Alexander Campbell on Trinity and Christology

March 18, 2013

Nancy Koester’s The History of Christianity in the United States (Fortress, 2007) is my current supplementary text in my undergraudate Stone-Campbell Movement course at Lipscomb University. I use it to provide the American context for Stone-Campbell history.

I was surprised to read this sentence in the book (p. 61):  ”[Alexander Campbell] also rejected the doctrine of Trinity because he did not find it in the Bible.”  She would have been more accurate if she had written that he rejected the term “Trinity,” but Campbell did not reject the theological idea of the tri-unity of the Christian God.

For example, in a series entitled “Elementary Views,” Campbell summarizes what he thinks is the heart of the Christian faith (Millennial Harbinger [July 1854] 367):

One Jehovah in three personalities, and one Mediator in three offices constitute the true faith and the true religion of the Christian Church, or the Reign of Heaven. And these are the centres [sic] of the Jewish and Christian dispensations of the doctrine of human redemption, in its typical and anti-typical manifestations. This is·the Alpha and the Omega of the Bible. On this broad, and strong, and enduring basis, the new heavens and the new earth, and all their tenantry will rest forever.

Campbell’s Protestant “orthodoxy” on Trinity and Christology is also obvious in this selection from “Millennium” (MH [December 1856] 700-701):

Our creed as christians is drawn up by a council of thirteen apostles presided over by the Lord Jesus Christ, and inspired by the Holy Spirit.  It is in contrast with the Theocracy, properly set forth as the Christocracy.  The central idea of the Jewish Religion is one Jehovah—absolute in all his perfections, self-existent, eternal and immutable—of whom are all things.  The central idea of christianity is “one Lord Jesus the Christ; by and for whom are all things.”  He is infinitely Divine and perfectly human, possessing all Divinity and all humanity in one personality.  A perfect God man, “the only begotten of the father full of grace and Truth.”  His sacrifice “expiated” and took out of God’s way and out man’s way “the sin of the world.”  “By offering up of himself” on the cross on Mount Calvery [sic], “he made an end of all sin offerings,” introduced “an everlasting justification” or righteousness for fallen humanity; and “perfected forever all them that are sanctified through the faith” in his person, offices, and work.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God in another personality, equally Divine, and equally co-operant with the Father and the word incarnate, who illuminates, sanctifies, and perfects every sinner in whose heart he becomes the Holy Guest; sometimes improperly called, in our common vernacular, “Holy Ghost.”

It is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that any sinner, can be pardoned, justified, sanctified, and perfected in holiness and in happiness—for his blood alone can justify God in justifying any penitent, believing sinner.

In these views, the whole Revelation of God centres [sic].   Jesus the Christ being the centre of that circle, which is itself the centre of all the spiritual systems of the universe.  His blood, alone, which is his human life, on the altar of Jehovah, becomes the justifying cause of the justifying grace vouchsafed to fallen man, through the gospel of the reign of heaven.

Alexander Campbell considered himself in the mainline of Protestant “Orthodoxy” on the traditional questions of Trinity and Christology. His problems with Protestantism were significant, but these were not among them except the use of scholastic and creedal terminology as tests of communion and modes of understanding.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

G. C. Brewer on the New Heavens and New Earth

March 16, 2013

I’m seeking some help regarding G. C. Brewer’s (1884-1956) undertstanding of the earth. Concerning Isaiah 65, 66, 2 Peter 3 and Revelation 21, Brewer wrote (Gospel Advocate [4 April 1946], 314):

“The New Testament references describe a condition that will come after the destruction of the present heaven and earth. That this earth—this existing order of things, including the material earth—is to be destroyed, Peter tells us in terms we cannot misunderstand. That this earth was cursed because of sin and that thorns and briars and noxious weeds came as a result of the curse seems plain also. (Gen. 3:17-19.) Beasts of prey—ferocious and destructive animals—seem to have come after the curse also (Gen. 2:18-20.) And that the earth itself is to be redeemed from the curse seems to be the teaching of the Bible—seems to be the promise of God. (Rom. 8:20-22; 2 Peter 3:13; Daniel 7:14-22.) Man was given dominion over the earth, but transferred his allegiance to Satan, and the curse came, bringing suffering, sorrow, and death. But Christ came to remove the curse and to bring “joy to the earth.” When the earth is redeemed, it will first be renovated by fire. Then there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Then the meek shall inherit the earth. (Ps. 37:9-11; Matt. 5:5; Rev. 5:10; 21:1-7; 2 Peter 3:10-13.)”

