Anastasis

Acklen Avenue Church of Christ, Nashville, TN, 7 December 1939

Chris — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:16:32 +0000

Thanks to Mac for scanning in these pictures. This scan is as clear as the GA original.

The marginalized Lewis

Chris — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:23:55 +0000

In my research, I have been fascinated by accounts of how the Gospel Advocate staff in the late 1950s handled the problem of John T. Lewis and his opposition to institutional buildup among the churches. Here are a couple of examples. These are instructive for what they say about institutional power (centered in Nashville) and its use among the Churches of Christ at midcentury.

This first excerpt is from Mississippi preacher, C. D. Crouch:

“C. E. W. Dorris is perhaps the oldest preacher of the gospel in Nashville, and is the able author of two of the Commentaries in the Advocate series of New Testament Commentaries. He stands today where Lipscomb stood on this matter when Lipscomb edited the Gospel Advocate. C. E. W. Dorris is not permitted to write for the Advocate today. He is not a crank; he is not a hobbyist. He is a safe and sane teacher, but he is not granted space in the Advocate to call attention to the Advocate’s departure from the truth!!! R. L. Whiteside, next to David Lipscomb, the greatest Bible scholar since the Apostles, was denied space in the Advocate before he went home to be with the Lord. James A. Allen, one time editor of the Advocate, can not be heard through its columns now. John T. Lewis who has been of greater service to the Advocate than any other man in Alabama, when that paper needed his service, is not permitted to have space in it to correct the misrepresentations made of him through its columns. Its present editor has the temerity to call such godly men ‘hobbyists’. And then he can declare that ‘somebody in the deep south’ told him that the young men are going to take over the Advocate!!!!!! Was he anticipating the change that ‘young men’ have taken it over already? Well, such is the case, and if Goodpasture has the intelligence that I have thought he has, he knows it has been ‘taken over’ by ‘young men’, and that it does not stand for the principles it maintained in the days of David Lipscomb. And the results are similar to the tragic results when the ‘young men’ took over Rehoboam…” (C. D. Crouch. “Reminiscing — No. 1.” Gospel Guardian 10.25 [October 23, 1958]: 1, 8).

Crouch is clearly upset (it may, for example, be an exaggeration to say that R. L. Whiteside was the greatest Bible teacher “since the Apostles”). By 1958-59, that was essentially the case everywhere these issues were in dispute. Even so, Crouch’s examples are telling.

And another. This one comes from some comments by Guardian editor, Fanning Yater Tant, regarding Guy N. Woods’ attack on Lewis during the 1957 Birmingham debate between Woods and Roy E. Cogdill. There was some disagreement, it would seem, about the transcript of the debate as it appeared in the Advocate and Guardian editions of the debate:

“Brother Woods seeks to make a play to arouse prejudice and destroy confidence by quoting from the first line of the publisher’s preface these words, ‘This book is an exact reproduction of the oral speeches delivered by the principals in a six night debate in Birmingham, Alabama.’ In the use he makes of this statement he disregards the rest of the preface which is explanatory of this introduction and then garbles another quotation made a little farther down in the preface, wresting and misapplying it entirely. This is the kind of treatment, and an example of the completely dishonorable attack he made on John T. Lewis during the debate. He introduced a chart with a quotation on it of what Brother Lewis had said concerning Carroll Kendrick, commending him for giving up the missionary society, and tried to construe it as an endorsement of what Brother Kendrick had said in a book to which Brother Lewis made no reference whatever. The debate closed with this disrespectful, dishonorable attempt to discredit and misrepresent a man whose honor and integrity has never been questioned and who has always had the respect even of those who oppose him and differ with him, uncorrected in spite of the fact that it was exposed and I begged Brother Woods to apologize for it.

“…I have not seen the Gospel Advocate version of the debate and do not intend to give Goodpasture $5 if I never see it. I do not know anything about its contents or how many “deletions” and how many changes or how much “smoothing” Guy did on his speeches in their version. But if he deleted from their edition the misrepresentation he made of a Tennessee statute which had been repealed for four years; and the mis-representation he was guilty of in falsely imputing an endorsement of an unscriptural position to John T. Lewis; the utterly dishonest denials he made of having made any change in position; and all of the other blunders he made and dishonesty he showed, it is a puny book. If Curtis Porter had not caught the deletion made by Woods from the Indianapolis debate it would have gone through. You can’t trust these brethren to treat you honorably and fairly. They have to be made do it. That is, unless you will worship at their altar and they will then feed you on sweet cream — but it curdles and turns sour before touching my lips.” (Fanning Yater Tant. “Slander — Gospel Advocate Style.” Gospel Guardian 10.34 [January 1, 1959]: 4-10.)

