John Mark Hicks

Jesus is the logos (word) of God; he is our pattern, the speech of God. His life is the word of God. He embodies all that God desires.

Disciples of Jesus follow Jesus. They follow him into the water, and are thereby baptized. They follow him into the wilderness, and thus seek solitude with God in the midst of their trials. They follow him into intimacy with other disciples, and thus they seek honest relationships with other believers. They follow him to the table, and thus experience relationship with others and commune with God. They follow him into the world as missional people, and thus are heralds and practitioners of the good news. They follow him into the assemblies of God’s people to praise God, and thus they gather as a community to celebrate the good news of the kingdom. They follow him in pursuing mercy and justice, and thus seek to embody a righteousness that declares that the kingdom of God has arrived. Disciples of Jesus do not follow the church, they follow Jesus and thus become the church–the outpost of the kingdom of God in this broken world.

Patternists are generally concerned about “authority.”  I suggest that what Jesus does is our authority. His actions, teachings and practices authorize as they model how God incarnates himself as the presence of the kingdom of God in the world. We follow Jesus to become kingdom people. We are called to be Jesus in the world for the sake of the world.
 
The Gospels provide the pattern, that is, the ministry and life of Jesus. Acts illustrates how the early church lived out that pattern. The epistles interpret and apply the meaning of the good news of the kingdom for believers living in community. The Hebrew Scriptures give us the lens to read the story of God in Jesus within the frame of God’s story among his people and see the depth of Jesus’ life and teaching.

For example–and issues that are often the focus of patternistic discussions, we are baptized because Jesus was baptized; we eat and drink at the table of the Lord because Jesus did. We discern the meaning of baptism and the Lord’s Supper thorugh the lens of God’s relationship with Israel, what it meant for Jesus within his own ministry, and how it was continued and interpreted in early Christian communities (Acts and Epistles). This is the approach I (along with my co-authors) utilized in my books on table, baptism and assembly.

The pattern for the church is not the historical descriptions in Acts, but the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus. The pattern for the church is the ministry of Jesus. What Jesus began to do and teach, the early church continued.

Some patternists divorce the church from the ministry of Jesus and seek their patterns solely in Acts and the Epistles. Indeed, this was Alexander Campbell’s patternism. But to say that the pattern for the church of Christ cannot be located in Christ’s ministry seems counter-intuitive to me. It is like saying that the church can’t be like Jesus or that Jesus is not the model for the church. How can that be? The church is the body of Christ!

Simply speaking, I would suggest that the pattern for the kingdom of God is anticipated in Israel, fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus, continued (applied and interpreted) by the early church, and brought to fullness (completion) in the new heaven and new earth. For a more detail explanation of this approach, interested persons can read my series on “Theological Hermeneutics” and the series entitled “It Ain’t That Complicated“.

The pattern for the kingdom of God lies on the surface of the story of God–it is the narrative of Jesus’ ministry in a broken world.  But that narrative is rooted in the theology and redemptive history of God’s story among his people–first in Israel, climaxed in Jesus, and practiced by the early church.  Rather than constructing patterns through stringing together isolated texts, I suggest we live out the pattern which is given to us in the narrative of Jesus’ own life.

 Patternism and a healthy theology of grace are not mutually exclusive. 

A previous post noted that Alexander Campbell did not make his particular understanding of the apostolic pattern a test of fellowship. The “ancient order” was not a soteriological category for him. Rather, it was a  matter of communal sanctification, a matter of growth, development and maturation. Consequently, he regarded other communities of faith than his own Christian.  What would “all that we have written on the unity of Christians on apostolic grounds” mean, he asked, “had we taught that all Christians in the world were already united in our own community?” (Millennial Harbinger 1837).

In this post I turn my attention to J. D. Thomas (1910-2004), Professor of Bible at Abilene Christian University for thirty-three years. He is the author of probably the most significant hermeneutical manual for Churches of Christ–We Be Brethren (1958).  It assumes (practically everyone assumed it in the 1950s), explains and applies the command, example, and inference (CEI) hermeneutic in some detail. The issue the illicited the book was the raging controversy surrounding institutionalism.

Between 1950-1970 about 10% of Churches of Christ banded together as non-institutional congregations. The issues are both broad and narrow. Broadly, these congregations rejected the cultural assimiliation of Churches of Christ, as they saw it, into the mainstream of American denominationalism. Narrowly, they opposed the use of church funds (collected in the church treasury for kingdom work) to support human institutions (incoporated entitites like schools, children’s homes, mission boards [e.g., sponsoring congregations], or any parachurch organization). To these churches the support of such human institutions to do the work of the church is analogous to the support of missionary societies to do the work of the church.

Churches of Christ were generally agreed upon an apostolic pattern in the 1940s:  five acts of worship (a capella singing, praying, teaching, Lord’s supper, and giving), congregational polity with a plurality of elders and deacons, silence of women in the assembly except for singing, etc. This was supported by the standard hermeneutic: command, example and inference (CEI). But the institutional controversy raised specific questions about how to use church funds and how to apply the received hermeneutic.

Thomas defends patternism, explains the hermeneutic and applies it to institutional issues. Roy E. Cogdill (1907-1985), one of the premier defenders of noninstitutionalism in the 1950s-1960s, reviewed Thomas’ book in 1959. That review, a series of articles, is available here. For Thomas, the NT contains a pattern–“a teaching that is binding or required of Christians today” and the “pattern principle” is “what bound the New Testament characters binds us, and what did not bind them does not bind us.”  And this pattern is “established by command, necessary inference, and example” (p. 254).

Thomas provided guidelines for how to apply the hermeneutic. His book has a glossary to define terms such as “generic authority,” “incomplete command,” “hypothesis of uniformity,” “hypothesis of universal application,” “excluded specific,” “overlapping classification,”  and “expedient.”  Sounds fairly technical, huh? Well, that is the point–Thomas took the standard CEI hermeneutic and gave it a “scientific” formulation in hopes of adjudicating the dispute between institutionalists and noninstitutionalists. My question has become–is reading the Bible for discipleship really that difficult?  See my series on “It Ain’t That Complicated.”

At the same time, Thomas is very concerned that the debate between institutionalists and noninstitutionalists reflects–on both sides–a deficient theology of grace. “Our real problem, and the place where we have become ‘bogged down’,” Thomas writes, “is in our tendencies to Legalism” (p. 119).  And “we should admit that we have all had Legalistic tendencies throughout the whole Brotherhood in tim past” (p. 116).  Hear his plea (239, 241):

The man who has not yet realized what it means that the Christian religion is a non-Legalistic, grace-faith system has not yet been able to be thrilled by its true meaning and beauty…When we truly realize the relatinship of faith and owrks in the Christian system–that we work because of our faith and to complete it, and not because of our relation to the Saviour, we find motivation for working even ‘beyond our power,’ yet with the greatest happiness and joy as children of the Most High God!…Matters such as ‘Love the Lord with all your heart,’ and ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ and ‘Christ liveth in me,’ cannot be reduced to little precise legal obligations.  Too many of us have thought of Christianity in too small terms and we have therefore failed to see its majesty and immensity and transcendent grandeur…All of us who have been in the church very long have been guilty of some Legalistic inclinations….none of us are ‘without sin.’ We have all no doubt argued strongly for points that we actually were not able to clearly prove to others. Perhaps there has been a degree of selfishness in the most of us, in being critical of the views of others without the ability to show clearly whereiin we were right. Tolerance, humility and a greater love for the Lord and for each other are in order if we want to solve our problems (and if we want to be saved). We must appreciate the fact that WE do BE BRETHERN, and that the tie that binds us in Christian unity is more important than our opinions.

