Otto Klink: From Atheism and Socialism to Assemblies of God Evangelist

This Week in AG History — July 18, 1931

By Ruthie Edgerly Oberg
Originally published on AG News, 18 July 2019

Otto J. Klink (1888-1955) was a German-born American Pentecostal evangelist who traveled the United States in the 1930s and 1940s, preaching salvation through Jesus Christ and warning his listeners about the dangers of socialism, atheism, and modernism.

Born in Hersfeld, Germany, he was educated in Berlin, where he learned French, Latin, and Greek, alongside his native German. His family were members of the Lutheran church; however, in 1905, 17-year-old Otto attended a Holiness tent meeting. Kneeling in the sawdust, he claimed God’s promise of salvation and felt a distinct call to enter the ministry.

Klink was willing to serve God but did not want to be associated with the Holiness people. He decided to study for the Lutheran ministry and entered the University of Berlin, where he studied the works of Marx, Engels, and La Salle. He came to believe that salvation was achieved by good character and social action — particularly through elevating the lot of the poor and underprivileged.

One night while attending a Socialist political gathering, he made a speech that was interpreted as encouraging rebellion against the German Crown Prince for his mistreatment of the working class. He was arrested and sentenced to two months in prison. Upon completion of his prison term, he found that his name had been removed from the University of Berlin attendance list. Klink interpreted these events as evidence that his belief in God had failed him. He made the intentional decision to embrace an atheistic worldview.

Finding jobs difficult to get in Germany due to his prison record, he asked his father for money to sail to America. Arriving in 1909, he began writing for a German language newspaper in New York City. He later recounted how he became involved with an anarchist society in New York City called The Red Mask, and that he was part of a plot to assassinate President William Taft at Bronx Park. His failure to carry out the plot led to his dismissal from the society. He returned to Germany, where through the assistance of influential friends he was able to secure a position in the office of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Due to political unrest in Germany, Klink sought to return to the United States. He did so just three months before World War I broke out in Europe in 1914. In 1917 he married a young Pentecostal girl named Ida Ball. Ida prayed earnestly for her new husband to receive Christ and to be healed of the anger and bitterness within him toward God. On the last night of a 10-day revival meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, with evangelist Paul Barth, Klink felt God say to him that this was his last chance. He prayed through to salvation that night and, in 1921, he received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. He received ministerial credentials with the Assemblies of God in 1923.

In the 1930s, Klink began to speak out strongly against the policies of the Nazi Party in Germany. Klink ministered alongside Myer Pearlman, the Jewish Assemblies of God Bible teacher and author, at the 1937 Wisconsin District camp meeting. Klink spoke of a great persecution of the Jewish people in Germany and prophesied disaster for Adolph Hitler if he continued his course of action.

Klink wrote several booklets, including, Why I Am Not An Atheist, and Why I Am Not A Modernist, along with a monthly column in the C.A. (Christ’s Ambassadors) Herald called “Otto-graphs” — a collection of world news and events of interest to young readers. He also authored several featured articles in the Pentecostal Evangel. His article in the July 18, 1931, issue, “The Language of the Blood of Christ,” is a prime example of his use of historical illustrations and world events to provide a deeper understanding of the gospel message of salvation.

For more than 30 years, Otto and Ida Klink traveled the country in evangelistic meetings, making their home in the Miami, Florida, area where Mrs. Klink also began a children’s home that provided care for up to 40 children. The Klinks moved to California in 1951 and opened a gospel supply house which they operated until his death in 1955.

At the height of his preaching ministry, an article published in the Enid (Oklahoma) Gospel Tabernacle newspaper described the former employee of the German Kaiser as having “one of the most powerful, soul-gripping messages ever delivered from an American pulpit — a combination of fire and level headedness — whirlwind oratory and calm common sense that has made him an outstanding figure in American evangelism.”

Read Otto Klink’s article, “The Language of the Blood of Christ,” on page 1 of the July 18, 1931, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “Freedom From the Dominion of Sin,” by E.S. Williams

• “How I Received the Baptism,” by H.C. Ball

• “Proving God as Healer,” by Mattie Kerr

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: http://www.iFPHC.org

Pentecostals, Pacifism, and Religious Liberty in World War I: The Waldron Case

British soldiers prepare artillery shells and man a gun during World War I.

This Week in AG History — April 5, 1919

By Darrin J. Rodgers
Originally published on AG News, 05 April 2018

Clarence H. Waldron (1885-1926), an early Baptist-turned-Pentecostal minister, became the central figure in the first important criminal court case involving religious opposition to World War I. Newspapers across America carried reports of Waldron’s trial in 1918 for violations of the Federal Espionage Act. Later historians dissected the case, determining that the pastor was likely unjustly convicted based on suspect allegations made by members of his Vermont Baptist church who did not like their pastor’s embrace of the Pentecostal revival.

