J. D. Tant, Rebaptism and the “New Paper” (1938-1939)

March 19, 2013

1938-1939 were significant years for the Churches of Christ. In 1938 E. W. McMillan, one time chair of the Bible department at Abilene Christian College, began preaching for the Central Church of Christ in Nashville, TN and in January 1939 assumed the editorship of the Christian Leader which was now under new management (Clinton Davidson). The journal intended to reflect a kinder, gentler approach to Christian thought, practice and fellowship. In October 1938 the 20th Century Christian began in Nashville under the leadership of Norvel Young among others. J. P. Sanders, the preacher for the Hillsboro Church of Christ, was the first editor. The magazine intended to promote undenominational Christianity but it a kind spirit that emphasized the practical as well as the pietistic spirituality. Even further, the Gospel Advocate was under new editorship as B. C. Goodpasture took the reins in 1939.

In July 1938,  Foy E. Wallace launched the Bible Banner which intended to combat the “general softness” which pervades among the “plus-mouthed and velvet-tongued moderns among us” (Bible Banner [July 1938] 2). Wallace was set for the defense of the gospel and would leave no stone unturned as he rooted out “Bollites” (among others) from the schools and leading churches of the Restoration Movement. In the spring of 1939 Wallace held a meeting at the Chapel Avenue Church of Christ in Nashville. One of his sermons was entitled “What Must the Church in Nashville Do to be Saved?” Part of his answer was that they must dismiss the Bollites from their colleges (aiming at David Lipscomb College where Ijams was president) and stop practicing the Social Gospel (aiming at the Central Church of Christ where McMillan preached).

Further, in 1938 N. B. Hardeman returned to Nashville for another “Tabernacle Meeting” at the Ryman Auditorium. Unlike previous meetings where the target audience was the community-at-large, this time the audience was the Churches of Christ. Hardeman dealt with issues that faced the “brotherhood,” particularly premillennialism.

This brief background provides the context for the article by J. D. Tant copied below. (For more information about this background, see Richard Hughes, Reviving the Ancient  Faith, chapter 9.) Tant’s article is illuminating on several counts if one remembers its context.

In particular, Tant sees the issue of “sect baptism” or “Baptist baptism” (the rebaptism question) is still alive. In fact, it needs to be publicly debated in Nashville in order to silence its promoters. Far from being put to rest back in the 1910s, the issue still festers, at least in the eyes of Tant.

Further I would suggest that the tensions present here are the vestiges of the conflict between the Tennessee Tradition and the Texas Tradition. Many of those associated with the new Christian Leader had their roots in the Nashville Bible School and the Tennessee Tradition.

Here is the article.  Soak in a bit of history.  Brackets [] are my own comments added to the article.

J. D. Tant, “On the Firing Line Again,” Firm Foundation 56 (6 June 1939) 3.

After being out of work for seven months, by paralysis, I am glad to state that I am on the firing line again.

Just closed my second meeting in Oklahoma, and am booked for one more meeting in Oklahoma, three in Tennessee, one in Texas, one meeting and two debates in California. Then back to the farm.

This letter will also inform my old time friend, Brother [F. B.] Srygley, that I am still able to kick with both feet, and if he had been kicking with both feet all the tie, we would not now have the departures from God’s word in Tennessee that we have.

I notice we now have in Tennessee a new paper which wants to be soft and not preach it straight like the Advocate once did [referring to 20th Century Christian]. I also heard that one church [Central Church] and their preacher [McMillian] in Nashville absolutely refused to announce Hardeman’s great meeting in that city. But through some means the meeting leaked out, and more than six thousand people heard Hardeman preach the gospel. If that preacher and that large church had announced the meeting and worked in it, no doubt, ten thousand would have attended. We are taught in the word of the Lord not to put a tumbling block in a brother’s way. But many good brethren forget that when they oppose a meeting.

I am also receiving another paper with a soft pedal to drown out the Advocate [referring to the Christian Leader]. As Brethren Sam Hall, G. C. Brewer, Dr. Ijams, A. B. Lipscomb, Adamson, J. P. Sewell, and others are all gone over to the new paper they will not give such strong medicine now.

