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Even
today there remain traces of the feud that reaches back to the
1880’s. The Tennessee and Texas Churches of Christ have always
had something less than strong ties. They have been inclined to
favor their own leaders, publications and colleges, and they have
had their pet loyalties in terms of doctrine and practice. Even in
the 1970’s the distance between Nashville and Abilene is
further than between Tennessee and California. It is partly a matter
of history.
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The
story is important to our survey because it helps us to see how
division finally came to “the Movement that cannot divide,”
as Moses Lard put it, and it may assist us in seeing how we still
have hanging over us that same dark cloud that both blinds us and
hides us in reference to the larger Christian world. This is the sin
of exclusivism. In this and the last installment of this series we
shall be showing that this was the sin that divided our people, and
we propose to explain how it came about.
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It
is evident that our pioneers were not exclusivists. From the very
beginning they sought to work with existing denominational
structures. The first Campbell congregation, called Brush Run,
applied first for affiliation with a Presbyterian presbytery. Denied
this, they became part of a Baptist association of churches. The
second Campbell congregation at Wellsburg, Virginia, which grew out
of Brush Run, was a part of the Mahoning Baptist Association, and it
was in such an association that the Campbell effort blossomed into a
Movement. It was never their will to
leave
anything,
but to work for reform from within. Circumstances being against
them, or perhaps for them, they soon found themselves on the
outside, “withdrawn from,” as it were, and a
“denomination” of their own. This brings us to around
1830. From this time on, through the Civil War, our people were
never exclusivists, except for an occasional radical. They were
Christians only, they insisted, but not the only Christians. They
did not presume that they were right and everyone else wrong, and
they certainly did not believe that they alone were the one true
church. When that viewpoint finally did emerge, it caused division,
as we shall see.
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An
exclusivist could never write as Campbell did, in response to a
criticism he received for joining forces with Barton Stone: “If,
however, my uniting with anyone sect would shut me out from all
others which hold the Christian institutions ever so imperfectly, I
would rather choose to stand aloof from that sect than from all
others.” (MH, 1831, 558)
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The
Movement was well crystallized and Campbell at 50 was no longer a
young man when he wrote in response to the question of whether there
be Christians among the sects: “If there be no Christians in
the Protestant sects, there are certainly none among the Romanists,
none among the Jews, Turks, Pagans; and therefore no Christians in
the world except ourselves. Therefore, for many centuries there has
been no church of Christ, no Christians in the world, and the
promises concerning the everlasting kingdom of the Messiah have
failed, and the gates of hell have prevailed against his church!
This cannot be; and therefore there are Christians among the sects.”
(MH, 1837, 411)
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This
means that our pioneers had no illusions about restoring the
primitive church, as if it did not exist. They made no such claim.
They rather believed that the church has always been, just as Jesus
said it would, but that it had its defects and was in need of
reformation. They thus sought to restore
to
the
church things that were lacking.
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A
different spirit has emerged in recent generations. We are now told
that we are
the
church
to the exclusion of all others. We are the only Christians. We have
restored the true church. With that spirit has come a dozen or more
divisions, each claiming to be the true Body of Christ. The spirit
of exclusivism is the spirit of sectarianism that has divided and
subdivided us. The Texas-Tennessee feud is not
the
cause
of this, but a suitable illustration of what happened and why.
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As
early as the mid-1830’s, while still but a fledgling Movement,
the Disciples were plagued with the re-baptism issue, that is, the
practice (which some came to insist upon) of re-immersing those who
were not knowingly and purposely baptized for the remission of sins.
The issue seethed below surface through two generations. So long as
Campbell lived its advocates had little chance of any substantial
success, for he strongly opposed the practice, insisting that the
only valid ground for re-immersing anyone would be if the person
were void of faith when he was first baptized. Once Campbell was
dead (1866) the insidious forces of exclusivism could more easily
leaven the Movement, and this was the issue behind the
Texas-Tennessee feud.
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The
demand for re-immersion first appeared in 1834 in the pages of the
Apostolic
Advocate,
edited
by Dr. John Thomas in Philadelphia. He contended that both the one
who baptizes and the one being baptized must understand that
immersion is unto the remission of sins, otherwise the act is
invalid. Campbell not only opposed Dr. Thomas on this issue in his
writings, but went to the doctor’s church for a public
confrontation. In time Thomas left the Movement and founded the sect
known as Christadelphians. The re-baptism heresy was kept at bay as
long as Campbell lived, but, being a form of exclusivism, it and
other such forms were destined to eventual victory, thus dividing
the Movement.
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Exclusivism
expressed itself in other ways. Some insisted that our people were
the only true Christians, so any cooperation with “the
denominations” would be sinful. The Lord’s Supper,
whether open to all believers or only to the properly baptized,
became an issue. The larger question of whether there are Christians
among the sects would not go away, even though Campbell ran 23
articles on the subject in 1839 alone. Soon societies and
instrumental music were also issues. The problem was not that there
were differences, for the Movement had always had such differences,
but that an exclusivistic spirit was finding expression. The view
that the Disciples had restored the true church was solidifying, and
this meant that all others must conform to “the pattern”
or be considered unsaved. Some reformers were ready to “withdraw
from” other reformers and no longer recognize them as brothers
because of this or that “innovation.” This is the story
we are telling.
