Antebellum Gospel Advocate on Rebaptism: Tolbert Fanning and William Lipscomb

March 8, 2013

While David Lipscomb, editor the Gospel Advocate after the Civil War (beginning in 1866), opposed rebaptizing those who were immersed to obey God though they did not understand its design for the remission of sins, the original editors of the GA thought differently.  While reading through the 1855-1861 GA, I  ran across the following two statements from Tolbert Fanning (David Lipscomb’s mentor) and William Lipscomb (David Lipscomb’s older brother).

1. Fanning, “Immersion of Baptists,” Gospel Advocate 5 (November 1859) 346

Bro. N. W. Smith, of  Georgia, recently immersed some eleven Baptists into Christ. This he did because their first immersion was only intended to bring them into the Baptist church. Whilst we do not desire to debate the necessity of re-baptism, we have no doubt it is as fully the duty of persons who are baptized without understanding the truth, as it was for the twelve who were taught, and no doubt, baptized by Apollos, to be baptized by the authority of Jesus Christ after they heard Paul preach. We do not intimate that the candidate must understand every thing regarding the ordinance of baptism to render the act valid in the sight of heaven; but our position is, that he must know some scriptural statement of the matter in order to acceptable obedience. If he should not know baptism is in order to the remission of sins, it may answer to understand that he who believes and is baptized shall be saved, or in being buried in Christ and rising again, we put off the old man and put on Christ; but he who is put into the water because he is pardoned, has got religion–been regenerated and made and heir of God, evidently does not honor Jesus Christ, or in any sense obey the gospel. No one in profound ignorance can walk in the light; but there is neither occasion of darkness or stumbling, if we follow the dictates of the Good Spirit.

2. William Lipscomb, “Re-Immersion,” Gospel Advocate 4 (June 1858) 187-188.

Asked whether one “baptised [sic] by a baptism in the baptist faith, in the full sense of the term” is also “baptised [sic] into Christ,” William Lipscomb–the brother of David Lipscomb and co-editor of the Gospel Advocate–replied:

Reply.–No service is acceptable to Heaven which is not performed with a full understanding of its purposes. No individual who goes through the form of immersion without understanding its meaning is in the least profitted [sic] thereby. While we are disposed to think that many who are under the various systems taught in our land are better than the systems themselves, and many are frequently immersed under them who do believe that immersion is for the remission of sins, yet the authority of Scripture is for re-immersion where the intention of  act was not clearly understood. It is for each individual to determine for him or herself whether the performance was in obedience to the word of God, or according to the theory of some human party.

This is fascinating on a couple points. First, though Fanning was quite aware of John Thomas’s controversy with Alexander Campbell over rebaptism in the 1830s–even noticing his visit to Nashville in the 1850s, he sided with Thomas on the rebaptism question. This was a minority position within the Stone-Campbell Movement at the time. Second, this highlights the fact that David Lipscomb did not simply uncritically inherit his position. It would seem his position was forged in an environment where his older brother and his mentor were on the opposite side of the question. Lipscomb’s position was no untested “denominational” hangover or lag. It was his considered conviction.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Benjamin Franklin on Rebaptism

February 14, 2013

In the years prior to the Firm Foundation (begun in 1884) there was practical unanimity on the question of whether one who had been previously immersed to obey God but without the knowledge of its saving import should be rebaptized. The answer was an unequivocal “No.” The only significant part of the Stone-Campbell Movement that answered “Yes” was the Virginians who followed John Thomas in the mid-1830s.  Alexander Campbell opposed their understanding of the rebaptism and regarded it as rank sectarianism.  Anyone immersed upon a confession of faith in Jesus as the Christ, thought Campbell, was legitimately baptized and needed no further “re-d0″ when they later learned that baptism was for the remission of sins.

Benjamin Franklin (1812-1878), a northern right-wing leader within the Stone-Campbell Movement in the mid-19th century, agreed with Campbell and the vast majority of “his brethren.”  A correspondent to his American Christian Review asked that since “some twenty years ago [he] was immersed and united with the  Baptist Church,” whether it was now “requisite for [him] to be immersed again, in understanding more fully  what is meant by immersion and what it is for?” He recognized that the Baptists believe baptism to be “the door into the church,” while “we hold it as being a positive command and for the remission of sins.”

