David Lipscomb on the Roles of Christian Women, 1892

In October 1892, David Lipscomb set out to define what Churches of Christ should teach and practice regarding the roles of Christian women in church and society. He began by quoting New Testament passages restricting the activities of women in Christian assemblies (1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11), and passages that call on Christian wives to submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18; and 1 Peter 3:1-6). Lipscomb insisted that the teaching of these verses "does not degrade woman." He also insisted that, aside from contemporary influence to the contrary, the divine teaching must be obeyed. To see what can happen when women lead churches, one would need to look no further than the Congregationalists of New England who had drifted far from their staid Puritan past. Lipscomb concluded by referring to the Disciples' General Christian Missionary Convention, held that year in Nashville, where women had spoken from the stage in full assemblies. "That meeting," he said, "should be regarded a sin against God and an offense to the Christian womanhood of Nashville and of the South."[1]

Note

[1] David Lipscomb, "Woman and Her Work," Gospel Advocate 34 (October 13, 1892), 644.

Fracture and Division in the Stone-Campbell Movement

Judging by the views of David Lipscomb, long-time editor of the Gospel Advocate magazine, the ten-year period from 1897 to 1907 saw the Stone-Campbell Movement go from fractured to divided. In 1897, Lipscomb said there was “a radical and fundamental difference between the disciples of Christ and the society folks.” Society folks, he said, “desire to build up a strong and respectable denomination. To do it they rely on strong and moneyed societies, fine houses, fashionable music, and eloquent speeches, too often devoid of gospel truth.”[1]  A decade later, in 1907, Lipscomb was ready to declare that the Christian Church and the Churches of Christ were “distinct and separate” bodies.[2]

Notes

[1] David Lipscomb, "The Churches across the Mountains," Gospel Advocate 39 (January 7, 1897), 4.

[2] David Lipscomb, "The Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ," Gospel Advocate 49 (July 18, 1907), 450.

Meta Chestnutt in Tennessee, 1886-1888

The previous post ended with a question: If Meta Chestnutt grew up in a liberal, "digressive" Disciples environment in North Carolina in the 1860s and 70s, why did she hold conservative, "anti" views as a young adult and for the rest of her life?

The most likely answer has everything to do with her time in Nashville, from 1886 until 1888. During her student days at the State Normal College, Chestnutt found herself in a thriving church environment. For example, she would have heard the the preaching and teaching of David Lipscomb (pictured here) and E. G. Sewell, co-editors of the anti-instrument and anti-society Gospel Advocate magazine, published from Nashville.

In 1870, Lipscomb realized he needed help in producing the Advocate. He asked Sewell to edit the magazine with him, and from that time until Lipscomb's death forty-seven years later, the two men worked together. Each was a powerful voice for the distinctive viewpoint of the emerging Churches of Christ. In addition to their teaching through the Advocate, the two leaders preached to thousands of people in Middle Tennessee and beyond. During those years, Sewell help to establish the Woodland Street Christian Church in East Nashville. He preached for the congregation for twelve years and for a time served as one of the church's elders. Lipscomb was also an active as a leader among Restoration Movement churches in and around Nashville. In 1891, he and James A. Harding would establish the Nashville Bible School, known today as Lipscomb University.[1] 

By the end of 1889, Lipscomb looked back over the past twenty years with pride: "In 1869 we had one church in Nashville with a membership of about 500. Now we have five churches and three promising missions with a membership of over 2,500 in the city."[2] The five congregations Lipscomb mentioned were the old first church, established in the mid-1820s, with its brand new building on Vine Street; North Nashville Christian Church (organized in 1882); Woodland Street in East Nashville (1883); and the Foster Street and South Nashville congregations, both established in 1887.[3]

Notes

[1] On David Lipscomb, see H. Leo Boles, Biographical Sketches of Gospel Preachers (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1932), 243-47; and Robert E. Hooper, "Lipscomb, David (1831-1917)," in Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, 480-82. On E. G. Sewell, see Boles, 238-42; and David H. Warren, "Sewell, Elisha Granville (1830-1924)," in ESCM, 680-681. See also David L. Little, "Gospel Advocate," in ESCM, 361-63. 

[2] "From the Papers," Gospel Advocate 31 no. 47 (November 20, 1889), 737.