Look out for Brothers Boll and Klingman [both premillennialists] to come next. In five years I look for the new paper and Word and Work to be consolidated. Now if we can get Jim Allen [editor of the Apostolic Times in Nashville, JMH] and Goodpasture [editor of the Gospel Advocate, JMH] to consolidate it will be fine.

As some of the contributors to the new paper are now endorsing sect baptism, and calling on Baptists to lead prayer in their meetings, it will be necessary for me and all lovers of the truth to kick with both feet when I get back to Tennessee.

So I am making a standing challenge to all you boys: Will any, or all of you affirm that baptism as taught and practiced by the Baptist church is scriptural, and all who have it should be welcomed into fellowship of the church of Christ? I want one debate held in the Central Church of Christ, and one in the Russell Street church in Nashville. Will these boys defend their practice? I’ll wait and see.

After my last meeting in Oklahoma, wife and I had a kind invitation from the Highland church in Abilene, where Homer Hailey preaches, to attend their meeting, and hear our son, Yater Tant, in a gospel meeting. We both went, and were treated kindly along all lines, and shall ever cherish with love and appreciation the members of the church there.

Yater is a strong gospel preaching, yet young. In ten years he will stand up with N. B. Hardeman, A. G. Freed, F. W. Smith, Foy Wallace as one of our sgtronges men.

I was invited while at Abilene, to preach one sermon, and I did so to a large congregation. When I saw such men as Charles Roberson, J. F. Cox, President of Abilene Christian College, Harvey  Scott, Homer Hailey, and fifteen to twenty more up-to-date preachers sit at my feet and learn wisdom from me, I felt like if only had my degree in penmanship, I would be in the ring as a big preacher. But such is life.

I used to be a preacher, but I am a farmer now. But I am not too good to go back to preaching if I can get me a degree and find a located job that suits me.

But withal I had a find [sic] time and hope to visit the college again at Abilene.

I hear that Foy Wallace’s write-up of Abilene College had a wonderful influence for good [referring to Wallace's opposition to put Colleges in church budgets and his response to a circular letter defending Abilene on several counts], and we should rejoice and give  God the glory.

San Benito, Texas.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

McGary and the Firm Foundation “Saved the Day” in the Rebaptism “Battle”

March 12, 2013

In a previous blog I copied a 1933 article by J. D. Tant in which he honored the work of the Firm Foundation over its first fifty years. He believed the FF had served the church well in winning the battle over rebaptism among other issues.

Fanning Yater Tant, J. D.’s son, wrote a similar article in 1957.  He believd that the FF was instrumental in the battle over rebaptism and that “sect baptism” was defeated because the “truth” was rather obvious. Below is his article (Fanning Yater Tant, “‘Pride, Prejudice, and Papers’,” Gospel Guardian 9.11 [18 July 1957] 4):

Elsewhere in this issue, and under the above caption, will be found an editorial from the Firm Foundation of May 28, 1957. This is the kind of writing that made this great paper a bulwark of strength in days gone by; it is the kind of Christian journalism that is all too rare in our generation. Brother Reuel Lemmons, editor of the paper, has sounded an appeal to truth, common sense, and straight thinking that ought to challenge every Christian in the land.

It should be remembered that the Firm Foundation was born for this very thing. Old brother “Aus” McGary became convinced that Brother David Lipscomb and brethren east of the river generally were in error in their teaching and practice in the matter of “sect” baptism. While the pages of the Gospel Advocate were open to McGary to refute this teaching, he nevertheless felt that a more effective campaign for truth could be waged if he had his own medium. In the heat of controversy, the Firm Foundaiton had her “baptism” into the realms of Christian journalism. (This editor has some reason to know about that battle: His maternal grandmother, Fannie Mills Yater, living at Hartsville, Tennessee, was an ardent admirer of David Lipscomb and Tolbert Fanning, even naming one of her sons Tolbert Fanning Yater. The family moved to Bosque County, Texas in 1878, just when the “sect baptism” issue was beginning to get hot. When the Firm Foundation began, Grandmother Yater read every issue of it, as well as continuing to read the Gospel Advocate. She became convinced, totally and forever, that A. McGary had the better of the argument with Lipscomb — and persuaded the brethren in the little congregation where she worshipped to get a preacher named J. D. Tant, who shared McGary’s views on “sect” baptism, to hold a meeting. He came, met Nannie Yater, married her a couple of years later, and raised a family — of whom this editor is one of which.)

