Tolbert Fanning on Evangelists and the Lord’s Day

April 5, 2013

Brother “J. R. W.” of Kentucky tossed Tolbert Fanning a softball in the June 1858 issue of  the Gospel Advocate (pp. 170-171).  It was a subject he had constantly addressed as an editor and evangelist. It was one of the great themes of his life beginning with his time as an evangelist supported by the Nashville (TN) church from 1832 to 1836.

Question:  Are the disciples authorized to perform the service without an Evangelist?

The question contains several. What is the “service” to perform on the Lord’s Day? What is the function of an evangelist? Does the evangelist have a clerical function such that without an ordained evangelist the congregation could not “perform the service”?

Concerning the function of an evangelist, Fanning writes:

it is the duty of the Evangelist to preach the Gospel to the world, plant the taught with Christ in Baptism, congregate the converts, teach them all things in which they are to walk, to see that they keep the ordinances, ordain the Elders in the congregation, and set in order everything wanting for the perfection of the body.

In other words, the evangelist evangelizes the lost, plants the congregation, equipts members, and appoints leaders. Then an evangelist moves on to a new field and repeats the process. The evangelist should not linger and serve as a priestly mediator for the congregation. “It is not the work of the Evangelist to perform the service of the congregation.” Rather, the evangelist equips the congregation so that they might “perform the service” themselves.

When the disciples give the worship into the hand of a hired preacher, as one who works merely for the profit or place, to lord it over God’s heritage, they abandon, in fact, the religion of the Bible. The healthful soul invigorating life giving and life sustaining ordinances, have been given into the hands not entitled to them. The hired, or voluntary services of the church in the hands of preachers, enrich not them spiritually, and make the disciples poor indeed.

To hand the service over to “a hired preacher” is a form of “Popish” clericalism, according to Fanning. It destroys the faith of the congregation as they become passive receivers rather than active participants. The legitimate field for evangelists (preachers) is within the “world” rather than in the established congregation. Let the congregation do its own work, including the work of sending out evangelists to plant new congregations.

What the evangelist should do, however, is plant the congregation, equip the members, and appoint elders to lead the church. Fanning is quite insistent that evangelists appoint bishops or elders. On what authority, another querist asks? “In the Apostolic times Evangelists were consecrated by the hands of the seniors” (Acts 13:3; 1 Timothy 5:14; 2 Timothy 1:16), “and Elders were set apart to the Bishop’s office by Evangelist” (1 Timothy 3; 5:22). Remember, however, that the evangelist does not settle into the congregation but is sent to other places. Consequently, it is the elders who lead the church rather than the evangelist.

But what is the “service” that members are to perform on the Lord’s Day? Fanning lists seven particulars:

1. The assemblage and Christian greetings on the Lord’s day.
2. Prayers of the Saints.
3. The teaching, reading of the Divine oracles.
4. The exhortations and confessions of the disciples.
5. The Lord’s supper.
6. The songs of praise.
7. Communicating, or putting money into the treasury, a sacrifice with which God is well pleased.

“We cannot see how it is possible,” Fanning adds, “for disciples to neglect any of these parts, and still maintain a position in the church of Christ.”

No Evangelist necessary; no clerics needed. It Is the priesthood of (male?) believers; there are no clerics, only the gathering of disciples. It is simply the gathering of Christians to greet, pray, teach, read, exhort, eat & drink, sing, and give. This is the fellowship of the saints on the Lord’s day. No preacher required; just committed, active disciples who gather to listen to each other and the word, sing their praises, share their resources, pray, and sit at the table together. Ad all that to the glory of God and the building up of the body.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Antebellum Middle Tennessee and the “Lord’s Day” I

March 27, 2013

During the summer of 1858 Tolbert Fanning, President of Franklin College and a leader in Middle Tennessee for over twenty-five years, toured the congregations surrounding Nashville. He recounts this tour in the September 1858 edition of the Gospel Advocate (“Prospects in Middle Tennessee,” pp. 257-263).

He visited Hartsville and Bledsoe’s Creek congregations in Sumner county; Lebanon and Bethel in Wilson county; New Hope in Canon county; Ebenezer, Millersburg and Murfreesboro in Rutherford county, Shelbyville in Bedford county; Fayetteville in Lincoln county; Petersburg, Berea and Lewisburg in Marshall county; Williamsport and Columbia in Maury county; and Nolensville, Hillsboro, Thompson’s Station and Boston in Davidson county.

He drew three conclusions from his tour (pp. 262-263):

1. We have labored in Tennessee in word and teaching for twenty-nine years, and we never witnessed half the anxiety generally to hear and examine the Truth.

2. We never before saw half so many brethren determined to labor for the Lord. More churches are meeting for worship than have been at any previous date engaged.

3.  We conscientiously believe that the brethren no where on earth possess a higher appreciation of the Truth, and of spiritual life, than in Tennessee, and with all our reverses the prospects are flattering. A faithful perseverence [sic]  in well doing will remove mountains.

The recent “reverses” is an allusion to the devolution of the Nashville church under the leadership of Jesse B. Ferguson who embraced “spiritualism” as a theological method. His youth, popularity, and rhetorical flourish led the church away from its 1820s-1830s roots, according to Fanning.

