James Martin Gray

Who was James Martin Gray?

James Martin Gray was a pastor in the Reformed Episcopal Church, a Bible scholar, editor, and hymn writer, and the president of Moody Bible Institute, 1904-34.

Gray was born in New York City as one of the younger of eight children. His father, Hugh Gray, died shortly after his birth. James Gray was raised in the Episcopal church, and probably after attending college in New York, he began training for a career as a priest. While preparing himself for the ministry, Gray experienced an evangelical conversion after reading homilies on the book of Proverbs by William Arnot. In 1870, Gray married Amanda Thorne, who died in 1875 while giving birth to their fifth child, who also died.

As Gray continued to prepare himself for the ministry in New York, the Episcopal Church was troubled by a conflict between evangelicals and Tractarians, who wished to emphasize ritualism. In 1873, Bishop George D. Cummins resigned from the Episcopal Church and helped found the Reformed Episcopal denomination. Gray sided with the seceders.

Gray was ordained in 1877, and assumed the pastorate of the Church of the Redemption in Brooklyn, New York for one year. He spent another year at the Church of the Cornerstone in Newburgh. In 1879, Gray was called to assist an elderly pastor at the small Reformed Episcopal Church in Boston, which prospered after his arrival and grew from a handful of worshipers to a congregation of more than 230. The Boston church also managed to establish three additional churches during Gray's pastorate, all of which failed shortly after his departure.