[3] "History of the Christian Church in Nashville," Daily American (Nashville), (January 26, 1890), 10.

Meta Chesnutt's Academic Success

When Meta Chestnutt was growing up, her brother, Isaac, teased her for being so tall and thin. He said she looked a bean pole and started calling her "Beany." The nickname apparently stayed with her. When someone at Bethel Academy, comparable to a modern high school, mailed her spring 1882 grade report, they addressed it to eighteen-year-old "Beny Chestnutt."[1] But there was nothing laughable about her school work. During the semester ending April 7, 1882, she was never absent or tardy. Her lowest grade was in Algebra: 94 percent.[2] Two years later, in June 1884, she graduated from Bethel, was named the class valedictorian, and delivered an address at the commencement ceremony. That fall, she began her studies at the Greenville Institute, later named the State Teachers' College, in Greenville, North Carolina. Upon graduating from the Institute in the spring of 1886, she was approached by her principal, J. W. Duckett, a former North Carolina State Superintendent of Schools, who had a surprise. Without her knowledge, Duckett had secured for her a full scholarship from the North Carolina State Board of Education and a place in the incoming class at the Peabody Normal School, later known as the George Peabody College for Teachers, in Nashville. By then, she was a confident twenty-three year old, well-prepared for the next academic challenge. During her student days at Peabody, she made time and was permitted to teach Bible classes that included young men at the South Nashville Christian Church.[3] David Lipscomb served as one of the congregation's elders until he died in 1917. South Nashville's first revival meeting was conducted by Larimore in 1887, during which 123 people confessed their faith in Christ and were baptized.[4] It was likely at the South Nashville Church that Chestnutt met Larimore, one of the best-known evangelists among the Churches of Christ in his generation.[5] Larimore learned about Chestnutt's dream of conducting an educational mission among Indians. He told her he knew W. J. and Annie Erwin, Christians and residents of Silver City, Indian Territory, a community that needed a teacher.[6]

Notes

[1] Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection, box 3, folder 1.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Eva Heiliger, "Born to Meet Adversity," 16-18.

[4] John Wooldridge, Elijah Embree Hoss, and William B. Reese, History of Nashville, Tennessee (Nashville: H. W. Crew, 1890), 496-97.

[5] Douglas A. Foster, "Larimore, Theophilus Brown (1843-1929)," in Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, 452-53.

[6] Heiliger, 18.

Spreading the Lord's Table: History of an Idiom (3)

Naturally, the language of well-known hymns made its way into the common speech of people who sang them. For example, in his series "On the Breaking of Bread," published in 1825, Alexander Campbell quoted an English translation of John Calvin's monumental Institutes of the Christian Religion to the effect that "Every week, at least, the table of the Lord should have been spread for Christian assemblies; and the promises declared, by which, in partaking of it, we might be spiritually fed."[1]

In 1861, Isaac Errett noted that Restoration Movement congregations in his time would typically "spread the table in the name of the Lord, for the Lord's people, and allow all to come who will, each on his own responsibility."[2]

According to David Lipscomb, the Lord's Supper is "a board spread with the food our Father has prepared for sustaining and developing the spiritual life of his children." In response to the Lord's intention, it is the duty of the church, "our mother," to "spread the table with the life-invigorating viands provided by the Father, and invite the children to partake of them at the regular interval."[3]

Notes

[1] Alexander Campbell, "A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things. No. IX. On the Breaking of Bread. No. IV," Christian Baptist 3, no. 4 (November 7, 1825), 85.

[2] "Letter from I. Errett," Millennial Harbinger, Fifth series, 4, no. 12 (December 1861), 711.

[3] David Lipscomb, "The Lord's Supper," Gospel Advocate 10, no. 9 (February 27, 1868), 200.

E. G. Sewell on the Tabernacle (1)

In 1886, the same year that Meta Chestnutt came to Nashville to begin her studies at Peabody, E. G. Sewell, coeditor with David Lipscomb of the The Gospel Advocate magazine, based in Nashville, published two front-page articles that gave a symbolic interpretation of the biblical tabernacle.