John T. Lewis was sitting in the audience of the Cogdill-Woods debate, which took place in the auditorium of Phillips High School in Birmingham in November, 1957. As the institutional issue was being debated in Birmingham, the legacy of Lewis loomed large. It is, perhaps, unsurprising that Lewis himself became the subject of the debate on one of its last nights. Tant’s comments give us a sense of just how much was at stake.

Two Notes on the Nature of the Church

Chris — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 20:27:51 +0000

John T. Lewis (1876-1967)

In the middle of the 1940s, John T. Lewis was in the midst of a dispute with Foy and Cled Wallace over the proper relation of the Christian to civil government and the propriety of Christians participating in carnal warfare. In the midst of all this, I have been struck by some of his comments about the nature of the Church. Here are a couple of excerpts from Lewis’ The Christian and the Government (1946) (In both of these, I have attempted to reproduce Lewis’ punctuation and syntax exactly. This may be confusing at points, but not overly so):

“The mission of the kingdom of Christ is one thing, and the mission of all temporal kingdoms, or governments is another thing. All temporal governments are restricted by geographical boundaries, and for a civil government to go beyond those boundaries means war; but the kingdom of Christ is a spiritual institution, and knows no geographical bounds, race, color, nor human creed, therefore it has nothing of earthly possessions to fight for, and therefore its weapons of warfare are not carnal. The universality of the church, its fellowship, its worship, its brotherly love, and the spirit that dwells in it, is an argument, not against carnal warfare; but against Christians engaging in carnal warfare. To say that Christians should kill each other, or even destroy the life and property of those who are not Christians, at the behest of any king or potentate on earth, is to say something that no New Testament writers ever said. And all such teaching is a gross perversion of the teaching of the Holy Spirit through the apostles, and a miserable misrepresentation of the life and teaching of Christ” (pp. 139-140).

And again:

“If the New Testament does not teach that the church, the spiritual kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, is a non-resistant institution, it teaches nothing. It is ‘also’ the only non-resistant institution, or kingdom on earth. All earthly or temporal governments are founded by the sword, and stand upon the sword. The church or spiritual kingdom was founded by the love of God, upon the death, burial, and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ. It is made up of people from all nations, and is antagonistic to no earthly or temporal government. If it were otherwise Christians would frequently find themselves fighting and killing each other. The very thought is repugnant to the spirit and teaching of Jesus Christ. This was demonstrated in the ‘civil war’ when brothers in the flesh, and brethren in the church, fought and killed each other, and there is no absolute guarantee that the same things may not happen again in the United States, and even in a more violent form than the ‘civil war.’ If the church of Jesus Christ had always been kept separate and distinct from the state, and free from, and un-contaminated by political broils it would be the greatest moral force, and stabilizing influence in the world today. As it is, it is a nonentity, so far as the government of the United States, the greatest government on earth today, is concerned. For a young man to tell the government that he is a member of ‘the church’ means nothing so far as military service is concerned; but if a young man can prove to the government that he is a member of the ‘Society of Friends’ (Quakers), or ‘Mennonites’ he is exempted from military service, and his convictions are never questioned — the government recognizes those organizations as non-resistant institutions. Why? Because their leaders know what they stand for, and they stand for it, whereas many gospel preachers, and church leaders stand for nothing when it comes to the greatest living issues of today – The Christian’s relationship to the governments of the world, and his obligation to the government under which he lives” (pp. 179-180).

A Good Friday Sermon

Chris — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:36:55 +0000

This is a brief reflection I delivered in chapel at work today. The text for today was Luke 22.39–23.49.

Today is Good Friday. In services taking place all around the world today, Christians will gather to remember the events described in the passage we just read. This morning we take a few moments out from our workday to join in those remembrances.

Let’s focus in on one single statement in this passage. It is found in Luke 23.34: “Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing’” (NRSV).

Now, there are two ways we could take these words spoken by Jesus from the cross. On the one hand, we could understand them in a limited sense to mean that the people involved in Jesus’ death – the temple police who arrested him, the government officials before whom he sat on trial, the soldiers who mocked him, beat him, and placed him on the cross, the mob who called for his crucifixion – none of them understood exactly who he was. Some in the crowd had undoubtedly been present when Jesus preached and performed miracles of healing. But they did not believe Jesus’ claims. Or, in some cases, they were confused by them and could not see what Jesus was saying. If they had they wouldn’t have done this … right?

