By Neil Earle
The death of Mr. Raymond McNair in Temecula, California on October 11 was not entirely unexpected but a cause of note in many circles around this big wide world. I first heard of it from England where Mr. McNair served eventfully as Deputy Chancellor of Ambassador College, UK from 1960 to 1973.
He was also Regional Director of the Worldwide Church of God operation in the British Isles beginning in 1958. The WCG’s early name was Radio Church of God until 1968. This was a church body raised up largely through the media efforts of Herbert W. Armstrong and his son Garner Ted Armstrong, both now deceased.
The unorthodox theology of the pre-reformed WCG necessarily affected life and developments at Ambassador (UK) but in Raymond McNair students found, in the main, a largely sympathetic and utterly sincere campus leader. He had been born and raised in Camp, Arkansas and mused often on the strange workings of Providence that led him from rural America to live within twenty miles of Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square.
He himself was a believer in the grand old American virtue of perseverance, or stick-to-it-ive-ness. (Read more about the Bricket Wood campus in "The Spirit of Ambassador" under Founder's Bio). While an early student at the former Ambassador College campus in Pasadena, CA from 1948 to 1952 he had begun transforming himself into an effective communicator, writer and speech instructor – more effective than some of his critics, the mercurial Herbert Armstrong included – gave him credit.
As a WCG member and reader in Goose Bay, Labrador I remember reading articles such as “Are You A Spiritual Drone” and “It Happened in Britain” – more hard-hitting than Christian journalism would dare be today, but always clear, comprehensive, lively and helpful, yes, helpful to the max for a young Christian such as myself. At Ambassador (UK) in 1969-70 I remember Raymond McNair’s series of sermons that turned into articles titled “Lessons From The Master Potter” wherein he showed how the experience of conversion went through a seven-step process. This he demonstrated with the help of props given him by one of England’s talented potters at the time. The series should be reprinted somewhere as an example of the McNair perseverance, or “diligence” (almost his middle name) and kindly humor. If you think he couldn’t write – read those in an older WCG publication called The Good News. Warts and all, they read very well today.
Which is not to say Raymond McNair didn’t have faults along those lines. His fondness for loquacity (read – “going overtime”) and inability to tell a good joke were both legendary and part of his legend. For legend in a small way he certainly was. My own experiences with Raymond McNair were as a student at the Ambassador (UK) campus north of London in Bricket Wood, Hertsfordshire from 1968 to 1972. While sometimes being exasperated at his trait as a stickler for detail, I found much in the man to admire. The Bricket Wood campus at peak capacity was about 250 students from all around the world. Of these a good percentage were Americans, Britons, and Australians with a sprinkling of continental Europeans, Asians, an Iraqi, an Israeli and even a few Indians, Canadians and New Zealanders – a Commonwealth of young people potentially given to mischief. Even for a college devoted to Christian principles of conduct it was never easy keeping the whole shebang running smoothly.
Somehow it worked, and in my book Raymond McNair deserved a lot of credit for that. He always seemed cheerful, concerned and superbly dedicated. Coming from a conservative part of the world himself, he adapted to the English penchant for decorum and propriety as much as any North American could. He radiated an appreciation for the opportunities life had handed him his way and his commitment to the spiritual disciplines – especially prayer, Bible Study and fasting – was unquestioned. He was a lifelong avid reader. I remember a campus forum he gave on Shakespeare – not too exceptional, perhaps, but “cults don’t read Shakespeare” (I jest – with an eye to our sterner WCG critics). Raymond McNair regarded Herbert Armstrong as a father and this trait permeated the campus and made what was sometimes an authoritarian and stifling atmosphere much more enjoyable.
In short, he was a practicioner of what he often taught: live a balanced life.
He practiced that in his preaching as well. In the winter of 1968-69 I noticed the solid, basic rotation in his sermon subjects – Christian Living, History, Diligence and Prophecy. Just this summer I had to deal with a series of tough counselings where it was obvious that the counselee had lost sight of some basic human relationship principles. I was helped in this by remembering Raymond McNair’s “Practical Psychology Class” of 1968. There the main assignment was to categorize the various subjects in Proverbs – the Tongue, Wisdom, Money, Diligence, Human Relations, Working Under Authority, the Fool, etc. Once the Old Testament/Iron Age leanings were leavened with New Testament Charity, the project aided me in my counseling and served as the a basis for a series of sermons.
Thus Raymond McNair, or a good part of him, lived on in my life. It’s been said that the Eleventh Commandment for pastors and counselors is “Thou shalt do no harm” and the Mr. McNair I knew scored highly on that score. He was not a wrathful person, a ranter or a grudge-holder or a politician/schemer as, alas, bedevil many churches and Christian colleges. Based on the WCG code of conduct in those days, based on what we then believed about life, the Bible and the future, Raymond McNair was one of our best – a hard worker, a devoted family man and as impeccably moral a man as I have ever met. I will always remember him fondly and think of the Bricket Wood experience under him in the words of Yeats:
“Think where man’s glory most begins and ends/And my glory was that I had such friends.”