# Ed Louton

Edgar Myron Louton (/luːtɪn/ LOO-tin; born December 13, 1933) is an American missionary. He worked in South Africa with the Assemblies of God and other organizations over a period of seventy years.

## Early life and education

Louton was born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, an affluent enclave of Metro Detroit, in 1933. His parents were the Reverend Albert Gordon Louton (1902 - 1985) and Louise Marie Rettinger Louton (1904 - 1967). He was raised in a Christian family in Detroit with two sisters.
His maternal grandparents, Jacob and Theresa (Oster) Rettinger, emigrated to the United States from Austria-Hungary with their children prior to World War I, having lost their fortune in a series of bad investments. There, Jacob became a skilled artisan and invested in rental real estate.
Louton attended public schools and joined the National Honor Society. He studied violin under William Engel, a well-known Detroit music tutor, and played in Engel's orchestra alongside Charles Treger. When he was 17, he moved with his family to South Africa. He graduated from the South African Bible Institute in 1954 and later attended Central Bible College before earning a Master of Arts degree from Columbia International University.

## Ministry
### Church leadership

Louton spent the first years of his career gaining exposure to missions by assisting with the prominent ministry begun by his parents in the Northern Transvaal. Working under his father he was involved in various activities including church planting, tent evangelism and outreach programs. He started his first independent church in a Coloured area of Pietersburg in 1954. In 1956, he returned to the United States where he was ordained by the Michigan District of the Assemblies of God and began the first of several speaking tours to raise funds for his ministry.
His talks at various churches and events in Michigan and Wisconsin between the 1950s and the 1970s drew media attention to his ministry and made him popular in American evangelical circles. In local newspapers, he was portrayed first as an "outstanding young missionary and later as a "veteran missionary." In early 1961, he moved to Basutoland for two years and planted churches.

### Leadership in the Assemblies of God

In the 1960s, Louton focused his ministry in the Northern Transvaal area, forming an alliance with Nicholas Bhengu, a powerful evangelist dubbed the "black Billy Graham of Africa" by Time magazine. He was heavily involved in the distribution of Christian literature and music in the 1960s and was appointed to a number of leadership positions, notably as the director of the Assemblies of God Youth program in South Africa, and then as the District Superintendent of the Northern Transvaal from 1965 to 1970.

### Political involvement and academic work

In the 1980s, Louton became a controversial figure within the Assemblies of God, after being identified as holding views alligned with liberation theology, which he later denied. After publishing The Crisis of Christian Credebility in South Africa, an academic paper critisizing Apartheid he and his organization were allegedly placed on government watchlists. This prompted the Assemblies of God to cut all ties with Louton, who returned to the United States for several years to avoid scrutiny. By 1984, he had improved his terms with the Assemblies of God and was encouraged to return to South Africa.
In January 1988, he joined the faculty of Africa School of Missions, a well-known missionary training college in Mpumalanga, where he taught courses focusing on anthropology and cross-cultural communication. He retired in 2008, but remained partially active until the 2020s.

## Personal life and family

Louton married Barbara Ann Hughes, the daughter of the Reverend Ralph P. Hughes on February 1, 1958. Together they are parents of:
* David A. Louton (b. 1960), a financial analyst at Bryant University
* Linda Joy Louton (b. 1961)
* Valerie Hope Louton (b. 1964)
* Barbara Louise Louton (b. 1971)
Louton is a relative of several notable figures in academia, ministry, and law. His brother-in-law, Eugene Grams, was also a well-known missionary in South Africa; his nephews Rollin G. Grams and Darrell Grams have had high-profile careers in law and academia respectively.