| Honorific Prefix: | The Reverend |
| Edgar Louton | |
| Birth Name: | Edgar Myron Louton |
| Birth Date: | 13 December 1933 |
| Birth Place: | Grosse Pointe, Michigan, U.S. |
| Alma Mater: | Columbia International University |
| Years Active: | 1958 - present |
| Children: | 4, including David |
| Mother: | Louise Marie Rettinger |
| Father: | A. G. Louton |
| Signature: | E M Louton sig.svg |
Edgar Myron Louton (; born December 13, 1933) is an American missionary to South Africa who has worked there, at times with the Assemblies of God, since 1951.
Born in Michigan as the son of well-known missionary A. G. Louton, he began his ministry in Cape Town in 1958. He was an outspoken and controversial critic of Apartheid in the early 1980s and split with the Assemblies of God several times. However, he remains one of the longest-ordained ministers in the denomination, and one of the longest-serving Pentecostal missionaries overall.
Louton was born on December 13, 1933 in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, near Detroit.[1] He was the second of three children born to the Reverend Albert Gordon Louton (1902 - 1985), a sales executive turned minister, and Louise Rettinger Louton (1904 - 1967), the daughter of Jacob Rettinger, a prosperous artisan immigrant with real estate holdings.[2]
In his youth, he studied violin under renowned music tutor William Engel alongside Charles Treger. After his parents pursued mission work in South Africa in 1951, he graduated from South African Bible Institute (SABI), Central Bible College and Columbia International University, with a Master of Arts degree.
When Louton was 17 in 1951, his parents moved the family to South Africa in association with the International Pentecostal Assemblies. He had initially opposed the move, and wanted to remain in the United States to attend university. However, he changed his mind after a spiritual encounter in which he felt called to be a missionary.[3] [4]
He spent his first years in the country assisting with their ministry in the Northern Transvaal region, which included tent evangelism, church planting, philanthropy and outreach programs. He oversaw construction in several of the fifty churches built by his father and sometimes worked in partnership with the missionary Eugene Grams, who had married his sister Phyllis. Grams later founded the Cape College of Theology, and served as its first president.
Louton started his first independent church in 1954, graduating from SABI, in a Coloured and Indian area of Pietersburg. In 1956, he returned for the first time to the United States, and itinerated in Michigan and Wisconsin, raising funds for, and drawing attention to, his ministry.[5] [6] [7] He was ordained by the Michigan District of the Assemblies of God in 1957, and received an assignment to South Africa from its missions department the following year.
In July 1958, Louton sailed on the SS Constantia from the Port of New York for Cape Town, where he began his ministry. Personal disagreements with his father led him to choose Hout Bay as a mission field, rather than to join his father's successful ministry in the Northern Transvaal. During the late 1950s, Louton gained prominence in Christian circles in the U.S., where he was portrayed favorably in the news media, first as an "outstanding young missionary" and later as a "veteran missionary."[8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] In early 1961, he moved to Basutoland for two years and planted churches.[16] After beginning his second term as a missionary in 1965, he focused on the Northern Transvaal, continuing his work among the broader Basotho community. During this time, he befriended Nicholas Bhengu, who Time called the “Black Billy Graham.”
He was heavily involved in the distribution of Christian literature and music in the 1960s and began to hold influence within his denomination, first as the director of the Assemblies of God Youth program, and then as the District Superintendent of the Northern Transvaal from 1965 to 1970.[17] In the mid-1970s, he returned to Cape Town, and was involved in churchplanting among the Cape Coloureds. In conversation with his converts, he began to shift his views on South Africa's Apartheid regime.
In 1980, he began publically criticizing Apartheid, and published The Crisis of Christian Credibility, an academic paper with a statistical focus that put forward that Apartheid was unfair and Christians should not permit it to continue. He presented it, along with slides, to a wide audience in church services in Africa and the United States. Louton's involvement in politics and perceived revolutionary views sparked major controversy among the leaders of the Assemblies of God in Springfield, Missouri, who feared their work would be prevented by the National Party. They consequently cut ties with Louton, who withdrew from the country entirely in 1982 and worked in the private sector in Okemos, Michigan.[18] [19]
By 1984, he was on better terms with the denomination and reapplied for a missionary assignment to South Africa. He was based near Pretoria during the mid-1980s.
In January 1988, he joined the faculty of Africa School of Missions, a well-known missionary training college in Mpumalanga and taught courses focusing on anthropology and cross-cultural communication, special interests of his. He left the college in 2008, and entered semi-retirement in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, with yearly trips to the United States. He remains partially active in ministry in the country as of 2021 and has continuing alliances with large churches in the Midwestern United States.[20]
Louton married Barbara Ann Hughes, the daughter of the Reverend Ralph P. Hughes on February 1, 1958. Together they are parents of:[21]
Louton is a member of the multi-generational Louton missionary family. His parents and elder sister were also prominent missionaries in South Africa. His nephew is Rollin G. Grams, a prominent theologian, author and academic.[22]