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Paul E. Toms

Christian evangelical

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ7150435 ↗
Source-derived summary

Paul E. Toms (May 26, 1924 – February 7, 2015) was an American author and pastor. He was pastor of Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts from 1969 to 1989 and also served as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and chairman of World Relief.

Paul Elmer Toms was born in Bellingham, Washington in 1924 to Margaret Anne Tew and Paul Elmer Toms, Sr. In 1945, he graduated from Bob Jones University and married Eva Briscoe that same year in Kosciusko, Mississippi. The Toms then moved to Concrete, Washington where he served as pastor of the Presbyterian church. In 1952 Toms received his B.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary. Toms and his wife served as missionaries in Hawaii on the Kona coast from 1952 to 1962 and from 1962 to 1965 they directed Congregational missions in Australia. Toms came to Boston in 1965 to serve as an assistant pastor at Park Street and became senior pastor at Park Street Church in Boston in 1969 when Pastor Harold Ockenga stepped down. Starting in 1975, Toms served as chairman of World Relief for fifteen years and also served as president of the National Association of Evangelicals. After stepping down from Park Street in 1989, Toms was appointed dean of the chapel at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in addition to serving for many years on the Board of Trustees of Gordon Conwell.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Paul E. Toms” as christian evangelical. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Paul, Toms and Christian.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1924, 2015, 1969, 1989—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1924-05-26. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Paul, Toms and Christian providing the first useful test.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Paul E. Toms”, the useful work is to connect “christian evangelical” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7150435. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1924, 2015, 1969 and 1989.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Paul E. Toms” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.