However, this has occasioned a revival of sorts.

The apostacy and opposition of several popular men, who were numbered with us, have doubtless had the effect to induce the brethren to re-examine the foundation on which we are building, and the result is, that an unusual degree of intelligence is evinced by all who read and study, especially the Divine oracles. We regard it not the least flattery to intimate the probability that there are perhaps more independent thinkers, and devoted and intelligent Christians in Tenn., in proportion to the numbers professing faith, than in any other State in the Union. Our church afflictions have had the effect to weaken the confidence in the infallibility of men, to teach us humility, and we are not sure but they have had an influence to better qualify us for grappling with difficult questions.

Fanning reports that he has seen evidence of a great growth in the “spiritual life” of congregations in Middle Tennessee (p. 257). One of the major pieces of evidence for him was the growing practice of “meeting weekly to worship” (p. 262). It was more common, as Fanning notes, for churches to meet only once a month or only when an Evangelist was in town (as was still the case for some communities like Lebanon). For Fanning the “Lord’s Day” is a critical part of what it means to be a church, to cooperate in the work of the Lord, and to fulfill the mission of Christ.

In future blogs I hope, as time permits, to explore this theological idea as Fanning seeks to inculcate a reverence for the Lord’s Day on the part of Middle Tennessee congregations.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Nashville Church Planting–Early Perspectives

March 26, 2013

David Lipscomb wrote a wonderful biography of Tolbert Fanning which was published in Franklin College and Its Influences (Nashville: McQuiddy Printing, 1906). There are many historical gems in this piece, especially concerning the history of the Nashville Church. One particular theme struck me as I read through it again.

After Philip Slater Fall, who had led the church into the Restoration Movement in 1827, left the Nashville Church in 1831, it was led by the elders of the church. The congregation practiced mutual edification and equipped while Tolbert Fanning and Absalom Adams were supported as Evangelists from 1832 to 1836. An “Evangelist” at that time was not the “local preacher,” but one supported to evangelize in the community and region. They were supported to plant churches. The Nashville Church planted, through Fanning, Adams, its elders and others, congregations at Franklin, South Harpeth, Hannah’s Ford, Sam’s Creek, Burnet, Philippi, Sycamore, and other places in the surrounding counties (pp. 48-49).

One of the disappointing aspects of the hiring of Jesse B. Ferguson in 1846 the church became consumed with their lead pastor and the congregation lost its equipping and church planting fervor, according to Lipscomb and Fanning.

When the congregation fell apart–falling from 600 members–it was reorganized with only a couple of dozen members. They asked P. S. Fall to return and he arrived in 1858. By the  Civil War the congregation was around 200 about half of what it was when Fall left in 1831. Fall assumed the role of Pastor in th church such that, as Lipscomb remembers it, there were few who would even lead a prayer or give thanks at the table in the congregation. Fall did all the “public work” (p. 58).

This focus is problematic for Lipscomb. To his knowledge in the forty years since the end of the Civil War this pastor-led church “has not sent out a preacher or planted a church” (p. 60). In contrast, Lipscomb began meeting with others in the “suburbs of the city” in 1865 (p. 59). This congregation and its daughters have since established “about twenty churches in the city and suburbs.” The old, established congregation failed to multiply whereas the new plants multiplied. 

How did Lipscomb account for the difference? The established downtown church employed a pastor who “preached to it, conducted the worship, and [drew] large audiences composed of talented, wealthy, and fashionable people.” This situation encourages a passivity such that “a church with wealth and numbers and talent and social position and attractive entertainments will be a helpless church” (p. 60).

Lipscomb thinks there is a better model. He planted churches among the “working classes, accustomed to doing their own work at home, and ready to do what was needed to keep te worship alive in their midst.” If churches are to grow and mature spiritually, they must do their own work rather than support “a preacher to minister to and for them” (p. 59). Church planting results when congregations focus on equipping members rather than supporting preachers, according to Lipscomb.

If a congregation among the “common people” is to support a preacher, then they will never “become self-supporting,” and this is unacceptable. “Christ intended his religion for the poor, adapted it to their necessities, and it is a perversion of the church of Christ to so change its character that it cannot live without money from wealthy churches” (pp. 59-60).

Let the church be the church, Lipscomb pleads. “The common people can do their own work at home and can sound the gospel out as no other people can” (p. 60).

Lipscomb believed that he followed Fanning on this points. He summarizes Fanning’s church planting method in this way:

The result of his teaching on the subject of the members doing the work of the church without a regular preaching or pastor was the establishment of a great number of churches in the towns and counties of Tennessee in which the entire services were conducted by the members of the churches; and a preacher was called in only to hold a protracted meeting. This in its beginning does not make a show before the world, nor is it attractive to those who seek entertainment; but it educates the members of the church in the study of the Bible and the practical performance of all the duties connected with the worship and work of the church. This is the best education of the members of the church that they can receive. No one can be said to properly understand a thing until he puts it into practice. No idea or sentiment is made his own until he practices it. The best and most sacred truths, although he may approve and admire them, do not enter into the make up of his character until he practices them in his life; so the reading, commenting on the Scriptures, praying, exhorting, and teaching others is much more effective teaching to those doing this work than hearing others.

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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

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

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