 J. D. Thomas once told me that he was significantly influenced by the teaching and writing of K. C. Moser and that Moser’s understanding of grace was exactly the same as R. C. Bell, another of Thomas’ heroes in the faith and a primary representative of the Tennessee Tradition.  In fact,  Thomas once recalled that both R. C. Bell and G. C. Brewer were among the few who had a “good comprehension of grace” in mid-20th century Churches of Christ (Firm Foundation, “Law and Grace (2) 100 [23 August 1983] 579). And, I have argued, that it was partly the teaching of R. C. Bell and J. D. Thomas at Abilene Christian University that paved the way for a shift in the Texas Tradition toward a Tennessee (e.g., G. C. Brewer, K. C. Moser, James A. Harding) understanding of grace (see Thomas, The Biblical Doctrine of Grace). This shift, along with the popularity of Moser’s writings, led to “The Man or The Plan” controversy in the early 1960s. [As an aside, Harding College had actually kept this grace tradition alive through the teaching of J. N. Armstrong, Andy Ritchie, F. W. Mattox, and ultimately Jimmy Allen; and Harding College Press actually printed some of Moser’s writings in the 1950s.]

My point is that though J. D. Thomas was a good patternist–a defender of patternism and CEI as a sound hermeneutic–he nevertheless preached a healthy theology of grace. The two are not mutually exclusive.

The question to pursue, however, is when does patternism subvert the gospel of grace in such a way that it actually becomes a legalism.  That question belongs to a future post.

It is not legalism to seek patterns or to live by patterns.    

It is legalism to use those patterns in such a way that they undermine salvation by grace through faith.

That is my summary of what I thought was the sentiment of Cecil May, Jr.’s concluding comments in his February 3, 2009 Freed-Hardeman Lectureship speech (see my previous post).

In this post and in a subsequent one, I will illustrate how this point has functioned in the thinking of two significant leaders in the Stone-Campbell Movement: Alexander Campbell and J. D. Thomas. Both were patternists (to differing degrees), but did not permit their patternism to trump the fundamental truth of the gospel: we are saved by grace through faith and not by works.

In the 1825 Christian Baptist Alexander Campbell inaugurated his famous series “A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things.” He thereby introduced “restoration” as a key term in the self-understanding of the Stone-Campbell Movement.  A patternism of some sort inheres in the idea of “restoration” as Campbell used it.

Campbell assumed (1) “there is a divinely authorized order of Christian worship in Christian assemblies” and (2) “the acts of worship on the first day of the week in Christian assemblies is uniformly the same.” The “authorized order” is the “same acts of religious worship” that “are to be performed every first day in every assembly of disciples” (CB 3 [4 July 1825] 164-166). Campbell believed there is a pattern (his favorite word for it, in good Reformed fashion, was “order”). Subsequent essays explained the role of breaking bread (Lord’s Supper), fellowship (contribution), and praise (singing). In addition, the “ancient order” included topics such as congregational polity (bishops, deacons) and discipline.

Campbell’s series intended to identify particulars where the “church of the present day” needed to be brought up to the “standard of the New Testament.” To “restore the ancient order of things” is to “bring the disciples individually and collectively, to walk in the faith, and in the commandments of the Lord and Saviour, as presented in that blessed volume” (CB 3 [7 February 1825] 124-128).

It is clear that the “ancient order” is serious business for Campbell. It is a matter of obedience to the commands of the New Testament. The series was a call to the church of his day to conform to the “order” contained in the New Testament, that is, to conform to the apostolic pattern in the New Testament.

The interesting question, however, is whether he thought the “order” he discerned within the New Testament was a test of fellowship among believers. Did he believe that conformity to this order was necessary to salvation? Was it his intent to identify the marks of the church that defined the true church so that every other body of believers who did not conform to those marks was apostate and thus outside the fellowship of God?

This was implicitly raised in the Christian Baptist by one of Campbell’s critics. Spencer Clack, the editor of the Baptist Recorder, wondered whether Campbell’s “ancient order” functioned similarly to the written creeds to which Campbell mightily objected (CB 5 [6 August 1827] 359-360). Campbell’s response is illuminating. He maintained that his “ancient order” was no creed precisely because he had “never made them, hinted that they should be, or used them as a test of christian character or terms of christian communion” (CB 5 [3 September 1827] 369-370, emphasis mine–and thanks to Bobby Valentine who was the first to call my attention to this statement).

The pattern–the ancient order–was not a test of fellowship. It did not define Christian character. Campbell believed it was biblical and apostolic, but he did not believe obedience to it was a condition of salvation. The pattern was not a soteriological category, but rather an ecclesiological one.

If he did not identify these ecclesiological particulars as tests of fellowship, then what was the purpose of the series? He tells us. He believed that the restoration of the ancient order, though not necessary for fellowship and salvation, was “the perfection, happiness, and glory of the Christian community.” In other words, it was a means toward the unity of all believers. Restoration of the ancient order was not for the purpose determining true vs. apostate churches, but rather to set out a program upon which all believers might unite on the New Testament alone. If everyone would “discard from their faith and their practice every thing that is not found written in the New Testament of the Lord and Saviour, and to believe and practise whatever is there enjoined,” then “every thing is done which ought to be done” (CB 3 [7 March 1825] 133-136). He wanted to “unite all Christians on constitutional grounds” rather than on the basis of human creeds (CB 5 [6 August 1827] 360-61). The “ancient order,” according to Campbell, was the only legitimate (constitutional) and practical means of uniting all Christians, and it enable communities to discard their creeds and stand on the New Testament alone.

Theologically, this essentially means that eccelsiological patterns are matters of sanctification rather than justification (to use the classic terminology of Campbell’s era). The discernment, recognition and implementation of apostolic patterns were matters of growth and maturation. They were not the foundation of the church–who is Jesus, and the confession that he is the Christ, the Son of the Living God–but rather the sanctification of the church in conformity to a constitutional model of reading the New Testament.

Campbell never applied the “ancient order” as either a test of salvation or fellowship.  However, he did attempt to persuade others that a return to the “ancient order” was the way to restore unity to a divided Christianity.