Sewell began by establishing the tabernacle's New Testament counterpart. Not surprisingly, he identified what Protestants had favored for hundreds of years: "That the Jewish tabernacle, in many of its leading features foreshadowed the church of God, is admitted by all." From there, he submitted that the second room, the Most Holy place, should be understood as "a figure, or type of heaven," with "the divine presence upon the mercy seat to foreshadow the eternal presence of God himself in that blessed abode." The first room, or Holy Place, is "a type of the church of the living God on earth." This stood to reason, because in the same way that one entered the Holy Place before going further into the Most Holy Place, so one enters the church before finally reaching heaven. Consequently "all the articles of furniture" in the Holy Place "and the acts performed here are figurative of the worship of the Lord's house on earth."[1] This orientation--with the Most Holy Place as heaven, the Holy Place as the church on earth, and area outside the tent as preliminary--provided the template for Sewell's biblical exposition.

Table of Shewbread

The remainder of Sewell's first article interprets the symbolic meaning of two items in the Holy Place: the table of shewbread and the candlestick. "The table," he wrote, "foreshadows the Lord's table in the church of God on earth." In the same way that the twelve loaves were replaced every week, so it is that every week, Christians are to partake of the Lord's Supper. And in the same way that the priests removed the loaves each Sabbath day, so there is a "specified time" for Christians to observe the Lord's Supper, "the first day of the week." Sewell emphasized that just as divine directions were not to be neglected by the Old Testament priests, "so the breaking of the loaf must not be neglected by the children of God now in the congregations of the Lord." In fact, fidelity to the will of God should, if anything, be stronger in the Christian age. "While the Jewish priests cold only consider the table and shewbread as a formal ordinance, Christians can now see in the broken loaf of the Lord's table an emblem of the actual, real body of the Son of God that was broken, mangled upon the Roman cross, that poor sinners might live."[2]

Notes

[1] E. G. Sewell, "The Tabernacle," Gospel Advocate 28 (January 27, 1886), 49. See also "Temple Building," Gospel Advocate 31 (August 21, 1889), 536, where Sewell writes that the tabernacle "was figurative of the church of God, the spiritual temple on earth now," and "Information Wanted," Gospel Advocate 31 (October 2, 1889), 631. For a brief biography, see David H. Warren, "Sewell, Elisha Granville (1830-1924)," in Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, 680-81.

[2] Sewell, "The Tabernacle," 49.

Meta Chestnutt Sager's Letter to Eva Heiliger, February 11, 1945 (7)

Sager critiques the practice of baptism by sprinkling or pouring, and advances baptism strictly by immersion, along several different lines. Specifically, she appeals to the New Testament phrase "one baptism," to church history, Greek philology, and the particulars of the setting in Acts 8:26-39, which tells the story of Philip's baptizing the eunuch from Africa. Using the language of Paul's Letter to the Ephesians 4:5, she writes: "the Church of Christ, the Kingdom of heaven on earth, has one Lord, one faith, one baptism." She adds that the "one baptism"--which she takes to as a reference to only one form of baptism--"was practiced until about three hundred years after Christ when the Catholic Church was formally established; and the one baptism was practiced by all Catholics until for convenience the Pope decreed the change to sprinkling. . . . Ask any priest and he will admit that immersion was the original form." There is no evidence that Sager ever studied Greek, the language of the New Testament. But she is able to cite what she regards as a personal authority: "I asked a Greek from Greece what they understood by baptize and he said no Greek understood anything else but to immerse." Finally, much like a good defense attorney, Sager preempts the suggestion that because the baptism of the eunuch took place in the "desert" (Acts 8:26), he could not have been immersed: "I know some try to say there was no water at that place in the desert, but it is a known fact from history that at that particular place and particular time of the year there was a pool of abundant water. No informed person will risk his scholarship in denying the fact."[1] Here, Sager is in all likelihood relying on her memory of having read J. W. McGarvey's commentary on Acts, or her memory of sermons by men like David Lipscomb and T. B. Larimore. Perhaps she had even heard McGarvey himself, who wrote:

The term desert is not here to be understood in its stricter sense of a barren waste, but in its more general acceptation, of a place thinly inhabited. Such an interpretation is required by the geography of the country.  . . . The only road from Jerusalem to Gaza, which passed through a level district suitable for wheeled vehicles, was that by Bethlehem to Hebron, and thence across a plain to Gaza. According to Dr. Hackett, this is "the desert" of Luke i: 80, in which John the Immerser grew up. Dr. S.[sic] T. Barclay, who traversed this entire route in May, 1853, says that he traveled, after leaving "the immediate vicinity of Hebron, over one of the very best roads (with slight exceptions) and one of the most fertile countries that I ever beheld."[2]

Notes

[1] Meta Chestnutt Sager to Eva Heiliger, February 11, 1945.

