John Mark Hicks

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.

Patternism does not entail division as long as it does not subvert grace and it graciously treats another believer with mercy. Rather, it is the attitudes, agendas and acidity of the people involved that generate division. Patternism itself is not to blame and neither is “restorationism’s” search for a pattern. When people are treated with gracious humility, patternism can be a fruitful discussion rather than an occasion of division. This is what Alexander Campbell intended from the beginning (though Campbell himself was not always the most humble of types 🙂 ).

Ecclesiological Perfectionism Rejected.

Alexander Campbell certainly contended for an “ancient order” within the New Testament which he believed should be restored. Indeed, his good Presbyterian upbringing predisposed him to the idea of “order” and he continued to promote the notion of “church order” throughout his life (see his 1835 Millennial Harbinger Extra on Church Order).

However, as I pointed out in an earlier post, Campbell never intended his “ancient order” to function as the marks of a true church with the result that every other church which did not measure up to the “order” for which he contended was apostate. He explicitly denied that his conception of the “ancient order” should be used as a test of fellowship. He did, however, hope that it would be a platform for unity and strongly argued his case on the points at issue in hopes that others would adopt the “ancient order.”

So, Why the Divide?

That is a complicated and multi-faceted question. My interest in this post is very specific while I recognize the larger sociological, hermeneutical, sectional and theological differences that were involved in the division between Churches of Christ and the Disciples of Christ symbolically recognized in 1906 by the United States religious census.

I want to narrow my concern to David Lipscomb in particular. Reading through Lipscomb’s editorials in the 20th century, I was fascinated that Lipscomb consistently refers to the weaknesses and frailities of human beings in their seeking God. He applies this at many levels, but one application is ecclesiological.

Lipscomb was willing to forebear with congregation after congregation that disagreed with him on the missionary society and instrumental music. He spent most of his life in forebearance. He was one of the last to adopt a separatistic stance toward the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church). It was, in many ways, a thirty-plus year trek. He recognized it by 1897, declared it so in 1907, and lamented it for the rest of his life.

At one level, the division was necessary–according to Lipscomb–because some prominent Disciples embraced higher criticism, doubts about the deity of Jesus, etc. (e.g., the seeds and fruits of modernism). This was significant as it evidenced, in Lipscomb’s mind, a different spirit and attitude toward Scripture itself. It was not merely a different understanding of how to apply Scripture but more importantly a denial of Scripture as the word of God.

At another level, the division was necessary–according to Lipscomb–because the “innovations” disrupted the harmony of the church as a whole, split many congregations, and evidenced a lack of love for the minority, usually the weak and powerless, within a congregation. In other words, his problem with the innovators was more basic than the innovation itself. He could bear with the innovation in love–and could even preach in congregations that used it–but he could not bear with the unloving actions of the innovators toward the powerless. The strife they created and how they treated the powerless were more fatal than the innovation itself because it evidenced a spirit of arrogance, power and willfulness.

The situation of the Woodland Street Christian Church is illustrative. Lipscomb and E. G. Sewell planted this congregation and Lipscomb himself paid over $1000 for the bricking of the building in 1876. Sewell preached regularly for the church till 1882 and continued as one of its elders until 1890. By 1887 it was the center of Society activity in Nashville–organizing, convening, governing and hosting the State society convention and then the General Convention from 1889-1892. Lipscomb, Sewell, McQuiddy and others all experienced such boldness as a personal affront. Sometime before 1890 the instrument was introduced into the congregation. By 1899 Lispcomb had named Woodland Street as the most digressive of the churches in Tennessee. In October 1890, Sewell and the McQuiddys pulled out of Woodland and established the Tenth Street church in Nashville. (Some of this story is told in Chris Cotten’s paper delivered at the Disciples of Christ Historical Society in 2008.)

The hurt, strife and utter disbelief that Christians could treat each other in such a way fueled Lipscomb’s loss of patience with the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church). Ultimately, the emotional baggage was as significant as the theological, and the emotional hurt validated the perception that the Disciples of Christ (considered as a whole) acted in selfish, presumptive and unloving ways. Lipscomb had no patience for an arrogant, unloving spirit that abused the powerless. This is the real problem among the Disciples of Christ as he perceived it. As mistakes and failures of interpetation, innovations could be tolerated. But when they became the source of division and revealed the arrogance of the powerful (or majority), then the innovations were symptoms of a deeper problem.

Unlike Leroy Garrett who says that Lipscomb changed his mind about whether innovations should divide (The Stone-Campbell Movement, p. 401), I think it is better to say that Lipscomb came to believe that innovations were used to divide churches and it is this arrogant and power-seeking spirit that generated Lipscomb’s new attidue in the 1890s.

Grace in Sanctification.

Lipscomb had great patience and grace for the weak and struggling as long as they displayed an earnest desire to serve God and be obedient in everything they knew and could. He would even bear with the innovators as long as they were not divisive. One cannot read his editorials toward the close of his life without getting a deep sense of his love for the weak, his patience with their frailities, and his genuine desire to bear with them as they matured and grew in Christ.

Lipscomb often drew extended lessons from Jesus’ relationship with his disciples–both before and after his ministry among them. In the quotation offered below he focused on the experience of Jesus with his disciples at the Last Supper. Hear his call for mercy, patience and humility. It is, in my opinion, a stirring call for mutual forebearance–in this case between Rebaptists and disciples, and between Baptists and disciples (Lipscomb, “Jesus Christ and the Rebaptists,” Gospel Advocate 54 [11 January 1912] 45, 49).

This was a heroic band of worshipers to introduce the Lord’s Supper and the salvation of the world, was it not, especially when the leading one, Peter, is instructed, when he is convertred, to strengthen the rest…This shows the forebearance of Jesus with the sinner in his weakness and infirmity and his disposition to bear with and help the weak and needy. How many Christians now would be willing to bear with and partake of the Supper with a band they believed would be so offended (led into sin) that in a few hours all would forsake Jesus and deny they knew him? Christians ought to study the life and teachings of Jesus and from these learn meekness and forbearance with the tempted and tried. We ought to be meek and gentle as Jesus as. We ought to be longsuffering with the frail and erring and should strive to exercise forebearance and helpfulness toward those who go wrong. Jesus is our Savior and our Redeemer and seeks to help and save the lost.

The sin of Judas was from a lack of moral principle, a true regard for truth and justice. From this sin there seemed to be no recovery….The other disciples were honest and sincere, but failed through fear and the weakness of humanity. They recovered as soon as the threatening danger passed. But the human weakness remained, and Jesus dealt with the decision, but kindness and gentleness, of the Son of God and Savior of men. He drew the declaration of Peter’s love and devotion from him three times, as often as he had denied him, ending with the admonition to teach his brethren when he was converted…..