Subsequent participants in the “Restoration Movement” turned the “ancient order” into a test of fellowship as the fundamental identity of the New Testament church, the distinguishing mark between the true church and apostate churches.  That was never Campbell’s intention and he would have regarded it as a subversion of the gospel itself–substituting the “ancient order” for the confession of Jesus as the Messiah as the true test of faith.

Cecil May, Jr.–Dean of the V. P. Black College of Biblical Studies at Faulkner University–is a kind, loving Christian gentlemen in the best sense of that term.  He was the first to ever interview me for an academic position just weeks before Sheila died as he was about to become President of Magnolia Bible College.  Later, in 1989, he did hire me as a faculty member at Magnolia.  And, then, he graciously released me from my contract in 1991 as we decided to move to Memphis upon learning of Joshua’s terminal genetic condition.

I have nothing but admiration, gratitude and love in my heart for Cecil May, Jr. And there is absolutely no “but….” I would add to that previous sentence.

I believe he falls in the G. C. Brewer “tradition” or style of thinking and ministry, and I know he would appreciate that categorization as he grew up at the Union Aveune Church of Christ in Memphis, TN. His teaching on grace follows Brewer’s (see my article grace and the Nashville Bible School), his openness to diversity on a range of questions from pragmatic methods to assembly practices (e.g., he doesn’t like singing during the Lord’s Supper but he does not believe it unscriptural) reflects Brewer’s own practical innovations (e.g., introducing multiple cups to the larger brotherhood) and views (e.g., special singing was not prohibited in the assembly in Brewer’s opinion), and his ecclesiological patternism follows Brewer’s own substantively reasoned perspectives (e.g., opposition to instrumental music).

I was reminded of my love for Cecil when he provided a clarification for Todd Deaver regarding Todd’s use of some of his past statements. Todd graciously published it on his website.

I have just listened to his recent lecture at Freed-Hardeman University entitled “Can Patterns Go To Far,” February 3, 2009 at 8:30am. While I would not agree with everything in his lecture (he briefly critiqued Come to the Table while surveying 1 Corinthians 11), I thought he modeled a kind but forthright gentleness in his presentation.  His conclusion was particularly on point and provided a broad common ground for discussion and agreement between (to use the terminology in play at Todd Deaver’s website) progressives and traditionalists.  Below is the last three minutes of his lecture (my own transcription).

To lovingly strive to please God by seeking his pattern in Scripture and to endeavor to live by it is not legalism. Legalism is the notion that we can save ourselves by our own doing either by being correct enough, believing all the right things or being good enough, doing all the right things.

I read something every once in a while that seems to imply that the writer is absolutely certain that he knows everything there is to know and therefore he’s going to be saved because he’s absolutely right about everything. I wish I were that certain about everything I know. I’ve already learned a few things I thought I knew that I realized I was wrong about. And I obviously think that whateverI think I know now is right or I wouldn’t think it anymore.  [Laughter] But I’ve had occasion to learn a few things later and point out somethings that bear on things that I’m not able to be absolutely certain.  Somebody has called me an agnostic over that. I prefer to say that I have a little bit of epistemological humility. Maybe that’s the same thing, but I like the second phrase a little bit better.

And I know that I’m not good enough. You may not know that I’m not good enough, but I know that I’m not good enough to be declared on that basis. We all have sinned. The good news of the gospel is that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scripture. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.  With his stripes we are healed. We are not required to be perfectly right or perfectly righteous. We are required to be faithful.  We are saved by grace through faith.

The existence of divinely authorized patterns does not deny the gospel of grace. None of us is perfect either in our actions or in our standards. None of us, some of us are further along in the maturing process than others. Some of us live more correctly by the patterns than others do. Some have had more opportunities to learn than others.  But we’re not saved because we perfectly follow the patterns of Scripture. We are saved by the sacrifice of Christ through our faith in him.

However, patterns for life and conduct in the assembly and outside of it tell us how our Lord would have us to live. When we recognize, listen to this, and remember this if you don’t remember anything else that I said today, when we recognize that he has saved us by his death, when we believe the Scripture is his own revelation of himself and his will, and when in gratitude we search the Scriptures for his will for us in order to conform to it as we understand it and can, that’s not legalism. That’s faith working through love.  Thank you and God bless you.

Amen!

“Pattern,” as Cecil pointed out earlier in his lecture, is a slippery word.  I believe in patterns.  I certainly think Christ is our pattern and I believe the gospel regulates both our assemblies and life (see chapter seven in A Gathered People or some of my previous posts on the topic).  The devil is in the details, precise definitions and hermeneutical methods.  

But the larger point, and more important one, is where Cecil ended his lecture.  It is not legalism to seek patterns or to live by patterns. It is legalism to use those patterns in such a way that they undermine salvation by grace through faith.

Thank you, Cecil, for your life, magnamity and gracious spirit. 

May God continue to use you and bless you, my friend.

P.S. The substance of the lecture is also available in a PDF file here.

Tennesee and Texas:  Mac Ice has provided another illustration of the tension between Tennessee and Texas on his blog. While looking into the writings of C. E. W. Dorris, a founding elder of Nashville’s Central Church of Christ in 1925 as well as a student of both Lipscomb and Harding at the Nashville Bible School, he discovered several letters from Dorris to Cled Wallace, the older brother of Foy E. Wallace, Jr., in the Tennessee state archives. The topic is pacifism and the Christian’s relation to civil government–a hot topic, as you might imagine, during World War II. Dorris expresses the astounding opinion (for the time in which it was written) that the Wallace’s hawkish promotion of  the war “will do the cause of Christ much more harm than Bollism ever did” and that their “war baby” has “bad complexion” because it has been fed too much “Texas goat milk.”

Take a look at Mac’s post. Dorris, the author of Gospel Advocate commentaries on Mark and John, thought the warrior posture of the Bible Banner was much more dangerous than the premillennial teachings of R. H. Boll’s Word and Work. That is a good Tennessean (Lipscomb, Harding, Armstrong) sentiment. 🙂 Thanks, Mac.

R. H. Boll, James A. Harding, and the Nashville Bible School:  I have uploaded to my Academic page the paper I presented at the 1998 Christian Scholar’s Conference at Pepperdine University entitled Boll, Harding, and Grace: The Nashville Bible School Tradition. Some of this material found its way into Kingdom Come, co-authored with Bobby Valentine, but much of it did not. I suggest that one of the differences between the Texas and Tennesee traditions is how they conceived the doctrine of grace. I place this point in context of both eschatology and pneumatology.

Lord’s Supper: I have posted my handouts for the May 1999 Austin Sermon Seminar entitled Preaching the Lord’s Meal on my General page. Much of this material ultimately made it into may book Come to the Table, but there are several sermon or homily suggestions in the handout that are not in the book.