Franklin’s response counsels against rebaptism (ACR 2 [1860] 26):

We do not think you ought to be immersed again. While it is certainly desirable to understand as far as we can any appointment we submit to, the want of a full understanding does not invalidate the ordinance….You believed in the Lord, loved him and aimed to obey and understood sufficiently to do what he commanded. As a matter of course, in reading and practicing for many years, you will understand more clearly and fully. We presume this is the case generally; but this does not prove, the necessity of taking incipient steps again that have long since been honestly taken.

Later northern conservatives followed Franklin’s lead on this point. Daniel Sommer, for example, regard the Firm Foundation’s  rebaptism agenda as a divisive and sectarian hobby. Nevertheless, despite the support of David Lipscomb and James A. Harding in the south as well as other luminaries from the Gospel Advocate, the Firm Foundation perspective ultimately became the majority view within Churches of Christ by the 1940s.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Tolbert Fanning — Advocate for Peace in 1861 (Part XIII)

April 9, 2012

In the last issue of the Gospel Advocate during the Civil War, December 1861, Fanning noted the death of an “old friend,” Pierce Butler Anderson. It is Fanning’s last comment on the Civil War until the Gospel Advocate was rebirthed in January 1866.

Fanning is gracious in reporting his death knowing “the Lord of all the earth will do right.”

P. B. Anderson (1806-1861) was the son of U. S. Senator Joseph Anderson (1757-1837). Joseph Anderson was the first senator from Tennessee sent to Washington, a lawyer who served eighteen years and then as the United States Treasurer from 1815 to 1836. He served in the American Revolution from the Battle of Monmouth in NJ through Valley Forge to the victory at Yorktown, and was discharged at the rank of Major. He served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1843-1847.

P. B. Anderson attended West Point with Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. He resigned from the Point when he was permanently disabled by a bayonet through the wrist after three years at the institution. He returned to Tullahoma, TN, where he studied law as an apprentice. At the start of the Mexican-American War, he raised a volunteer company from Tennessee and participated in major engagements in Mexico. He practiced law but also taught mathematics at Franklin College for two years.

Joining the Confederate army on April 25, 1861, he raised a company of volunteers in Tennessee at the start of the Civil War, and then raised an artillery corp of 100 men.  He joined Robert E. Lee’s command in Western Virginia as a Captain. He died in the battle of Greenbrier on October 3, 1861.  He was killed when he mistook a Union advance line for a returning Confederate picket line and invited them into the Confederate trenches. He was killed immediately. He was 56 years old at his death and was buried in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

****Fanning’s Notice****

Tolbert Fanning, “A Brave Soldier of His Country Has Fallen,” Gospel Advocate 7.12 (December 1861) 364.

We learn from recent dispatches that our old friend and quondam brother, Pierce Butler Anderson, fell at a late battle in Western Virginia. He was educated at West Point, was for sometime a legislator of the State from McMinn, served bravely through the Mexican war, afterwards spent some two years as Professor of Mathematics in Franklin College; while with us submitted to the King of Zion, but soon afterwards, from bad health and other causes, retired to Tullahoma, where he led a quiet and perhaps not a very profitable life till the opening of the present civil war. He went to Virginia in Col. Turney’s regiment, soon after was appointed Captain of Artillery by Gen. Lee, and conducted himself as a soldier till he was called from earth.

He was a high-toned soldier, and were we superstitious we might conclude he had a presentiment of his fatal death. When he bade us farewell in Nashville, he said, with tears in his eyes, he would go to the war but never expected to return. The Lord of all the earth will do right. His will be the reward of an honored defender of his country. Our old friend has fought his last battle.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Tolbert Fanning — Advocate for Peace in 1861 (Part XII)

April 7, 2012

The church in Murfreesboro was divided over the war. Previously Fanning had published a letter from Lillard, Harding and Ransome, and he had printed an article by “Disciple” who responded to that letter from within the same church. Fanning now feels compelled to comment on their exchange. He uses the occasion to clarify his position.

Fanning has every intent to obey civil authorities as long as he does not thereby disobey God. The present circumstances, he believes, has made it difficult “to tell who are Christians and who are not, or to define clearly the line between the church and the world” since so many professed disciples are compromised by their participation in “worldly powers.” It is not surprising, according to Fanning, that he is charged with disloyalty and thus “perverting the nation” because Jesus himself was so charged (Luke 23:2) “for maintaining that his kingdom was not of this world.”

Fanning, nevertheless, encourages discussion because “there is no subject of greater moment to Christians” than their relationship to “worldly powers.”