The example is not very flattering to humanity, but one that very strongly commends to us the love and condescension of God. It invites us to love and humility, condescension and helpfulness, to the poverty and needs of humanity. Let us look with kindness and pity on human mistakes and infirmities and bless and help as we need help and blessing. The forbearing, humble, helpful spirit that leads us to help the weak, forbear with the ignorant, and lend an uplifting and helping hand to every child of mortality is as much a part, and a vital part, of the religion of Jesus as the belief of any proposition or truth connected with that religion. Man is much more intolerant and ready to condemn and repel the children of men from the helps and privileges of gospel truth than God is. Let one take the mental and moral condition of those who partook of the first Supper under the direction of Jesus and compare them with the intelligence and standing of those they reject and repel, and he must feel the inconsistency. Our mission and work is to bury and hide shortcoming and imperfections in faith and life, and, while teaching the will of God as he gave it, to encourage the weakest and most feeble to walk in his ways as he has given it and as far as they understand it. The work of Jesus in the ordination of the Supper is often as much violated and set as naught as the rights of those who believe baptism is for the remission of sins. Let us cherish and walk in the spirit of Christ. Both Baptists and many disciples are sinful in their exclusiveness in religion.

Where Are We Today?

To use the terminology in vogue at Graceconversation.com, “progressives” and “conservatives” need a spirit of love, humility and selflessness in our dialogue at the congregational, institutional and virtual levels.

It seems to me that if we apply the theological notion of “grace in sanctification” toward each other, it would enable us to treat each other out of a disposition of weakness and humility. When we recognize that we are all engaged in the process of sanctification, that we are all imperfect, and that none of us has arrived theologically or ethically, then we can dialogue in a spirit of discovery and mutual understanding rather than condemnation and alienation. When we approach each other within the framework of sanctification, we may further the dialogue by hearing each other in order to learn rather than critique, to understand rather than condemn, and to appreciate rather than ridicule. When we season our words with grace rather than sarcasm we open the door to mutual understanding and mutual appreciation.

It very well may be that God is more concerned about how we dialogue and treat each other than he is with exactly where we differ. I do think God is concerned about both, but how we relate to others is what will image or fall short of God’s own relating to us with mercy and grace. Jesus’ patience with his own imperfect disciples and his anger toward the arrogant should give us all pause in our discussions. Whom are we more like? Humble disciples or arrogant religionists?

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Matthew 5:7

“Mercy triumphs over judgment.” James 2:13b

“To the merciful you show yourself merciful.” Psalm 18:25

Towards the end of 1909 David Lipscomb fell seriously ill and was unable to write for the Gospel Advocate. When he returned to writing in 1910 he had much to say as he approached his 80th year of life.

What is Most Important To Him.  In the first issue of 1910, Lipscomb summarized his primary interest in continuing his writing.  Here we get a glimpse of this man’s heart. Notice that for Lipscomb God’s actions are for the “race and world”–salvation belongs to humanity but also to creation!

But to God as the Creator, Preserver, Sympathizer with man, one soul is much. Else God had never clothed himself in human form and Jesus had never died. Christ’s mission, death, and sorrow for man were God in sympathy with and suffering for his creature, proclaiming his goodness, mercy, and love to a lost and sorrowful world. And all he aks of us now to repay his love and condescension to this race and world in ruin is to trust and follow him and show we appreciate his wisdom and love by trusting and obeying him. We must let him lead us….We have tried to understand the true relationship of man to God and have sought to so serve God and to teach others so to do. Our remaining days on earth cannot be many; our writings for the future must be few; our desire is that they shall be with increasing zeal in the way we have traveled, that God may bless us and we may lead others in the way of salvation.[1]

On Civil Government. When Lipscomb received an affirmation for his book entitled Civil Government, he offered the following comment on the book itself and the importance of the question it addresses. In the light of the last election and April 15th’s “tea parties” perhaps it is an opportune moment to hear Uncle Dave once again.

Were I to rewrite the book, I would change some of the arguments. I would modify the positions on some scriptures. A few points I would explain a little differently, and some passages that were left out altogether I would introduce. I would do this, not because I have abated my faith in the truth of the position one particle, but to make it conform in all respects to the truth. As a sample, one of the scriptures condemning Christians looking to the political government to settle difficulties and troubles is 1 Cor. 6:1-1; yet, as I remember, this passage is not noticed in the book. There is an application of the allusions to some of the political kingdoms of this world that I think not correct. But I have not abated or lost confidence in the least in the truthfulness of the position. I do not believe the church can ever be clean and holy with its members commingling in the political affairs of the world. It is probably that I have done wrong in failing to press the truth as I should have done. The difficulty of holding men up to the position, the readiness of those who professed to believe the truthfulness of the position to fly into an excitement and politically fury and do bitter denunciation because some election or some political movement did not suit them, all has had a tendency to discourage me, and I ceased to press it. I would rejoice to see brethren take hold of the subject and press it as a great issue on which the welfare of the church and of Christians depend. Christians will never be loyal and true to God while engaging in political strifes. [2]

The Making of Sectarians. He claims the disciples of Christ have tended to either join the sects (and thus become sectarian or one denomination among others as in the Disciples of Christ or Christian Church) or to exalt a particular text of Scripture (and thus create a new sect as in the case of the Rebaptists). In light of the latter, Lipscomb calls for preaching the whole of Scripture rather than focusing on a few texts (“textuary” preaching) which ultimately amounts to proof-texting. The kind of “text” preaching he dismisses here is not preaching from Scripture’s narrative (e.g., teaching a chapter of Scripture and plowing through a book) but focusing on a text to make a polemical point without hearing the flow of Scripture itself. Preaching and teaching is about conveying what the Bible says rather than “skinning the sects” (a favorite description of militant preaching in the Texas Tradition).

The preachers and teachers claim to know the gospel, but the knowledge is very much confined to the people to ‘be baptized for the remission of sins.’ Many at the protracted meeting are moved to this obedience; when this was done, they claimed they were saved, attended meetings no more, and ,of course, drifted into sin and rebellion against God—became practical infidels….There was and is ground for the charge of Mr. Ditzler that a “Campbellite’s Bible could be told, because it is worn and soiled at the second chapter of Acts and a few other passages, but not soiled in the other places”….When a man exalts one passage above of scripture above any other, he is in danger of become sectarian. The war against sectarians itself become sectarian. Man is weak and frail and liable to become a partisan or sectarian. Two parties of sects or sectarians spring up among those making war on sects or parties in religion. One, as the original fervor for the discovered truth cooled, fell in with the parties and sought to become one with the popular religious parties—a party among parties—and so to affiliate with the religious parties of the day and country. The other party magnified the truth discovered above all other truths and became a sect or party in behalf of this truth above all other parties and sects. The man who exalts and magnifies ‘for remission’ above other inducements and incentives to obedience laid down in the Scriptures makes himself a sectarian against or in opposition to sectarians. Into one of these two parties or sects the disciples have strong tendencies to go. But all sects or parties in religion are sinful. They exist in the providence of Gold to test and prove the faith of Christians and to show the fidelity of Christians to God and his word. …The textuary preaching is liable to lead into one-sided ideas of God’s will and should be carefully guarded….Our teaching from texts leads to the exaltation of our own theories and the ignoring of other scriptures. [3]

The Nashville Bible school has been in existence nineteen years. During these years the teachers have never taught a lesson showing what or how to preach, nor to defend a system or theory of doctrine. The come to the Bible in the spirit of learners, to learn and know what the Bible teaches….The majority of young preachers—and old ones, too—had rather be fixed up with a sermon or a series of sermons ‘to skin the sects’ than to be taught the great truths of the Bible. I favor no compromise of truth, but ‘skinning’ the sects and fighting them is well-calculated to make sectarians of us. Compromising with them makes us fellow-sects with them. [4]

 Women Teaching Men in Sunday Bible Classes? Yes!.  While Lipscomb opposed women teaching in “public” and in the assembly of the church, he thought they should be teaching at all other times. This included teaching Sunday Bible classes with men present.  He did not think that women who taught a Bible class with men were violating God’s limitations.