I have long suggested that there is no gospel sermon that could not be linked with the Supper itself because the Table is the gospel in bread and wine. If it cannot be linked, then perhaps it is not a gospel sermon. By “linked” I do not mean a mere addendum as many “invitations” may appear, but rather the theme of any gospel sermon may be experienced in the Supper itself. The Word is then integrated with Act–the Word is experienced as bread and wine (or a table meal, preferably). The gospel message is given concrete form through the welcome, grace and community of the Table.

Throughout 2008 I spent part of my time reading through the major journals of Churches of Christ from 1897 to 1907: Gospel Advocate, Firm Foundation, Christian Leader, Octographic Review, The Way, and Christian Leader & the Way.  I have shared some of my “findings” on this blog and will do more in the future.

Other than the increasing distance between the Christian Church and Churches of Christ (ranging on issues from instrumental music and missionary societies to ecumenical federation with denominational bodies and higher criticism), the most discussed question among Churches of Christ in the papers was rebaptism. I counted over 200 articles–not including notices of debates, books and pamphlets about the subject–from 1897-1907.

The specific question was whether Baptists (or other immersed persons) should be reimmersed in order to receive the “right hand of fellowship” for entrance into a congregation of the Church of Christ. On the one hand, David Lipscomb, James A. Harding, E. G. Sewell, J. C. McQuiddy, Daniel Sommer, and others (including all the editors of the Gospel Advocate) argued that anyone immersed upon a confession of faith in Jesus is a Christian. On the other hand, Austin McGary, J. D. Tant, J. W. Durst, and others (including all the editors of the Firm Foundation) argued that only those immersed with a specific knowledge their baptism was the appointed means of salvation are Christian. This is the most well known difference, perhaps, between the Tennessee and Texas Traditions within Churches of Christ.

This difference generated considerable friction. But where is the rub? Why was it contested so vehemently and passionately? What was at stake? Austin McGary, co-editor of the Firm Foundation, gives us a  feel for how critical this debate was (1898, 284–emphasis mine):

We cheerfully admit that neither the society nor the organ has anything to do with this vile attack upon us by the Advocate. But the trouble between us is traceable to the very same presumptuous spirit that brings the society and the organ into the work and worship of the church. Bros. Lipscomb, Harding and their wicked confederates in this attack upon us claim to speak where the Bible speaks and to be silent where the Bible is silent. But, like Homon and his confederates in advocating the society and organ, they speak where the Bible does not speak, and are silent where the Bible does not speak, in their defense of Baptist baptism….these brethren are tenfold more palpably culpable in their effort to defend their practice of receiving Baptists on their baptism, because, in holding to this practice, they prove that they are willfully going beyond the authority of the Lord.

McGary believed the root was “going beyond the authority of the Lord” on the basic question of who is a Christian. This, to him, was more liberal, damaging and insidious than the society and the organ. McGary thought this would ultimately lead to a “divided brotherhood” just like the instrument and society (FF, 1901, 8).  J. D. Tant, however, was more optimistic after a visit to Nashville and thought that in “fifteen years” churches would no longer receive members on their “sectarian baptism” because “the gospel,” he wrote, was having a “>leavening influence in Tennessee” (FF, 1899, 23). Tant assessed the trend correctly, though it took much longer than fifteen years.

The “rub” for the Texans was that it expanded the borders of the kingdom beyond those identified with the Churches of Christ. The critical issue was that congregations were receiving unsaved people into their fellowship. This was, as Tant revealed, a gospel issue. At root the Gospel Advocate “was teaching other ways that sinners may be forgiven and enter the kingdom of Christ” (McGary, FF, 1901, 8).

The “rub” for the Tennesseans was the sectarian attitude that undermined the obedient faith of others. Lipscomb stressed that simple obedience to Jesus through faith was all the motive required for effectual baptism (see his “What Constitutes Acceptable Obedience“). To require more is to undermine simple obedience itself because it is no longer faith but education, knowledge and doctrinal precision that determines acceptable obedience. Such a spiral ultimately destroys assurance because when knowledge becomes the ground rather than faith one can never be sure they know enough about their obedience for their obedience to be accepted. A faith in Jesus that moves one to obedience is sufficient faith no matter what else they know or don’t know or even falsely believe about their baptism.

The other part of the “rub” is the sectarianism itself.  According to Daniel Sommer, rebaptists “adopt the sectarian plan of sitting in judgment on the fitness of persons for baptism” (OR, 1904, 3) According to the Tennessee tradition, the kingdom is broader than those who were immersed for the specific purpose of the remission of sins (or to be saved) and they did not believe that all those outside the borders of the “Churches of Christ” were lost (see Harding’s comments). This gracious attitude toward those who walk sincerely among the denominations is what the editors of the Firm Foundation feared because it enlarged the kingdom beyond the borders of their vision of the “Church of Christ.”

The rebaptism controversy was, I think, a struggle within Churches of Christ about the borders of the kingdom of God. It was part of movement toward more pronounced exclusivism within Churches of Christ. While the Tennessee perspective (which was also the view of Alexander Campbell, J. W. McGarvey and Daniel Sommer, which means it is not simply a Tennessee perspective) lost the struggle on this point, it did not die but remained alive in various places among Churches of Christ (e.g., Harding College).  

References:

Austin McGary, “Editorial,” Firm Foundation 14 (13 September 1898 ) 284.

Austin McGary, “The Firm Foundation—Its Aims and Principles,” Firm Foundation 16 (8 January 1901) 8.

Daniel Sommer, “A Letter with Comments,” Octographic Review 47 (2 Feb 1904) 3.

J. D. Tant, “Too Many Papers,” Firm Foundatoin 15 (10 January 1899) 23.

The previous post stated the specific arguments for silence. This post presents the case for “privilege.”

In January 1904 the Christian Leader and The Way merged. Though a friendly merger, it was the union of a strong Tennessee paper with a Northern paper whose roots were shared by Daniel Sommer. This entailed some substantial difference at times (e.g., pacifism), including the “woman question.” The Christian Leader had a significant history of openness toward female participation in the assembly through reading Scripture, prayer and exhortation. In 1897, for example, Ben Atkins offered “a Scriptural call for women to resume Christian activity in the church, praying, speaking, exhorting, singing, teaching, as in the apostolic age in Corinth” (CL, 1897, 2).

Consequently, Harding immediately found himself in hot water with some readers when he quickly staked out his ground on the “woman question” as co-editor of the new Christian Leader & the Way (CLW, 1904, 8). W. J. Brown of Cloverdale, Indiana, for example, cautioned that “before we force upon the churches our narrow, ignorant interpretations of the Bible, we ought to go back and study the question again” (CLW, 1904, 5). Also, Harmon rebuked some writers (presumably Harding included) with some terse words: “Don’t forbid these women, as you have been doing” (CLW, 1904, 9).  And Foster, as if to let Harding know that Northerners did things a bit different on this question, wrote that “it is not counted immodest here, in these times, for a woman to speak or pray, even in the churches” and since “we find where they prophesied” in the New Testament, “why not now?” (CLW, 1904, 4). Further, Spayd asked the question directly:  “Why muzzle the women in the Church?” (CLW, 1904, 2).