That battle over “sect baptism” raged for years — through the papers, in public and private debates, in gospel meetings, and just about everywhere else that brethren got together for any length of time. And out of controversy — came TRUTH! As a matter of fact, the extreme elements in both groups gave a little. The Gospel Advocate brethren gradually got away from their insistence that “the vast majority” of people who had been immersed had been scripturally baptized; and the brethren who were with Brother McGary little by little, began to concede that in some rare, isolated case it might conceivably be possible that an individual had understood God’s teaching on baptism, and had been scripturally baptized by a denominational preacher, if he could have found such a preacher with sufficient courage to defy denominational doctrine and practice.

But the Firm Foundation almost certainly saved the day in that battle. By her courageous stand for truth, and her insistence on free, open, and unfettered discussion of the issue, the church was finally brought to a general agreement and understanding as to Bible teaching on this vital matter. Let it be devoutly hoped that this editorial by Brother Lemmons will be the clarion call, sounding the opening of a new phase in current discussions; and that once again we will see this great, old paper stand like a bulwark against the threatening tidal wave of innovations and human organizations in the church which some are so ardently defending and promoting.

Three generations of Tants testify to the influence of the FF in the rebaptism question. Fannie Mills Yater, raised in the heartland of Tennessee, was convinced by the FF, J. D. Tant waged the battle through the FF, and Fanning Yater Tant observed its conclusion. What was a minority position in 1878 had become the majority position by 1957.

It seems to me, contrary to Fanning Yater Tant, that neither side (extremists on either end) gave very much ground. On the contested point–must one know that baptism is for the remission of sins for an acceptable immersion–neither gave ground.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

J. D. Tant on the Firm Foundation and Rebaptism

March 11, 2013

While reading parts of the Firm Foundation for a research project, I rediscovered the following article by J. D. Tant (“Looking Back Fifty Years,” Firm Foundation 50.3 [17 January 1933] 2).

In this article he highlights how the Firm Foundation had served the church over the past fifty years. In his view, the periodical saved the church from extremes–the extreme of the “digressives” and also “sect baptism” as well as the extreme of those who oppose Sunday schools and multiple cups for the Lord’s Supper. He stresses opposition to digressives and sect baptism as the origins of the polemical advocacy of the Firm Foundation.

In his estimation, “[Austin] McGary was to Texas what D[avid] Lipscomb was to Tennessee when the society tried to capture Tennessee.”

It is an interesting brief analysis from one who lived through those first fifty years of the Firm Foundation. Here is the article:

I notice last issue of the Firm Foundation shows fifty years on the firing line.

Few of our gospel preachers today have any conception of the work and battles the pioneer preachers had fifty years ago.

I remember well the first issue of the Foundation. It was brought out in pamphlet form–five hundred copies by A. McGary, and after mailing out copies to all he cold think of he pushed the rest under his bed as he had no one to send them to.

The doctrine of one Lord, one faith, and one baptism created as much stir among my brethren as Campbell did among the denominations when he began to argue to drop all creeds and come back to the Bible.

For years and years my brethren had been teaching in Texas that man instead of God must be the judge of man’s baptism, and all who had been baptized by immersion and were satisfied were fit subjects for the kingdom of heaven.

When McGarvy began to teach that all laws, human or devine [sic], are predicated upon design, and for man to change the design God had placed upon his laws caused said law to cease to be a law of God, a cannon seemed turned loose.

About this time I. C. Stone of Indiana, A. J. MCarty, John S. Durst, J. W. Strode, “Weeping Joe” Harding, E. Hansbroough, Jack Larimore, J. W. Jackson, Brice Wilmeth, J. R.Will,A. J. Clark, William McIntire, D. Pennington, J. W. Denton and a host of other strong preachers took up the battle cry, and none on the side of sect baptism were able to meet their arguments. Later on, among the younger set, Joe S. Warlick (the ablest debater we ever had in the South) H. G. Oliver, J. W. Chism, W. L. Swiney, Will Stafford, U. G. Wilkerson, J. F. Grubbs, W. F. Ledlow, anda large number of younger men saw the consistancy [sic] of McGary’s position and fell into line. None of these the world could meet in debate.