But what if we understood Jesus’ words in another way? We can readily see how these words apply to the people described in these Scriptures. What if we took this as more of an existential statement about who we are as human beings, instead of simply a limited statement about these people in this situation?

But that’s offensive, right? I pride myself on knowing things. I hold down a job here, in part at least, and I have responsibilities in many other areas of life, because of what I claim to know. I don’t like having what I know called into question. I get touchy about that sort of thing. I like the way A. K. M. Adam puts this. He writes, “I know a whole lot. I know the sweet kiss of a drowsy child, the scintillating misty hush of a summer sunrise. I know uses of the Greek participle. I know the forlorn plaints from the trampled heart of a student, a friend, a lonely visitor to my office. I know the psalms, I know the working of a well-practiced basketball team, I know [the] contents of the heaps of paper on my desktop. I know fear and doubt, I know pain and desperation, I know joy and pride and satisfaction. In the age of expertise, I am an expert; in the age of “just do it,” I’ve been there and I’ve done that. I know what I am doing.”[1]

But what if, as Jesus says, I don’t really know what I’m doing? In my seeking after knowledge, in my pride, in my lack of self-control, in my selfishness, in my daily failures to love as I ought, I demonstrate that I don’t know what I’m doing, that I haven’t truly learned how to live my life in conformity with the image of Christ that is shown to us in these Scriptures. If we’re honest with ourselves, every single one of us could say the same thing.

Good Friday brings us to the cross. We see Jesus there. But, in the words of one ancient Jewish writer who spoke better than he knew, the Jesus we see there “is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training … He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange” (Wisd. Sol. 2.12, 14, RSV). The Jesus we meet at the cross tells us the truth about who we are, the truth that we do not know what we are doing.

****

But notice this too. If we stop there we will have seen only half the truth. Having faced the truth about ourselves, we are prepared to see another truth that is just as important: Jesus forgives. The glory of the cross lies in the fact that it does not leave us stranded in our sins, in our false claims to “know what we are doing.” It calls to us to take up our own crosses. To follow Jesus, and in so doing to find forgiveness, and hope, and life.

Amen.

[1] “Good Friday,” in Flesh and Bones: Sermons (Wipf and Stock, 2001), 82. Available online at http://akma.disseminary.org/images/FleshBones.pdf. (Accessed 28 March 2013).

Quizzes and Replies

Chris — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 05:13:15 +0000

Price Billingsley (1877-1959)

In the early 1920s, Price Billingsley edited the Gospel Advance, a journal published out of (successively) McMinnville, Columbia, and Nashville, Tennessee. The Advance was largely sympathetic to the overall aims of its neighbor, the Gospel Advocate. But not always. In a number of issues, for example, Billingsley devoted considerable space to highlighting the inconsistencies of Advocate editor J. C. McQuiddy on the carnal warfare question. More of that, though, at a later date.

Under the above heading, Billingsley put four questions to a number of noted preachers and leaders among the churches in the January 1922 issue:

1. What single occurrence was the most significant and cheering during the year just closed in the spread of the gospel?

2. What do the churches of Christ most need today?

3. What evils in the church today, or what dangerous tendencies menace us?

4. What one most important thing will make the year just begun the banner year in extending the kingdom of Christ?

One of the people that Billingsley queried was John T. Lewis. Here are his answers:

1. I simply can’t do it. God only has that particular information.

2. Spiritual life, and the way to get that is to read the Word of God, and pray more. We are living in an almost prayerless age, an age that leaves God out of our doings.

Very few children ever heard their fathers pray, or know what family prayer is. We must change our course or the ship which carries the next generation will be wrecked on the rocks of infidelity.

3. The selfishness manifested, and the course pursued by the teachers in the church, whether preachers or elders, have always been, are now and always will be the greatest menace to the church. To illustrate, fire and water are two of the greatest blessings to humanity so long as they are under control; but when once on a rampage they become the most destructive agencies of life and property. So it is with the teachers in the church, so long as they are controlled by the spirit of Christ they are indispensable to the life and growth of the church; but when they get headed in the wrong direction they become the most deadly menace to the church. Tell me the ideas and ideals of the teachers of a church, and I will tell you what kind of a church it is. A teacher usually imparts his very being to those taught. The apparent lack of the spirit of Christ manifested by many of those “who are reputed to be somewhat” [Gal. 2:6] among us, is the darkest spot that I see in the elements of faith today.

