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Collection 426
[May 23, 2011]
Little, Paul Eagleson; 1928-1975
Papers; 1946-1987 (bulk 1954-1975)
25 Boxes (25 DC; 9.8 cubic feet); Audio Tapes, Phonograph Records, Photographs
Brief Description. Documents relating to Little's college education at Wheaton College Graduate School, and his work as an evangelist, teacher, writer, and Evangelical leader. (The collection contains some but relatively little material from his work with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.) Included are correspondence, reports, meeting minutes, course notes from his graduate studies at Wheaton College Graduate School, lecture notes as an associate professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, files on his contribution as assistant director of the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland, and articles, book manuscript files, and lecture notes for speaking engagements at churches and conferences. A substantial portion of the collection consists of Little's resource files on various world religions. This collection is a valuable compliment to Little's Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship records in Collection 300. The collection also includes several audio tapes of evangelistic messages by others or radio spots to prompt spiritual reflection which Little had gathered, and photographs from the 1973 Urbana Student Missionary Convention, the 1974 Lausanne Congress, and clippings and photographs from Billy Graham's 1957 New York Crusade.
Restrictions: Copyright to Little's published works are retained by his wife and children.
Folder 2-21 is closed during Rev. Billy Graham's lifetime.
Letters to or from Rev. Billy Graham in folders 18-7, 18-8, and 20-1 have been removed during his lifetime.
The following folder is closed until December 31, 2024:
Biography
| Full name | Paul Eagleson Little | |
| Birth | December 30, 1928, in Philadelphia | |
| Death | July 9, 1975, in an automobile accident | |
| Family | ||
| Parents | Robert J. Little and Margaret Eagelson | |
| Marital Status | Married to Marie Huttenlock in 1953 | |
| Children | Deborah Ann (1957) and Paul Robert, Jr. (1958) | |
| Education | ||
| 1950 | BS, Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania | |
| 1958 | Wheaton College Graduate School, MA in Biblical Literature | |
| 1975 | New York University, PhD candidate | |
| Career | ||
| 1950-1975 | Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship staff in Illinois (1950-1951) and New York (early 1950s), Director of International Student Ministry and assistant regional secretary for the Rocky Mountain region (1955-1962), Director of South-Central Region (1958-1962), Director of Evangelism (1965-1975), Assistant to the President (1967-1975), launched the Fort Lauderdale beach project, Urbana '67 assistant director, Urbana '70 director | |
| 1964-1975 | Assistant Professor of Evangelism at the School of World Missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) | |
| 1973-1974 | Loaned to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association to serve as Associate Director of the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland | |
| Other significant information | ||
| Authored How to Give Away Your Faith (1966, still in print), Know Why You Believe (1967, still in print), and Know What You Believe (1970), booklets Lost Audience (1959) and Affirming the Will of God (1971, still in print), and numerous articles. | ||
| Recognized as a conference speaker and teacher | ||
| Served on the BGEA's 1957 New York Crusade staff to coordinate witness to college students | ||
| Wheaton College, Board of Trustees, 1973-1975 | ||
Scope and Content
[Note: In the Scope & Content section, the notation "folder 2-5" means "Box 2, Folder 5"]
This collection consists of the record of Paul Little's non-Inter-Varsity activities as a student, professor, Evangelical leader, speaker and author. (The collection contains some but relatively little material from his IVCF sphere of responsibility.) Included are correspondence, Wheaton student course notes, Trinity lecture notes and syllabi, resource files (on evangelism, world religions and students), Lausanne Congress files, book or article files, and notes for speaking engagements. Researchers should see the IVCF records (Collection 300), which contain the bulk of Little's papers telling the IVCF part of his story. In cases where the file dates exceed 1975, they reflect publication after his death. Duplicates were removed from the collection.
The collection is subdivided into six series:
Series I: Correspondence
Arrangement: Alphabetically, including three groups: 1) B-Z in folders 1-2 through 1-23, 2)
A-Z in folders 1-24 through 2-18, and 3) Meetings (chronological) in folders 2-22 through 3-32.
The only difference between the two correspondence subseries appears to be that the first is
predominantly for 1973-1974, while the later comes primarily from late-1974 to 1975.