[2] J. W. McGarvey, A Commentary on Acts of the Apostles, 7th ed. (Lexington, KY: Transylvania Printing and Publishing Company, 1872), 95-96. The Barclay to whom McGarvey refers was J. T. Barclay, who became the first international missionary of the Stone-Campbell Movement when in 1850 he traveled to Jerusalem to launch a mission to Jews who lived there. See Paul M. Blowers, "Barclay, James Turner (1807-1874)," in Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004), 69-70.

Meta Chestnutt Complains in the Gospel Advocate, 1895

The issue of the Gospel Advocate for August 22, 1895, includes an article titled "El-Meta Christian College." Although it appears unsigned, it was no doubt written and submitted by Meta Chestnutt. Several personal notes and a distinctive style mark the piece as hers. For example, in her unmistakable rhetoric, Meta refers to her school as "that from which early childhood was the star that glimmered in the distant future."[1] She credits T. B. Larimore for his encouragement and "wise counsel" while the school was still in the planning stages. But since her arrival in Indian Territory, only two other preachers had issued "one word of private cheer or public encouragement": J. H. Hardin and D. T. Broadus.[2] 

In addition to a lack of support from leaders, she complains about a dearth of financial support. She was "beguiled" by a promise now unfulfilled, a failure that now branded the movement "with deception and lying." Both "prog" (progressives among the Disciples) and "antis" (those who stood against instrumental music and missionary societies) "silently refused to send one dollar to aid in planting the standard of Jesus." In addition to the monies contributed by members of the Minco church and by other residents of the town, it would require only three thousand dollars more "to clear up the outside debts and finish the present building." Mission work like hers certainly merited "the consideration of those who feel it their duty to 'go teach all nations'."[3]

Although he disagreed with the assumption of Meta's article, true to form David Lipscomb, editor of the Gospel Advocate, published it. But he did include his own remarks at the end: "I have no doubt the El-Meta College deserves the help and good will of Christians, . . . but when any think they can lay the brotherhood of disciples under obligation of honor for work they undertake, they are mistaken. To charge a forfeiture of honor is a wrong charge."[4] In spite of what Lipscomb wrote, over fifty years later, Meta still believed "The church in the East gave me a mighty raw deal."[5]

Notes

[1] "El-Meta Christian College," Gospel Advocate (August 22, 1895), 532.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 532-33.

[4] Ibid., 533. Lipscomb sometimes gave space in the Gospel Advocate to dissenting views. For example, on the subject of women's roles in the church he published a number of articles with which he disagreed, written by a woman, no less. See, for instance, Selina Holman, "Let Your Women Keep Silent," Gospel Advocate (August 1, 1888), 8; "The Scriptural Status of Women," (October 10, 1888), 2-3; "The 'New Woman'," (July 9, 1896), 438; "The New Woman, No. 2," (July 16, 1896), 452-53. For a good discussion of the exchange between Holman and Lipscomb, see C. Leonard Allen, "The New Woman," in Distant Voices: Discovering a Forgotten Past for a Changing Church (Abilene, TX: ACU Press, 1993), 126-35.

[5] Meta Chestnutt Sager to Eva Heiliger, November 18, 1946, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection, box 3, folder 20.

Report on Bill Humble, "The Influence of the Civil War"

Humble, B. J. "The Influence of the Civil War." Restoration Quarterly 8 (Fourth Quarter 1965): 233-47.

In 1860, there were 1,241 congregations of Disciples in the North, and 829 in the South. Moreover, many of these congregations were in the Ohio Valley, and in border states like Kentucky and Missouri, where there was a good bit of internal division. These churches decided to stay completely out of politics because there were within the same congregation sympathizers on both sides of the slavery question. In time, preachers were completely hands-off regarding the War and its sources. The Disciples were determined to maintain the unity of their fellowship, unlike most denominations which had, by that time, already divided into North and South.

