CHRISTIAN HSTI ORY Issue 106 The church to end all churches? The unifying vision of the Stone-Campbell Movement Did you know? SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE FROM STONE-CAMPBELL CHURCHES FROM LBJ TO ZIMBABWE Rhodesia, where he worked for equal rights for all SEVERAL PRESIDENTS have been members of the Africans. Queen Elizabeth II knighted Todd in 1986, Stone-Campbell tradition. The first was James Gar- but in 2002 he was stripped of Zimbabwean citizenship. field. Baptized at age 18, Garfield began preaching at age 21 and is the only U.S. president who was a min- TOP MAN AT YALE; HOOPS HERO ister (of a Christian Church in Cleveland, Ohio). He He visits Civil War battlefields for fun and at his day was also among the group that launched the magazine job explains how early Jews and Christians adapted to Christian Standard, still published today. the culture around them without adopting its values. The second was Lyndon Baines Johnson. As a young He is Greg Sterling, appointed dean of Yale Divinity man, he was baptized in a small Christian Church in School in 2012—a noted New Testament scholar, for- Johnson City, Texas, where he also attended services in mer dean at Notre Dame, and minister in Churches of his retirement. Christ. Sterling’s appointment at Yale testifies to the Church was also a focal point of Ronald Reagan’s passion for biblical scholarship that has always charac- youth in Dixon, Illinois. He was a member of First terized the Stone-Campbell tradition (see “Reading the Christian Church and graduated from Disciples- Bible to enjoy the God of the Bible,” p. 16). affiliated Eureka College in 1932. While there, one of his In 1963 Disciples’s magazine World Call featured first stage roles was as a Christian Church minister. basketball phenomenon John Wooden. He later won 10 Politician Sir Garfield Todd (see “Worldwide disci- NCAA Championships, appeared 16 times in the Final ples, worldwide Christians,” pp. 34–36) was a minister Four, had 40 strong seasons, and was inducted into the at a New Zealand Church of Christ before moving to Basketball Hall of Fame twice—as a student and as a —IMAGE PROVIDED BY DOUG FOSTER Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1934. For a coach. A deacon at and generous donor to First Chris- decade, he wore the hats of missionary, schoolteacher, tian Church of Santa Monica, California, Wooden was bricklayer, and occasional doctor. He entered politics present every Sunday except when his team was on the HERETIC DETECTOR CARRY NATION CARTOON—THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK PITTSBURGH CENTENNIAL PROGRAM—COURTESY OF MCGARVEY ICE in 1942 and by 1953 was prime minister of Southern road. GARFIELD AND FAMILY— LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Christian History PASTOR AND PRESIDENT Far left: Garfield poses with his family. DOCTRINAL PURITY AND CHRISTIAN UNITY Left and right: This newspaper and badge show that both were important to Stone- Campbell believers. I DID IT WITH MY HATCHET Below: At six feet tall, Carry Nation was an impos- ing force both physically and spiritually. SONGS BY THE DEAD WOMAN WITH THE HATCHET Janis Joplin grew up in Port Arthur, Texas, a “rough” Carry Nation was born in Kentucky and baptized in a refinery town near Houston. Before she burst onto the stream in Missouri with ice floating in the water. She national music scene in 1967, she taught Sunday school began her temperance crusade after the death of her and sang in the youth choir at First Christian Church. first husband from alcoholism and earned the nick- The church’s historian noted on Joplin’s baptism name “The Home Defender” as a result of taking her card: “Died of a drug overdose in a Beverly Hills hatchet to whiskey bottles and saloon furnishings. hotel. She was cremated and her ashes were strewn Her second husband, David Nation, divorced her in along the coastline of Northern California. She had 1901, citing abandonment. In 1902, calling her a “stum- also set aside $2,500 for [her] wake. The Grateful Dead bling block and a disturber of the peace,” her Disciples and others provided music for the wake.” church disfellowshipped her. But frightened of their decision, they provided her a letter of commendation so STARDUST AND COUNTRY MUSIC she could transfer her membership elsewhere. Though Hoagland (Hoagy) Carmichael failed at prac- Other famous, or infamous, people connected with ticing law, he had music to fall back on—inspired by his the tradition included golfer Ben Hogan, bank robber mother, who played for dances and accompanied silent John Dillinger, Lew Wallace (author of Ben-Hur), and movies. He wrote “Stardust” (one of the most recorded James Warren Jones, pastor at Jonestown, Guyana. CH songs ever), “Old Buttermilk Sky,” and “Georgia