Philip’s daughters prophesied at home to Paul and his company. (Acts 21:8, 9.) Men and women are so universally addressed together as one and the same that it is rejecting the word of God to say women are not as much commanded to teach the Bible as men are. The only difference is, they are not permitted to teach at certain times and in cetain manners. Women may teach and be taught at home, at the houses of strangers, as they travel through the country, at the meeting for preaching; they may take an ignorant preacher to themslves and teach him ‘the way of the Lord more accurately.’…At the Sunday school the woman does not usurp the place of a man in teaching all present. Only a few who wish to be taught or to teach attend. The woman does not teach before all who are present. She takes her class, old or young, to themselves and teaches them. I never saw it otherwise. In this course they obey the command given to teach the word of God to the people and to avoid the things prohibited to women as teachers and leaders of the men….Suppose a number of men, women, or children, or all combined, were willing to study the bible, and a woman was the best teacher they could find, and they were to meet at her house to get her help, and she was to teach them in studying the Bible; would she do wrong in helping them?…Suppose it was more convenient to meet at the meetinghouse and study the Bible at an hour not used for the regular church meetings, would this be sin? What makes it a sin to meet at the meetinghouse to study the word of God? [5]

Imperfect Obedience. Lipscomb stressed obedience to God’s requirements about as much as anyone could. Obedience was a core value for him and specifically doing exactly what God required, nothing more and nothing less. Nevertheless, he recognized that human beings understand God’s requirements imperfectly, obey imperfectly and that God is is merciful. I have assembled below a few examples below.

When asked about assurance….: “We must strive to walk in the steps of Jesus and so grow into the likeness of God. But with our best efforts to serve God, we will often fall short of doing his will. We are human. And never a day passes that a man can say: “This day I have done my whole duty.” We fall short; we make wrong steps; we are frail and imperfect. When we have done the best we can, we must be saved by the mercy and love of God. His grace is sufficient for us, but we never reach the point that we do not need his grace to save us….It was a blessing thing for humanity hat Jesus gave the example of the two men that went up into the temple to pray,’ and the assurance that the publican, who stood afar off, and ‘would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be though merciful to me a sinner,” “went down to his house justified rather than the other”—the self-righteous, self-sufficient Pharisee, who felt that he possessed all the virtues. God’s grace is revealed to our faith as sufficient to have all who continually strive to serve God, to do his will despite the weaknesses and frailties of humanity that cause men to fall short of a perfect obedience. What God requires is to be like Jesus in having no will of our own, but a constant, earnest desire to do just what God requires.” [6]

When asked whether a formal confession was necessary before baptism…: When a man openly confesses Christ by putting him on before the world, to rebaptize him because he had not confessed Christ is to make a mockery of the service. It shows a low idea and conception of God. It represents God as anxious to condemn a man and watching for an opportunity or excuse to condemn him. I have never known a man or a woman to be baptized that did not in that act declare faith in Jesus as the Christ. The apostles tell us of only one case that required rebaptism. Then they were not baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. To be rebaptized on light grounds brings reproach on the Bible. [7]

When asked about rebaptism….: Imperfect beings never perfectly understand anything. Imperfect beings never do anything perfectly. This is a contradiction. The spirit in which one should come to Christ is that of a little child, knowing but little, but trusting in God, and glad in his ignorance and helplessness to follow God and do what God desires him to do, and because God desires it. “Ye are my friends, if ye do the things I command you.” A better motive to do than because God commanded it never moved a man. [8]

God saves through imperfect obedience? For some that is heresy; for some it opens too many doors.  For me, I don’t see any other option and I am grateful for God’s mercy and grace.

Footnotes:

[1] David Lipscomb, “Another Year,” Gospel Advocate 52 (6 January 1910) 13.

[2] David Lipscomb, “The Christian’s Relation to Worldly Government,” Gospel Advocate 52 (10 March 1910) 294.

[3] David Lipscomb, “The Rule of Faith,” Gospel Advocate 52 (9 June 1910) 688.

[4] David Lipscomb, “Bible Schools,” Gospel Advocate 52 (16 June 1910) 712-3.

[5] David Lipscomb, “Should Women Teach?” Gospel Advocate 52 (25 August 1910) 968-9.

[6] David Lipscomb, “Assurance of Pardon,” Gospel Advocate 52 (27 October 1910) 1184-5.

[7] David Lipscomb, “The Confession,” Gospel Advocate 52 (1 December 1910) 1337.

[8] David Lipscomb, “Query Department,” Gospel Advocate 52 (6 October 1910) 1109.

Continuing my reading of Lipscomb in the first decades of the 20th century, I have lifted a few more what I regard as illuminating comments by the 80 year old editor of the Gospel Advocate.

Publish Both Sides for Free Discussion. Lipscomb believed that fair, thorough and open discussion of a biblical issue was the best course to follow. Truth would reign in such a situation and evil would be vanquished. Consequently the Gospel Advocate under his editorship published both sides of a discussion (part of the Tennessee Tradition of open discussion).  However, not everyone followed this policy such as Joe S. Warlick of The Gospel Guide (Texas Tradition paper) and Daniel Sommer of the Octographic Review (Indiana Tradition). When B. C. Goodpasture excluded NI (non-institutional) writers from the Gospel Advocate in the 1950s, this was one of the premier articles referenced by the excluded (cf. Fanning Yater Tant, “I Would Cease to Read It,” Gospel Guardian 6.12 [29 July 1954] 5).

This good has come from holing the Gospel Advocate open to discuss the evils of introducing into the church things not required by God. Evil has seemed to grow out of this by the failure to treat the subject as God directs. If these evils are not discussed, we disobey God and leave evil to run riot in the churches. Evil will grow up in the churches, and the failure to expose it is to invite the evil…I said: ‘I do not read [Joe S.] Warlick’s paper, because he will not publish both sides of a question.’…Brother [Daniel] Sommer, of the Octographic Review, adopted this policy some years ago, the only example of it I had ever known among disciples. I ceased to read his paper, and we get along so peaceably. The Guide adopts the same plan. I treat both alike…I would like to see all of us get along pleasantly and harmoniously in obeying the commands of God. But if the Gospel Advocate were to adopt this policy of criticizing others and refusing to let them reply, I would cease to read it. [1]

Women and Public Speaking.  If there is any question where Lipscomb reveals his enculturation, it is on the question of women in the church and society.  When he was asked about the practice of some Sommer churches in the north that permitted women to lead prayer, read Scripture and exhort the assembly, his response is quite strict. He extends the prophibition against public speaking to outside the assembly of the church.  To his credit, however, he did publish a response from Silena Moore Holman who was not only an elder’s wife but the president of the Tennessee chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Movement. This is a woman with whom Lipscomb had significant disagreements–she was a public speaker and politically involved. Nevertheless, he published both sides.