Daniel Sommer, the leader of what is often regarded as the radical right wing of Churches of Christ at the turn of the century, defended the privileges of women in the assembly and in the work of the church (e.g., deaconesses; OR, 1897, 1). His article, “Woman’s Religious Duties and Privileges in Public,” summarizes his perspective in some detail (OR, 1901, 1). “Extremes beget extremes,” Sommer began. The extreme of women evangelists had begat the extreme of silencing women in the assembly. It had now become a hobby, in his opinion, for some Southern writers. He suggested a middle ground which had been the practice of churches in his experience for years. That practice extended the privilege of audible prayer to women as well as men. “Any reasoning which will prevent women from praying in public,” he contended, “will prevent her from communing and singing.” He thought it a woman’s privilege to “publicly read in audible tones a portion of Scripture” in the assembly as long as she did not comment, apply or enforce “its meaning” since she would thereby become a “public teacher” which 1 Timothy 2:12 forbids.  However, “it is a woman’s privilege to teach a class in a meeting house” since the class is not the publicly assembled congregation. Further, since exhortation and teaching are different, even during the assembly, “if a sister in good standing wishes to arise in a congregation and offer an exhortation it is her privilege to do so.” A woman’s privilege, then, includes audible prayer in the assembly, public reading of Scripture in the assembly, public exhortation of the assembly, and teaching a Bible class of men, women and/or children.

Within the Sommer tradition the phrase “rights, privileges and duties” was almost a mantra that sought to impress readers with the sanctity of the female voice in the assembly. These universal “privileges,” according to J. C. Glover, were “singing, praying, exhorting and teaching one another, giving thanks, breaking break, and laying by in store as the Lord has prospered” on the first day of the week, and “no local legislation” should “interfere with these duties in the Lord” (CLW, 1906, 4) Frazee stressed that the “rights, privileges, and duties pertaining to the worship” belong to all and everyone has the “same rights and privileges to participate as far as their ability will permit.” While this does not include teaching that takes the “oversight of the Church,” it does include “speaking unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort” which was the function of prophecy in 1 Corinthians 14 (OR, 1904, 2). 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 was contextualized in several different ways, including restricting the forbidden speech to tongue-speaking (Black, CLW, 1907, 4), interpreting “your women” as the wives of the prophets (Williams, The Way, 1903, 1045), or recognizing the restriction as applicable to disorderly women (Atkins, CL, 1897, 2).

While some within the Sommer tradition agreed with Harding and others that “teaching and usurping authority over the man” were forbidden “even in the social family relation,” they nevertheless strongly contended that audible participation in the assembly “was a right—privilege—or duty” (Glover, CLW, 1906, 4). There was, among some, a shared cultural assumption about the exclusion of women from public society. But this did not undermine female participation in the assembly because the Church was different from human society. Whereas society is governed by the principles inherent in the “family of man” where man is the head of the woman, in the “family of God woman takes her place by the side of man” and fully participates in the assembly. Since the assembly is a “meeting of the family of God,” where “there is neither male nor female,” everyone—both male and female—should “admonish one another” as per Romans 15:14. When “the whole church is come together,” women are authorized and encouraged “to speak to the edification, exhortation and comfort of the church” (Cameron, OR, 1905, 2).

References

Ben Atkins, “The Woman Question,” Christian Leader 11 (2 February 1897) 2.

Charles S. Black, “That Awful Woman Question?” Christian Leader & the Way 21 (19 November 1907) 4.
 
W. J. Brown, “Notes of Passing Interest,” Christian Leader & the Way 18 (16 August 1904) 5.

W. D. Cameron, “Your Women,” Octographic Review 48 (11 April 1905) 2.

W. W. Foster, “Twelve Women and Two Men,” Christian Leader & the Way 18 (18 February 1904) 4.

J. C. Frazee, “Your Women,” Octographic Review 47 (5 July 1904) 2.

J. C. Glover, “Questions on the Woman Question Answered,” Christian Leader & the Way 20 (19 June 1906) 4.

James A. Harding, “Woman’s Work in the Church,” Christian Leader & the Way 18 (8 March 1904) 8.

F. U. Harmon, “The Woman Question,” Christian Leader & the Way 18 (6 September 1904) 9.

Daniel Sommer, “Church Government. Number Two,” Octographic Review 40 (19 October 1897) 1.

Daniel Sommer, “Woman’s Religious Duties and Privileges in Public,” Octographic Review 34 (20 August 1901) 1.

L. W. Spayd, “Why Muzzle the Women in Church,” Christian Leader & the Way 18 (17 May 1904) 2.

E. G. Williams, “Woman’s Work,” The Way 5 (3 December 1903) 1045.

In my next post I will turn my attention to “privilege,” but in this one I dig deeper into the argument for silence.

The Tennessee Tradition regarded public silence as godly submission on the part of faithful women. Given the Tennessee understanding that women were inferior to men in terms of leadership capacity and excluded from any “public” life as outlined in my previous post, it is not surprising to see the New Testament construed in a way that fits that presupposition. When seeking to inductively collect and harmonize the New Testament’s teaching on “woman’s work,” the Tennessee Tradition concluded that the most significant distinction was public versus private. Women “must pray and teach, but not publicly” (Bell, The Way, 1903, 1046).

Priscilla taught Apollos with Aquilla. Phillip’s daughters prophesied. Corinthian women prayed and prophesied. “Women announced the resurrection to the eleven” and the Samaritan woman “proclaimed” Jesus “as the Christ to the people of her city.” “The fact that,” Harding continued, “women in the apostolic age prophesied (spoke by inspiration) makes it clear to my mind that women who know God’s Word now should teach it.” But this “by no means necessarily implies that she taught in the public meetings of the church” (Harding, CLW,1904, 8).

The discerning principle is not whether a woman may teach or not teach, or pray or not pray. Rather, it is the sphere in which she teaches or prays, and the sphere determines the nature of the leadership involved. Her sphere is the home rather than the “great assembly.” Since God created man as “the leader, the ruler,” when a woman “assumes the leadership” through prayer or teaching in the public sphere as she “directs and controls” the “thoughts” of others she then “takes a place for which she was not made” (Harding, CLW, 1904, 8). That sphere belongs to men whereas woman was given “the humbler, better place and more difficult work,” that is, the domestic life (Hawley, The Way, 1903, 810). “Her place,” Poe wrote, “is at home to guide the house [and] rear the children” (Poe, FF, 1901, 2). This principle is rooted in Creation and illustrated by the Fall. Eve “wrecked things when she took the leadership in Eden” (Harding, The Way, 1902, 393).

