Born: Though bi­o­gra­phies oft­en give his date of birth a year ear­li­er, Rader’s daugh­ter said he was born in 1878, in Chey­enne, Wy­om­ing.

Died: Ju­ly 19, 1938, Hol­ly­wood, Cal­i­for­nia.

Buried: For­est Lawn Cem­e­tery, Glen­dale, Cal­i­for­nia.

Rader was one of the most pow­er­ful evan­gel­is­tic preach­ers of the ear­ly 20th Cen­tury. He de­scribed him­self as an “ex-bell­boy, ex-cow­boy, ex-pro­spect­or, ex-foot­ball play­er, and ex-pu­gil­ist.” He pas­tored Moo­dy Church in Chi­ca­go, Ill­i­nois (1915-1921), and fol­lowed found­er Al­bert Simp­son as pre­si­dent of the Christ­ian and Mis­sion­ary Al­li­ance (1920-1923). Rader found­ed the Chi­ca­go Gos­pel Tab­er­na­cle in 1922 and pas­tored it for 11 years. He wrote ma­ny Gos­pel song lyr­ics and a few tunes, and was in­stru­ment­al in the found­ing of the Tabernacle Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny.

Rader was al­so a pi­o­neer of Christ­ian broad­cast­ing. In the ear­ly 1920’s, the be­gin­ning days of ra­dio, sta­tion WBBM in Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois, closed ev­ery Sun­day. Ra­der re­ceived per­mis­sion to use the stu­di­os, and for sev­er­al years, he ran a 14-hour Christ­ian program ev­ery Sun­day. Ra­der called his sta­tion-with­in-a-sta­tion WJBT (“Where Je­sus Bless­es Thou­sands”).

Sources

Hymns

  1. Alive Again
  2. Far, Far on the Other Side
  3. Go!
  4. Harvest Time
  5. I’ve Found the Way (© 1928)
  6. Jesus Satisfies
  7. Only Believe
  8. Old Time Power
  9. Over There
  10. River of Thy Grace, The
  11. Sun Will Shine!, The (© 1924)
  12. Tell Out the Wonderful Story
  13. Victory, The