Christian Pacifism

Almost all of the Disciple leaders of the era (with the evangelist Walter Scott as a notable exception) argued for strict non-participation, either as a matter of conviction or in the practical interests of unity. J.W. McGarvey was an outstanding advocate of pacifism. This position was strong in Middle Tennessee, influenced by and reflecting the words of David Lipscomb.

At the same time, there were participants among the Disciples: both Alexander Campbell Jr. and Barton Stone Jr. wore the Confederate gray. James A. Garfield was a Union major general. And, in spite of the pacifists in the middle, brotherhood journals spanned the spectrum: from pro-Union abolitionists, to defenders of the Confederacy.

Franklin and Fanning: Sectional Symbols

Benjamin Franklin and Tolbert Fanning were mirror images of the other. Both were pacifists who mentioned their belief that the North (Franklin) and the South (Fanning) were in the right. And, they both believed as an expedient that, for the sake of unity, the only right course was for editors and preachers and churches to completely stay away from the war question.

On Record for the Union

During the first wartime meeting of the American Christian Missionary Society in 1861, there were no Southerners in attendance, and a pro-Union resolution was passed, encouraged by an out-of-session speech by James A. Garfield, wearing a blue uniform. In the pages of the Gospel Advocate, shortly before it discontinued publication, Tolbert Fanning reacted in shock and anger. Earlier, in 1859, Fanning had attended a meeting of the Society, announcing that congregations could and should conduct missionary activity, but also saying that he and others were one with those who supported the missionary society. It was when the society adopted the explicitly pro-Union statement that Fanning's language completely changed.

A Declaration of Loyalty

From the other side, there were abolitionists among the Disciples who felt strongly that the missionary society had not gone far enough, and that the organization should pledge an oath of loyalty to the Union. In 1863, the society formally made its pledge.

A Problem of Historiography

In 1866, Moses Lard confidently stated that the tensions of the Civil War had not broken the unity of the Disciples. Humble notes that a line of various restoration historians accepted and reported Lard's declaration:

1. W. E. Garrison, Religion Follows the Frontier
2. Garrison and DeGroot, The Disciples of Christ
3. Earl I. West, The Search for the Ancient Order, Vol. 1
4. James DeForest, Christians Only

Only David Edwin Harrell, in his 1962 Vanderbilt dissertation, "A Social History of the Disciples of Christ to 1866," challenged the assumption that the Disciples remained united through the Civil War.

"The assumption that the Disciples escaped a Civil War division requires drastic revision, perhaps a complete repudiation for the evidence proves that the Civil War did play an important role in the Disciples' schism" (245).

Humble observes that David Lipscomb, editor of the Gospel Advocate for decades starting in 1866, was even more bitter in his asides against the North than Fanning had been before the War. That is, the end of the war marked the beginning of wider division.

"The Civil War had so shattered the sense of brotherhood between northern and southern Christians that they could never again be called 'one people' in any meaningful sense.  . . . What had happened was that two threads of alienation--sectional bitterness and antagonistic understandings of the restoration principle--had become tangled together and had shattered the Christians' oneness" (246).

Humble says that if the Disciples had had a denominational structure, then the group would have divided into two distinct churches, much like other groups which did have a denominational structure. The Disciples told themselves that their unity had survived the war. In 1906, the United States Census Bureau said otherwise.

Notes on "Divisions in North America: The Emergence of Churches of Christ and Disciples of Christ," Chap. 5 in The Stone-Campbell Movement

"Divisions in North America: The Emergence of Churches of Christ and Disciples of Christ," Chapter 5 in The Stone-Campbell Movement: A Global History (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2013): 76-93.

Overview of Contents

The chapter begins by noting that 1866 saw three important events:

(a) the death of Alexander Campbell
(b) the resumption of the Gospel Advocate
(c) the beginning of the Christian Standard.

For many years Campbell had worked to smooth over rifts in the Movement he presided over. But division, signaled by the content of the Advocate and the Standard, led to the recognition of two separate bodies: Churches of Christ and Disciples of Christ, a division "documented by the 1906 U.S. Census of Religious Bodies" (76).