4. According to my premise the conclusion will have to be, if preachers will rid themselves of self, putting away all “enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths and factions,” and “sanctify in their hearts Christ as Lord” — do what they can do for the cause of Christ, and rejoice in whatever good others may do — this will be a glorious year for the church.

****

When he writes in to the journals, we most frequently see the polemical side of Lewis. Here, though, we see a glimpse of what we might call his pastoral side. It is marked by a deep concern for the spiritual lives of his congregants — centered on prayer and on the reading of the Word, in the church and in the family — and a deep concern for the spiritual formation (to use an admittedly anachronistic term) of leaders in the church. “Tell me,” Lewis writes, “the ideas and ideals of the teachers of a church, and I will tell you what kind of a church it is. A teacher usually imparts his very being to those taught.”

If we are willing to listen, may Lewis’ words encourage us to reflect on the role of teaching in the church and the seriousness with which we are called to approach it.

An Observation

Chris — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 22:27:32 +0000

In preparation for some recent writing, I worked through the Cogdill-Woods Debate (1957). (Actually, I used the Gospel Advocate edition of the debate, so it would be more accurate, I suppose, to say that I worked through the Woods-Cogdill Debate.)

What good, you might ask, can come out of such an exercise? You would be in good company were you to ask that question. In our day, there are few topics in the history of the Churches of Christ that get people more exercised than debates. The conventional wisdom, of course, is that debates are one of those things best left in the past, a rebarbative pursuit of our forefathers that we have rightly left behind.

So, if that’s the case, why waste my time on this stuff? Better yet, why treat a debate as a serious piece of theology? Maybe I can answer those questions later.

For now, something that caught my eye. I’ve read through a few debates during all of this writing and one seemingly negligible feature of the debates has consistently stood out to me. Many of the major debates — e.g. the Neal-Wallace Discussion (Winchester, Ky., 1933) and the Porter-Tingley Debate (Birmingham, 1947) — invariably include a notation at the beginning of each night’s speeches listing who led prayer and who led singing. In other words, the speeches for each night have a kind of “liturgical frame.” Usually the assignments — song leader and pray-er — were split between supporters of each debater. (I don’t know if this is universally true or not; I haven’t yet looked at every single debate book in my own library, much less others that I don’t own.) The event of the debate, in other words, was thought of, at least to some extent, as a worship service.

Curiously, by the time we get to Cogdill-Woods, neither the Advocate or Guardian editions list these pieces of information separately. That said, the debaters occasionally make reference to the prayers in their speeches, so at least each night’s speeches were preceded by prayer, if not by singing. Why does Cogdill-Woods no longer list this these details?

Moreover, with Cogdill-Woods we are no longer in a church building. (Not that every earlier debate was held in a meetinghouse.) Wallace-Neal began in the sanctuary of First Christian Church in Winchester (before it was moved); Porter-Tingley split the time between Central Church of Christ and Tingley’s Birmingham Gospel Tabernacle. With Cogdill-Woods, we are now convening in a public high school. How does that affect how the debate is viewed? Does it? Does it affect the decision about listing the prayer and singing information? Am I reading too much into this?

Your thoughts are welcome.

John T. Lewis — Web Resources

Chris — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:57:09 +0000

As a brief interlude, I thought I’d take a moment to survey some of the available internet resources for Lewis and his work in Birmingham. Obviously, a great deal of the source material for my research is unavailable online. But a few things have been very beneficial along the way. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. John Thomas Lewis (1876-1967). This is the page devoted to Lewis at Scott Harp’s therestorationmovement.com site. The page is rich in visual source material and includes a chronology of Lewis’ life. Because the chronology is based solely upon Ottis Castleberry’s He Looked for a City, it is seriously flawed in some places and simply incomplete in others. Proceed with caution.

2. Encyclopedia of Alabama. I’m a Tennessean who married an Alabamian. There’s a lot I don’t know about the State of Alabama that this digital encyclopedia — a joint project of Auburn University, the University of Alabama, and the Alabama Department of Education — has helped me to understand.

3. Bhamwiki. As the name suggests, it’s a Wikipedia-type site specifically for Birmingham. Because it’s a wiki, you can sign up to contribute. I’m already planning to write a short piece on Lewis for the site in the near future … so don’t go getting any ideas .

