James Taylor Sr.

James Taylor Sr. (born January 6, 1870 in Coolaney , County Sligo , Ireland ; † March 29, 1953 in New York , New York , USA ) was an Irish-American businessman and from about 1903 until his death head of the Raven Brothers .

Life

As a teenager, Taylor went to Paisley , Scotland , to complete a commercial apprenticeship in the linen trade . In 1884 he was accepted into the “closed” Brethren Congregation. In 1888 he emigrated to North America and first settled in St. John's (Newfoundland) ; a year later he moved to New York, where he found work with a linen importer. Around 1892 he married Estelle Garrett of Baltimore ; the marriage had six children, including James Taylor junior . Estelle Taylor died in 1901 at the age of 33 after giving birth to their sixth child.

When the "closed brothers" split over the teachings of Frederick Edward Raven in 1890 , Taylor joined Raven's supporters (who were only a small minority in New York) and signed a declaration to that effect. In 1898 and 1902 Raven came to the United States on lecture tours, where he noticed Taylor as a regular visitor. A good relationship developed that formed the basis of Taylor's later leadership position among the Raven brothers. Taylor visited Raven again in England shortly before his death in 1903 .

Taylor soon became well known among the Raven brothers through lectures and conferences; He regularly used his business trips through the USA and Canada to visit the communities. As early as 1904/05 he had such a great reputation in North America that protests against his doctrinal views - in Chicago he had a. a. claims that "salvation" will only be found or realized in the "assembly" (= church) - could be rejected with the reference that Taylor was an "anointed of the Lord". From about 1910 he traveled to Great Britain and Ireland every year on business and also held lectures and conferences there that cemented his position. In England he also met his second wife, Georgina Brown (1870–1963) from Barnet near London , whom he married in 1913. This marriage remained childless.

In 1918 his son James Taylor jun. in New York his own company ( Taylor Linen Company ), in 1919 James Taylor sen. and other family members entered.

In the years that followed, Taylor, like his predecessor Raven, introduced a series of dogmatic innovations that distanced the Raven brothers ever further from their origins in the brotherhood movement. From 1918, he proclaimed the doctrine that in today's "period of decline" no church discipline according to 1 Corinthians 5 is possible; rather, one can only “withdraw” from those concerned according to 2 Timothy 2 (which in practice came to the same thing). From June 1929 (conference in Barnet ) he stated that the Bible does not clearly state the relationship between the divine Persons of the Trinity before the Incarnation , so that one could not speak of the "Eternal Son". From 1942 he indicated that in addition to the father and the son, the Holy Spirit could also be addressed in prayer and song (which had not been common in the Brethren movement until then); from the end of 1948 this was practiced in the congregations of the Raven brothers.

All of these innovations sparked isolated protests and resulted in small groups breaking away; for the majority of the Raven brothers, however, Taylor's leadership role had become so undisputed that they accepted every new teaching as a revelation of the Holy Spirit. Since the late 1930s, Taylor was referred to as "the man of God" whose "service" was authorized by God; through him the Spirit of God gives a greater understanding today than even the apostles had, which is why his “service” is at least as important as the Holy Scriptures .

In over 50 years of preaching, Taylor visited more than 300 locations in the United States , Canada , England , Scotland , Ireland , France , Germany , Norway , Denmark , Sweden , Jamaica , Barbados , South Africa , Ceylon , Australia, and New Zealand . Almost all lectures and conferences were recorded and published in book form ( Ministry by J. Taylor ; 212 volumes in the first edition, later combined into 100 volumes). In 1955 two volumes of Letters of James Taylor appeared posthumously ; later two more volumes with collected letters were published.

After Taylor's death in 1953, the Raven brothers were initially unclear about leadership for several years, until Taylor's son James Taylor jun. 1960 was able to prevail.

Web links

• James Taylor (1870–1953) (biography of Taylor by his followers)
• Bibliography of Taylor's writings in the catalog of the Christian Brethren Archives , Manchester University Library