A. Campbell on the Glories of the Written Word

Excerpt from an unpublished 1828 letter to John Abbot of Macon, Georgia, by Alexander Campbell during the revision of the 1826 first edition of the Sacred Oracles:

How happy are we who by these cold and lifeless characters upon paper can talk with our friends on spiritual and eternal things living on any part of the earth! This is the most useful of arts; and how much does it contribute to the enjoyments of Christians. That God’s love should be written on paper is also a wonderful thing, but so it is. And that the whole scheme of things reaching forth unto eternity should be laid open to our view by these marks on paper is one of the proofs of God’s wisdom and goodness which we ought always to bear in mind. We do a great deal for the good of mankind by endeavouring to put into the hands of men plain and intelligible copies of the Gospel and of the institutions of the Lord and Savior. One copy may descend to remote posterity, and may awake some genius who will arise and dispense the blessing to millions. Fired by these views I feel desirous of multiplying the oracles of God to a considerable extent in the way proposed. 

(Transcribed from the original letter held in the Center for Restoration Studies by Carisse Mickey Berryhill.)

A Trip to Abilene

So last Thursday afternoon Michele and I got in the car and drove to Abilene. Compared to the panhandle it gets significantly hotter in that part of Texas, and the closer we got to our destination the further our car thermometer went into triple digits. By 3 that afternoon, we were somewhere around Post, Texas when the temperature reached 105.

I had booked a room at the Courtyard Marriott, which looked nice online. It was. We got to Abilene late afternoon, spent an hour or so in the pool, drove a few blocks down for a nice dinner, and then walked across the street to their shopping mall. We were amazed an hour later when we came out of the mall. At around 8:30, the temperature was in the mid-90s! Near sunset, it was still really hot. Did I mention it was hot in that part of Texas?

Anyway, on Friday morning Michele dropped me off at the Center for Restoration Studies which is in the library on the campus of Abilene Christian University. From there, she went shopping and got an afternoon massage that I had scheduled for her. The shopping and the message were the answer to her question, "If you go to Abilene so you can spend time in the library, what do I get to do?"

At the CRS, I gained a bit more in my quest to establish the timeline and travels of R. W. Officer (see previous post). Many thanks to Carisse Mickey Berryhill, who tracked down the Gospel Guide for me, and took care of a dozen other requests that day.

It also was a pleasure to finally meet in person and visit with Mac Ice at the CRS. Mac was preparing to set up an Restoration Movement hymnal display. Among the gems on the cart was the hymnal pictured here, published by Elias Smith at Boston in 1804!

We made it home late Friday evening. We were glad we got to have a quick vacation just before Michele began her new teaching job here in Tulia today.

Report on Forrest M. McCann, "Changes in Worship Music in Churches of Christ"

McCann, Forrest M. "'Time is Filled with Swift Transition': Changes in Worship Music in Churches of Christ." Restoration Quarterly 39 (Fourth Quarter 1997): 195-202.

This article was originally a speech, delivered at Abilene Christian University in 1997. Forrest McCann, a musician and historian, identifies and describes distinct episodes in the musical history of the Churches of Christ. According to him, they are as follows:

The Nineteen Century: The Campbell Tradition

No surprise, Alexander Campbell was the most significant influence on the worship music of the Disciples movement during the nineteenth century. Campbell had been raised a Presbyterian. Consequently, he favored the "metrical versions of the Psalms" well-known among the Presbyterians. His original hymnal of 1828 was republished a number of times. And, it served as the basis for hymnals produced by the American Christian Missionary Society between 1865 and 1882.

First Major Transition: Competition

In 1882, James Henry Fillmore published a song book that was much the same as the one produced by the ACMS. But, Fillmore's book was cheaper! Consequently, Campbell's dream of the the united Disciples having just one hymnal was crushed. Too, a new era of song-book competition began. Standard Publishing produced a hymnal in 1888, and in 1889, the Gospel Advocate came out with a hymnal whose lyrics were overseen and edited by E. G. Sewell. Interestingly, there was evidently no one among the Churches of Christ at the time who was qualified to oversee the music for the Gospel Advocate hymnal. So, a Methodist musician, Rigdon M. McIntosh who was on the faculty at Vanderbilt, did the job.

Second Major Transition: Advocate Books

Following the official separation between the Christian Churches and the non-instrument, non-society Churches of Christ in 1906, hymnals produced by the Gospel Advocate always had a non-instrument, Churches of Christ text editor. But, again, there was apparently no one in the group who was qualified to oversee the musical part of the hymnal. Consequently, an "instrumental" brother or someone like the Methodist Rigdon McIntosh edited the tunes. "The sad fact is that since the 1906 separation, Churches of Christ have never been a part of the mainstream of church song in America" (196).