Again, there is no law prohbiting women’s speaking under the Jewish law. So the failure to authorize them to speak under that law amounted to a prohibition to speak. The same rule holds good now. While the language in 1 Cor. 14 certainly embraces the Lord’s-day meeting, it is difficult to say that it is confined to it.

All the reasons given and the facts stated condemn woman’s leadership in other places as well as in the church on Lord’s day…All public teaching and speaking on any subject at any place puts woman out of place, out of her God-given work. She is by nature and disposition suited to a quiet, retiring service. She may use these conditions to teach and develop her abilities and work as a teacher and instructor of all.

God forbids woman to take a leading public part in teaching people at any time; but she may in a quiet, modest way teach the Bible to men, women and children, at home or a place of meeting. God has appointed but one regular, necessary meeting on the Lord’s day, where certain worship is to be performed. He allows other meetings for worship as his children may approve. But woman is not permitted to take a leading part in any of them. She may instruct in a modest way where men fail to do it. All meetings of the church are church meetings. Some are for specific purposes; others to teach, encourage, and help each other. Women ought to be modest at all of them. Men should be active to lead, and all things will work well. [2]

Women Baptizing? In response to a question from a reader, Lipscomb opposed this as a public leadership role. It did not suit the role of woman in both society and church to have such a public face. In his response Lipscomb reveals his prejudice against immigrant Catholics who are proliferating in “northern lands” because progressive women seek careers and public leadership rather than bearing and raising children.

God never called woman to such public works….there is no intimation that they will be saved from it, or blessed in seeking to do man’s work as a leader and guide of man….Some Southern women are following in the steps of these [progressive women, JMH] and are becoming public speakers and business managers, and they are failing to bear children, and in a generation or two the Catholics will take the lead here. [3]

Or, in another place, when he is concerned about how men are retreating from leadership in the church, he wrote:

 There are two causes that lead men to cease to attend the church and take part in the teaching and worship of the church. The first is, the women are forward to take part in the service, and especially to lead and teach….The Bible, taken as a whole, in all its works and institutions, makes woman a home keeper and imposes on her the work of bearing and rearing children. To this work, if not perverted, her tates and inclinations will lead her. Let us all faithfully and truly work as God has appointed, and he will abundantly bless.” [4]

The Work of Jesus is the Work of the Church.  Lipscomb has a consistent emphasis on the relationship of the church to the poor and weak. Here is a succinct but profound statement of his position that one can see in almost every other editorial by Lipscomb in these last years.  I wonder why he sense a deep need to emphasize it–cultural shifts in the church, or at his age he simply emphasized what he thought was most important. In any event, here is a good example:

 How many professed Christians are there that give time and labor to help the poor and needy, the sick and destitute in the world? Are professed Christians more apt to do good in helping others as Christ did than those not Christians? The work of the Christian is to do the work of Jesus. The spiritual body of Christ, the church, should continue the work he did in the fleshly body. So being trained to the same work, we may be fitted to dwell with him in his home. If we cannot and do not the work of Jesus, it is because we are none of his. [5]

In my opinion, Lipscomb is batting .500 for his views in this post.  I’m grateful that both he and I are saved by grace through faith rather by a knowledge that bats 1.000 (or, what batting average is required if it is not by grace?).

Footnotes:

[1] David Lipscomb, “Difficulties and Differences Among Christians,” Gospel Advocate 53 (12 January 1911) 44-45

[2] David Lipscomb, “Information Wanted on the ‘Woman Question’,” Gospel Advocate 53 (19 January 1911), 78-79.

[3] David Lipscomb, “Query Department,” Gospel Advocate 53 (26 October 1911), 1222.

[4] David Lipscomb, “Stopping the Leak,” Gospel Advocate 53 (14 December 1911) 1454-5.

[5] David Lipscomb, “Can We Too Rigidly Follow God’s Law,” Gospel Advocate 53 (9 March 1911) 303.

David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain (1989), 3, identifies biblicism (sola scriptura), conversionism (“born again”), activism (missions, historic social engagement such as abolition, temperance, abortion, etc.) and crucicentrism as marks of historic British Evangelicalism.

Each of these resonates with me as an important dimension of American Evangelicalism and, more particularly, as part of the story of Churches of Christ in the 20th century with the exception of activism. Our “conversionism” had a different definition than Evangelicalism as we stressed conversion through the “five steps of salvation.”

But tonight, on this Easter evening, crucicentrism–the focus on the cross as the atoning work of Christ as the redemptive act of God–is my concern. Bebbington’s identification is spot on, I think, and I see it in my own tradition.

For example, how many Evangelical songs focus on the cross but how few focus on the resurrection? I can count on one hand the repetorie of resurrection songs available to the church on Easter (and that is about the only time we sang them) but I would have to use my toes and several hundred people to count the number of “Cross” songs available and regularly sung throughout the year.

Another example is resurrection sermons within historic Evangelicalism and among Churches of Christ were mostly–if not wholly–apologetic in character. Oh, of course, there was the theological nod to our future resurrection and present hope, but the focus was usually upon the evidential value of the resurrection rather than its theological meaning. It was as if the ministry and life of Jesus proved he was the Son of God by miracles and sinless life and the resurrection was the capstone demonstration of such.

I recognize that the resurrection declares Jesus’ sonship (e.g., Romans 1:4), but it does this in more pregnant ways than simply validating or verifying a truth claim. For example, as Moltmann and Pannenberg have taught me, the resurrection is itself an eschatological event within history; it is an act of God that comes from the future. The resurrection participates in the future; it is the future present within history. Resurrection is theological promise and present hope.

Moreover, resurrection–as recent discussions of the new heaven and new earth reflect–is an affirmation of creation itself. The body has a future; creation has a future. Jesus, as a raised human, is the new humanity–embodied, material, and the inaugurator a renewed creation.  And much more could be said about the theological meaning of the resurrection, including ethics.

Resurrection is also a redemptive event; not just the Cross. Incarnation is a redemptive event, not just the cross. The Ministry of Jesus is a redemptive event, not just the Cross.

Crucicentrism, in my opinion, actually distorts the fullness of the gospel, the good news.  The good news of the kingdom, which Jesus himself preached, is broader and fuller than the Cross itself. Jesus preached the gospel before he ever said a word about his death. The Cross is redemptive, atoning and salvific–no doubt in my mind, but so is the Incarnation, Ministry, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus as well.

