William C. Irvine (missionary)

William Carleton Irvine (3 June 1871 – 5 September 1946) was a missionary, writer and the founding editor of the Indian Christian magazine.[1]

From the frontispiece of "25 Years' Mission Work Among the Lepers of India".

Biography

Irvine was a superintendent of Belgaum Leprosy Hospital at Hindalga for 25 years.[2][3][4][5] He came to India from New Zealand.[1]

His best known work is Timely Warnings (1917), also known as Modern Heresies Exposed in its second edition and as Heresies Exposed subsequent to the 1921 edition.[6] His books 25 Years' Mission Work Among the Lepers of India, Riches of the Gentiles and other works also received wide distribution.[7][8] Heresies Exposed was one of the first widely available books to critically review new religious movements such as Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Cooneyites, Christadelphians, Pentecostals, Theosophists and other non-mainstream groups that came to increasing prominence during the 20th century.[9] It has seen multiple editions and printings, and remains in print today.[10]

Publications
  • Heresies Exposed 1st Edition 1917, (published as Timely Warnings), 2nd edition 1919 (published as Modern Heresies Exposed), 3rd edition 1921 (as Heresies Exposed), 4th edition 1923 (ditto), fifth edition 1927 (Rewritten and Enlarged), 6th edition 1929 (again enlarged), 7th edition 1930 (again enlarged), reprint 1932, 8th edition 1935 (Revised and Enlarged), 9th edition 1937, 10th edition 1935 (reprinted in USA), 11th edition 1941 (reprinted in India), 12th edition 1942 (reprinted in India), 1955, 1985
  • 25 Years' Mission Work Among the Lepers of India (1938)

See also

References
  1. Stunt, W. T. (1973). Turning the World Upside Down: A Century of Missionary Endeavour. Bath: Echos of Service. p. 121. OCLC 976643.
  2. The Missionary review: Volume 49; Volume 49 1926 "Leper Bible Students - THE earnestness of the Christian lepers in an asylum in Belgaum, South India, is described as follows by William C. Irvine: "One Lord's Day morning, after the meeting, I told the Christians that I would take .."
  3. Review: Twenty-five Years Work Among the Lepers of India. By William C. Irvine. 144 pp. Illus. 2s. 6rf. Pickering & Inglis. London. 1939. "The Superintendent of Belgaum Leper Hospital has given twenty-five years of service to the lepers of ..."
  4. This spreading tree: the story of the Leprosy Mission from 1918 to ... , Leprosy Mission - 1974 "Mr. WC Irvine, of Belgaum, had to deal with an idea deeply embedded in the Hindu mind, and therefore difficult to eradicate. This is the concept of caste, that stratification of Hindu society in classes so rigidly bounded that none may .."
  5. Stunt, W. T. (1973). Turning the World Upside Down: A Century of Missionary Endeavour. Bath: Echos of Service. p. 233. OCLC 976643.
  6. Encyclopedia of new religions: new religious movements, sects and ... Christopher Hugh Partridge - 2004 "Such opposition can be traced back to the early parts of the 20th century, when William C. Irvine published his Timely Warnings (1917), later reissued as Heresies Exposed (1955)."
  7. Christian Faith and Life. 42: 173. 1936. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. The Missionary Review of the World. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Press. 62: 112. 1939. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  9. Irvine, William C. (1985) [1917]. Heresies Exposed. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers. ISBN 0-87213-401-6.
  10. The encyclopedic handbook of cults in America J. Gordon Melton - 1986 "In 1917, William C. Irvine published his Timely Warnings, the first of the modern countercult books. ... Under its new title, Heresies Exposed, Irvine's book went through twenty-nine printings by 1955 and remains in print in the 1980s."
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