Jerry Rushford, John Mark Hicks and Mac Ice present Memories: Photographs and Stories from the Restoration Movement. Here is the slide presentation and here is the audio recording.
Tolbert Fanning
Preach the Word: James A. Allen at the Church Street pulpit
In about 1905 or so James A. Allen stood behind the pulpit from the old Baptist Church of Nashville (later the Church Street Christian Church) likely in the yard of his aunt’s home and this photograph was taken.
I wrote about this pulpit a few years ago, and included the photograph with the article. I recently ran across this colorized version and thought it worth sharing. A few years ago MyHeritage ran a special trial for a while wherein you could upload a few photos and run them through their colorization process. It was a clever gimmick to gain subscribers. In my case it worked. I signed up a for the trial subscription and used the database. I ran some family photos through the system, including the animation feature, and was just amazed. I realize some have strong feelings about altering a historical record in this way, and I share the same concerns if the alteration is not noted. So, consider it noted.
If I were to assemble the most iconic images relating to Nashville Churches of Christ and Restoration Movement history, this image would certainly make the short list. What a fabulous image:
James A. Allen at the Church Street pulpit, ca. 1905. Colorized.
David Lipscomb compares Jesse Sewell against Alexander Campbell, Tolbert Fanning, Moses Lard and T. W. Brents
Some time ago I posted Benjamin Franklin’s impression of meeting and hearing Alexander Campbell in person for the first time.
In a similar vein comes David Lipscomb’s estimation of Jesse Londerman Sewell’s preaching. This from Life and Sermons of Jesse L. Sewell (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Publishing Company, 1891), pp. 118-119:
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As a preacher he was a man of one book, he preached the word of God in a meek, earnest, faithful manner and kind spirit. He spoke with ease to himself, and his style was pleasant to his hearers. His power was in an earnest and sincere presentation of the truth, remarkable for its simplicity, conciseness and clearness. He was familiar with the Bible as but few men are. His discourses did not cover a wide range of thought, but were finished and complete, eminently pointed and instructive. They showed he had viewed his subject from every standpoint and that the bearing of every passage of scripture on a position, taken, had been carefully considered. I have heard Alexander Campbell, with his clear thoughts, reverential manner, noble bearing, and profuseness of imagery, Tolbert Fanning with his Websterian clearness and force of statement, and majestic mien, and forceful manner, Moses E. Lard with his close and clear analysis and elucidation of his subject and his power to touch the sympathy and to stir the feelings with his tender pathos, I have heard Dr. [p. 119] Brents with his well laid premises and strong and convincing logic, but for a well-rounded, finished, completed sermon, stating the full truth on his subject in manner so simple that the humblest could understand it, and guarding at every point, against possible misconception or objection, my conviction has been for years, that Jesse Sewell in his prime, was the superior of any man I ever heard. He lacked the aggressive force and self-asserting power that belonged to these other men. He was lacking in both the mental and physical activity and vigor that make a great leader, but for clearness of perception, the ability to look on all sides of a question, and to view it in all its lights and to form just and sound conclusions, then to state them with clearness and critical precision, he had few superiors. He was one of the safest and soundest scripture teachers to be found.
My conviction is, the hold the Christian religion has upon the people of Middle Tennessee, is due under God to Jesse Sewell, more than any other one man. His singleness of purpose and devotion to the work explains the reason. Brother Sewell’s whole life was one of quiet, earnest simplicity, industry and genuine honesty. He had no taste for show or display of any kind. …
David Lipscomb, Life and Sermons of Jesse L. Sewell (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Publishing Company, 1891), pp. 118-119.
It is a revealing analysis for in it we see:
–Lipscomb’s description Campbell, Fanning, Lard and Brents are from first-hand direct experience. Lipscomb heard Campbell in Nashville in the midst of the Ferguson fiasco; he was formed by Fanning’s teaching at Franklin College and in the Nashville congregations; he could have heard Lard at several places but Nashville seems the likeliest (although I do not have a date at hand, but rely on memory); and what is true of Fanning is nearly true of Brents, who preached in many places.
–Lipscomb’s evaluation which reveals what impressed him about each man’s preaching, and from it we could triangulate those qualities of homiletic purpose, style, function, and content that most commended themselves to David Lipscomb.
–Lipscomb’s knowledge of the churches of Christ in Middle Tennessee and of Sewell’s work among them over a period of time. That final analysis is striking for I would assumed Fanning’s activity (directly through his papers and through the influence of his school and students) would have been uppermost in Lipscomb’s mind. Lipscomb may have assessed Fanning’s formative role in similar or approaching terms (I cannot recall off-hand). In light of this from Lipscomb about Sewell, we should hold loosely to any assumption that Fanning was the dominant actor among these congregations. At least we should in the absence of other evidence. I am happy to learn more.
–Lipscomb also was known for his simplicity of lifestyle, although through Margaret’s innovative spirit they eventually lived at a standard quite above the Sewell’s two-rooms-and-a-lean-to (see p. 120 against Hooper’s biography). E. G. Sewell certainly lived above this standard in his neat brick home in East Nashville. But the point is that Lipscomb highly esteems simplicity, plainness, forthrightness, industry, devotion, and the like. We see this from Lipscomb’s taste for personal attire to his preferred manner of ministry and mission work to his comments about church architecture.
–In these paragraphs we see something about Jesse Sewell, also Campbell, Fanning, Lard, and Brents. And we something about D. Lipscomb, too.
C. E. W. Dorris helps us remember how Tolbert Fanning eulogized Barton Stone
Charles Elias Webb Dorris was a collector, and reader, of old periodicals. His complete set of Gospel Advocate was one of the few in existence in his lifetime. Its rarity ensured he was sought after by budding historians such as Earl West (Search for the Ancient Order) and Stephen Eckstein (Churches of Christ in Texas).