Fanning would not be able to continue that discussion, however, because mail service in the South was disrupted by the war. The Gospel Advocate would cease publication with the December 1861 issue but it would have a new birth in January 1866 under the editorship of Tolbert Fanning and his favored mentee David Lipscomb. At that year, Lipscomb would take up the challenge Fanning laid down in December 1861 and thoroughly study the subject of “worldly power.”  That series would ultimately issue in his book Civil Government. 

****Fanning’s Article****

Tolbert Fanning, “Subjection to Worldly Powers,” Gospel Advocate 7.12 (December 1861) 356-357.

Whilst we feel no disposition to interfere in the controversy of Brethren Lillard, Harding and Ransome with “Disciple,” we find ourself [sic] involved in so singular a manner, that we consider it proper and necessary to briefly notice a few points in the following article:

1st. We would willing suppress the names of our brethren, were we not satisfied that by publishing their communication from “Murfreesboro,” some might conclude that all the members of that congregation, entertain similar opinions, when we are conscious there are some who differ widely. We, however, feel responsible for the name of Disciple, and suggest to him that we would prefer giving it to any remarks he may desire to make. This is the only proper mode of procedure.

2d. Our reason for giving the remarks of Disciple without comment was, that we considered that there was no question of scripture involved. Disciple’s effort was to show the supposed inconsistency of our brethren, and no positive ground was taken by him.

3d. We are sorry to witness the effort of our brethren to place Disciple as well as ourself [sic] in a position we never occupied. Neither has Disciple or ourself [sic] intimated a doubt as to the Scriptures requiring disciples of Christ to live in subject to magistrates and any civil government in which their lot may be cast, so long as they are permitted to enjoy the liberties of the kingdom of God. Unfairness in representing those from whom we differ is not calculated to add to the honor of the Lord’s cause. While we doubt, not our brethren at Murfreesboro, as well as Disciple, are all loyal to Caesar, we see not the propriety of any of them becoming Caesar or of occupying his chair. Hence we find no authority for the charge that some of us oppose worldly governments for the world. We would respectfully suggest to our correspondents, that our controversy gives the strongest evidence that there is urgent necessity for us all to study the scriptures with more care. The times may not be the most favorable for examining the true characteristics of the spiritual kingdom in comparison with worldly institutions, but it strikes us the period may not be very far distant when the servants of God will look at the Bible and the church without the interference of the heavy and dark veil of worldly wisdom which has so long obscured the light of truth. Religious teachers must soon open a new chapter or desist from their profession. It would require one of some discrimination, judging from surroundings, to tell who are Christians and who are not, or to define clearly the line between the church and the world. When Jesus claimed to be head of a spiritual empire, the people said, “We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute unto Caesar.” (Luke xxiii, 2.) He was not only charged with disloyalty, but lost his life for maintaining that his kingdom was not of this world.

Will our brethren pardon us for requesting them to exercise a little more cautiousness in their wholesale charges of disloyalty to human authority, against their friends who perhaps may be as well read in the institutions of the world as themselves, and are as tenacious to respect all proper human authority as any men living. A little more time and patience, with a good degree of careful examination of the Sacred Oracles, we trust will bring us all to the full measure of the truth. We hope brethren L, H, and R. will continue to furnish us with their views. There is no subject of greater moment to Christians.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Struggle for the Soul of Churches of Christ (1897-1907)

June 25, 2009

When the division between Churches of Christ and the Christian Churches was recognized by the religious census of 1906, the theological perspectives among the Churches of Christ were fairly diverse. While there was an ecclesiological consensus to separate from the Christian Churches, there was considerable diversity between the three major representative “traditions” among Churches of Christ which threatened that formal unity.

In Kingdom Come Bobby Valentine and I identified this diversity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as (1) the Tennessee Tradition (or Nashville Bible School tradition, represented by the Gospel Advocate published in Nashville, Tennessee edited by David Lipscomb), (2) the Texas Tradition (represented by the Firm Foundation published in Austin, Texas edited by Austin McGary and others), and (3) the Sommer Tradition (represented by the Octographic Review published in Indianapolis, Indiana edited by Daniel Sommer). I continued the exploration of this typology in an essay honoring Michael Casey by looking at the decade when the Churches of Christ emerged as—to use David Lipscomb’s own 1907 language—a “distinct and separate” body from the Christian Churches and all other religious bodies. 