Crucicentrism, it seems to me, is a heavy-handed emphasis on and exaggeration of some Pauline language. Often Paul balances cross and resurrection (e.g., Romans 4:25), but sometimes he only mentions the cross (e.g., 1 Corinthians 2:2-5). Paul’s boasting in the cross has been extracted as his central core rather than reading those texts in the context of the specific occasions of his preaching (e.g., the focus on “Christ crucified” in 1 Corinthians 2 stresses the weakeness in which God came just as Paul himself came in weakness to Corinth).

When we read the Gospels Jesus’ death as a theological event receives little emphasis except as it is narrated (which is huge, of course). When we read the preaching in Acts, the resurrection is stressed rather than the death and little theological meaning is attached to the death in those sermons (which contrasts with standard Evangelical preaching on the Cross).

My point is not that we should never talk about the Cross or explore its meaning.  God forbid!  My point is that crucicentrism does not give sufficient attention to the Christ Event as a whole. It does not recognize the equal importance of Incarnation, Ministry, Resurrection and Ascension. Crucicentrism tends to relegate Incarnation and Ministry to necessary conditions for the Cross and Resurrection and Ascension as rewards of Christ’s obedient death, and thus the Cross stays at the center (crucicentrism). But I think that underplays the theological meaning of Incarnation, Ministry, Resurrection and Ascension. It is not the Cross that is at the center, but Christ–the whole Christ.

The Gospel is Good Friday through Holy Saturday into Easter Sunday.  But the Gospel is also Christmas and Pentecost. The Gospel is also Epiphany (with the Eastern emphasis, not the reductionistic Western one). The Gospel is the story of Jesus Christ come into the world to redeem the world through his Incarnation, Ministry, Death, Resurrection and Ascension.

The octogenarian David Lipscomb, knowing his last years were upon him, intentionally broached subjects and pressed points that he hoped would shape the future of the church. Here are few examples.

Debates Need to End. Lipscomb thought that debates between “Baptists and disciples” needed to change or cease. They needed to stress the commonalities more than the differences. He believed much more united them than divided them.

It has been a growing thought in my mind for some years that the end or purpose of debates among professing Christians should be changed. Now they debate to see how much and how far they differ. Each tries to make the faith of the other look as bad as possible. That is not a kind and fraternal way of treating each other. Doctor Loftin and Brother [F. W.] Smith have been discussing the differences between the disciples and the Baptists. In doing this they were compelled to observe the points of agreement. Without the knowledge of either of them, I propose that they discuss and show the points of agreement between them. They both believe in the Bible as the word of God; in God, the Father; in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world; in the Hooly Spirit, who came to the world to guide men in the paths of salvation. They both believe in faith, repentance and baptism into Christ….The controversy is as to the point at which, in his mind, God forgives the sins of one coming to him. Does man’s knowledge of the point at which God forgives sin hinder or help God in forgiving when the sinner comes to the place in the path of obedience? [1]

General Booth and the Salvation Army. Lipscomb’s preference for the poor is on full display as he comments on the death of William Booth (1829-1912), the founder of the Salvation Army.

But he was not a man to be laughed out of his work. His work was a much-needed, but neglected, work. It was a God-approved work. God has instructed his children to preach to the poor. They were not, are not, doing it. When the world saw Booth, a man of faith and energy and life, engage in the work, they responded promptly to his call and helped forward his work. He has moved the whole religious world on this point of preaching to the poor. That was a needed work. It is a work, an effort in a direction to which all should respond. All should magnify the work of preaching to the poor and helping the needy by all speaking well of, and encouraging in a right way, the work ordained by God. The work of helping and preaching to the poor should be exalted and magnified by the children of God leading in and exalting that work, by Christians doing it in God’s appointed ways and through the provisions he has made. [2]

Humble Obedience. In his continuing war against rebaptism, Lipscomb constantly stressed the nature of true obedience. It was not a matter of perfect or precise understanding but about trust (faith). This piece goes to the heart of his argument against rebaptism. Saving obedience is not about precision, perfection or even fully accurate understanding. It is about the mercy of God.

The letters to the churches show much weakness and many mistakes and wrongs among Christians in the early ages of the church; but not once do we find a person rejected or required to do his work over again for weakness of faith or misunderstanding requirements. To do this is something new under the sun, and is of man, not of God. I had rather go before God realizing my weakness and liability to sin, trusting him for mercy and pardon, than to go relying upon my good understanding and obedience to the perfect will of God. I hope and trust to be saved, not by the fullness and correctness of my understanding of God’s will, but by his love and mercy to all who want to serve him. [3]

“Poor in Spirit” the Key to Unity. This comment is from 1911 but it dovetails with the previous point. Again in conversation with Rebaptists, he stressed that their sectarianism is destroying not only the unity of God’s people but undermining the priority of faith.

The first prerequisite for entrance into the kingdom of God is, one should feel ‘poor in spirit.’ He must feel his own lack of spiritual power or resources before he can come to God in an acceptable spirit, in a spirit that God will accept. The spirit that feels its poverty, its helplessnesses, its need of guidance and strength, is the one that God looks on with pity and compassion and is willing to lift up and guide.”

We have pleaded for the union of Christians. Our work has been felt. Are we fit to still lead on in this work? While emphasizing truths connected with this union, have not we become sectarian ourselves? Many have espoused a common sectarianism with the churches around us [the Disciples of Christ, JMH]. Are not many others moving into a sectarianism in opposition to others [the Rebaptists, JMH]? Let us be humble and faithful, looking to God for help and guidance, and not be self-sufficient.

‘For remission,’ or ‘into the remission of sins,’ occupying its God-given place among other blessings leading to obedience, is a wholesome doctrine, full of comfort and blessing; but, taking out of it place and exalted above other blessings and favors promised by God, it becomes a party ensign and hinders rather than helps forward the union of God’s people and the salvation of the world. God makes all of his truths helpful in leading men forward in the work of salvation, yet he demands that his requirements should all be treated alike, each occupying the place assigned it by God himself. To exalt one promise or one duty above another is to mutilate and subvert the plan of salvation and hinder rather than help to save man. Faith in Jesus Christ as the great, leading, far-reaching principle that molds the life and leads to and helps every act of service, God has placed before and above all other services of man. The acts of obedience that grow out of faith, as fruits of faith, come in to complete and finish the character and life of the believer, and to fit it for a home with God. [4]

Overemphasis on Baptism? What does it mean to preach the Word? Lipscomb saw among his contemporaries some dangerous tendencies and he called them back to the fundamentals of Christianity—the Sermon on the Mount. Once again, for Lipscomb, the gospel is not simply the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is the good news of the kingdom breaking into the world to transform lives as into the image of Christ.