Tolbert Fanning imbibed the "apocalyptic" worldview of B. W. Stone, and the biblical primitivism of A. Campbell. Fanning, in turn, deeply influenced young David Lipscomb. Their outlook, combined with a strong sectional bias, generated among the Southern churches an opposition to

(a) missionary societies
(b) instrumental music in Christian worship
(c) the called, resident preacher system.

By contrast, Disciples, those in the North, misunderstood and rejected the Southern emphasis on what appeared to be doctrinal tests of fellowship based on identification of and adherence to scriptural positive law. Northerners emphasized a theme found in both The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery and Thomas Campbell's Declaration and Address: that "compulsory confessions of faith" are "a source of religious tyranny and division" (80).

"Two events symbolized the growing divergence of outlook in the Movement" (81). Those two events were

(a) the 1889 publication of the Sand Creek, Illinois, "Address and Declaration." Closely connected with the leadership of Daniel Sommer, this document wrote out those guilty of embracing and retaining "innovations." Significantly, both J. H. Garrison, editor of the Christian-Evangelist and Lipscomb, editor of the Advocate, condemned the document.
(b) the General Christian Missionary Convention held in Nashville in October 1892. Lipscomb attended and came away with much to criticize. As he put it, the event was "an open, defiant rejection of God and his holy word" (81).

Those in charge of the U.S. Religious Census perceived the rift and began to ask questions. When Lipscomb published an official query and his own responses in the Gospel Advocate, J. H. Garrison responded in disbelief in the pages of the Christian-Evangelist. Lipscomb defended himself by insisting that he had simply answered a direct question posed by a government official and had provided clarity for readers of the Gospel Advocate. But to Garrison, Lipscomb's editorial represented a power grab and a throwing down of the gauntlet.

The authors note that "[t]he division reflected in the census data cut across racial lines" (82). They tell the stories of two black leaders, Alexander Campbell and S. W. Womack. Both parted from the society/instrument Christian churches in Nashville and eventually began the Jackson Street Church of Christ, "the 'mother church' of African American Churches of Christ" (83). Campbell and Womack recruited G. P. Bowser, an A.M.E. Church minister, who, beginning in 1897, left the Methodists for the Christian Church, and finally united with the Jackson Street Church. Bowser initiated the Christian Echo, and was involved in the establishment of the Silver Point Christian Institute at Silver Point, TN in 1907. From Jackson Street came one of the great evangelists of black Churches of Christ, S. W. Womack's son-in-law, Marshall Keeble.

The authors observe that the 1906 Census both defined the previously-existing division and prompted congregations to choose a side. "In the impoverished and defeated South, most members of the Stone-Campbell Movement identified faithfulness to Christ as obedience to the positive commands of the New Testament. In the prosperous and victorious North, most Stone-Campbell Christians identified faithfulness as trust in the person of Christ" (84).

Several intellectual and social currents (e.g., Darwinism) were felt most strongly in the prosperous, urbanizing North. Perhaps most significant among these was biblical higher criticism. In response to higher-critical theories, conservatism was personified by J. W. McGarvey. On the left were leaders like E. B. Cake, Alexander Procter, and most notably, Robert C. Cave. In December 1889, Cave preached a sermon, published in the St. Louis Republic under the title "Clerical Sensation," in which he denied the virginal conception and bodily resurrection of Jesus. J. H. Garrison, who had taken a moderate view on matters of higher criticism, believed that Cave has crossed a line. While condemning Cave's views, Garrison attempted to maintain both faithfulness to the core message and healthy spirit of inquiry. 

Another moderate like Garrison was Isaac Errett. He was willing to affirm Christ as "the foundation of faith," and believed that the Bible was "a reliable guide." But notably, Errett would not affirm that the Bible was free from error, and refused to apply the word "infallible" to the Scriptures.

Such struggles among the predominately-northern Disciples generated "conservatives, liberals, and moderates." Some, like B.B. Tyler, W. T. Moore, and Samuel H. Church, the grandson of Walter Scott, were much more liberal and ecumenical in outlook than were others, like J. A. Lord, editor of the Standard, and H. G. Allen, editor of the Old Path Guide.

