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On the Larimore-Spiegel Exchange -- Part 3: Reflections

On the Larimore-Spiegel Exchange — Part 3: Reflections

Pat yourself on the back if you made it through that last post. It was a bit of a slog. In my first two posts in this series, I tried to provide more historical context for the 1897 open letter exchange between T. B. Larimore and O. P. Spiegel.

What has troubled me—and the reason I wrote these pieces—has to do with the reserve,

O. P. Spiegel

the tight-lippedness, one sees in recent writers who…

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#Douglas Foster #Huntsville #J. D. Patton #J. M. Powell #John Mark Hicks #Leonard Allen #Leonard Daugherty #Mars Hill #O. P. Spiegel #Rubel Shelley #State Evangelist #T. B. Larimore

On the Larimore-Spiegel Exchange -- Part 2

On the Larimore-Spiegel Exchange — Part 2

1897 was a watershed year. While it has become canonical, following the national religious census, to assign 1906 as the official date of a split between progressive and conservative Disciples, a page-by-page examination of the Advocate and other papers suggests otherwise. If we want to assign a date, we could do worse than setting it at least a decade earlier. 1897 witnesses a sharp uptick in…

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#Alabama #Alabama Christian Missionary Cooperation #Birmingham #Catoma Street Church of Christ #Christian Standard #Douglas Foster #F. D. Srygley #Gospel Advocate #Gospel Messenger #Herron Street Christian Church #J. D. Patton #J. M. Barnes #J. M. Watson #James A. Harding #John Mark Hicks #Leonard Allen #Montgomery #O. P. Spiegel #T. B. Larimore

On the Larimore-Spiegel Exchange

The T. B. Larimore house near Florence, Alabama, was destroyed by fire a couple weeks ago. It’s a devastating loss, and a lot of people are feeling it right now. My FB feed has been full of articles and photos.

John Mark Hicks posted this remembrance:

Larimore’s plea to be “just simply and solely a Christian in this intensely partisan age” resonates with so many of us who have been witness to…

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#Alabama #Christian Church #Christian Standard #Gospel Advocate #John Mark Hicks #Leonard Allen #O. P. Spiegel #T. B. Larimore

"Concerning Military Training"

“Concerning Military Training”

In the July 16, 1896, issue of the Gospel Advocate, F. D. Srygley reprinted, with approval, the following query that had been directed to the editor of the Christian-Evangelist. As with so many other things one encounters in the Gospel Advocate from the 1890s, it’s noteworthy as an index of how much things have changed.

“Do you think that our institutions, like Drake, Kentucky University,…

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#Christian-Evangelist #F. D. Srygley #Gospel Advocate #J. H. Garrison #Kentucky University #Pacifism #Spanish-American War

On Individual Responsibility

James J. Irvine (1862–1898) was a native of New Zealand. He came to America at the age of 20 and, in due course, enrolled in classes at College of the Bible, from which he graduated in 1890. Like a large number of other graduates in those days, he came south to Alabama to begin his ministerial career. He served as State Evangelist in Alabama from 1890–1891, followed by a stint as minister for the…

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#Alabama #C. P. Williamson #Christian Church #College of the Bible #Gospel Advocate #New Zealand #Selma #Southern Christian

McCaleb on Revelation By 1895, J. M. McCaleb had been doing independent mission work in Japan for more than a year.

#Christian Church #Churches of Christ #College of the Bible #Gospel Advocate #J. M. McCaleb #Revelation

J. M. Barnes on singing and unity

j. m. barnes and singing

Justus McDuffie Barnes (1836–1913) In July 1896, J. M. Barnes embarked on a month-long preaching tour through the State of Texas, documenting his travels in a series of articles in the Firm Foundation. Barnes was, without question, the leading conservative in Alabama during the years between the close of the Civil War and his own death in the spring of 1913. But he also travelled extensively, and…

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#Central Christian Church #Churches of Christ #Dallas #Dietrich Bonhoeffer #Firm Foundation #J. M. Barnes #Pearl and Bryan Streets Church of Christ #St Ambrose #Texas

"Money given to build houses is not given to the Lord"

"Money given to build houses is not given to the Lord,"

In the summer of 1891, a plea for help appeared in one of the papers. Bearing the heading “Left to Die,” the letter writer stated that the cause would die in a particular location if the brethren there did not receive sufficient contributions for a new church building. Reflecting on this assertion, David Lipscomb demurs: There is not an intimation in the New Testament that the success of the word…

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#Churches of Christ #David Lipscomb #Gospel Advocate #Nashville

Update

Here’s an update:

First, Birmingham and John T. Lewis. I’ve been hard at work as time allows over the past few months reconstructing the early history of the Birmingham churches, prior to the arrival of John T. Lewis in the fall of 1907. Recent excursions in the journals (Gospel Advocate and Firm Foundation) have brought me much closer to the origins of the Fox Hall church and the (still…

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#Birmingham #E. G. Sewell #East Nashville #Fox Hall #John T. Lewis #Nashville #Nashville Bible School #Pratt City #Tenth Street Church of Christ #Woodland Street Christian Church

Edward Ward Carmack, U.S. Senator. Gunned down two blocks from here in November 1908. David Lipscomb had begged him to get out of politics and return to the service of the Church. To no avail. (at Tennessee State Capitol)

"Write Him Up"

“Write Him Up”

Write Him Up

If thy brother does thee wrong, Write him up.

If he’s weak, ’twill make him strong; Write him up.

If you know his faults are many, Write him up.

For, of course, YOU haven’t any; Write him up.

If some one says aught of YOU, Write him up.

To let it pass would NEVER do; Write him up.

If you have an enemy on earth, Write him up.

Tell his faults from day of birth; Write him up.

If a…

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#Churches of Christ #Firm Foundation #k

"The most distinctly southern city I ever saw": Nashville, 1897

“The most distinctly southern city I ever saw”: Nashville, 1897

Morrison Meade Davis (1850–1926)

To follow up on J. A. Lord’s comments about Nashville in my last post, here’s an excerpt from an account of a visit that M. M. Davis, then pastor of the Central Christian Church in Dallas, paid to Nashville in the summer of 1897:

Nashville is a splendid city of 100,000 people, and is the most distinctly southern city I ever saw; much more so than Dallas. It is…

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#Churches of Christ #David Lipscomb #East Nashville #Gospel Advocate #Gospel Messenger #James A. Harding #M. M. Davis #Nashville #Nashville Bible School #O. P. Spiegel #R. Lin Cave #Vine Street Christian Church

90. (at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store)

On "the fruitfulness of co-operative endeavor": J. A. Lord in Birmingham, 1907

On “the fruitfulness of co-operative endeavor”: J. A. Lord in Birmingham, 1907

James Alexander Lord (1849–1922)

In November 1907, J. A. Lord, editor of the Christian Standard, traveled south to attend the annual meeting of the Alabama Christian Missionary Cooperation, which was held in Jasper that year. He came away excited and very optimistic about the prospects of the progressive churches in Alabama, especially those in Birmingham and Jasper (where a new, pro-society…

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#A. R. Moore #Birmingham #Christian Standard #J. A. Lord #Jasper #John T. Lewis #Nashville #O. P. Spiegel #Pratt City

The Character of a Schismatic In the late 1850s, the defections of Jesse B. Ferguson (1819–1870) and Walter Scott Russell generated a good deal of discussion in the papers.

Ensley Christian Church cornerstone. The building that is standing was not the original building. The congregation folded in the '60s.

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