1867 — 1946
Summary
Frederick Carnes Cohen (Gilbert) was a pioneering Jewish Adventist evangelist, administrator, and author whose remarkable life journey took him from the strict Orthodox Judaism of Victorian London to the highest councils of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He became the denomination’s foremost evangelist to the Jewish people, established the Jewish Mission in Boston, directed the Jewish Department for decades, and served as one of the first general field secretaries of the General Conference for nearly a quarter century.
Early Life
Frederick Carnes Cohen was born on September 30, 1867, in London, England, to Falk and Miriam Cohen. Both parents were of Jewish ethnicity and strict adherents of Orthodox Judaism. They had married at a young age in Suwalki, Poland, then a territory of the Russian Empire, and after experiencing virulent anti-Semitism, fled to Germany and then migrated to England, where they found tolerance and prosperity.
Frederick had a strict Orthodox Judaic upbringing, being trained by a rabbi in the Talmud Torah, having a Bar Mitzvah, donning phylacteries, and even entertaining a career as a rabbi. Because of the persecution his parents and ancestors received at the hands of Christians, Frederick was unusually strident in his hatred of Christianity. As a child he suffered from severe asthma and lung disease. When Frederick was fifteen, his father died.
Migration to America and Conversion
Considering himself an “orphan,” Frederick sailed to America in May of 1886, probably changing his surname to Gilbert on arrival. After working in a clothes factory in New York City and then being fired, he relocated to Boston, Massachusetts, where he stayed with a Christian family called the Fiskes. The Fiskes were Seventh-day Adventists, and as Frederick learned more about this faith, he recognized vital similarities with Orthodox Judaism. He wrote of the Fiskes:
“They lived their religion more than they talked it… [T]heir lives were indeed a living exposition of the Christian religion. For two years I had been with this family; they claimed to believe the bible, and they acted it; they taught Jesus was the Savior of all men, and they showed their faith in this by following His example…They had a very different spirit from many others who called themselves Christians.”
On April 16, 1889, Frederick Gilbert was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church by Orville Orlando Farnsworth. In his later ministry, Gilbert would repeatedly say that he accepted Christ because he believed in Judaism, not in spite of it.
Early Ministry
After his baptism, the twenty-three-year-old Gilbert quit his factory job and took up literature evangelism. For nine months, he canvassed books and studied the Bible intensively, often weary, hungry, and homeless. He recalls that “those months of labor were among the most blessed of my life.” He enrolled in South Lancaster Academy in 1890 and finished his studies in 1894.
In June 1894, Gilbert embarked upon his public ministry in Boston, to a Jewish population of approximately 20,000. He spoke in Yiddish in open-air meetings and engaged in extensive public debates with rabbis and skeptics. On March 16, 1896, he married Ella May Graham. He was ordained at the New England Conference camp meeting at West Newton, Massachusetts, from June 9-19, 1898.
The Jewish Mission
On April 17, 1906, the Jewish Mission was dedicated in the south end of Boston — the largest project geared toward the Jewish people that the denomination had undertaken. The mission held religious meetings, provided medical care, took in orphans, fed the poor, offered sewing classes, published tracts and a monthly magazine called The Good Tidings of the Messiah, and distributed literature. The mission expanded to include the Good Tidings Home in Concord, Massachusetts, a refuge center for Jews persecuted for accepting Christianity.
Ellen G. White was a staunch supporter of Gilbert’s ministry. Once she said of him: “We need one hundred such men where we now have one.” And another time: “the ministry of Elder Gilbert is accepted of God and he needs encouragement by words and means to continue the work.”
The Jewish Department and Author
In 1907, the Central New England Conference formed a Jewish Department, directed by F. C. Gilbert. In 1911 this work was organized under the North American Foreign Department. His major publications included Practical Lessons from the Experience of Israel for the Church of To-day (1902, second edition 1914, 826 pages), From Judaism to Christianity and Gospel Work Among the Hebrews (1911), Divine Predictions of Mrs. Ellen G. White Fulfilled (1922), and Messiah in His Sanctuary (1937). From Judaism to Christianity is today an Adventist classic.
General Field Secretary
At the 40th General Conference Session on May 24, 1922, F. C. Gilbert was voted in as one of the first general field secretaries of the world Church. In 1923, he set sail for China and while leaving China for Japan experienced the Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1, 1923. His other major international trips included the Inter-American Division (1934-1935), India (1939), and the South American Division (1943). His prodigious work ethic is illustrated by a vote of GC Officers in 1933: “F. C. Gilbert states that he has never taken a vacation in twenty-five years, and requests the privilege of taking two weeks off from August 1 to 15. Agreed, That we approve Brother Gilbert’s plan for a vacation.”
Legacy
On the Sabbath morning of August 31, 1946, he died aged seventy-eight at his home in Takoma Park, Maryland. On his death the minutes of the General Conference Committee said of him: “He was an earnest, devoted worker, counting no task too arduous to undertake.” Gilbert was, along with Charles Decatur Brooks, the longest-serving general field secretary of the General Conference.
Source: Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, encyclopedia.adventist.org. Article by Benjamin Baker, Ph.D.