That is the summary at the beginning of the article where he asserts, what seems to him, obvious realities in Scripture. He is responding to a question about the meaning of the “new heavens and new earth.” The rest of the article pursues several trajectories. I have reproduced below his final paragraph which contains his conclusion:

“But there is another view as to when the promise that Peter mentions was given. This view is that the promise of a new heaven and a new earth was included in the /322/ promises God made to Abraham and that Isaiah and all others who mention the new heavens and new earth were simply referring to what had been the hope and expectation of God’s people from Abraham down; that this is the heavenly country that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were seeking.

“But now we must try to find where and when that promise of a heavenly country and the city that hath the foundations was given to Abraham. It must have been in that land promise (Gen. 15:18; 17:7, 8), though it would be hard for us to see it without the aide of the New Testament. The city promise must be that made in these words: ‘Thy seed shall possess the gate [the city] of his enemies.” (Gen. 22:17.)”

“Paul says (Rom. 4:13-16) that the promise to Abraham was that he and his seed should be heirs of the world, and he says this promise must be made sure to all his spiritual seed. We, then, who are by faith children of Abraham and heirs of the promise (Gal. 3:28-29) are yet to inherit the world, though it must be the new earth. We will never get this one. Even Abraham himself was a pilgrim and a stranger on this earth.”

It appears to me that Brewer believes that the Abrahamic inheritance is fulfilled when the saints inhabit a renovated earth. This is consistent with Lipscomb and Harding. I did not expect this from Brewer, so I wonder if I am misreading in some way.

What do you think? And do you know of other occasions when Brewer discusses this?

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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

Benjamin Franklin: On Rebaptism…Again

March 1, 2013

One of the more common “gotcha questions” in the late 19th century discussion of rebaptism in the Stone-Campbell Movement was something like this:

Is baptism administered to a person scripturally valid when he claims he is in Christ before he was baptized, and will contend that his sins were all forgiven him before he submitted to the institution of baptism, and will still further affirm that baptism is not essential in order to remission of sins of any person.

This is the question Benjamin Franklin is asked in the 1872 American Christian Review (15.26 [25 June 1872] 204). For those who advocate “rebaptizing” those who have previously been immersed without the knowledge that baptism was for the remission of sins this is the ultimate question. One who answers this question in the affirmative demonstrates that they don’t really believe baptism is for the remission of sins. It is the question that many advocates of rebaptism believe will sufficiently illuminate the discussion that no honest person could deny that rebaptism was necessary in this instance. That this was the point of the question is evident when one reads the literature of the controversy in the 1890s-1910s (including the 1914 McQuiddy-Durst Debate).

Benjamin Franklin (1812-1878), the great defender of Campbell’s agenda in the Christian Baptist, responds in a surprising way. At least it would alarm many rebaptists.

A man is “scripturally baptized” when he is baptized according to the Scriptures. A man who believes in Christ, repents and is immersed, is scripturally baptized. His misunderstanding about something else could not invalidate his baptism. The Lord says: “He who believes and is immersed shall be save.” Suppose the man misunderstood: thought he was in Christ before he was immersed; or that he was pardoned, would that make void the promise of God?  Surely not. He believed with all his heart and was immersed, and thus came to the promise of God, that he should be saved or pardoned. That promise can not fail because he did not understand when he was in Christ or pardoned. The work to do for that man is not enough to convince him that what he had done, and done rightly, is to be discarded and repudiated, but teach him “the way of the Lord more perfectly,” or, in other words, correct his understanding in the things  wherein he does not understand, and leave what he had done rightly unmolested. There are evils connected with an ultra course in the above matter that many brethren do not see.

Franklin is quite willing to accept the obedience of this person who, in his opinion, thoroughly misunderstands the timing of pardon. He obeyed. That is sufficient. God does the rest.

