J. B. Chapman

Nazarene General Superintendent (1884–1947)

James Blaine "J. B." Chapman (1884–1947) was an American minister, academic administrator, and newspaper editor. He served as the president of Arkansas Holiness and Peniel College, editor of the Herald of Holiness, and general superintendent in the Church of the Nazarene.

Chapman was born 1884 in Yale, Illinois, the second son and fifth child of Marinda and Thomas Smith Chapman. The family moved to Oklahoma when he was fourteen years old, where he was converted to Christianity in 1899. Chapman's first academic instructor was his wife, a schoolteacher. When he took a pastorate at Vilonia, Arkansas, in 1908, he enrolled at the Arkansas Holiness College there at age 24. After graduating in 1910, he left to pursue further study at Texas Holiness University in Peniel, Texas, under president Roy T. Williams, where he received his Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1913. Peniel College later awarded him an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in 1918, and Pasadena College did the same in 1927.

He began to preach at the age of sixteen, uniting with the World's Faith Missionary Association of Shenandoah, Iowa, and then the Texas Holiness Association before forming his own Independent Holiness Church. He married Maud Frederick</blockquote>

Chapman would later become editor of the Herald of Holiness from 1921 to 1928 and was then elected general superintendent. He joined the Nazarene community of Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1930, and served as general superintendent until his death in 1947. A residential dorm on the campus of Olivet Nazarene University is named after Chapman.

Through his daughter Lois Catherine (Chapman) Lehrer, he was the grandfather of journalist Jim Lehrer.