James
“Jim” Henry Logan’s father was a preacher and
his mother was a gospel worker, so the son became an
electrical engineer. Why?
“I guess the fact that it’s true,” he said of
the unseen flow of electrons. “You have to conceptualize
it. If you have the wrong concept, it doesn’t matter what
you believe, it won’t work.”
James 'Jim' Logan
That statement summarizes his professional choice. But
it also is a metaphor for his faith.
“That is exactly the approach I take to my salvation,”
says Logan, a Presbyterian elder and a director of the
Presbyterian Lay Committee. “What I believe about God, if
it doesn’t square with the Scriptures, it’s
worthless.”
Logan is “sort of” retired with his wife Euolinda,
in the mountains of McHenry, Md., a popular gathering place
for a large family, comprised of five grown children and 11
grandchildren.
He was one of nine children of a hard-working,
straight-shooting Church of God preacher and his wife, a
gospel worker. The Rev. and Mrs. John Wesley Logan made up for
their lack of education with gritty commitment to serve the
church and raise their family in the Christian faith on a farm
in Hopewell, Ohio.
Logan’s father was, first, a coal miner and, later, a
foundry worker who was noted for his grimy Bible because he
always carried it to work with him. He worked outside the
church for one reason: to make it possible to be a pastor of a
small, poor congregation.
“He was plainspoken, no guile,” Logan says of his
father. “He was probably a little shorter than I am,
probably 50 pounds heavier. His countenance was pretty
formidable.”
Mom was what they called a gospel worker, teaching Sunday
school, praying for people when they answered altar calls and
smoothing ruffled feathers after preacher Logan got too blunt
with a sinner.
“Neither one of my parents was highly educated,”
Logan said. “Their emphasis was on knowing the Word. They
didn’t read much of the world’s stuff.”
Logan was a good student and curious about electricity. After
high school, he got a job in a garage.
He and Euolinda, daughter of another Church of God preacher,
also did something their families didn’t approve of –
after they learned about it. Having known each other since
they were about eight years old, they eloped four months after
graduating from high school. That was 46 years ago.
The young couple started out with little more than their
devotion to God and each other, but Logan was ambitious and
hard working.
During their first year of marriage in 1955, Logan took a
correspondence course in electronics, which led to a job in a
television shop. The business decided to send him to college.
He took courses when he could squeeze them in between his work
and family obligations, and received his bachelor’s
degree in electrical engineering in 1972. Logan has received a
number of patents for his design of television deflection
coils, the component that draws the electrons on the
television screen.
Before Logan received his degree, General Electric employed
him to work in television design, using what he describes as
the “cut and try” approach. Later, he played a key
role in television design by developing computer models to
eliminate the guesswork. Logan also worked in General Electric’s
aerospace division on sophisticated radar systems for the
F-111 fighter-jet.
His work moved him about from New York to Virginia. In
Baldwinsville, N.Y., the Logans began attending the
Presbyterian Church because it appealed to their children.
Logan says he was slow to consider himself a Presbyterian. It
was only after he was elected a trustee of the Baldwin church
that he did so, he says.
Today, the Logans mostly attend churches near where they live –
but their membership is in a Presbyterian congregation served
by one of their sons, the Rev. Dr. James H. Logan Jr., pastor
of Bread of Life Church in Charlotte. The younger Logan is
considered one of the most dynamic preachers in the
Presbyterian Church (USA), and there is no bigger fan than his
father.
Logan said that when he was invited to consider becoming a
director of the Lay Committee, he wasn’t sure what he was
getting into. He says he certainly wasn’t wealthy and
able to make large contributions like many boards require. He
made that clear, he says, and wrote a straightforward (like
his father and his son) statement about his faith. Logan was
elected a director in 1998.
He is committed to renewal in the denomination and excited
about the Confessing Church Movement. He strongly disagrees
with Presbyterians who would deny Biblical truths to support
their own agendas.
“The gospel of Jesus Christ is extremely important,”
he says. “It is not to be trifled with. I have a very
strong feeling that the truth is so important that there can
be no compromise.”