The son of a Civil War veteran, Hamblen spent his young life as a farmer along with his family in East Texas and briefly in Arkansas.

The couple had six children, Lola Mae, Oberia Matilda, Alvin Kelley, Carl Stuart, James Estel "Ebb" and John Henry.

Hamblen resigned from the conference floor ending four decades of service to the denomination announcing "I could not conscientiously remain in a church where modernism predominated and where the leaders did not believe in and uphold the Articles of Religion of Methodism; where the Sunday School literature was filled with doubt of the inspiration of the Bible and the fundamental doctrines of evangelical Christianity; where the young preachers trained in our Methodist Divinity Schools no longer believed the cardinal doctrines of our church".

Shortly after the formation of the Evangelical Methodist Church in 1949, Hamblen received some attention following Billy Graham's breakout Los Angeles Crusade.

Stuart Hamblen, known then for his racing horses and penchant for alcohol, was the first of several "celebrity conversions" including Louis Zamperini and a handful of actors and their friends.