Dr. Stuart Crane

 

In this posting I want to say some things about Dr. Stuart Crane (deceased). Here is what one web page says of him (see here):

"Here’s the story on Stuart R. Crane from BJU alumni. 

Born in Detroit in 1930, Crane eventually moved to Arizona. From 1955 through 59, Crane was a Paid Coordinator for the John Birch Society. He had quite a following all over the country and was quite a dynamic speaker. Here’s his Wheat Receipts lecture from 1971 (Listen here). Bob Jones Jr. hired him to be the Dean of Business in ‘69. Crane kept up his speaking engagements to Birchers, but included churches now. His wife Barbara was the Barge bookkeeper, and his daughter Kimberly attended the Academy and the University too. Of course. Crane’s stuff is pretty standard conspiracy fare. The Projector has a few memorable examples. Satan runs the public schools. Commies are taking over. (He has proven to be right - SG)

In 1972-73, however, Crane honed in on the Masonic conspiracy, and he didn’t let up. Crane named JBS founder Robert Welch as a multiple-degreed Mason. Welch’s response was, “Yeah…so what?” But sometime early in ‘73, Crane preached against the Masons at the WILDS. One source stated that Crane names ALL the BJU Board members as 32-and-higher-degree Masons."

"Back to Crane…When Crane preached that at the WILDS in ‘73, Bob Jones Jr. blew a gasket and fired him. And then Welch, too, was angry in the official JBS publication in October ‘73."

Back in the early 70s as a young Christian I became aware of Dr. Crane (who had his PHD in economics) by visiting the Christian Book store in Butler county Ohio, my home town. I used to have many of his cassette tapes such as his excellent series "Man and Money." He had so many seminars on so many subjects. The ones that are available to listen to (which I recommend) give enough information about the substance of his views. What few of Dr. Crane's seminars that are available on the Net can be seen on YouTube (here) What is interesting is how I first met Dr. Crane, but more on that shortly.

When Dr. Crane started giving seminars and discourses in churches he mixed in economic theory and political theory in with his biblical beliefs. I never heard him say but very little in those seminars that I would disagree with. 

The churches that invited him to hold his seminars were most generally fundamentalist. I recall one time where he ripped Billy Graham to shreds in his denunciations of him. He said "the Catholics gave him the man of the year award." "The Catholics love him." "Billy Graham tells people after his Crusades to 'go back into your churches," a statement of Graham's which Crane denounced because it was saying "go back into your churches" whatever kind they are. "If you are a Catholic when you get saved (in the Crusade), then go back to your church and serve Christ there." 

Dr. Crane was very well educated and was a man who could see what was going on in the world "behind the scenes," could see "the power behind the throne." He believed that a Satanic wealthy elite ruled the nations of the world in history and even now. I don't think he was wrong.

What is interesting is how I first met Dr. Crane. I had listened to cassettes of his numerous seminars on a vast array of subjects from 1972 through 1976, the year I met him. I was engaged to a young woman in North Carolina (where I live now). I had met her when I first visited here in 1974 with father. I moved here in March of 1976 and I stayed for a few weeks with my future in laws. Her father and my father were ministerial friends before we got married. 

One day at that time Elder Sonny Pyles was here and in Elder Helm's house (my ex father in law). Also, Elder Conrad Jarrel of Georgia, a close ministerial friend of Sonny, showed up at the house. He wanted to come visit Pyles. He comes into the house with Dr. Crane! Dr. Crane was a pilot and had his own plane and he had been with Jarrel in Georgia and they both on a whim decided to fly to North Carolina. So, here in the living room was Pyles, Crane, and Jarrel. 

They talked about many interesting things and I was but a listener. My fiancee and I, having just come back from Ohio with my few belongings, were spending time together and so I did not stay in the living room to hear all their several hours of talk. I was in a pickle. I wanted to be in the room every minute but my fiancee and I would leave and go do things, which I also wanted to do! 

I had never met Sonny, Conrad, or Crane before and here I was meeting all three at the same time in the living room of my future wife and father in law. I am sure that I told Stuart that I had been listening to his tapes for several years. I will give some information about my relationship to each of these men, from that time forward, shortly. But, first let me relate some of the things that I recall being discussed between these three men.

About Sonny. He and father were ministerial friends and associates. I think I had heard about Sonny before this meeting (I had only been in the church for a little less than four years at the time of this meeting). So, I was pleased to finally meet him. Sonny back then had begun to conduct an annual visit to preach in the churches in this area (Monroe, NC and surrounding areas within the Bear Creek Association) and he and my father in law (Newell Helms) were close friends. Sonny continued to come here every March until his final years when his health prevented it. During several of those years I would get a chance to visit with him a whole lot as he would stay with Newell or some other minister or member who was near where I lived. One year he spent a couple days staying in my home. 