Date Range: 1959-1975 (bulk 1973-1975)
Volume: 1.2 cubic feet
Boxes: 1-3 (88 folders)
Type of documents: Letters to or from Little, manuscripts and schedules
Correspondents: Figures from Inter-Varsity, Lausanne Congress, Trinity Evangelical Divinity
Seminary, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, pastors, lay leaders, or others more generally
in Evangelical circles, but also the World Council of Churches, including:
| John Alexander Hudson Armerding Cliff Barrows Joe Bayly Peter Beyerhaus James Boice Michael Bourdeaux Phillip Butler Michael Cassidy Emilio Castro Robert Coleman Orlando Costas Jack Dain Peter Deyneka, Jr. JD Douglas |
Samuel Escobar Leighton Ford Nigel Goodwin Billy Graham John Gration Michael Griffiths George Hoffman Don Hoke Dave Howard Kenneth Kantzer Festo Kivengere Augustus Marwieh David McKenna Victor Nelson Bruce Nicholls |
Warwick Olsen Gottfried Osei-Mensah Rene Padilla John Pollock John Reid Jerry Schochenmeier Waldron Scott Lance Shilton Bakht Singh John Stott Ted Ward Ben Wati George Wilson Stacey Woods |
Notes: Consists of files maintained by Little, most substantially documenting preparation for or
follow-up to the 1974 Lausanne Congress (including planning for the Continuation Committee,
expressions of thanks for Little's role, and publication of the Congress compendium and
Covenant). Also included is routine correspondence with fellow authors, educators, ministers,
publishers, and evangelists, with some exchanges on theological and evangelism-related issues;
invitations to speaking engagements (and Little's acceptance, decline or follow-up for details);
and Little's replies explaining the gospel to inquirers or discussing difficult theological issues.
There are also files for some of Little's speaking engagements (1967-1975, some scheduled for
1976); the contents sometimes have no apparent relation to the folder title.
Exceptional items: The correspondence in folder 1-1 includes responses from other educators
and mission representatives to Little's question about appropriate reading material for those of
other religions to understand the gospel. Information on Inter-Varsity's Ft. Lauderdale beach
evangelism project is in folders 2-22,23. Folder 1-1 includes Don Field's memo to IVCF
president John Alexander about appealing to reason and experience in an evangelistic message.
Related to Wheaton College, see folder 3-7 for the manuscript for Little's "Communicating
Missions at a Personal Level on Campus" for the 1973 SFMF (Student Foreign Mission
Fellowship) leadership training workshop and folder 3-32 on the College board of trustees' 1974
review of its "statement of responsibilities."
Series II: Article, book and lecture files
Arrangement: Alphabetical. Articles (folders 4-1 through 5-12), books and booklets (folders
5-13 through 6-12), and lectures (folders 6-13 through 8-29)
Date Range: 1952-1978, 1987 (numerous documents undated but fall within time span)
Volume: 2.0 cubic feet (85 folders)
Boxes: 4-8
Type of documents: Handwritten notes, typed versions with annotations, published versions of
articles (primarily in English but in several cases in Spanish, French, German) or lectures
Correspondents: Publishers, pastors, colleagues in Inter-Varsity
Subjects: Articles centered on Little's passion for spreading the Christian gospel while touching
on various related themes such as literature production, temptation, Bible studies, faith, missions
and the missionary call, campus ministry, Christian life, resurrection, God's will. Little's
lectures cover a similar variety of themes including agnosticism, evangelistic Bible studies,
biblical passages, campus outreach, character, Christian home, Christian life, cults, the death of
Christ, follow-up, freedom, the generation gap, hell, homosexuality, Jesus Christ, justification,
non-Christians, the renewed mind, science, Scripture, the sexual revolution, spirits, tongues, the
will of God, world view, etc.
Notes: This series consists of Little's files for various writing and speaking projects he worked
on. In most cases Little's articles appear to have been one-time projects, but he also wrote a
regular column for Power (folder 4-10) targeted for older teenagers and lessons for The Sunday
School Times accompanied by correspondence with its editor, Jim Reapsome. Also in the series
are several interviews with Little (see folders 4-11 and 5-2, also in folder 23-7 of the Resources
Series), and files associated by Little with the book title for which he is perhaps best known is
How to Give Away Your Faith (documented in some cases in what appear to be lecture notes
which may have been resource material for the book). Almost all documents in the book and
lecture files are handwritten notes. In the cases where the dates extend past mid-1975, articles
were published after his death.