The home, however, is a place where women may teach and pray, and she may teach even her own husband—“even though he be a very great man”—as well as her children. When, for example, Priscilla studied the Scriptures with Apollos, “no leadership was assumed;” but rather “there was a social home-circle talk about the things of the kingdom of God” (Harding, CLW, 1904, 8). In another place, Harding offers a further characterization of this kind of “home” environment. When there are “private meetings of a social nature, where no organization is thought of, no leaders appointed, a Christian woman may teach” men, women or children and pray with them. “But when the meeting is organized, called to order, and leaders are appointed, those leaders should be men always” (Harding, CLW,1906, 8). Bell—one of Harding’s prize students—summarizes it this way: a woman “can teach anybody anywhere except in cases where publicity is connected with it” (Bell, The Way, 1903, 777).

But may she teach in a “mixed” Bible class on the first day of the week? Is that connected to “publicity;” is it public? Both Bell and Harding believed that a woman may read Scripture (when asked), answer questions (when asked), ask questions, and thereby “teach” in a Bible class on Sunday when to do any of these in the public assembly would be sinful (Harding, The Way, 1902, 393; Bell, The Way, 1903, 777). Consequently, the assembly is “public” in a way that the Bible class is not. The distinction is important for them because “teaching is not denied her.” She may teach in a Bible class through reading, questioning and answering questions. What is forbidden is “publicity or exercising dominion” over men. Consequently, she may answer or ask questions in a Bible class when she does so “in a quiet, submissive way, being in subjection to the public leader” (Bell, The Way, 1903, 777).  

Interestingly and at the same time raising the question of consistency, the Bible class has a “public leader” even though it is not “public” in the same way as the assembly, according to Bell, but when a woman participates in the class she does not engage in “publicity” which presumably means the only “publicity” in a Bible class is located in the “public leader” or appointed teacher. Though a woman may teach other women and children in a Bible class as the lead teacher (Harding, The Way, 1903, 417), she is not permitted to teach men as the “public teacher” because this would involve a public exercise of authority over men. Yet, a woman is able to audibly participate in a class as a student (read, ask questions and answer questions) while she is not permitted to audibly participate at all in the public assembly. It appears that the definition of “publicity” shifted somewhat between the assembly and the Bible class.

Lipscomb and Sewell, however, do not seem to have a problem with a woman teaching a Bible class including men if they teach in a “quiet, modest, womanly way” (Questions Answered, 736).  Sewell gives the example of the Tenth Street Church in Nashville (Questions Answered, 741-2): 

“after singing, the reading of the lession, and prayer, the different classes take their places in different parts of the house, so that each class is entirely to itself as a class, and the lesson is gone over by each class, and the teacher, just as if each class were in a house to itself. Some of these classes are taught by sisters and some by brethren. But the sisters who teach these classes are as private in their work as if they were teaching at home…If churches can find enough competent brethren that will teach all the classes, that is all well; but that is seldom the case; and when that fails and women teach classes, we think that allright also.”

And, of course, “when the hour nears its close, the class work is closed, and at eleven o’clock the church assembles in one body and the regular service begins. In this service not a woman says a word, except in singing” (Questions Answered, 741). Not even a sound, we might say, because 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 says women should be silent in the assembly when the whole church is gathered as one body.

But did not women audibly pray and prophesy in the Corinthian assembly? Harding argued that when 1 Corinthians 11 is read as a positive answer to that question it contradicts 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. Rather, Harding suggested that 1 Corinthians 11 applies to “any time or place” when women pray or teach (home, class or assembly) but that 1 Corinthians 14 regulates this general instruction with a specific prohibition against speaking in the public assembly. The point of 1 Corinthians 11 is a woman should always, whether in public or private, pray or teach “with her head covered” (Harding, CLW, 1906, 8). Harding, along with many others in the Tennessee Tradition, believed a covered head was a normative obligation for women whenever they prayed or taught (though some, like Lipscomb, thought long hair was a sufficient covering; but if the hair was not long, then the woman needed a further artificial covering–see Questions Answered, p. 706). 1 Corinthians 11 does not subvert 1 Corinthians 14. Instead, 1 Corinthians 14 regulates 1 Corinthians 11. This is confirmed, according to Harding and others who argued similarly, by 1 Timothy 2:8 where the prayer leader—the one who raises “uplifted hands”—is specifically designated as a male (Harding, “Brother C. D. Moore,” CLW, 1907, 8).

The seriousness of this conclusion should not be underestimated. Paul’s prohibitions in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 were understood as “positive” instructions for the assembled, worshiping church. Below are some examples (emphasis mine).

 “The language is plain and positive” (Carr, CLW, 1905, 1).
“Paul’s language—plain and positive as it is…” (Elliott, CL, 1897, 2).
“[T]the Lord positively forbids it” (Hawley, The Way, 1903, 810).
“[S]he will preach in the face of God’s positive command not to do it” (Poe, FF, 1901, 2).
“This decree is like the one in Eden: it is positive” (Sewell, GA, 1897, 432).

This language is overtly legal in nature. The Stone-Campbell Movement inherited the use of “positive” and “moral” descriptions of divine law from their English Reformed (Puritan) heritage. A “positive law”—a specific legal injunction regarding the worship assembly, for example—cannot be disregarded without dire consequences. “When God positively commands,” Harding writes, “we should meekly obey”(emphasis mine; “Brethren Faurott,” CLW, 1907, 8). For example, “positive law” prescribed the five acts of worship and those who add to (e.g., instrumental music) that number sin against God’s law. “Nothing in the Bible is more positively forbidden” than public speaking by women in the church. When women are permitted to speak (teach or pray) in the public assemblies, the positive injunction against such is violated and violaters fall into the same category as Nadab and Abihu (emphasis mine; Sewell, GA, 1897, 692).

Consequently, the consensus among Southern churches—in both Texas and Tennessee as represented by respected editors—was that this was a line in the sand just like instrumental music or baptism itself. “That women are not allowed to make speeches in the meetings of the churches,” Harding noted, “is just as plainly and strongly taught as that believers are to be baptized” (Harding, “Was Paul Mistaken,” 1907, 8). When congregations permit women to “lead the prayers, to speak and to exhort in the meetings of the church,” Harding did not believe “God’s law was ever more flagrantly violated than…at this point” (Harding, “Brethren Faurott,” 1907, 8). These differences were just cause for separation and distinction, that is, division.

My next post will articulate a different perspective–the “privilege” of women to publicly lead prayers, read Scripture and exhort the assembly. The defense of that “privilege” comes from a rather unexpected source(s) within Churches of Christ at the turn of the century.

More to come….

R. C. Bell, “Woman’s Work,” The Way 5 (3 December 1903) 1046.

O. A. Carr, “Woman’s Work in the Church, What She Should Do in Public Worship. No. 3,” Christian Leader & the Way 19 (30 May 1905) 1.

J. Perry Elliott, “Queries,” Christian Leader 11 (5 January 1897) 2.

Harding, “Brethren Faurott, Sands and the Woman Question,” Christian Leader & the Way 21 (17  December 1907) 8.

Harding, “Bro. C. D. Moore, Sister Chloe’s Letter and the Woman Question,” Christian Leader & the Way 21 (29 October 1907) 8.