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When
a story gets big we would expect it to come out of Texas. Our first
congregation dates back to 1836 (Clarksville, Texas), the same year
that Texas became a republic. As the frontier moved westward, more
and more Disciples made their way to Texas. This was especially the
case following the Civil War, with so much of the South devastated.
Just before the war we had something like 200 small congregations.
with a membership of about 6,000. Two decades or so following the
war we had some 600 congregations and 34,000 members. Today
one-third of the members of Churches of Christ are in Texas,
numbering around 450,000 in 2700 churches. The very first
meetinghouse erected in Dallas was a Christian Church (1867), an
historical marker now marks the spot, only a few squares from the
Kennedy assassination spot. That congregation eventually divided in
1877 over the organ (the
pro
organ
folk walking out this time!), but they both continued
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to
call themselves Christian Church and they both called their “Pastor”
Reverend!
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So,
by the 1880’s Texas was vying with Tennessee for southern
leadership of Christian Churches - Churches of Christ, which was
mostly conservative when compared to the likes of Isaac Errett and
the
Christian
Standard
in
the North. At this time the undisputed leader in the South was David
Lipscomb and the
Gospel
Advocate
in
Nashville. In regard to “the issues,” Lipscomb was a
moderate. For 20 years or so he ignored the organ as a kind of
non-issue, considering it a matter of little importance as compared
to the war resolutions issued by our missionary society in the
North. The issue of helping the South’s poverty-stricken
saints was more vital to him than whether societies are right or
wrong. Despite pressures applied to him by hard-liners, he kept
issues like the organ a matter of opinion and would not make them a
matter of fellowship. He himself visited with “organ
churches,” and he refused to draw a line between “pro-organ
preachers” and “anti-organ preachers.” as some
leaders in the South (and the North!) had begun to do. He finally
yielded this moderate position and became an exclusivist, but we
will tell that part of the story in our next.
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As
for the re-immersion issue, Lipscomb always remained a staunch
Campbellite, insisting adamantly that the only condition for baptism
is faith in Jesus. So, in keeping with the Movement’s history,
he not only opposed the re-baptizing of Baptists, but considered
them to be brothers in Christ. He even wrote editorials on the
possibility of uniting with the Baptists. And yet he was a strong
immersionist, contending that one cannot be sure of his salvation
until he is immersed. It was the issue of open membership, by the
way, that jarred him from his moderate position and turned him into
an exclusivist. But this came later. In the meantime Lipscomb was to
have a big problem down in Texas.
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In
1884 a new paper began in Austin called the
Firm
Foundation,
edited
by one Austin McGary, a former sheriff turned evangelist, who was a
hard-liner from the word go. The paper made it clear that its
purpose was “to convince the world that baptism is of no value
unless administered with the express understanding, on the part of
both administrator and candidate, that it is for the remission of
sins, and is administered for that express purpose” (FF,
Vol. 3, p. 1). From the very first issues it was apparent that
McGary was after Lipscomb. He was a tenacious debater that would not
let up. He created in Texas what was actually a re-baptism faction,
but he soon had all of Texas on his side, and he was soon to convert
most of the rest of the South to his position. When Lipscomb died in
1917 there were but a few that followed his position on baptism.
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It
shows the difference one strong leader can make, for good or ill.
The year before the
Firm
Foundation
began
one of our preachers in Leona, Texas received 27 immersed Methodists
and seven Baptists into the Church of Christ, without re-baptism.
There were many such reports of Baptists and other immersed people
coming into the Movement in the “Texas Department” of
the
Gospel
Advocate.
It
had always been the practice, as it was in Tennessee and throughout
the Movement’s history. But the sheriff in Texas started a
feud that finally changed all that. He and others, such as J. D.
Tant, moved among the churches agitating this issue, and there thus
began a massive wave of re-baptisms, including many who had been
members of the Church of Christ for a lifetime. Making sure that one
was baptized right became a lively issue. A new breed of legalism
had been born. The churches became more exclusivistic. Baptists were
no longer brothers who needed to be helped out of their
sectarianism, but outsiders who had to be immersed like any other
sinner. Even more, they sort of became the enemy, and there was soon
a flurry of debates with Baptists. Our men even began to debate each
other over the issue.
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From
his powerful editor’s desk in Nashville, Lipscomb deplored
what he called “the fratricide in Texas.” He made one
last effort, pointing out to McGary that if his position were right
that even Alexander Campbell could not be called a brother. But that
was no problem to McGary, who was ready to exclude Campbell as well
as anyone else, if his baptism did not measure up to his
interpretation of Acts 2:38.
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Well,
Texas won the feud (who else!) and exclusivism became more than a
threat. The same spirit that McGary infused into the
Firm
Foundation
holds
sway over most Texas Churches of Christ today, who could not, if
they were consistent, enjoy fellowship with either David Lipscomb or
Alexander Campbell. Exclusivism is like the amoeba that separates
into other cells, and those into still more. Since McGary’s
time Church of Christ exclusivism has generated a new “loyal
church” every decade.
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In
our next we will enlarge our view of how the Churches of Christ
became recognized as a distinct religious body in the 1906 Federal
Census. —the
Editor