Third Major Transition: Competition Again

Just as there was competition among Disciples hymnals in the 1880s, the emerging Churches of Christ witnessed similar competition. There were the Gospel Advocate hymnals, which competed with hymnals produced by the Firm Foundation, plus a large number of hymnals produced by independent editors. None of these hymnals featured songs whose words and music were consistently good.

Among the many hymnals published in the early 20th century, The Wonderful Story in Song (1917), by F. L. Rowe, was more substantial than most, and had some staying power (197). Some of the song books produced by the Churches of Christ in the first half of the twentieth century were of very low quality.

West of the Mississippi, Churches of Christ typically used the hymnals produced by the Firm Foundation headquartered in Texas. Hymnals were edited by G.H.P. Showalter, editor of the Firm Foundation magazine. The content of these hymnals was heavily influenced by F. L. Eiland, "the most prominent singing-school teacher among the Churches of Christ in Texas" and his proteges (197). Eiland's own Trio Music Company and subsequent Quartet Music Company produced several small, paperback hymnals, none of which lasted very long. These were filled with the words and music of Eiland and his students, songs which no one had ever sung before (and hardly since). Especially in the west, Churches of Christ were going their own way musically. This was a regional, mediocre tradition which produced very few songs which have lasted. Eiland's best-known book was The Gospel Gleaner (1901).

(FVB's guess is that the two best-known songs from this time and place are F. L. Eiland, "Time is Filled with Swift Transition," and a song by one of Eiland's students, Will Slater, "Walking Alone at Eve").

Fourth Major Transition: Great Songs

In May 1921, E. L. Jorgenson, a trained musician, completed Great Songs of the Church. Commendations poured in and were published in Word and Work, which had produced the new hymnal. Among Churches of Christ hymnals, the quality was unprecedented. And, this hymnal "reconnected the Churches of Christ with the great historic tradition of hymns and spiritual songs" (198). The book was a combination of Christian history and more-recent music produced by the Restoration Movement. Here was the best music from Christendom and from Restorationism. The musical isolationism of the Churches of Christ was coming to an end.

In producing Great Songs of the Church, Jorgenson was heavily influenced by the lesser-known W. E. M. Hackleman. For example, like Hackleman (and Fillmore), Jorgenson divided his collection into "Hymns" and "Gospel Songs."

Fifth Major Transition: The Dominance of Great Songs

The Gospel Advocate was silent about Great Songs, which was published by Word and Work, associated with R. H. Boll and premillennialism. Nonetheless, Great Songs became the standard everywhere, apparently because of its quality and despite its connections to "Bollism." By 1958, Jorgenson could say, "Nearly three million souls, in some 10,000 churches, now sing the Saviour's praises from its pages" (200). In the 50s, Jorgeson sold his standard-note edition of the hymnal to the Christian Standard, and the shaped-noted edition to Abilene Christian University. "The result of these transactions was that for the next decade and a half the heirs of the Stone-Campbell Movement again approached Alexander Campbell's dream of one hymnal for the churches" (200).

Sixth Major Transition: Imitation

Beginning in the mid-50s, producers of song books began simply copying songs straight from Great Songs of the Church. Sometimes the new books were 50 percent reproductions of songs from Jorgenson's work. They did so with impunity and apparently came to imagine that what they were doing was right. "His work, which has greatly elevated and standardized our hymnody, is now in its death throes because of inveterate copying. Perhaps my speech today is its requiem" (201). (Seems like this section should be called "Duplication" not "Imitation").

Seventh Major Transition: Current Events

McCann clearly saw the 1990s as an era of decline. A summary of his observations:

1. Only seventeen years later, it is astonishing to read McCann's assumption that part of the answer is to keep the best hymnals in print. (How many Christians sing from a printed hymnal anymore? They sing words projected onto a screen. In many cases, there is no musical notation).

2. Publishers of song books operate on the premise that more songs makes for a better book. McCann notes that by that time, there was a hymnal with over 1000 selections.

3. The advent of "so-called praise songs."

4. A trend toward performance music, music written for choirs and other trained musicians, not for "the average worshiper" (201).

In his conclusion, MaCann hints that the introduction of more-complicated music makes the adoption of instrumental music more likely. He quotes approvingly from a 1861 article by Isaac Errett in the Millennial Harbinger, which discusses the importance of music and singing.