Every spiritual system as a standard of excellence to which it proposes to bring man….The Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5, 6, 7) gives the theory and rules of life to attain that standard. The principles laid down in the Sremon on the Mount, lived up to as Jesus did, would produce the life he lived….That Sermon is the perfection and consummation of the gospel of God to the world. To teach and preach these truths and principles to man is to bring the gospel in its fullness to man

There is no virtue in believing, repenting, and being baptized unto the remission of sins, and then doing nothing to left up and help men as Jesus labored to help them. Nothing short of the full life of Christ as an example and help to man is the gospel. How few of us realize this truth! When we preach faith, repentance, and baptism, we satisfy ourselves and teach others that we have preached the gospel, and those who act on these teaching think that they have obeyed the gospel. Hence the immense number who come into the church and imagine their salvation is secure and do nothing more. Young men often come to the Bible School and want to get up sermons that will enable them to debate with the sects. To qualify a young man to debate with the sects is nine times out of ten to make him a sectarian. Having truth does not hinder sectarianism. A man may hold the truth, not in the love of it; he may hold it to build up his party, not to honor God and save sinners. Sectarianism is sinful whether it is based on the truth or not. Training young preachers to debate is not to educate them in the needed Bible teaching. Often it is hurtful to a young man’s usefulness and his after life to make a debater of him. The debating spirit is often not the Christian spirit. The spirit that suffers and stands steadfast unto the end is the one that God [5]

The more I read Lipscomb the more I appreciate his heart for the poor, the humility of his spirit, his earnest desire to obey God in every thing, and his hatred of sectarianism. 

Footnotes

[1] David Lipscomb, “A New Discussion Proposed,” Gospel Advocate 54 (19 Dec 1912) 1377.

[2] David Lipscomb, “General Booth,” Gospel Advocate 54 (19 Sept 1912) 1049

[3] David Lipscomb, “God is Best Pleased with the Humblest and Most Obedient Trust in Him,” Gospel Advocate 54 (30 May 1912) 671.

[4] David Lipscomb, “Religious People Hard to Move,” Gospel Advocate 53 (2 March 1911) 268-69.

[5] David Lipscomb, “’Preach the Word,’ Gospel Advocate 53 (25 May 1911) 587, 590.

As I continue to study and think about the Texas, Tennessee and Indiana Traditions within Churches of Christ in the first decades of the 20th century, I have  been reading through the Gospel Advocate in those early years of the last century.  I thought I would provide a sampling of what has interested me in the editorials of David Lipscomb in his 81st year of life.  Here are few “gems.”

Opposing the Rebaptists of Texas.  Lipscomb is still very much concerned about the sectarianism of the rebaptist position. He wrote several articles at the beginning of 1912 on the question. In one he thought the rebaptist position begat extremes among the Baptists and that Baptists and disciples had much more in common than different in their understanding of baptism. When a Baptist was accused by a Rebaptist of denying certain truths about baptism, Lipscomb thought it “imaginary” (remember that Lipscomb was a former Baptist himself).

None such ever occurred or will occur. Especially is this true in places and communities where the Bapitst have not had to struggle with the misrepresentations of our rebaptist friends. One extreme begets another, and the rebaptist extreme leads to this Baptist extreme. The two extremes lead to restrictions of both parties.[1]

Rebaptists believed that one had to have a precise understanding that baptism was the moment of salvation (“for the remission of sins”) as a condition for the validity of the baptism. Lipscomb opposed this. One of the common arguments made by Rebaptists was that just as one had to understand the design of the Lord’s Supper to authentically participate, so one had to understand the design of baptism to experience authentic baptism.  Lipscomb addressed this point in a poignant way that drew the argument into the larger world of how God deals with humanity in their weaknesses.

The example [the disciples at the Last Supper, JMH]  is not very flattering to humanity, but one that very strongly commends to us the love and condescension of God. It invites us to love and humility, condescension and helpfulness, to the poverty and needs of humanity. Let us look in kindness and pity on human mistakes and infirmities and bless and help as we need help and blessing. The forbearing, humble, helpful spirit that leads us to help the weak, forbear with the ignorant, and lend an uplifting and helping hand to every child of mortality is as much a part, and a vital part, of the religion of Jesus as the belief of any proposition or truth connected with that religion. Man is much more intolerant and ready to condemn and repel the children of men from the helps and privileges of gospel truth than God is. Let one take the mental and moral condition of those who partook of the first Supper under the direction of Jesus and compare them with the intelligence and standing of those they reject and repel [those immersed to obey God, JMH], and he must feel the inconsistency. Our mission and work is to bury and hide shortcoming and imperfections in faith and life, and, while teaching the will of God as he gave it, to encourage the weakest and most feeble to walk in his ways as he has given it and as far as they understand it. The work of Jesus in the ordination of the Supper is often as much violated and set as naught as the rights of those who believe baptism is for the remission of sins. Let us cherish and walk in the spirit of Christ. Both Baptists and many disciples are sinful in their exclusiveness in religion.[2]

The Sermon on the Mount. In a couple of series on the “religion of Jesus,” Lipscomb concentrates on the Sermon on the Mount. According to Lipscomb, “our present and eternal peace depend upon doing what God commands in this Sermon.”[3] There were many interesting observations in his articles. But I thought this one particularly noteworthy as it contrasted with what the Texas and Indian Traditions stressed–and a growing number in the regions of Tennessee.

The mission of Jesus into the world was to bring the world back under the dominion or rule of God, into his kingdom, under his rule or authority. This was the end or purpose of the mission of Jesus….So they were to pray, ‘Thy kingdom come,”—that his rule or dominion on earth be established. Many looking at this from its bearing on the teachings of this age conclude this prayer now should not be made. Those persons confuse the opening or establishment of the kingdom with its dominion, rule, or completion of its work of bringing the whole world under the authority and rule of God. The establishiment of the kingdom of God in the world and the completion or end of that work are two wholly different things or ends. So long as the world or any part of the human family are not in the kingdom of God and not in obedience to his law this petition may and should be humbly made for God to aid and bless the children of God in subjecting the world to him….When God’s will is done on earth as it is done in heaven, it will change the earth of woe and suffering into a heaven of bliss and joy.[4]

Hermeneutics–The Function of the Gospels.  One of the more surpsing but invigorating articles by Lipscomb was his discussion of the role of the Gospels, Acts and Epistles in New Testament theology. While many divide the New Testament at Acts 2 and derive their ecclesiology from Acts and the Epistles, Lipscomb insisted on the centrality of the ministry and teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. Hold on to your hat for this one. 🙂

To object to what Jesus psoke and made known before his death is to attack the genuiness and validity of any will from him. Jesus himself said: ‘The law and the prophets were until John: from that time the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and every man entereth violently into it.” (John [sic; but he means Luke, JMH] 16:16.) Those who fix the reign or law of Jesus Christ after the death of Christ need to study the teachings of Jesus.

All that Jesus Christ spoke or gave to the world consitituted a portion of the will of Jesus that went into effect after his death…The laws of Jesus Christ are given in the sayings and teachings of Christ recorded in the four biographies of Christ. [Yes, you read that correctly, JMH]

The law is given in the personal teachings of Jesus. The Acts of Apostles and the Epistles are the applications by inspired teachers of the king to the churches and the applications of the Bible to the facts of life as they arise in the world [occasionality? JMH]. These applications and exemplifications of the truths of the Bible to the workings of the world greatly help in the study of the Bible by the common people. But there is not a truth or a thought in the application of these parables that is not in the teaching of Jesus…Jesus is the lawgiver. The whole law of God to the world is taught by him. The Acts of the Apostles and Epistles explain what the teachings mean, but they do not add to or detract from them. A change or modification in the teachings of Jesus would be treason against him and God.[5]

That is just a taste.  More to come at another time.