About 1978 or 1979 I flew out to Texas to spend a few days with Sonny at his home (which was near the church he pastored in Graham). This is when I first met David, one of Sonny's sons, who is now a leading minister with the Hardshells. So, when people accuse me of not being a friend of Sonny, or very familiar with him, they are simply offering opinion on something they know nothing about. I know Sonny very well, God rest his soul. I learned a lot from Sonny. He was one of the best speakers the Hardshells have had in the past several decades. He had lots of good qualities. So, when I write about Sonny and his beliefs (which I generally substantiate by citations from his discourses) I am not speaking from ignorance. I also would meet Sonny at other times and places as we would be at the same meetings. 

Back to the meeting in the living room. What do I remember about Pyles and what he said? Sonny was a good listener. Stuart and Jarrel seemed to do the most talking and asking the most questions. Sonny would make short comments. I recall Jarrel saying to Sonny - "I have been studying iron in the scriptures." "It was an iron spear that pierced the side of Christ," commented Jarrel. Sonny then speaks of how we are "living in the iron age" (a thing I would later hear him preach about). The "ten toes" of Daniel's image were a mixture of iron and clay. I don't know why this particular discussion has stuck in my memory while other things said are gone from my old memory. I think it was because I admired in depth bible study. 

I recall Crane at some point mentioning something about modern technology and saying that Sweden had military installations in mountains where planes would fly into them. Again, why I remember this and not much of anything else he said is illusive. It does fit the kind of intellect and discussion that Crane was accustomed to show. He knew secrets. He knew things that the average person does not know. He knew what went on among the secret meetings of the world's Satanic elite. This is the reason why he was made a target by them I do believe. It is also the reason, I think, that he became a kind of recluse in his later years.

After this living room meeting I had more to do with all three of these men. Let me relate the story of each. Let me begin with Conrad Jarrel. Conrad was a rising leader among the Hardshells in the 1970s. He was not only one of Sonny's closest of ministerial friends, but he also began to write pamphlets and became an associate editor, with Sonny and father, on the leading Hardshell periodical "The Christian Baptist" published by my old friend (father's too) Elder S. T. Tolley of Atwood, Tenn. 

Conrad invited me to come and preach at the church he had started in Augusta, Georgia. I went and stayed with him a day or two in his home. At that first trip to the church in Augusta Stuart Crane was in the congregation. He had been converted to Hardshellism. Jarrel had been working on him a long time. They had met through the John Birch Society. Jarrel relates how he and Crane locked themselves into a room with the intention not to leave it till they had settled their theological differences. Well, Jarrel won out. Crane describes this in his series part six in the YouTube channel giving his seminar, and in which he lauds Jarrel as being the best theological mind in our time. 

Crane's conversion to Hardshellism gave me a shot of confidence that Hardshellism was true. Later I listened to a sermon by Crane where he talked about how he found the truth and the true church among a small group of unknown believers called "Primitive Baptists." Looking back on this I think about how ironic it is that Crane spoke so much about cults and conspiracies, in religion as well as economics and politics, and yet he joins the Hardshell cult! But, more on that shortly.

It was after these visits to Augusta and with Jarrel that Sonny came to North Carolina to preach (late 70s) and he stayed with me a couple days. I recall one morning, while Sonny was shaving in the hall bath, that I played a recent sermon from a cassette that I had recently gotten where Jarrel was preaching on the sonship of Christ. When I had first heard it, I was stunned to hear Jarrel denying the eternal sonship of Christ and affirming that he has not always been the Son of God, although he was always the "Word of God." 

As I played it for Sonny (in order to get his reaction) he was stunned and said "where did you get that tape?" He was very worried about what was going to happen to Jarrel as this tape got multiplied. I asked Sonny if he believed what Jarrel taught. He said no. I was glad. Still, I am fairly certain that he was concerned about his relationship with Jarrel (which did end after this). Well, it did get out and became an issue among the Hardshells (just as it was in the 19th century among his forefathers, as I have shown in other postings). 

After this, when Jarrel was ruined by this, he called me a "sly conniving slime." Well, that really shook me! I thought we had been friends. I had never done anything to undermine Jarrel, although I certainly disagreed with his denial of eternal sonship. I left it to Sonny and others to deal with him. Jarrel was able to lead a young minister named Jackie Mott to agree with him on the doctrinal point and he was later excluded, formed his own church, went to Crane's hometown of Detroit, and started his own miniature cult of Hardshells. On this little cult I could say much more but will forbear. Jarrel later went to Las Vegas (I believe) and started a church. Crane, I think, was at first a member of the Detroit church pastored by Mott. 

Now, as I end this writing, I am thinking - "what is my purpose in writing about this?" Well, it is to recommend Crane's seminars generally. I also hope that someone doing an Internet search on Crane might visit here and help me to locate cassettes of his numerous seminars. What I remember from those seminars makes me think that he was "spot on" on what is going on in the world and are so much needed now to discern what is going on behind the scenes in our age. So, if anyone knows where I can get additional videos and cassettes, please let me know.

I am hoping that Crane left the Detroit church before he died. It seems like I recall hearing a tidbit that he had left them as they became more and more a cult of the deepest dye. I hope so. I understand his son is alive and if I could contact him about getting those tapes I would.