The pages of the Pentecostal Evangel remained silent about the Waldron case until April 5, 1919, when Samuel R. Waldron, an Assemblies of God minister, reported on the status of his son. The Pentecostal Evangel editor prefaced the elder Waldron’s letter by noting, “Many of our readers have been interested in what is known as the ‘Waldron Case.'” Undoubtedly many Pentecostals were apprehensive about the case’s outcome. Waldron’s case carried weighty implications regarding religious liberty for Americans.

Waldron had been accused of attempting to undermine the U.S. government in a time of war. Early Pentecostals, like most other premillennialists of that era, preached that believers should be fully committed to Christ and His kingdom. They admonished avoidance of worldly entanglements that would conflict with their heavenly allegiance. Accordingly, most Pentecostals avoided politics. Many likewise believed that killing in war was moral compromise. When America entered World War I, it became increasingly difficult for Pentecostals to maintain their pacifist stance in the face of intense societal pressure to support the war effort.

Waldron had a respectable, successful background in Baptist ministry. He was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1907. When he accepted the pastorate of the Baptist church in Windsor, Vermont, in 1915, the church’s prospects seemed bleak. But Waldron’s energetic and winsome ministry won hearts and converts, and by 1917 attendance had tripled. In that year, a Pentecostal evangelist began holding revival services in Windsor. Waldron and about half of his growing congregation attended the services and embraced the Pentecostal movement. A segment of the church that opposed the revival decided to force the resignation of Waldron. They did this by accusing him of violating the Federal Espionage Act.

Did Waldron “willfully attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, and refusal of duty in the United States military forces”? This was the question that the courts tried to resolve. Waldron’s accusers identified at least two events they believed constituted offenses. First, Waldron refused to allow his church to participate in a patriotic-themed “Liberty Loan Sunday” event. He told his congregation that he believed that Sunday morning services should be reserved for preaching the gospel and not for politics or nationalism. Second, they accused Waldron of advising his church members, through preaching and the distribution of literature, that Christians should not bear arms in war.

A trial in January 1918 ended with a hung jury. Jury members could not reach a verdict, in part because they identified significant bias by witnesses on both sides. Cross-examination seemed to reveal that a church squabble was at the heart of the case, and Waldron’s accusers seemed to be using the law to force the pastor to resign.

At a second trial, in March 1918, the judge did not allow testimony regarding the anti-Pentecostal religious prejudice of Waldron’s accusers. The jury returned a guilty verdict and the judge sentenced Waldron to 15 years in federal prison.

The 1919 letter from Waldron’s father, published in the Pentecostal Evangel, reported that President Woodrow Wilson had commuted his sentence following the conclusion of the war. Waldron, according to his father, almost died from influenza and pneumonia during his year-long incarceration.

Shortly after his release from prison, Clarence Waldron received ordination with the Assemblies of God and moved to California. He spent the remaining years of his life in bivocational ministry, working in secular employment and occasionally ministering alongside Aimee Semple McPherson in San Diego and Los Angeles. Waldron’s trial and imprisonment had broken his health. He died in 1926 at the age of 41.

The trial of Clarence H. Waldron was widely reported in the press in 1917 and 1918, and historians have studied it ever since. The Waldron case highlights the fragility of religious liberty. Historian Gene Sessions, in his definitive 1993 article on the Waldron case published in “Vermont History,” concluded the following:

“In Windsor that national legislation, ostensibly directed against spies, provided a way to remove from town an individual whose religious views had split his congregation and embarrassed his denomination’s state hierarchy and whose pacifism, rooted in those same views, had confused and infuriated local patriots … the Espionage Act became in the hands of Windsor citizens a potent instrument for disciplining, harassing, and punishing a neighbor no longer welcome.”

While Clarence Waldron was tried for his advocacy of pacifism, the Waldron case stands for a broader proposition — that religious liberty needs to be carefully guarded.

Read “A Note of Praise,” by Samuel R. Waldron, on page 14 of the April 5, 1919, issue of the Christian Evangel [the predecessor of the Pentecostal Evangel].

The fascinating account of Waldron’s trial, “Espionage in Windsor: Clarence H. Waldron and Patriotism in World War I,” published in the Summer 1993 issue of Vermont History, is accessible by clicking here.

Other articles also featured in this issue of the Evangel include:

• “The Pentecostal Baptism: Its Foundation,” by David H. McDowell

• “Healed and Filled with the Spirit,” by Mrs. E. M. Whittemore

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: www.iFPHC.org