See also, Forrest M. McCann, "Changing Our Tune: The History of Hymnals," Gospel Advocate 140 (December 1998), 12-16.

A is for Abductive, B is for Balderdash

It's not too often that you read "Hogwash!" in a scholarly book review. But that's exactly one of the comments that Tim Sensing, a professor at Abilene Christian University, makes in his review of the book A is for Abductive: The Language of the Emerging Church, by Leonard Sweet, Brian McLaren, and Jerry Haselmayer. Sensing's review appears in the most recent issue of Restoration Quarterly (Volume 51, Fourth Quarter 2009, pp. 251-253), and it serves as a model of one of the functions of good scholarship: to drive out bad scholarship.

According to Sensing, A is for Abductive is a dictionary type book that "advertises itself as a primer for people desiring to discern the thought processes of churches that are responding to postmodern culture." The book includes entries like "I is for Icon." But Sensing doesn't have to go beyond the very first entry, "A is for Abductive Method," to find what he calls "enough fodder" for his review. In that first entry, the authors cite the work of philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce, and advocate an approach to preaching that, instead of analyzing, looks to create an image or compose an experience. Sounds sexy, doesn't it?

But as Sensing points out, not only are the authors guilty of mere assertion, they apparently didn't bother to read the work of C. S. Pierce: you know, the work that supposedly provides the theoretical foundation for what they're saying. They do cite a 1970 dissertation dealing with Pierce's theory. So Sensing read the dissertation and compared it to A is for Abductive. What he found was "no basis for associating Pierce's understanding of the logic of scientific discovery to the abductive method presented by the authors." In short, Sweet, McLaren and Haselmayer have completely misappropriated C. S. Pierce, and are, at least in this case, patently guilty of a name-dropping sort of pseudo scholarship.

Meanwhile, Sensing points out, all of the sudden everyone's getting all "abductive." For example, a recent article by Paul Windsor, "A Space to Occupy: Creating a Missional Model for Preaching," (Stimulus, Vol. 13, no 1 [2005]: 20-25) cites A is for Abductive as though it were a genuine authority.

Carl Savage and William Presnell do much the same thing in their book Narrative Research in Ministry: A Postmodern Research Approach for Faith Communities (Louisville: Wayne E. Oates Institute, 2008). Sensing notes that Savage and Presnell cite A is for Abductive "to make claims about narrative research methodology. Relying on the authors' pseudo-work leads them to assert that the essence of narrative as the primary voice of theological research in ministry is 'non-logical.'" (This is where Sensing has to say, "Hogwash!"). He closes with, "Those footnoting this work contribute to the dissemination of ignorance."

Upon reading this review, I was reminded that some of the best preachers I've ever known didn't know much about communication theory per se. But they did love the Lord. They modeled, imperfectly, what it means to live for Him. And they understood a few things about how to convict and persuade people, how to show them the hope that is found only in Christ Jesus and build them up in faith. Most of that know-how came as a result of their deep study of the Bible and a passion for preaching God's Word.

I know, to some ears that might sound a bit sappy, nostalgic, inadequate. I can only protest that maybe that's part of what's behind the loss of vitality in American church life today. There can be no doubt that major shifts are taking place in American thought and life. I don't understand much about that. What I do know is that nonsense masquerading as Christian scholarship or "the next big thing" isn't the answer. How 'bout you?

"Sexism" and the Churches of Christ

I finally got in late Tuesday night, home from Abilene.

The rest of the lectures and classes I got hear (Monday night through Tuesday afternoon) were just as good as the ones I talked about last time. The Landon Saunders speech on Monday evening was something like an oracle.

Tuesday morning, I got to attend the Restoration Quarterly breakfast; even to got sit next to Carisse Berryhill who at Harding Graduate School and now at Abilene has always been so friendly and helpful to me in my studies. What a great lady and scholar she is.

I also got to hear Mark Shipp (on the early chapters of Hosea) and Glenn Pemberton (on the ambivalence we have in Churches of Christ about someone getting "a call to ministry" and the call narrative in Isaiah chapter 6).

After lunch, I went to Mike Casey's presentation on the subject of his latest book, Sir Garfield Todd. The best presentations you hear come whenever someone is speaking from a mind filled up from study and writing and reflection and prayer. That's the sort of thing I got to hear all day. What a pleasure. I even happened upon fellow blogger Bobby Valentine; so good to finally meet him in person.

That said, there's one perceived negative I want to mention and explore.

Something that most any observer of the ACU lectures would pick up on is that it has now become quite vogue (at least at Abilene during lectureship week) to come down hard on the "sexism" of the Churches of Christ.