Churches of Christ also exhibited three distinct groupings:

(a) "the Tennessee Tradition, led by David Lipscomb and James A. Harding"
(b) "the Indiana Tradition, led by Daniel Sommer"
(c) "the Texas Tradition, led by Austin McGary" (89).

These three--named for origin, but not necessarily designating territorial dominance--vied for influence among Churches of Christ as the twentieth century unfolded. Each held sets of values that sometimes overlapped with one or both of the others, but on other points stood opposed.

The Tennessee Tradition "represented a fusion of the apocalyptic and positive law traditions of the Stone-Campbell Movement" (89). Indiana "shared the Tennessee Tradition's antipathy toward sophistication, worldliness, and the power of industrialists" (90). But unlike both Tennessee or Texas, Indiana took an even stronger stand against institutionalism, while upholding what were called the "rights, privileges, and duties" of women in Christian assemblies. The Texas Tradition was best-known for its rejection of any baptism that was not known by the candidate to be "for the remission of sins."

The chapter closes with the note that some leaders, like T. B. Larimore and Frederick D. Kershner, maintained a commitment to ignoring what they regarded as divisive issues.

Comments and Questions

1. When it comes to the historiography I'm acquainted with and presentations I've heard, it's clear that this chapter picks up and applies the term "apocalyptic" as it was used by R. Hughes in Reviving the Ancient Faith (1996). Hughes employed the term to describe the worldview of the Stoneite Movement. Similarly, the chapter borrows the three-fold variety (Tennessee, Texas, and Indiana) within emerging Churches of Christ that has been noticed and so named by J. M. Hicks and B. Valentine.

2. For reasons I have a hard time articulating, I've never thought that "apocalyptic" was the best word for what Hughes was describing. Now nearly twenty years later, in the wake of cultural items such as the spoof film This is the End, I like "apocalyptic" even less. Has/can anyone suggest an alternative word or phrase that would be a better fit and supplant the old term that is now semantically beyond the point of popping?

3. Significantly I suppose, this chapter ignores Hughes' suggestion in Reviving the Ancient Faith that the two branches described are partially the result of a change in A. Campbell. In 1837, he debated the Roman Catholic Bishop Purcell and thus became a popular defender of Protestantism over against Catholicism. As I recall, Hughes sees Churches of Christ as the heirs of the pre-1837 "sectarian" Campbell, with Disciples being the heirs of the post-1837, "ecumenical" Campbell (my terms in scare quotes, not necessarily Hughes'). To what extent is that an accurate and useful interpretation of the division?

4. It's much safer to agree that the authors have rightly picked up and used the work of D. E. Harrell, Jr. regarding sectional aspects of the division.

5. If I could add a potential footnote to the final section of the chapter, it would be the cooperation in Indian Territory between Meta Chestnutt (a North Carolina Disciple who received assistance from the ACMS) and R. W. Officer (an evangelist from Tennessee who opposed the societies and who was published more in the Octographic Review than in any other journal). As I recently discovered, they both knew and had significant contact with T. B. Larimore, who traveled to I.T. in order to encourage them and their work.

A Letter from T. B. Larimore

In the "Gospel Advocate" dated March 22, 1894, David Lipscomb explains one reason why he's calling attention to the weeks-long "meeting" that T. B. Larimore was then conducting at Sherman, Texas.

The purpose of his report, he says "is simply to use this meeting as the basis of an appeal to preachers and churches everywhere to do more preaching. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save folks, and the means of salvation ought to be vigorously operated night and day as long as there are people to save."

Lipscomb points to passages like Acts 19:9-10. In the lecture hall of Tyrannus, located in the city of Ephesus, Paul had spoken every day for two years. As a result, everyone living in the province of Asia had heard the word of the Lord.