References

[1] David Lipscomb, “Difference between Baptists and Disciples,” Gospel Advocate 54 (4 January 1912) 17

[2] David Lipscomb, “Jesus Christ and the Rebaptists,” Gospel Advocate 54 (11 January 1912) 45, 49.

[3] David Lipscomb, “The Religion of Christ Made Easy. No. 4,” Gospel Advocate 54 (28 March 1912) 401.

[4] David Lipscomb, “The Religion of Christ Made Easy,” Gospel Advocate 54 (7 March 1912) 305.

[5] David Lipscomb, “When Was the Will of Christ Made?” Gospel Advocate 54 (2 May 1912) 554.

 “Theodicy in Early Stone-Campbell Perspectives,” in Restoring the First-Century Church in the Twenty-First Century, ed. by Warren Lewis and Hans Rollmann (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2005), 287-310.

In honor of Don Haymes, I penned an article concerning the various “theodices” that were prominent in the 19th century Stone-Campbell Movement. It was interesting to me that there is no “Theodicy” heading in the Stone-Campbell Encyclopedia though there is some discussion of the idea under the article entitled “Providence.”

Essentially, they were all theologically Arminian with an Augustinian understanding of the Fall. What I mean is this, they all located the origin of moral evil in the free agency of creatures (whether human or angelic). That is the Arminian part. At the same time, they all located natural evil in the “Fall” of humanity–either a punishment or consquence of sin within the cosmos. That is the Augustinian part. One can see both of these in Alexander Campbell and Robert Richardson and both affirmed a kind of “meticulous providence” over the world.

However, the North/South conflict and the cultural/theological developments of the late 19th century shaped theodicy in different ways within the movement.

On the one hand, the North embraced a more rational, scientific approach to theodicy. Emphasizing the embedded order within the cosmos, natural law regulated natural evil. Nature functioned independently–by divine design–of God’s specific will or intent. God did not and does not intervene within the cosmos except for redemptive-historical purposes (e.g., Exodus, Incarnation, Resurrection). This created a kind of Deism within northern thinking that denied any kind of “special” or “meticulous” providence (though all did not deny it and some continued the tradition of Campbell and Richardson). Among Churches of Christ, this is the tradition of Daniel Sommer or the Indiana Tradition.

On the other hand, the South (particularly in the deep south of TN, MS and AL, etc.) believed the cosmos was engaged in a radical spiritual conflict. It was the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Satan (e.g., Lipscomb and Harding). This is essentially the Tennessee Tradition. God was involved in his world directing nations and individuals toward his ends, including the idea that God punished the South because of slavery. God is meticulously involved in his world and engaged in this cosmic conflict. Humanity is free to choose which side it will serve, but God will win in the end and even now sovereignly conducts the world according to his goals and interests. Lipscomb’s response to the overwhelming experience of evil in the Civil War was to acknowledge God’s sovereignty. Lipscomb does not “defend” or “justify” God. Rather, he submits and trusts. He recognized that God punished the South for slavery but also that the North was equally wicked for its vengeance, violence and materialism.

Some in the South rebelled against this construal, particularly in Texas (Texas Tradition). They embraced a Newtonian natural law understanding of natural evil and advocated a practical Deism. This is evidenced, in particular, in the “word only” theory of the Holy Spirit. God is self-constrained by natural law and Scripture for his own action in the world. This response to life is to protect God from involvement in the specific events of the world. God does not get his hands dirty in the daily functions of life, but regulates the world through laws (laws of nature and laws in Scripture). The loss of “Spirituality” (the work of the Spirit in the lives of people) in the Texas Tradition gravitated naturally toward a practical Deism.

In the context of opposing a deistic understanding of prayer, James A. Harding asked: “Does the Holy Spirit do anything now except what the Word does? Do we get any help, of any kind or in any way, from God except what we get by studying the Bible?… Does God answer our prayers by saying, ‘Study the Bible…’?” (“Questions and Answers,” The Way 4/16 [17 July 1902]: 123.)

Theodicy is too often encumbered by metaphysical assumptions, too driven by hermeneutical harmonization, and too distant from the affirmations and particularities of the text. Theodicy must arise out of the story we have been given, and perhaps it is not so much “theodicy” as “kergyma” that is our task. I find myself much more in line with Lipscomb/Harding than the Northern Disciples and the Southern Texans.

James A. Harding was nothing if not passionate. His rhetoric in print could rattle chains and in homilies evoke tears, especially in his own eyes. Below is a good example as Harding lowers a firm and severe judgment against the growing position of rebaptism among Churches of Christ. I have highlighted a few lines which stress how he understood that rebaptism as practiced by the Texas Tradition of the Firm Foundation was heretical, sectarian and presumptuous. As you can sense, this was no “minor” disagreement. Unfortunately, I do not know the identity of the “Brother Editor” who penned the letter to Harding.

Harding wrote:

A brother, who is also an editor, in a private letter, writes to us as follows:

“I like The Way and hope it will succeed, for the warfare that it is waging is a holy one. We cannot have too many papers, if they are edited by close students of the word of God, who will make them reflect the spirit of the Master with the teachings of him and his apostles. From the attention you give to rebaptists, I conclude that you must have plenty of them in your country. I cannot but regard some of their notions as dangerous heresies. For instance, to require a confession of faith in a person, is the foundation of all creeds. The Nicene creed was formulated so that no one holding Aryan views could confess it, and rebaptists wish a confession that no one holding that baptism is because of the remission can make. But what a catalogue of confessions we would have to require if we attempted to provide in this way against other errors that are, indeed, just as dangerous! Universalists, soul sleepers, mystics, etc., would all have to be provided against, and we would need to require a confession that no one holding these heresies can make. [In other words, we would need a creed! JMH]

“I am constrained to believe, though I have never yet expressed myself publicly on this phase of the subject, that the only question that we have a right to ask any baptized person who applies to us for membership in the church is the one that Paul asked in Acts 19:3: ‘Into what then were ye baptized?’ In other words: By whose authority were you baptized? Where you baptized into the baptism authorized by John, or the one authorized by Christ? So to-day I believe we may ask: Were you baptized because the Baptist Church, Methodist Church, or some other church commanded it, or were you baptized understanding that it was by the authority of Christ? And no man nor angel can show authority for asking more. The premises by which we would prove that we may ask more would prove too much, because they would require us to aim a blow in our confessions at every error in Christendom; and in order that we might be able to do the thing in good form, a creed would be indispensable. The rebaptism agitation is plainly a step back to sectarianism, though all unmeant, of course, by its advocates.”