Exceptional items: Folder 4-4 includes two manuscripts, the undated "Interpretive Summary"
which is annotated "for NYU" where Little was working on his dissertation in 1975, and "How
Best to Prepare Men For the Pastoral Ministry." Folder 4-7 includes Little's address "God's Will
for Me & World Evangelism" from Urbana '70. Also in this series are published summaries of
Little's life and influence gathered in folder 5-9 titled "Obituaries." "Old PR" in folder 5-10
contains newspaper clippings advertizing Little's meetings between 1963 and 1972. Little's
lectures at Wheaton College on various occasions can be found in several places in the
collection, including folder 6-14. Questions posed to Little by Christians are compiled in folder
7-14; index cards with questions submitted by a more general audience to Little and Billy
Graham (perhaps during Graham's 1957 New York Crusade) appear in folder 22-5. Folder 8-12
on homosexuality actually consists of a file Little maintained with his father's (Robert Little,
teacher at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, conference ministry Bible teacher, radio pastor on
Moody's WMBI radio station) rather than his own replies on the issue.
Series III: Education course notes (primarily Wheaton College)
Arrangement: Wheaton (Old Testament, New Testament, Theology), other schools
Date Range: 1949-1970
Volume: .7 cubic feet (29 folders)
Boxes: 9-10
Type of documents: Syllabi, handwritten notes, graded assignments, papers, and exams
Subjects: Biblical and theological studies
Notes: This series consists primarily of Little's files while a student in Wheaton College
Graduate School's Theological Studies department, including his notes, assignments, and
resources collected related to the subject of study. Several files relate to courses Little took at
Trinity and the Chicago Lutheran Seminary at the beginning of his term on the TEDS faculty. In
cases where Little's Wheaton files include material which post-dates his period of study, it
appears that he continued to use these files as a resource or filing aid. The courses (professors)
Little took which are documented in the collection are:
Series IV: Trinity Evangelical Divinity School course files
Arrangement: General followed by department & course
Date Range: 1954-1975
Volume: 2.8 cubic feet (130 folders)
Boxes: 10-17
Type of documents: Little's lecture notes, syllabi, bibliographies, articles, assignments and
exams, resource files (clippings, booklets, articles, etc.), and papers written by his students
Subjects: Evangelism, non-Christian religions, cults and sects
Notes: Although including several files related to Trinity procedures, committees, and faculty
duties (folders 10-11 to 11-4), this series, the largest of the collection, primarily documents the
courses Little taught at Trinity (TEDS). In many cases, Little maintained multiple files for each
class, sometimes under different titles; no attempt was made to systematically remove all overlap
between the folders or different classes. Little's resource files for a course often include material
produced by the group under consideration as well as a theological or apologetic response to the
group' teaching. The courses documented in the order they are arranged include:
Series V: Lausanne Congress files
Arrangement: Alphabetical
Date Range: 1972-1975
Volume: 1.1 cubic feet (38 folders)
Boxes: 17-20
Type of documents: Primarily correspondence with some reports, press releases, news
clippings, budgets and financial reports
Correspondents: Jack Dain, Leighton Ford, Billy Graham, Don Hoke, Victor Nelson, Tom
Houston, Rene Padilla, Juan Isais, John Stott, Michael Cassidy, and various Evangelical figures
offering appreciation or recommendations for the Continuation Committee (including Robert
Coleman, Harold Lindsell, Norman Pell, Ben Armstrong, Eugene Bertermann, Bruce Nicholls,
Ben Wati, C. Peter Wagner, David Hubbard, Nene Ramientos, etc.).
Notes: The documents in this series primarily concern the post-Congress follow-up and
preparation for the first Continuation Committee (for which he served as Executive Secretary)
meeting in Mexico City in January 1975, although there is also information on preparation and
his contribution leading up to the Congress in mid-1974, for which he served as Assistant
Director (reporting to Don Hoke). The most substantive correspondence is with Jack Dain,
Leighton Ford, and Don Hoke. Not all the correspondence is with Little, but in many cases is to
Leighton Ford or other Congress administrators and copied to Little.