Dorris used his library and the documents of the past therein to engage with the issues of his day. This is particularly true of the institutional controversy in the late 1940s through the 1950s. I am thinking of a series of articles he penned for Preceptor. He also occasionally sent snippets to B. C. Goodpasture for inclusion in Gospel Advocate. Under the title “Honor to Whom Honor” he states that he has “thought for a long time that writers both past and present, give Alexander Campbell honor that belongs to Barton W. Stone. In this I am not by myself as will be seen in the following from the pens of Philip Mulkey and Tolbert Fanning.” Dorris’ point is that Stone’s work preceded Campbell’s in time and his doctrine of restoration, “the ‘Bible alone’,” and the church also preceded Campbell’s.
The Mulkey excerpt is from Old Path Guide, 1879, pp. 291-292. Perhaps I will at some point post it. But here I am more concerned to post the short note Dorris quotes from Tolbert Fanning.
Dorris says, without further comment:
“Tolbert Fanning, in commenting on the death of B. W. Stone, said:
If justice is ever done to his memory, he will be regarded as the first great American reformer,–the first man who, to much purpose, pleaded the ground that the Bible, without note, commentary, or creed, must destroy antichristian powers, and eventually conquer the world. Although I have heard Father Stone slandered, and his views grossly perverted, yet never did I hear mortal man utter a syllable derogatory to his moral worth. A man more devoted to Christianity, has not lived not died, and many stars will adorn his crown in a coming day. ” (Christian Review, 1844, page 288.)
–C. E. W. Dorris, “Honor to Whom Honor,” Gospel Advocate, July 19, 1951, p. 452.
What catches my eye, aside from Dorris’ use of the past and his claim about Stone, is how Fanning characterizes Stone’s work. For Fanning, Stone is the pathbreaker who pleads for the Bible against “antichristian powers.” This is how Fanning epitomizes Stone’s life’s work. The Bible “without note, commentary, or creed must destroy antichristian powers and eventually conquer the world.”
This is how Fanning characterized Stone’s work. Dorris picks it up and uses it a century later. Did the readership of Gospel Advocate in 1951 characterize the work of post-war Churches of Christ in the same way? Would they recognize in their churches of that day Fanning’s description of Stone’s work?
Nashville, The City of David (Lipscomb): Three issues of Gospel Advocate remember Lipscomb and his legacy
The December 6, 1917 issue of Gospel Advocate was devoted to the memory of the recently-deceased David Lipscomb. It is a rich treasure of memories and tributes. To my knowledge this issue was the first to carry Lipscomb’s photograph on the cover. Similar covers followed in 1931 (the July 11 Davidson County Special Number) and 1939 (the December 7 special issue about the history of the Nashville congregations).
These three issues are of significant historical value. As primary sources they provide information unavailable elsewhere. As interpretive reflections they are a beginning point for how Lipscomb was remembered and how congregational history was recorded and carried forward. The 1917 issue, other than newspaper obituaries and Price Billingsley’s diary, is the first secondary source about the life and impact of David Lipscomb. The Billingsley diary (housed at Center for Restoration Studies, Abilene Christian University) contains a description of the funeral along with its author’s candid thoughts and impressions. It was not intended, at the time, for public reading.
The issue of the Advocate, however, is a product of the McQuiddy Printing Company and is most certainly intended to capture the mood and ethos in the air just after Lipscomb’s death and by way of the mails deliver it to subscribers wherever they may be. In point of time, it is the first published sustained historical reflection on Lipscomb’s life and ministry. The 1931 and 1939 special issues focus on Lipscomb’s activity on the ground among the citizens of Nashville’s neighborhoods. Here his legacy is as a church planter: an indefatigable, patient, faithful steward. He plants, he teaches, he preaches, he organizes. He observes shifting residential patterns and responds with congregational leadership development. To meet the needs of the emerging streetcar suburbs, he urges elders to take charge of teaching responsibilities, engage evangelists and establish congregations through peaceful migrations and church plants. The 1931 and 1939 issues are testimonies to the effects of this approach. Along the way they preserve details and photographic evidence that is simply unavailable elsewhere.
All three are available for download below.
Click here to download the December 6, 1917 David Lipscomb Memorial Number.
Tolbert and Charlotte Fanning’s portrait of Alexander Campbell
Tolbert and Charlotte Fanning’s portrait of Alexander Campbell made in Nashville ca. 1827-1835. Ira Collins, a photographer who was also a Disciple, made this cabinet-card sized photo widely available in the early 1890s. Thanks to him we have a likeness of Campbell from his early prime. It is a very nice artifact of the Fanning’s which was witness to the very beginnings of the Campbell movement in Nashville and Tennessee. And squirreled away in a garret while the troops ravished Franklin College!
When Jim Taulman asked for illustrations for last year’s issue of Tennessee Baptist History Journal, I sent him this one since it shows Campbell at the time of the fierce debates among Middle Tennessee Baptists. Jim published it to illustrate my article on Alexander Campbell’s engagement with Garner McConnico.
Jim died a few days ago. I am grateful for his kind friendship and our collaboration on our shared Nashville history. Thinking of him led me again to this cabinet card. I know Jim would wonder, as do I: “Who knows, maybe someone in town has this portrait over their mantle and doesn’t know the story?”
Alexander Campbell, cabinet card by Ira F. Collins, 1889, obverse
Alexander Campbell, cabinet card by Ira F. Collins, 1889, reverse
Philip S. Fall, Tolbert Fanning, E. G. Sewell, J. C. McQuiddy, James A. Harding
eScriptorium 