Thus far speaks our brother editor, and he is undoubtedly correct. To demand that a man shall understand that baptism is in order to forgiveness of sins as a prerequisite to baptism, and to stop with that, is the perfection of inconsistency; and, worse still, it is the adoption of the principle that caused all the creeds in Christendom; it is rank sectarianism. As we have repeatedly shown in these columns, the very word (“eis”) that connects baptism with remission connects it also with another and a greater blessing—greater inasmuch as the whole is greater than any of its parts. For example, we are not only baptized eis remission, but (which is a much greater thing) we are baptized “eis the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”—“into Christ.” All the spiritual blessings (of which remission of sins is one only) are found in Christ, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Baptism is the marriage ceremony in which we are united to Christ, in which we receive the family name, the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the name “God,” so that we are henceforth called “the sons of God;” then, having been thus brought into the divine family, we begin to receive the promises of God, the remission of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit; the daily protection, guidance, and blessing of God; the constant readiness of God to hear and answer our prayers, and so on. Paul exhorts the Colossians to give thanks unto the Father, “who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love; in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.” In baptism, he who believes with his whole heart that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, is made meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light; he is delivered out of the power of darkness, and is translated into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, in whom he receives the forgiveness of his sins: “For how many soever be the promises of God, in him is the yea: wherefore also through him is the Amen, unto the glory of God through us.” (2 Cor. 1:20.)

How any man can fail to see that it is inconsistent, unreasonable, and unscriptural to demand that the candidate for baptism must understand that baptism is for (eis) the remission of sins, and not also demand that he must understand that he is baptized into (eis) the name of the Father and of the son and of the Holy spirit, when the fact has been explained to him that the relationship in the two cases is expressed by the same word, “eis” (into), is one of the things hard for me to understand. I doubt if anything but the stupefying power of prejudice and party passion, of sectarian zeal, could also blind a man. I could as easily believe in infant membership, or sprinkling for baptism; and I believe that the prejudice which blinds the reimmerser, in this case, is as dense and as bitterly sectarian as that which beclouds the mind of the sprinkler or the baptizer of babies.

All that Christ demands of a man as a prerequisite to baptism is believe with the heart (intellect, affections, and will) that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. He who demands more than this demands too much. He is more particular than God; he presumes to require of him who would enter into the divine family more than God himself requires. He exalts himself above God by assuming that he can complete that which God, for some cause, left imperfect. He is too wise, too good. To such a one Solomon wisely says: “Be not righteous overmuch; neither make thyself overwise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?”

Of the man who has not been immersed, but who desires to be, we have the right to ask: Do you believe with your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, and do you confess him as your Lord? (See Rom. 10:9, 10.) And of the man who has been immersed, and who desires to work and worship in fellowship with us, we have a right to ask: Did you believe with your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, and did you confess him as your Lord? Who cannot see that the same state of mind and heart that prepares a man for baptism at my hands prepares him to receive the institution at the hands of any other?

The trouble with those people whom Paul immersed again at Ephesus (Acts 19:1-7) was, they did not believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead, nor had they confessed him as their Lord. They had only been baptized into John’s baptism for (into) the remission of sins. They had been baptized into John instead of into Jesus. But the baptism of John had ceased on the earth, and that of Jesus had been commanded. So Paul said unto them: “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him who should come after him, that is, on Jesus.” And when they heard this, “they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.” This is the only case of rebaptism in the New Testament. These people were baptized, in the first place, “for [eis] the remission of sins;” but they did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus, nor were they baptized into him. When we find people who have been immersed; but who did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus, and who did not take him as their Lord, we ought to instruct them in the way of the Lord more perfectly; and when they do so believe and confess, we ought to reimmerse them. But no man has a right to reimmerse another who was baptized believing in Jesus as the resurrected Son of God and confessing him as his Lord. He who does it is “righteous overmuch;” he has made himself “overwise;” and he is in danger of destruction. Solomon says to him, “Why shouldest thou destroy thyself?” and Paul exhorts us to learn “not to go beyond the things which are written.” It is as dangerous to add to as it is to take from the word of God; and every division that has arisen among the people of God, so far as I remember, began in adding to, rather than in taking from, the requirements of Christ.

James A. Harding, “What a Brother Editor Thinks, With Some Comments Thereon,” The Way 2 (July 1900) 98 (emphases are mine, JMH).

JMH Comments:

1. Harding is a stickler for Alexander Campbell’s fundamental insight that all that is required for immersion is a trust in Christ, that is, to believe that he is the Christ, the Son of God (this confession–involving the affections and will as well intellect–includes repentance). 
2. Harding recognizes that a biblical baptismal theology is fundamentally about entering into a relationship with the Father, Son and Spirit rather than exclusively focused on the remission of sins as the design of baptism. That relationship is a “greater blessing” than the remission of sins itself because it is more inclusive of all the benefits God gives to his people through baptism. And clearly understanding the meaning of being baptized “into” the communion of the Father, Son and Spirit is not something any one fully understands at their baptism. Instead of understanding, believers trustingly obey and the Father gives what he promised even when we do not understand what we are receiving.
3. Harding recognizes that “rebaptists” are fundamentally sectarian in several ways.  (a) They add to the requirements of the Lord for salvation and thus bind something that God did not bind which places them in the position of exalting themselves above God.  (b) They divide the body of Christ by presuming that some are not part of the body when they are.  (c) They substitute a creed for the confession. (d) Their zeal to identify themselves as distinct from the Baptists has blinded them to their own factionalism.
4. The disciples in Acts 19 were actually baptized for the remission of sins under John’s baptismal commission. They were rebaptized because they did not understand the confession of Jesus as Lord and giver of the Holy Spirit. If rebaptists are consistent, according to Harding, then anyone who did not understand that God gives his Spirit through baptism (as a promise attached to baptism) should also be rebaptized.  Baptism is as much for the giving of the Spirit as it is the remission of sins. Indeed, Harding would stress that the giving of the Spirit–entering into personal relationship with God through the Holy Spirit–is more fundamental and a greater blessing than the remission of sins itself.

One of the more significant differences between the Tennessee and Texas Traditions is eschatology.

I use “eschatology” in the broad sense of the term. It is not simply about millennialism (though the Tennessee Tradition was generally premillennial). Rather, it involves how one understands the kingdom of God, how the kingdom relates to “worldly kingdoms” (civil governments), the dynamic nature of God’s actions in the world, and the nature of the new heavens and new earth (renewed earth theology).

James A. Harding strongly emphasized the eschatological nature of the Christian faith. At the 1999 Christian Scholar’s Conference, I presented a paper entitled “The Eschatological Structure of James A. Harding’s Theology” which I have now uploaded to my Academic page.

After a brief biography, the paper describes Harding’s understanding of spiritual conflict in God’s creation, civil government (which he shares with David Lipscomb) and millennialism. I conclude by stressing how his pneumatology fits the eschatological structure of his theology. The personal indwelling of the Spirit in the Christian is a central feature of Harding’s eschatological structure. It was a core value for him.

Of course, all of this was foreign to the Texas Tradition–no personal indwelling, no renewed earth eschatology, patriotic nationalism rather than sole allegiance to the kingdom of God, amillennialism (if any sense of millennialism at all), emphasis on the church rather than the kingdom, etc.  Here Tennessee and Texas were total opposites.