on My Mind.” An active member at North Hollywood Chris- Portions of this text are adapted from Some Assem- tian Church in California, he performed for the 1962 bly Required, online exhibit created by McGarvey Ice. —IMAGE PROVIDED BY DOUG FOSTER convention of the Disciples of Christ. Republished by permission of Disciples of Christ Histori- And, does singing unaccompanied in church spark cal Society (www.discipleshistory.org). Ice has worked at a musical career? Pop and country singers Pat Boone, the Brown Library at Abilene Christian University and the Glen Campbell, Roy Orbison, and Loretta Lynn were Disciples of Christ Historical Society. He writes and speaks HERETIC DETECTOR CARRY NATION CARTOON—THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK PITTSBURGH CENTENNIAL PROGRAM—COURTESY OF MCGARVEY ICE GARFIELD AND FAMILY— LIBRARY OF CONGRESS all raised in or converted to Churches of Christ. widely on Stone-Campbell history. Issue 106 1 Editor’s note EVER OPENED UP someone else’s old photo album? themselves, they went by a dizzying array of names for Grandparents, aunts, second cousins, old Ford being “simply Christian” (which are spelled out in our Model Ts, big hats. Or boat cars and poodle skirts. “How to speak Stone-Campbell” glossary on pp. 14–15; People smiling into long-vanished sunsets and sun- terms in the glossary appear in bold throughout the rises. At first, it seems confusing. Maybe you can pick rest of the issue). out an era, but these aren’t your grandparents and What does this photo album teach the rest of your second cousins, your stories, or your inside jokes. us? Things we already knew, but things it is good to But then you talk to the people who own the photo remember. The centrality of the Bible. The centrality album. You listen to their stories and the photos come of the body of Christ. How American culture and the alive. You learn what it meant to be part of that family in Christian message influenced each other. all its struggles and heartaches and joys. What it meant And how difficult it is to be to live at that moment in history. “simply Christian.” Even when you go whole hog. Traditions and TELLING THE STORY human constructions can turn out A while ago, some folks from the Stone-Campbell to be, in the end, inescapable. But Movement approached us about wanting to tell their also inescapable, in the end, is the story. To open up their old photo album, so to speak. grace of God. Thanks be to God, If you didn’t grow up in the movement, you may not who redeems all constructions. CH even have heard of them or know that they are often Jennifer Woodruff Tait referred to by the names of their founders, Barton Stone Managing editor and Thomas and Alexander Campbell. Many of us come from Christian groups that take the A NOTE FROM THE CH INTERN Bible very seriously and may have even started because Special thanks to Richard Hughes for his patience in a group of people wanted to get “back to the Bible.” waiting for an issue on the Stone-Campbell Movement. Stone and the Campbells were no different. But the In the midst of cleaning out my grandfather Ken Curtis’s movement they created went whole hog. office, we discovered a letter Dr. Hughes wrote in the There were no sects or denominations in the 1990s proposing an issue on this topic. New Testament; so they claimed they were simply I reconnected with Hughes when I was privileged “Christians,” and subscribed to no creed but the to have him as a professor at Messiah College last year. Bible. There were no musical instruments in New When he discovered my connection to the magazine, Testament worship; so they worshiped without his interest re-emerged. We are grateful for his hard instruments. There were no organized missionary work as a scholar-advisor and writer for this issue. societies; so they refused to organize for the sup- Thank you, Dr. Hughes, for persisting in your dream to port of missionaries. What they did see in the New make an important piece of Christian history accessible Testament was a unified group of Christ-followers to the rest of us! —Michelle Curtis with equality before God who baptized by immer- sion and shared Christ’s holy meal together every All images credited “Doug Foster” are courtesy of the Dis- Sunday. So that was who they became. ciples of Christ Historical Society, Nashville, Tennessee, or Eventually, and ironically, disagreements over all the Center for Restoration Studies of Abilene Christian Uni- these issues led to their separation into three different versity, Abilene, Texas. CHM also thanks Sara Harwell, vice “streams.” One stream even became a denomination, president and chief archivist at the Disciples of Christ Histori- quite self-consciously. In the process of defining cal Society, for her assistance in providing images.