Exceptional items: Various individuals who are key Lausanne figures and church leaders
around the world were sent a six-item post-Congress questionnaire asking for their
recommendations about the purpose of the Continuation Committee, greatest regional needs for
evangelization, how the Committee could help address those needs, a proposed name for the
Committee, how the Committee should be financed, and agenda items for its Mexico City
meeting. Little subdivided the responses he received into six files (folders 18-3 to 7), plus an
additional one devoted to "structure" not corresponding to a question (folder 18-9). Letters
answering the six questions also appear elsewhere in the series. Also among the highlights in the
series are George Hoffmann's "A Response to Lausanne," representing a World Council of
Churches perspective (folder 17-17), Stanley Mooneyham's presentation to the Mexico City
meeting (folder 18-1), Little's program report (folder 17-17) and "Impressions of Lausanne"
(folder 18-2), Continuation Committee member lists (folder 18-13), a file related to John Stott's
written commentary to accompany the published Lausanne Covenant, a critique of the Congress
in an October 1974 letter (folder 17-17), and Byang Kato's handwritten letter on the priorities for
theological education in Africa (folder 17-17).
Series VI: Resource files
Arrangement: Alphabetical
Date Range: 1946-1977
Volume: 2.0 cubic feet (71 folders)
Boxes: 20-25
Type of documents: Promotional material, minutes, form letters, students' papers,
bibliographies, evangelistic materials, handwritten notes and message outlines, articles and
manuscripts by assorted authors other than Little. Little's papers also included four audio
recordings, perhaps illustrating evangelistic strategies (see Location Record: Audio Tapes)
Subjects: Primarily evangelism and apologetics, touching secondarily the themes of students
and student ministry, world religions, Christian organizations, theological issues
Notes: This most diverse series in the collection was largely unfoldered and therefore the least
arranged; the processed arrangement has therefore been provided by the archivist. Although
these documents don't necessarily directly record Little's thinking on or contribution to
evangelism or other themes, they do reflect his concerns and provide those focused on
evangelism with both a glimpse into his thinking and interests but a also head start on locating
resources from the 1960s and '70s. It remains unclear in which specific context these items were
gathered. The folder titles assigned by the archivist were in many cases suggested by Little's
titles to other files in his papers.
Exceptional items: Highlights among the main themes are:
Provenance
The materials in this collection were given to the Archives of the Billy Graham Center by Marie Little in December 1989. Duplicate material or that determined to be outside the scope of the collection was discarded at the donor's request.
Accession: 89-97
April 24, 2002
Paul A. Ericksen
J. Dennison
A. Santoso
| # | Speed | length | sides | contents | Date |
| T1 | 3 ¾ | 75 min. | 2 | Side 1 (35 minutes): Henry Morris (professor at Virginia Technical Institute and co-founder in the Creation Research Society) on the Bible and creation at the August 7, 1968, Kinney Luncheon in Cincinnati. Side 2 (40 minutes): Ulrich Jelinek, on the man's purpose for living (based on Psalm 8) at the August 14, 1963, Kinney Luncheon in Cincinnati. (The Kinney Luncheon was started in the early 1950s. The original tape box was labeled on succeeding Wednesdays although in different years, suggesting the possibility that there was a transcribing error in dating the box.) | 1963, 1968 |
| T2 | 3 ¾ | 82 min. | 2 | Side 1 (33 minutes): Recorded before a live audience at a Kinney (sp.?) Luncheon meeting, featuring Norm Geisler (professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) on Jesus as the focus of the Old and New Testaments. Labeled recording #53. Side 2 (49 minutes): George Howe, professor at Cornell University, at a noon Kinney Luncheon on the relation between the Bible and science, including an appeal to trust Christ. Labeled recording #23. (Although undated, this tape like T1 was probably recorded sometime during the 1960s.) | ca. 1960s |
| T3 | 7 ½ | 24 min. | 1 | Twenty radio spots (forty-five seconds to two minutes) on contemporary thought-provoking themes to stimulate people to consider Christianity, including security, mothering, companionship, judging others, getting revenge, the Bible as a source for answers, a new heart, Bible reading, prayer, life from God, prayer, life with God, and including unidentified narrators, actor Dick Van Dyke and several sports figures. Producer unidentified. | 1969 |
| # | speed | time | Sides | Contents | Dates |
| P1 | 33-1/3 | 12 min. | 2 | 7" phonograph record, approximately 6 minutes per side. "Connie Page Talks with Paul Little" about young people evangelizing their friends. Produced by David C. Cook Publishing. | 1969 |
BGEA: NEW YORK CRUSADE, 1957. Crusade meetings and venues, including Graham addressing overflow crowd outside Yankee Stadium, the Madison Square Garden marquee promoting the crusade and Garden interior during filled meetings, and a filled Yankee Stadium during a crusade meeting. 5 b&w.
INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON WORLD EVANGELIZATION, 1974. Photographs taken during the 1974 Congress: registration, Congress figures and speakers (Henri Blocher, Michael Bordeaux, Chua Wee Hian, A. Jack Dain, Millie Dienert, Billy Kim, Warwick Olsen, Stanley Mooneyham, Malcolm Muggeridge, Francis Schaeffer, Ralph Winter), translation booths, participants during plenary session. Includes a shot of Wade Coggins, Clyde Taylor and Jack Frizen (executives of EFMA and IFMA) together during the meeting. 17 b&w.
INTER-VARSITY CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP - URBANA MISSIONARY
CONVENTIONS - URBANA '73. Photographs taken during the 1973 student missionary
conference at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana: conference figures and speakers
(John Alexander, Chua Wee Hian, Edmund Clowney, Donald Curry, Elisabeth Elliot, Samuel
Escobar, David Howard, Keith Hunt, Gregorio Landero, Samuel Moffett, song leader Bernie
Smith, Philip Teng, Bill Thomas, Pius Wakatama, J. Christy Wilson), communion service, filled
conference arena, mission agency booths in the university Armory, a small group Bible study. 13
b&w.
CONTAINER LIST
| Box | Folders | Description or First Folder / Last Folder | Dates |
| Series I. Correspondence | |||
| 1 | 26R | Assorted / C (folder 1-4 restricted) | 1962-1975 |
| 2 | 28R | D / Vancouver 1968 (folder 2-21 restricted) | 1961-1975 |
| 3 | 34 | Philadelphia IVCF / Support | 1959-1975 |
| Series II. Article, book and lecture files | |||
| 4 | 12 | Articles / SS Times | 1952-1975, 1987 |
| 5 | 14 | Typed articles / Book: Guide to Campus Evangelism | 1957-1978 |
| 6 | 14 | Book: How to Give Away Your Faith / PEL lectures | 1959-1973 |
| 7 | 16 | Lectures: Agnosticism / Christian life | 1956-1975 |
| 8 | 29 | Lectures: Christian life / Radio talks | 1961-1975 |
| Series III. Education course files (primarily Wheaton College) | |||
| 9 | 19 | Old Testament Introduction / Systematic Theology | 1952-1954 |
| 10 | 10 | Biblical Theology / Homiletics | 1949-1970 |
| Series IV. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School course files | |||
| 10 | 4 | Bibliographies / Field Education | 1964-1975 |
| 11 | 18 | General / Comparative Religions | 1958-1970 |
| 12 | 8 | Christianity & Non-Christian Religions / Muslims | 1958-1974 |
| 13 | 13 | Cults & Sects / Jehovah's Witnesses | 1967-1975 |
| 14 | 13 | Jehovah's Witnesses / Transcendental Meditation | 1958-1975 |
| 15 | 15 | Unity / Acts | 1955-1975 |
| 16 | 44 | Romans / Pastoral Counseling & Personal Evangelism | 1954-1975 |
| 17 | 15 | Evangelism Today / Evangelism in a Changing Society | 1961-1975 |
| Series V. Lausanne Congress files | |||
| 17 | 2 | Australia trip / Congress | 1974-1975 |
| 18 | 19 | Congress / Mexico City agenda | 1973-1975 |
| 19 | 10 | Norfolk-Washington / Miscellaneous | 1972-1975 |
| 20 | 8 | Miscellaneous / World Evangelical Fellowship | 1972-1975 |
| Series VI. Resource files | |||
| 20 | 13 | Academy for Evangelism in Theological Ed / Communication | 1956-1975 |
| 21 | 14 | Communism / Key '73 | 1946-1975 |
| 22 | 10 | Evangelism: Materials / Harvard questionnaire | 1957-1975 |
| 23 | 13 | IFES / Miscellaneous notes | 1957-1977 |
| 24 | 14 | Missions / Surveys  |
1957-1975 |
| 25 | 6 | Theology / Word of Life | 1961-1975 |