My essay “The Struggle for the Soul of Churches of Christ (1897-1907): Hoosiers, Volunteers, and Longhorns” was just published in And the WORD became Flesh: Studies in History, Communication and Scripture in Memory of Michael W. Casey, ed. Thomas H. Olbricht and David Fleer (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2009), 54-71. I have uploaded an expanded version of this essay to my Academic Page.

1907 is my terminus ad quem. While the 1906 census symbolizes the division, the public discussions of this official recognition took place in 1907. 1897 is my terminus ad quo. Lipscomb, who hesitanted to sever relations with the Christian Church, opened 1897 with this observation: “I am fast reaching the conclusion that there is a radical and fundamental difference between the disciples of Christ and the society folks” (“The Churches Across the Mountains,” Gospel Advocate 39 [7 January 1897] 4). Between 1897 and 1907 the Churches of Christ became a distinct identifiable religious body in the United States.

Whatever differences Hoosiers, Volunteers, and Longhorns had, they were united against a common foe–the Christian Church. While there are obvious sociological and sectional dimensions, even causes, of the division between the Churches of Christ and the Christian Church, there were also significant hermeneutical and theological grounds as well. Editors at the beginning of the 20th century thought these were the primary reasons for separation. The primary hermenutical ground was a Reformed regulative principle discerned through the command, example and necessary inference. The primary theological grounds were the rise of higher criticism and a developing ecumenicism among many in the Christian Church.

Nostalgia easily recalls an ideal unity when it never existed. Though the Firm Foundation, Octographic Review, and Gospel Advocate were heremeneutically and ecclesiologically united in a common front against the Christian Church, there was significant theological diversity among the journals. Theological differences among Churches of Christ ranged from polity issues (e.g., number, qualification, selection, ordination and authority of elders) to materialism (e.g., soul sleep), from mutual edification to located evangelists, from the corporate practice of the right hand of fellowship to the necessity of confession before baptism, from a prescribed order of worship to legitimate uses of the contribution on Sunday, from women working outside the home to female participation in the assembly, from involvement in politics to institutionalism (including Sunday Schools and Bible Colleges), from debating the relation of the kingdom to the church to whether the Sermon on the Mount applies to Christians, from war-peace questions to social involvement in temperance movements, from the nature of special providence to reality of contemporary miracles, and from biblical names for the church to eschatology (millennialism, renewed earth theology).

My essay, available on this website in an expanded form than published in the book, focused on four significant issues that illustrate the different orientations of each of the three traditions: (1) Rebaptism; (2) Indwelling of the Holy Spirit; (3) Institutionalism; and (4) Sunday School.

In general, though not exclusively, the Tennessee Tradition embraced dynamic divine action in the world as the in-breaking kingdom of God, the Indiana Tradition stressed the non-institutional character of that kingdom, and the Texas Tradition rejected any semblance of dynamic divine action other than a cognitive understanding of the Bible which iteself resulted in divisive ecclesiological debates within the Texas Tradition. As the Tennessee Tradition stressed “divine dynamics” rather than “human mechanics,” in the language of the Nashville Bible School graduate R. C. Bell, this central “apocalyptic” vision shaped how almost every theological concept was appropriated. The Texas Tradition, relatively devoid of divine dynamics, embraced human cognition and ability as the critical factor in humanity’s relationship with God, understanding the law of God aright, and practicing it with precision. Though the Indiana Tradition shared some formal characteristics with Tennessee, it stressed non-institutional ecclesiology and opposition to worldly wisdom, wealth and power as the centerpiece of its agenda. The Tennessee Tradition is more dynamic than the other two traditions, and both Indiana and Texas tended to focus on ecclesiological form and function in ways that the Tennessee tradition transcended with an eschatologically-driven kingdom vision.

The critical turn in the story of this essay is the loss of a dynamic sanctifying presence of God in the hearts of believers through the personal indwelling of the Spirit as symbolic of the broader loss of “divine dynamics” within Churches of Christ as a whole. At an earlier point in the history of the Stone-Campbell Movement, the movement had generally chosen Fanning’s Baconian rationalism over Robert Richardson’s openness to the work of the Spirit beyond the sacred page. The first decades of the 20th century were a similar turn. The Texas Tradition ultimately won the day on the nature of the indwelling Spirit among Churches of Christ. The loss of dynamic divine power in sanctification and the reduction of the Spirit’s work to an empirical epistemology of the word fostered debates over patterns and mechanics rather than an emphasis on the transforming, enabling and sanctifying life in the Spirit.

Blessings.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

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