The editor also notes Acts 20:30, where Paul reminds the elders from Ephesus that for the space of three years he had not ceased to warn them night and day with tears. Then, with tongue in cheek, Lipscomb concludes that long meetings are scriptural, provided that they don't continue night and day for more than three years! Lipscomb realizes that all of this raises an important question:

"But how can a preacher hold up so long and preach continuously every day? How can he find sermons enough to preach? On these points I wrote Brother Larimore for his experience, etc., and received the following reply:"

[What follows is the entire letter from T. B. Larimore as quoted by Lipscomb. Words in italics appear that way in the original, I assume because those words had been underlined by Larimore himself]:

Yours received. Much obliged. I hastily answer as best I can. We are just beginning to get things loosened up at the roots. The interest is increasing every day. You are anxious to know how I am holding up. I am well. Nothing can be better for me than to preach twice every day and three times on Sunday--unless it is to preach three times "every day and Sunday too." My voice? It's all right. Length of sermons? Fifty minutes--entire service, seventy minutes. When is the meeting to close? No mortal knows. Subjects and material for sermons? The Bible is full of them. Its treasures are simply inexhaustible. Study? That I do. I am not only studying, but learning--learning rapidly every day. I see new beauties in the Bible every day, and am simply astonished at at the sweet, sublime simplicity of God's eternal truth. Exhaust the Bible themes, and thoughts, and truths, at this rate, after a while? Yes, when the swallows drink the ocean dry. What books do I consult? The Bible, Webster's Dictionary, and the Bible--these three, and no more. How long do I propose to fight on this line? Till mustered out of service. Texas is glorious country. Sherman is a good, growing town. Young and old are standing by me bravely in this fight. May the Lord forever bless them all. We are having a pleasant meeting--not wild, bewildering excitement, but a genuine revival, the effects of which will last till time shall be no more--a sacred school, where a thousand pupils are learning the word, the will, and the way of the Lord. I have a perfect home, where every wish is gratified.

More About That T. B. Larimore Meeting

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the great T. B. Larimore (1843-1929) and his emphasis on Christian unity.

That post included a bit of information about a famous 5-month "meeting" that Larimore held in the city of Sherman, Texas during the first half of 1894. Preaching fifteen sermons a week, Larimore led over 250 people to Christ. I wanted to know more about that meeting.

While I was in Abilene for the ACU lectureship, I got to spend a little time in their library. The staff there helped me track down the microfilm reel for Volume 36 (1894) of the Gospel Advocate magazine.

Evidently, we know as much as we do about the Sherman meeting because David Lipscomb, the main editor of the GA, took quite an interest in what was happening. Starting on the front page of the issue dated March 22, 1894, Lipscomb wrote:

"The meeting now in progress at Sherman, Texas, has grown to considerable proportions, and a few random remarks and observations concerning it might not be unprofitable reading in these columns."

Evidently, Lipscomb had learned about the meeting in a letter he had received from one "Brother Earnest Hildebrand." Lipscomb describes Hildebrand as "an active co-worker in the meeting, and a zealous member of the Sherman church." Lipscomb then quotes Hildebrand's letter:

"Brother Larimore's work with us has been, in many respects, remarkable. It began with the new year, and has continued, with steady and constantly-increasing interest to the present--nine full weeks--two discourses every day and three every Sunday. Still, nobody seems tired, and no one seems willing to entertain the thought of closing the meeting. Indeed, the church, preacher, and people seem more anxious and in better condition in all respects for work to-day than on any previous day of the year. There has never been the slightest indication of even a probable decline in interest, or in the mental, physical, or heart-power of any one engaged or interested in the work."

Hildebrand then turns to the question of how Larimore is holding up:

"How our preacher endures all this mental, physical, and heart-pressure, and grows clearer and stronger every day, we do not know. He attributes it to Providence, and this may be the secret of it all."

And the results to that point?

"The number of additions thus far is small considering the number and character of discourses--133 discourses, and 153 additions. These figures express only a small per cent of the good accomplished by this work."

What was the procedure? How did things work?

"The services are all very simple: a prayer, a song, a sermon, an invitation song, confessions, baptism, any necessary remarks or announcements, closing song, benediction. The sermons are strictly scriptural and practical. Our brief voluntary song-service closes and the pulpit service begins promptly at 3.30 P.M., and 7.50 P.M. every day, and at 10.50 A.M., 3.30 P.M., and 7.50 P.M. every Sunday. The entire services, not including the voluntary song-service, occupy seventy minutes."

That's the entire letter from Hildebrand as quoted by Lipscomb. Interesting, isn't it?

Comments? Reactions? Thoughts?

P.S. Once he realized what was happening at Sherman, David Lipscomb wrote a letter to Larimore to get an update from the preacher himself. Next time, I'll post the letter that Larimore sent to Lipsomb in reply. Stay tuned.