One of the titanic figures of Southern Baptist history is a diminuitive man who packed a powerful pulpit punch. Wallie Amos Criswell, or W.A. as he came to be known, was for half a decade the pastor of Dallas\u2019s First Baptist Church, one of the cornerstone churches of the Southern Baptist Convention. Interestingly, of all the churches in America, it is the congregation that Billy Graham denoted his own many years ago, though he rarely attended services there. Criswell entered the FBC pulpit after George Truett, another SBC giant, passed away in the early 1940s. Over the next five decades, Criswell crafted a ministerial career marked by expository preaching, progressive administration, and Convention influence. Sometimes controversial, often polemical, always notable, Criswell stands as an example to conservative Christian pastors in many respects, chief among them his fiery love for preaching the Word. I don\u2019t agree with everything Criswell did or stood for, but it is hard not to appreciate his faithfulness to the ministerial task.<\/p>\n