"Letters to Doctors" by C. Earle Carpenter

Jan. 26, 1973, 8:30 p.m., basement lecture room, Lockett Hall, LSU: I’m talking with C. Earle Carpenter, campus director for Campus Crusade for Christ. We’re talking about a recent visit to campus by Christian speaker Josh McDowell. By the time we finish, I’ve prayed to become a Christian. Nothing will ever be the same again. 

I am one of likely thousands of stories that Carpenter could tell. From LSU, he and his wife Judy went on to Dallas Seminary where he became an official “reverend,”, and then returned to their native Birmingham to care for elderly parents. In Birmingham, a group of dentists and physicians, along with Carpenter, started the Christian Medical Ministry of Alabama. And Carpenter became the CMMA’s first director, touching thousands of more lives, directly and indirectly, all over the United States and the world.

 

Judy and Earle Carpenter

For 37 years, Carpenter served the CMMA. Part of his work was writing a devotion for the monthly CMMA newsletter. Some 119 of those devotions have been gathered together to form Letters to Doctors. While the primary audience may be those in the medical community, they’re applicable to anyone, in any walk of life, because Carpenter never limited himself to only one profession or one specific audience. There was a world of lost souls to save, and “Earle and Judy” (it’s difficult for me to think of one without the other) were ready to talk with, visit, counsel, and pray with whomever might be brought into their path.

 

The devotions, which are each about a page to a page-and-a-half long, are organized into four divisions: Walk, Warfare, Word, and Worship. They generally cite a particular verse of the Bible, and then take the reader into what the verse might mean and how it applies to daily life. Many include short anecdotes from Carpenter’s own life and experience. 

 

Carpenter’s voice is consistent and unmistakable. It’s more than 50 years since that night in Baton Rouge, but when I read these devotions, I hear the same voice I heard that night. The same voice, the same heart, the same faith.

 

While each devotion might tell you something about Carpenter, that isn’t the point. In fact, it was never the point. He wants you to know his Lord. That’s the point. It’s not about Earle Carpenter. It’s about his Lord. It’s always been about his Lord. 

 

To read Letters to Doctors is, for me, to experience a personal blessing. If you’ve never met Carpenter, read it to experience a spiritual blessing. This man cares about your soul.