spirit, along with a disciplined study habit, had convinced him that he could study on his own. In the years that followed he was an avid reader of the Puritans and other expositional writers. These authors became the foundation of his future writings.

From Chicago, Pink moved to Silverton, Colorado, to pastor a church. He went next to Garden Grove, California, and then to Kentucky, where he pastored two (probably Baptist) churches, one in Burkesville, and the other in Albany. While in Kentucky, Pink, at the age of thirty-one, married twenty-three year old Vera E. Russell on 16 November 1916.

From Kentucky the Pinks moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina, in July of 1917, where he pastored the Northside Baptist Church. (No record of his own baptism exists, but he must have been baptized by immersion before this date.) Here he wrote his most influential book, The Sovereignty of God. This strong Calvinistic work caused problems in his church and with friends, publishers and readers. The first edition sold slowly. In the following years, Pink longed to leave Spartanburg, but no doors would open. He began to think that God might desire him devote himself entirely to his writing ministry. The pressure to leave, and having nowhere to go, led to deep depression, even a nervous breakdown. He resigned from the church in January 1920 with little desire ever to pastor again.

Pink moved to Swengel, Pennsylvania, to be close to his publisher. But he was soon in California, working in various cities. In the autumn of 1920 Brother Thompson, an evangelist who had seen many conversions in a tent mission in Oakland, enlisted Pink to teach the new converts. There followed one of the best periods of Pink’s ministry, and he continued speaking to crowds of hundreds until April 1921, but the burden to write continued to trouble him.

Later in 1921 Pink began what would eventually become his entire ministry, a periodical entitled Studies in the Scriptures. The Pinks, through all their travels, together maintained this monthly journal of biblical exposition, which had a mailing list of around a thousand.

On 3 March 1925 the Pinks left for Australia where, after a period of successful ministry, he was censured by the Baptist Union for denying human free will. Turning to the Particular (Calvinistic) Baptists, he pastored a Particular church, until it censored him for believing in human free will. The reason for this second censure was his belief in the free offer of the gospel and in human responsibility to believe the gospel. After forming a new, independent church, he resigned from it on 25 March 1928, and left for England on 20 July. This pastorate was his last. Pink was still a staunch Calvinist, but he had rejected a premillennial dispensational view of Scripture in favour of covenant theology, including an amillennial view of eschatology.

The Pinks’ return to England afforded no opportunities to preach. Therefore on 22 May 1929 they returned to America, hoping that old friends would welcome them. But when Pink was rejected in Kentucky and California, and in the light of what he perceived to be the serious compromises in the churches, an attitude of isolationism began to invade his mind. On 5 September 1934 the Pinks left for England, hoping that the response would be different there. But again the search for acceptance and ministry proved futile, both in England and in Scotland.

On 24 September 1940 the Pinks moved for the last time, from the Brighton-Hove area on the south coast of England to Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides. Their home had been strafed by a German aircraft passing over their town to bomb London.

From his new residence, Pink maintained his independent status, and continued to produce his monthly periodical, which he had never ceased to publish through all his travels and even during the war. He continued to issue warnings about what he regarded as false churches, and encouraged withdrawal if necessary. The Pinks did not attend any church, but Pink spent Sundays ministering by letters to his readers. For the next twelve years he lived in isolation, leaving his home only for a daily walk. When people came to meet him (and a visit demanded a long trip), he usually refused to receive them.

Pink died on 15 July 1952 at the age of sixty-seven. He was buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery on the outskirts of Stornoway. Vera Pink kept the periodical in print until December 1953, using material Pink had prepared. Vera Pink died on 17 July 1962 at the age of sixty-nine.

It cannot be denied, even in the light of his unique characteristics, that Pink was committed to knowing and doing God’s will. He believed himself called in his final years to use his pen, not his tongue, to minister to a few people. In later years his voluminous writings, which during his lifetime were known only to a few, were rediscovered; hundreds of thousands of books of his writings have been printed since his death. Through these Pink became a strong bridge between the Puritans of the past and the believers of the last half of the twentieth century. He was one of several writers whose work encouraged a revival of historic Calvinism in the last half of the twentieth century.

Bibliography
R. P. Belcher, Arthur W. Pink – Born to Write (Columbia: Richbarry Press, 1980); I. Murray, The Life of Arthur W. Pink (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1981).

Timothy Larsen, D. W. Bebbington and Mark A. Noll, Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 528-30.