James A. Harding, “Questions and Answers,” The Way 4 (5 March 1903) 417.

James A. Harding, “Scraps,” The Way 3 (20 March 1902) 393.

James A. Harding, “Was Paul Mistaken, Or Did He Lie About It, or Are I Cor. 14:33-35 and I Tim. 2:8-13 Both True?” Christian Leader & the Way 21 (26 November 1907) 8.

James A. Harding, “Where and How Shall Women Speak and Pray?” Christian Leader & the Way 20 (31 July 1906) 8.

James A. Harding, “Woman’s Work in the Church,” Christian Leader & the Way 18 (8 March 1904) 8.

Henry H. Hawley, “Woman and Her Work,” The Way 5 (20 August 1903), 810.

John T. Poe, “Female Evangelists,” Firm Foundation 16 (29 January 1901) 2.

Elisha G. Sewell, “What May Women Do in the Church?” Gospel Advocate 39 (4 November 1897) 692.

My previous post provided the common ground upon which Churches of Christ distinguished themselves from the “digressives” in the first decade of the 20th century regarding “women’s work in the church.” The editors of the major journals among Churches of Christ were agreed that (1) women are not permitted to preach the word publicly (as evangelists in the field or speakers in the assembly), (2) women are not permitted to exercise ruling authority over the church as elders or bishops, and (3) women should avoid participation in the various societies associated with the progressives.

Some, primarily those associated with the Tennessee Tradition (e.g., David Lipscomb and James A. Harding), grounded their conclusions in a broad understanding of the role of women in society. They believed that women were forbidden any kind of public leadership whether in the home, church or society. Consequently, not only should they not speak publicly in the worshipping assembly, they should not speak publicly anywhere.  Not only should they not function as elders in the church, they should not become business leaders, presidents, or school teachers. Some, like R. C. Bell, believed that they should not even publish in the papers. After all, “if it is a shame for a woman to be a public speaker, why is it not a shame for her to be a public writer?” (Bell, The Way, 1903, 777). Consequently, they should not lead in church or society; they should not lead, for example, temperance societies or become involved in any kind of social activism in a leadership capacity.

Elisha G. Sewell, co-editor of the Gospel Advocate, argued this point in several 1897 articles. Based on Genesis 3:16, Sewell believed that (GA, 1897, 432):

From the time that sin entered into the world, and entered through woman, she has been placed in a retiring, dependent, and quiet position, and never has been put forward as a leader among men in any public capacity from the garden of Eden till now…This seems to have been a general decree for all time, for God has never varied from it an any age or dispensation….’Thy desire shall be to thy husband,’ is indicative of dependence—not in any slavish sense, but in the sense that she is to look to man as a leader and protector, and, in certain measure, supporter and provider….God himself never changed this decree, and does not allow man to change it.

The woman’s sphere of influence is the home, not public life. This is where she finds her purity and peace rather than engaging in the “busy cares of life” (Sewell, GA, 1897, 461).

While editors Lipscomb, Sewell and Harding all shared this perspective, probably the clearest case was made by R. C. Bell who studied at the Nashville Bible School and taught with Harding at Potter Bible College.  He suggested that women are superior to men in emotion but inferior in will while equal in intellect.  These differences reflect the function God has given to males and females.  Excelling in emotion, woman is tailored for home life but lacking in “will power” she “is not fitted for public life” since “she lacks, by nature, the will power to combat successfully against the cruel, relentless business world.”  The fact that woman was created from man’s side indicates that “she is to walk through life by man’s side as his helpmeet and companion, sheltered and protected from the world, and the rough, degrading contact of public life, by his strong, overshadowing arm.”  Bell’s conclusion then is that (The Way, 1903, 776):

woman is not permitted to exercise dominion over man in any calling of life. When a woman gets her diploma to practice medicine, every Bible student knows that she is violating God’s holy law. When a woman secures a license to practice law, she is guilty of the same offense. When a woman mounts the lecture platform or steps into the pulpit or the public school room, she is disobeying God’s law and disobeying the promptings of her inner nature. When God gives his reason for woman’s subjection and quietness, he covers the whole ground and forbids her to work in any public capacity…She is not fitted to do anything publicly….Every public woman—lawyer, doctor, lecturer, preacher, teacher, clerk, sales girl and all—would then step from their post of public work into their father’s or husband’s home, where most of them prefer to be, and where God puts them….You are now no longer a public slave, but a companion and home-maker for man; you are now in the only place where your womanly influence has full play and power

These are strong words and they are so distant from our contemporary context that we might cringe or at least blush reading them.  But one may admire the consistency, I suppose. If God created woman to serve under man’s protecting arm and God determined that man should rule over the woman as a result of the Fall, then this would apply not only to home and church, but also to society.  “That man should rule is the ordinance of God that grows out of the natures of man and woman. “God put in him the ruling qualities,” according to James A. Harding. While women are “very much superior to men” in many ways, “her superiority is not in leadership” (CLW, 1904, 9). Woman was designed for domesticity and reigns as queen in the home as a symbol of purity and love. “Woman may be queen, but she can never be king” and if she “seek and gain public place and power, then all is lost” (Hawley, The Way, 1903, 810).

This view was not only pushed by particular men but was also endorsed by some women. Effie S. Black, for example, scolded women who worked outside the home because “every woman who follows a profession or engages in a business makes it more difficult for some man to  provide the necessities for an invalid wife, an aged mother, helpless children, or whoever may be dependent upon him.”  Wives, of course, should work but in the home “for something better than gold,” that is, “better homes, nobler manhood and womanhood, higher ideals, purer thoughts, holier living, and all that can make our country–yes, and the whole world–better for having lived” (The Way, 1903,  397). 

Interestingly, this approach to the relationship of women to society and the church ran parallel with a strong cultural movement in the United States, particularly in New England and the South. It was called the “Cult of True Womanhood” or the “Cult of Domesticity.” This movement idealized women as the true embodiment of “piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity.” Such idealization excluded women from public life but honored their influence in the home (See, for example, Smith, CLW,  1906, 2-3). This perspective was pervasive until the “New Woman” movement appeared in the late 19th century pressing for the vote and a larger role in public life.

The clash of cultural movements is reflected, for example, by John T. Poe (a native Tennessean who moved to Texas) when he noted that “since woman took her hand from the cradle and grabbed at the ballot box a few years ago, her course has been away from her God given path and mission into paths of her own blazing out, and as a consequence the world is growing worse.”  Poe insisted that “God made women as helpmeets for man. Her place is at home” and not in public speaking. “If God had intended for women” for public speaking, “He would have given them a voice adapted to public speaking.” As it is now, her “squeaky voice, weak lungs and generally weak mental ability” disqualify her (FF, 1901, 2).

Cultures were in conflict.   The editors of the Tennessee Tradition had grown up and ministered in the cultural atmosphere of “True Womanhood.” But now a new cultural movement was rising which would lead to female suffrage, political leaders, and business women.  This cultural shift was terra incognita, and the Tennessee Tradition was wholly opposed to it.