As I had come into the church of Christ (as I thought) on my Methodist baptism I lined up with T. R. Burnett, D. Lipscomb, J. A. Harding, A. J. Bush, W. K. Homan and others to fight on the other side, trying to show that McGary was wrong.

When J. F. Grubbs showed me that I could not make a Bible argument in favor of sect baptism I then deserted those brethren who held to it and rode a Texas pony one hundred and twenty-seven miles to get John Durst to baptize me.

About this time the church of Christ was divided in Texas by the digressives pulling off at the state meeting in Austin in 1886. and starting to build up a sister church among other human churches where they could have hired pastors, missionary societies, instrumental music, and other human devices to pull disciples after them.

About that time Brother W. J. Rice, who had been excluded from the church at Covington, Indiana, so I heard, came to Texas and stared his “order of worship,” and pulled off many disciples.

Later on Brother J. P. Nall and Brother Ament started their “formal confession” faction which operated for a while, killed a few churches and then died.

N. L. Clark, one of the ablest Bible teachers in Texas, and Brother J. N. Cowen started their hobby about anti-Sunday school, and anti-class and anti-literature foolishness, divided many churches, did much harm, and no good.  But they have divided into the one cup and the two-cup, the grape juice, and the fermented-wine worshippers, and are kept so busy trying to straighten out the kinks in each other that it will be a few years until they will be forgotten and their baleful influence will be in the past.

Fifty years ago we had fewer than fifty preachers in Texas, including all the digressive preachers, and fewer than twenty thousand members, and not a located preacher among the loyal members. Many predicted that the Bible principles as advocated by these godly men would soon cease. When the digressive thought they would capture all the churches in Texas and pull them over to the society McGary and the other loyal preachers met them on all parts of the battle field [sic]. McGary was to Texas what D. Lipscomb was to Tennessee when the society tried to capture Tennessee.

But McGary, Jackson, Durst, McCarty, Dr. Herndon, and Handsborough have all crossed the divide and gone on, yet I am glad their work continues. With fifteen hundred churches of Christ in Texas today and almost a thousand loyal preachers I am impressed that their labors were not in vain and that God is on their side.

While I have been on the firing line fifty-one years, and am perhaps the only old-time preacher now living who fought side by side with those godly men, I do not think it amiss to remind the young men many of whom are hunting for located jobs, that you know nothing of hardships to be a gospel preacher as we “old timers” do. Many, many nights I have slept on the ground by the side of A. McGary, or Jack McCarty going to or from our appointments. I have had to swim the creek as many as seven times in order to reach my appointment to preach. I have traveled horseback forty miles a night, laid down my saddle blanket, slept two or three hours and wold get up and go on.

The first three years of my preaching life I was not paid one cent. The fourth year was paid $9.75, the fifty year $92.00 and the sixth year 0235 [sic], yet I continued to preach. Have held a number of meetings and pick as much as three hundred pounds of cotton every day, preach every night cut out cotton picking on Saturday afternoon to baptize all who had made the confession.Had to pick cotton and do all kinds of work to support my father and mother and sister. Yet I continued to preach. Have walked fifty miles to meet my appointment because I had nothing to ride, and gone hungry many times because I did not have twenty-five cents to buy my dinner. But through all these things God has preserved me wonderfully, and my physical health and my mental powers are a [sic] good as thirty years ago.

I hope my experience will be an inspiration to some young preacher, and help him to keep on against obstacles, knowing for whom he is laboring. Also hope our job hunting preachers many see that much good can be accomplished without a “located job.”

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

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

Daniel Sommer on Rebaptism

March 3, 2013

Daniel Sommer, the leader of northern conservatives within the Stone-Campbell Movement in the late 19th century and early 20th century, shared his mentor’s (Benjamin Franklin) perspective on the rebaptism questin within the Restoration Movement. He regarded the rebaptists as divisive and sectarian, and their position he judges as “unscriptural” and “inconsistent.” In 1904 he wrote that he began openly opposing this “extreme” view in 1887 (“Bro. Hutson’s Wonder,” Octographic Review 47.9 [1 March 1904] 1).

