The Death of George Calhoun

One of American Calvinism's most influential laymen died July 28 in Mt. Olive, Mississippi. As a rural letter-carrier, Calhoun played tapes of prominent Reformed speakers while driving the lonely-hours of delivery south of Jackson.

To feed his intellectual habit, Calhoun began to collect master tapes from across North America and the United Kingdom. As the Continuing Church developed in the Presbyterian Church (US), Calhoun recorded the conferences and eventually the assemblies of the Presbyterian Church in America. The collection acquired first hundreds and then thousands of hours of sermons and lectures ranging from Martin Lloyd-Jones to R.J. Rushdoony and Joel Beeke. The largest and most diverse collection of its kind in the world emerged. Over the last two decades, Calhoun replicated the core collection for redistribution to tape libraries around the world.

A Southern Presbyterian partisan, Calhoun also distributed books on theology, history, economics, and literature in the Agrarian tradition. A side collection served the conservative Calvinist wing of the Southern Baptist Convention as well. An unwritten partnership developed with Sprinkle Press in Virginia to match tapes and books.

Thousands of people first learned of Calhoun and the Mt. Olive Tape Library through the Christian Observer according to published statements by Calhoun.

A careful observer of trends in the Reformed family, Calhoun developed an interest in Central Europe and sparked the recent republication of J.H. Merle d'Aubigne's history of the Reformation in Hungary.

Calhoun is survived by his widow Gracie of Bassfield.

* Mt. Olive Tape Library, Inc., PO Box 422, Mt. Olive, Mississippi 39119
* Mrs. Gracie Calhoun, PO Box 142, Bassfield, Mississippi 39421