But that was not true of everyone within Churches of Christ at the turn of the 20th century.

More to come…..

 
References

R. C. Bell, “Woman’s Work,” The Way 5 (6 August 1903) 775-777.

Effie S. Black, “Whould Wives Work?” The Way 4 (19 February 1903) 397.

James A. Harding, “Woman’s Work in the Church,” Christian Leader & the Way 18 (8 March 1904) 8-9.

Henry Hawley, “Woman and Her Work,” The Way 5 (20 August 1903)  810.

John T. Poe, “Female Evangelists,” Firm Foundation 16 (29 January 1901) 2.

Elisha G. Sewell, “What is Woman’s Work in the Church (Again)?” Gospel Advocate 39 (22 July 1897) 432.

Elisha G. Sewell, “Woman’s Real Position in the Church,” Gospel Advocate 39 (29 July 1897) 469.

F. W. Smith, “The Glory of  True Womanhood: A Sermon Delivered by F. W. Smith to Graduates of the Horse Cave High School,” Christian Leader & the Way 20 (1 May 1906) 2-3.

One of the forgotten debates from the first decade of the 20th century among Churches of Christ is whether audible participation in the assembly through prayer, singing, and exhortation was a woman’s privilege or a subversion of the created order. May a woman lead prayer in the assembly? May a woman lead singing in the assembly? May a woman exhort, edify or comfort the assembly through audible speech?  May a woman read Scripture in the assembly?

These were live issues among Churches of Christ at the turn of the 20th century.  In writing an article to be published this summer, I read through the Firm Foundation, Gospel Advocate, The Way, The Octographic Review, Christian Leader, and the Christian Leader & the Way for the years 1897-1907.  During those ten years Churches of Christ established their “distinct and separate”  identity from the Christian Church.  1897 is a good beginning point since this is the year that David Lipscomb recognized a “radical and fundamental difference” between the disciples of Christ and the “society folks” (GA, 1897, 4).  1907 is a good ending point since that year Lipscomb acknowledged that the Churches of Christ were a “distinct and separate” body from the Christian Church (GA, 1907, 450).

During those ten years Churches of Christ also struggled (and continued to struggle beyond that decade) over the exact form and nature of that identity.  One issue that was debated–heatedly and pervasively–was the question of female privilege or silence. Is it a woman’s privilege  to participate audibly in the assembly or must they be wholly silent except for singing?  In the next few posts I will explore this largely forgotten discussion.

I begin with the common ground among Churches of Christ (represented by the papers listed above) that distinguished them from the more progressive among the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church). There are at least two areas in which the editors of these papers stood united against the “digressives.”

First, they all agreed that women should not be “public teachers” in the “public assemly” of the church or exercise ruling authority in the church such as belongs to the elders of the congregation (some, like Lipscomb, did not like the idea of “ruling authority,” but still objected to women functioning as shepherds in a congregation).  While arguing that women are not totally silenced in the assemblies by the New Testament, J. C. Frazee in the Octographic Review acknowledges that “we understand that they are not permitted to teach (usurp authority), taking the oversight of the Church, as officals (elders, bishops, etc.)” (OR, 1904, 2).  Some, like Theodore DeLong, argued that public teaching was the only thing denied a woman in the public assembly:  “Is there any other good thing that women are commanded not to do except teach in public?” (CLW, 1905, 2). More specifically, James A. Harding argued that “the speaking that is forbidden in the church is that in which the woman becomes a leader, one in authority” and the reason it is forbidden is because “God made man to be the leader, the ruler, and the woman to be his helpmeet” (CLW, 1904, 8).

It was one of the characteristics of the “digressives” or progressives that women sometimes functioned as preachers and evangelists. According to John T. Poe, it was “common among the digressives for women to preach, lecture and pray now as among any of the other sets. But,” he added, “it must not be so in the church of Christ” (FF, 1901, 12). This became an identifiable marker that distinguished the Christian Church (“digressives”), though not even all or most of their congregations, from the Churches of Christ. Indeed, this point (“woman is not to usurp authority, is to keep silence in the church”) is so plain, according to Lipscomb, that he did “not see why the teaching that Jesus is the Son of God may not be set aside by the same rule and reasoning” that this “teaching is set aside” (GA, 1897, 356). [Lipscomb’s article was reprinted in the Firm Foundation.]

Second, they all agreed that women should not participate in the organization, leadership and function of various ecclesiastical societies or any activist society (e.g., the temperance movement).

At one level this was directed against the “digressives” who encouraged women to organize local societies.  “Dear sisters,”  wrote William Wise in the Firm Foundation, “do not suffer yourselves to be organized into women’s aid societies. Do all your work in the Lord’s house–His church” (FF, 1904, 3).  Such participation is divisive because God has not authorized such societies.  Thus, “women who build societies and become presidents and public leaders,” according E. G. Sewell,  “bring troubles, bring wounds and heartaches among brethren, cause division and strife in churches and throw a blight over Christian unity wherever they prevail” (GA, 1897, 469).  [Sewell’s article was reprinted in the Firm Foundation.]  The standard warning, voiced by Wise, was: “Don’t let any digressive click organize you into their societies” (FF,  1901, 2).

At another level this was directed toward any activism by women outside the home or church. The public sphere was not accessible to woman as determined by God’s created order, according to the argument. This perspective was strongly embedded within the Tennessee Tradition flowing out of the teaching of David Lipscomb and James A. Harding.  I will begin my next post elaborating this position and how it shaped discussion among Churches of Christ.

More to come….

References

Theodore DeLong, “The Woman Question,” Christian Leader & the Way 45 (7 November 1905) 2.

J. C. Frazee, “Your Women,” Octographic Review 47 (5 July 1904) 2.

James A. Harding, “Woman’s Work in the Church,” Christian Leader & the Way 18 (8 March 1904) 8-9.

David Lipscomb, “The Church of Christ and the ‘Disciples of Christ,” Gospel Advocate 49 (18 July 1907) 450.

David Lipscomb, “The Churches Across the Mountains,” Gospel Advocate 39 (7 January 1897) 4.

David Lipscomb, “Women in the Church,” Gospel Advocate 39 (10 June 1897) 356.

David Lipsomb, “Women in the Church,” Firm Foundation 13 (13 July 1897) 2.

John T. Poe, “Female Evangelists,” Firm Foundation 16 (29 January 1901), 2.

Elisha G. Sewell, “Woman’s Real Position in the Church,” Gospel Advocate 39 (29 July 1897) 469.

Elisha G. Sewell, “Woman’s Real Position in the Church,” Firm Foundation 13 (24 August 1897) 1.

William Wise, “Woman,” Firm Foundation 16 (2 April 1901) 2.

William Wise, “Woman’s Work in the Church,” Firm Foundation 21 (3 May 1904) 3.