As early as 1891 Sommer published a tract defending the following proposition:  “Single immersion performed in the name of the Godhead even by a sectarian and even in connection with certain sectarian errors is valid baptism when rendered for the purpose of obeying Christ.” He published it because the FF was intent on “working division in the brotherhood” and consequently he permitted “no discussion of the rebaptism question” in Octographic Review (“Let Patience Have Her Perfect Work,” Octographic Review 40 (29 June 1897) 1, 8.

Since a reader has requested more about Sommer’s position, here are some representative statements.

Daniel Sommer, “Items of Interest,” Octographic Review 40 (23 March 1897) 1.

“Why I am Not an Apologist for Sect Baptism” is the title of a tract now on our table. Such a title assumes that such a something as ‘sect baptism’ exists. But neither the author of that title nor any one else on that side of the question, so far as we have learned, has ever had the courage to define that so-called “sect baptism” and affirm his definition for debate. Those who denounce what they call “sect baptism” and assume that to be validly baptized one must understand what they call “the design of baptism” have been fully tested, and we have not found one of them who will affirm his position and meet a well informed opponent in debate. After having fully tested them we have offered on e of their champions this proposition: “Those who preach that single immersion received in the name of the God-head, and in connection with certain sectarian errors is ‘sect baptism,’ and who preach that valid baptism requires that each person when baptized shall understand ‘the design of baptism’ and yet who refuse thus to affirm in debate occupy a position which is illogical, unscriptural, inconsistent and cowardly.” But this proposition was refused by the author of the tract now before us when it was offered to him in private correspondence. In refusing to affirm for debate what he preaches, and in refusing to deny a proposition which charges him with occupying a position which is “illogical, unscriptural, inconsistent and cowardly” the author of the mentioned tract shows himself less honorable than many of the sectarians whom he denounces. As for the mentioned trace, its foundation statement is that the expression “for the remission of sins” in  Acts 2:38 “is part of THE COMMAND.” If this could be so then “for the remission of sins” is no longer a promise, of it cannot be both a command and a promise at the same time and in the same sentence. Moreover, then the expression “that your sins may be blotted out” in Acts 3:19, is “a part” of the command, “Repent ye therefore and be converted.” But the absurity [sic] of this is evident as soon as stated to every one except those who oppose sectism so extremely and unreasonably that they place themselves in the position of sectarians. As the fundamental proposition of the tract before us is an absurdity it follows that the trat itself is a blunder.”

Daniel Sommer, “Nineteenth Century Efforts to Restore the Bible to Mankind,” Octographic Review 44 (10 September 1901) 1.

“But all rebaptism hobbyists, wherever found among disciples show more or less of his disposition. In their zeal against sectism they become sectarians, and in principle take the identical position of those Baptists who insist on rebaptism of those baptized believers who wish to unite with them after having been immersed by others than preachers of that particular Baptist society [see my blog on this point, JMH]….on account of their valid baptism ideas they are, to say the least, a very disturbing element in the disciple brotherhood. They have done much toward dividing and destroying churches, but have seldom been known to build up a church.”

Daniel Sommer, “A Letter with Comments,” Octographic Review 47 (2 Feb 1904) 1-2.

“I further say, if rebaptism extremists were right in every other particular, nevertheless they do enough false reasoning in behalf of that one extreme to endanger themselves in the judgment, unless I have misread my Bible in regard to truth and honesty. I also state this: I have yet to find a rebaptism extremist who does not hate what he regards as error more than he loves truth. Again, I have yet to find one of that class who does not hate what he calls “sect baptism” more than he loves the oneness of those who profess to be apostolic disciples….Finally, all rebaptism extremists adopt the sectarian plan of sitting in judgment on the fitness of persons for baptism. The only difference between them and genuine sectarians is that a sectarian sits in judgment on fitness for baptism BEFORE candidates are baptized, while the hater of what he calls “sect baptism” sits in judgment on their fitness for baptism AFTER they have been baptized!!”

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