But the most interesting point to me is the last sentence. He warns the church that to do otherwise is to proceed down a path that leads to some severe consequences. I think Franklin recognized the sectarianism that was in play with rebaptists. This is something David Lipscomb, James A. Harding, and Daniel Sommer would also recognize.  It was a dire warning that eventually came true.

McGary thought it was a reason to divide or might lead to division since some recognize and accept people as Christians who are not really Christians.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Another Example: Texas and Tennessee Clash

January 15, 2009

Foy E. Wallace, Jr. dubbed Harding College “an incubus of error” and “unsound” in the May 1941 issue of The Bible Banner.  Wallace’s assault against George Benson, J. N. Armstrong and Harding College is a good illustration of the tension between the Texas and Tennessee theological traditions within Churches of Christ. The emphases below are mine.

The testimony concerning George S. Benson. It has been brought out in direct testimony that after Brother Benson returned from China he taught that miracles were yet in force and that he was a witness to the casting out of devils in a man in China and, moreover, by a sectarian preacher! And it is also shown in this array of charges that until very recently Brother Benson admitted his premillennial views…Premillennialism is not all that is wrong at Harding. The byproducts of this theory are many. Brother Armstrong has been wrong on nearly everything, and has planted all of these errors in his schools in various locations, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas. We can furnish plenty of witnesses from Oklahoma. Brother Harper has already furnished them from Arkansas. His teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit has been contradictory to the fundamentals of the gospel, which accounts for his public statements that Bogard whipped Hardeman on the Holy Spirit debate-he is more in agreement with Bogard than Hardeman or any other gospel preacher. His teaching on miraculous answers to prayer in connection with direct special providence is carried to the worst sectarian extremes….Brother Armstrong has taught this kind of foolishness all of his life in all of his schools. He has been wrong on the sectarian baptism question, and would hardly baptize a Baptist, if he wanted to be. He was dead set against the Firm Foundation in all of these controversies of the past and has never strengthened any young preacher along any of these lines. The young men who have come from Harding strong in the faith, are strong in spite of the fact that they attended Harding College and not because of it….”Harding needs to get right.” Verily, it does.

It is significant that Wallace identifies the Firm Foundation as the journal that would take the opposite view on all of these questions.  Armstrong, a graduate and then teacher at the Nashville Bible School, followed his father-in-law James A. Harding’s theological trajectory.  The battle between the Firm Foundation and the Gospel Advocate in the 1890s-1910s extended into the 1940s when the last–for all practical purposes–holdout for the Tennessee tradition was Harding College.  The early 1940s saw repeated attempts to force Harding College to conform to the expectations of the Texas Tradition (e.g., fire all teachers who believed in premillennialism). E. R. Harper and Foy  E. Wallace, Jr. led the assault.

Theologically, some of the differences are apparent in the quoted paragraph.

1.  Tennessee did not see premillennialism as problematic; indeed, many of them believed it.  The Texas tradition was amillennial.

2.  Tennessee believed that miracles still occurred in answer to prayer (though miraculous gifts to individuals had ceased).  Texas believed providence operated by the laws of nature and miracles no longer happened.

3.  Tennessee believed that faith in Jesus was sufficient for baptism.  Texas believed that what one believed about baptism also determined whether a baptism was valid or not.

4.  Tennessee believed in the personal indwelling of the Spirit. Texas did not.

5.  Another difference, not mentioned in this litanny by Wallace, but would become a stinging issue within seven months is the war question.  Tennessee was pacifistic in varying senses, but Texas (particularly in the person of Wallace) was hawkish on the war.

As Wallace indicates, these are no small differences.  Armstrong, he thought, was wrong on “nearly everything.” These differences reflected a different orientation to kingdom life.  Whereas Wallace (and the Texas Tradition as a whole) operated out of order, law and human mechanics (e.g., “five steps of salvation” were all human acts), Armstrong (and the Tennessee Tradition as a whole) operated out of mystery, grace and divine dynamics. 

While they shared many views (e.g., on instrumental music, church polity, baptism for the remission of sins, etc.), these particulars were understood against two very different theological worldviews.  They could live together comfortably when there was a significant common enemy (e.g., Baptists, Christian Church, etc.), but when they engaged each other they both knew that the other had, as Luther supposedly told Zwingli at Marburg in 1529, a “different spirit.”

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

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