In the opening lecture, for example, "racism" and "sexism" were mentioned together. Knowing the current situation in Churches of Christ, it was easy to connect the dots. Anyone who would argue for the traditional practice and position of the Churches of Christ on gender-and-worship questions is an unwitting "sexist" at best.

The next morning I attended a class in which the presenter told the story of a conversation he'd recently had. Someone who had attended the church where the presenter preaches told this preacher that he wouldn't be coming to his church. One of the reasons for staying away? The "sexism." The story was told in a way that affirmed the viewpoint of the dissenter. The upshot was that Churches of Christ have got to do something about their "sexism," or else.

To be fair, I should mention this. I realize that someone might say that, in the perception of someone unfamiliar with the Churches of Christ, current practice in most of our congregations might be taken as blatant sexism. It has sometimes been perceived (when our buildings weren't so plush) that acappella churches simply couldn't afford a piano.

But has it occurred to people who increasingly favor the s-word that congregations of the Church of Christ that are so "progressive" they encourage women to preside at the Lord's table would seem hopelessly sexist to many outsiders because they have not also ordained women to be some of the preachers and elders?

And I wonder. Where is the tolerance for people who hold to traditional positions on these questions, not because of their misogyny (if they know their own hearts and are extended a measure of trust) but because they think that's what the Word of God really says?

Why must these people be told they're guilty of "sexism" by their loving brothers and sisters who evidently assume that the other side can maintain their stance only when they maintain inherited-but-flawed interpretations combined with a bad heart and good-ole'-boy attitudes, the feeling created by the s-word.

Isn't there a way of taking issue with the traditional position on this set of questions without ascribing to others the motive of a latent sexism? I say there is. Study Scripture. Review history. Talk about tradition. Analyze arguments. Speak about how people think and feel. Make any points pro and con. Unveil what you believe is the vision and intent and heart of God according to the Scriptures.

Christian people should be able to do that without resorting to labels and names that serve no good purpose.

Live from the ACU Lectureship

Yesterday I drove across not-so-dusty-because-we've-had-rain-this-year West Texas. All the way from Amarillo to Abilene. (There's got to be a country song in there somewhere, but I think it's already been written).

Anyway, I got to the campus of ACU just in time to hear the opening speech. You can read the story from the Abilene News-Reporter here. Jerry Taylor's sermon on "What Does the Lord Require?" really was excellent.

Afterwards I went to "Gospel and Culture Coffee House" session on "Dirty Little Secret: The PostSecret Phenomenon." Have you heard about PostSecret? The session gave some basic information about this extremely-popular (and powerful) site. Towards the end, the presenters raised questions like,

What does PostSecret teach us about the therapeutic value of revealing secrets?

And what does this huge phenomenon say about the importance of confession in the church?

Today, I went to a morning class on "Telling a Better Story," taught by John Siburt. At 11:00 I got to experience a fantastic keynote speech by Fred Asare, a Christian minister (of the Word and to the poor) from Accra, Ghana. I haven't heard anything so moving in such a long time.

At lunchtime, I went to the Leaven Journal Luncheon. There were eleven for Leaven (just one of the jokes the group came up with). I was happy to meet or meet again the folks who were there. But I was disappointed that a meeting about a common interest and the future one of our better print journals was so poorly attended. What's happening to serial publications among the Churches of Christ? Do people simply not read religious magazines anymore? Is this a result of the demise of the strong doctrinal consensus that used to characterize the Churches of Christ?

I bet a lot of folks will turn out to hear Landon Saunders tonight. He's speaking on Micah 3:1-12, "Night Without Vision."

Off to Abilene

As things turn out, I'm getting to go to Abilene this year for the lectureship at ACU, which starts Sunday night. I won't get to take in the whole thing, but will get to be there for most of two days.
One thing I'm really looking forward to is the chance to meet up with, in the flesh, at least a few people I've met by way of the blogs. I'll be the white, middle-aged, bald guy in glasses. . . . Oh, wait. That won't narrow it down much, will it?

Anyway, it's also going to be great to hear some of the best spirits and minds of our day. Looking through the lectureship brochure, it's hard for me to decide on a certain class. The last time I felt like this, I was about ten years old, looking through the Sears and Roebuck Christmas Wishbook.

In case you aren't going to be there, but are interested in the lectures, the theme lectures will be broadcast live at http://www.acappellaradio.net/. You can also catch them at Acappella Radio on iTunes. The brochure also says that CDs and DVDs of the lectures will be available.