Rex Humbard

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Rex Humbard
Rex Humbard - Research Resources

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Rex Humbard (1919 - 2007) was an American televangelist with a huge emphasis on money (that is, your money to be sent to him). Known for his marketing gimmicks, such as "prayer cloths" and "faith nails" -- all designed to get people to send in their donations

For instance, a March 1984 mass mailing signed by Humbard included a pewter, old-fashioned nail, with the text:

"So here’s what I want you to do:
Write out every need in your life on the enclosed prayer request.
Push the nail through your prayer requests as an act of faith. Pray about your special requests and then remove the nail and keep it as our point of contact.
Place your best sacrificial Easter gift for God’s work in the enclosed offering envelope.
Send the offering envelope and your prayer requests in the return envelope I have provided.
Rex Humbard"

Humbard retired in 1983.

Humbard, (Alpha) Rex (Emmanuel) (1919-) Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, to an itinerant *EVANGELIST and his wife, Rex Humbard became an itinerant preacher himself until he and his wife, Maude Aimee, settled in Akron, Ohio, in 1952. There he formed a nondenominational church that would eventually be called the Cathedral of Tomorrow. Influenced by *KATHRYN KUHLMAN, with whom he sometimes conducted *REVIVAL meetings, Humbard was one of the first preachers to make a foray into television. Maude Aimee, a gospel singer who began singing publicly at the age of nine, appeared regularly on the telecasts.
Humbard's background and theology were vaguely pentecostal, and he preached healing through prayer and anointing with oil, although he did not emphasize the *BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT and refused the designation “pentecostal.” Questions were raised in 1973 about Humbard's handling of funds, but the church and the television ministry survived. He resigned the pastorate of the Cathedral of Tomorrow in 1983 in favor of Wayne Jones, his brother-in-law.
- Source: Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism, Randall Balmer. Baylor University Press, Waco, Tx. 2004, page. 347

Rex Humbard died in September, 2007.

Rex Humbard - Research Resources

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