L. Nelson Bell

{{Short description|American missionary}}
{{Infobox person
| image     = L Nelson Bell2.jpg
| caption  = Medical missionary to China
|birth_name   = Lemuel Nelson Bell
| birth_date  = July 30, 1894
| birth_place = [[Longdale, Virginia]], U.S.
| death_date  = {{Death date and age|1973|8|2|1894|7|30}}
| death_place = [[Montreat, North Carolina]], U.S.
| education   = 
| spouse         = Virginia Myers Leftwich
| children       = 5, including [[Ruth Graham|Ruth]]
| parents        = 
}}
'''Lemuel Nelson Bell''' (July 30, 1894 – August 2, 1973)<ref name="USinAsia">{{cite book |last=Shavit |first=David |title=The United States in Asia: A Historical Dictionary |page=39 |year=1990 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |location=New York |isbn=0-313-26788-X}}</ref> was a medical missionary in China and the father-in-law of famous evangelist [[Billy Graham]].  Few people had more influence on Billy Graham than Bell.<ref>The Billy Graham Museum; Wheaton, Illinois</ref>

==Life and work==
Bell was born in [[Longdale, Virginia]], the son of Ruth Lee (McCue) and James Harvey Bell.<ref name="USinAsia"/> Bell and his wife, Virginia Myers (Leftwich) Bell, served as [[Presbyterian]] medical [[Mission (Christian)|missionaries]] in China from 1916 to 1941 with the [[American Southern Presbyterian Mission]]. They lived on the compound of Love and Mercy Hospital in [[Huaian|Qingjiangpu]], [[Jiangsu]] Province, 300 miles north of [[Shanghai]].  They had five children:  Rosa, [[Ruth Graham|Ruth]], Lemuel, Virginia, and Clayton.

Bell kept a busy schedule as surgical chief and administrative superintendent at the hospital.  Although the hospital had a pastor on staff, Bell made the healing of souls a priority in his work, gently explaining the Gospel to his patients.<ref>Decision Today – Special Commemorative Issue – Ruth Bell Graham, 2007, p.6</ref>  He never minimized the importance of addressing the spiritual needs of the people as well as their physical needs.

The Bells returned to the United States before [[Pearl Harbor]] in 1941 and retired in [[Montreat, North Carolina]], across the street from their daughter Ruth and Billy Graham.

In 1942, Bell founded [[The Southern Presbyterian Journal]], a publication which championed conservative Presbyterianism within the denomination that had sent Bell and his family to China as missionaries.<ref name="Belz 3">{{cite journal|last=Belz|first=Joel|title=We're moving|journal=WORLD Magazine|date=16 July 2011|volume=26|issue=14|pages=3|url=http://www.worldmag.com/articles/18288|accessdate=10 May 2012}}</ref>

From 1942 to 1966, the Southern Presbyterian Journal also championed racial segregation. Historian Kenneth Taylor <ref name="Ken Taylor">{{cite journal|last=Tayor|first=Ken|title=The Spirituality of the Church Segregation, The Presbyterian Journal, and the Origins of the Presbyterian Church in America|journal=Reformed Perspectives Magazine|date= 25 August 2007|volume=34|issue=34|pages=3|url=http://thirdmill.org/newfiles/ken_taylor/ken_taylor.church.spirituality.html}}</ref> describes this segregationist stance:

"Paternalistic Journalers professed to love African Americans and to want only the best for them. Integration, the writers insisted, was cruel, and segregation was kind. Thus, social separation was consistent with the Golden Rule, 'to do unto others as you want others to do unto you.' In 1947 Bell wrote without irony that he was 'ashamed at the intolerance, the discrimination, and the humiliations which have been heaped on them [blacks] by the white race' while he defended segregation. … Segregation was kind and Christian."

After Bell's death, and the subsequent founding of the [[Presbyterian Church in America]], this publication would eventually evolve into the [[God's World News]] line of children's magazines, founded in 1981 under the direction of [[Joel Belz]], and later lead to the 1986 founding of a parallel news publication for adults, [[WORLD Magazine]].<ref name="Belz 3"/>

Bell was also the one who suggested to Billy Graham the idea of the periodical that would eventually be named ''[[Christianity Today]]''.  He became its executive editor, commuting regularly to Washington from his home in Montreat and writing "A Layman and His Faith," a regular column in the magazine.<ref>Graham, B., Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham, 1997, p.288, HarperCollins Worldwide, {{ISBN|0-06-063387-5}}</ref> With his son-in-law, he was extremely active in trying to mobilize evangelicals to support Richard Nixon against Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy for president in 1960.<ref>Ingle, H. Larry, Nixon's First Cover-up:  The Religious Life of a Quaker President, 2015, pp. 99–100, 102, 105, University of Missouri Press, {{ISBN|978-0-8262-2042-4}}</ref> Bell received seven awards from the conservative [[Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge]], Pennsylvania for articles and editorials.<ref>[https://archives.wheaton.edu/repositories/4/resources/1228 Papers of Lemuel Nelson Bell – Collection 318<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

Nelson Bell died in [[Montreat, North Carolina]].<ref name="USinAsia"/>

Bell's biography is entitled, "A Foreign Devil in China: The Story of Dr. L. Nelson Bell," by [[John Charles Pollock]].<ref>Pollock, John Charles.  ''A Foreign Devil in China: The Story of Dr. L. Nelson Bell.'' (World Wide Publications.)</ref>

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
* [https://archives.wheaton.edu/repositories/4/resources/1228 L. Nelson Bell Papers], Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College. 
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110607170650/http://www.familysearch.org/ENG/Search/AF/individual_record.asp?recid=5843581 FamilySearch: Ancestral File: 76DV-1M (Lemuel Nelson Bell)]
*[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2016/05/19/the-sins-of-the-fathers/ Slacktivist – "The Sins of the Fathers"]
{{Protestant missions to China}}
{{Billy Graham}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Nelson L.}}
[[Category:1894 births]]
[[Category:1973 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century Presbyterians]]
[[Category:American evangelicals]]
[[Category:American expatriates in China]]
[[Category:American Presbyterian missionaries]]
[[Category:Christian medical missionaries]]
[[Category:People from Alleghany County, Virginia]]
[[Category:Presbyterian Church in the United States members]]
[[Category:Presbyterian missionaries in China]]