4. Gospel Guardian. Bennie Johns has put much of the Gospel Guardian online — and thus much of JTL’s writings in opposition to institutionalism.

5. The Voice of the Pioneers on Instrumental Music and Societies. This is a rough PDF copy of what is perhaps Lewis’ best known work, hosted at David Sims’ “Retain the Standard” website. (Other texts by Lewis, of course, are hosted on the “Texts” page of this blog.)

6. John T. Lewis on Sunday PM Lord’s Supper. This piece by John Mark Hicks provides a nice analysis of one of Lewis’ later pamphlets. I penned a short reply to that piece here.

Happy reading!

Help, If You Can

Chris — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 04:35:00 +0000

A bit of satire from the 1949 Gospel Guardian:

6674 Railroad Street
Church of Christ
Anywhere, U.S.A.

Dear Faithful Preaching Brethren:

Surely you will look into your heart and pocket-book to answer the crying need of this place. The church in Anywhere was founded in 1918 by six loyal members. Through many trials and tribulations, splits and fusses, our membership now stands at a whopping 15. The denominations have better buildings than we do, and folks are beginning to talk about us. That is why we ask you to rush to our assistance—now!
Anywhere is a hard but promising field. Cucumbers grow so big here they look like watermelons. In fact, some say that Anywhere will someday be the cucumber Mecca of America!
We have spotted a lot in downtown Anywhere which is centrally located, and all that stuff, which we can get for a mere $11,600. On this lot we plan to erect a $64,000 meeting house which will be a tribute to the cause, and the envy of the denominations.
Through extreme sacrifice, the members have in the past five years, raised $46.32 and three buttons. Nearby churches, fifteen in all, who know how worthy this field is, have together contributed $1123. We felt that our cause was underway, and, taking courage, started our building program.
But, alas! with rising costs, little did we know what we would run into. It took all our ready cash to buy the most essential item—a mimeograph machine! We then borrowed money for envelopes, stationery, postage, and ink. If one of the members had not shrewdly suggested that we send these 17,432 letters third-class, I doubt that we could have sent them at all!
So you can see we are in quite a pickle. People are now asking, “When are you going to build?” Oh, the cause is suffering! suffering!! SUFFERING!!!
The owner of the lot has agreed to hold it for us indefinitely, unless he can find another buyer. And Brother Wackey, a local member of vision, has suggested this marvelous plan:—
We are asking each minister to contact all members who have $3.00! Ask those members to each buy a little pig, and put him up in a picket fence in the back yard. (Any kind of picket fence will do) Just feed that pig the ordinary slop left over from the wife’s cooking. Why, in no time at all that pig will taring—well, we don’t know just what; but, believe you me, pork is high these days!
When you have collected some $65 from each one, just pocket the $5 and send us the $60. You deserve this generous consideration for your efforts.
It is with extreme reluctance that we make this appeal at all. But we do promise you this: all receipts will be promptly and cheerfully acknowledged, unless we get too busy with other things.
Just mail all contributions to the treasurer of the church in Pigeon-Roost, as we do not have a member here competent to handle that much money.

Very sincerely yours,
Joe Doakes

To Baghdad with Love

Chris — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:09:37 +0000

The 1931 volume of the Gospel Advocate contains a smattering of references to a Nicholas Dimitry, who was touring churches around the country in 1930-31 attempting to raise support for a small congregation in Baghdad. What follows is a note from Foy E. Wallace, Jr., that explains Dimitry’s situation to the readers of the Advocate. The whole thing sounds so very contemporary, which is why, I think, it caught my attention. That … and the Birmingham connection.

****

For some months Brother Nicholas S. Dimitry has been laboring to raise funds to provide a home for the church in Bagdad, Irak [sic], Mesopotamia. This congregation consists of about fifty or sixty Christians, refugees from Persia, who fled to Bagdad to escape massacre at the hands of the Turks. They were converted in Persia under the preaching of the Yohannans, and now they are looking to the churches in America for assistance in their efforts to establish a permanent church in Bagdad. Brother Dimitry, giving himself unselfishly to this cause, asks nothing for himself. He desires that all funds be deposited in a Nashville bank for the Bagdad church fund and forwarded to a bank in Bagdad that will make proper delivery of the funds there.

Churches should take pleasure in making possible the success of such worthy efforts as this. Brother Dimitry has just received a check for twenty dollars from the West End Church in Birmingham, Ala., and other churches should respond as readily and liberally. Until arrangements are made for the elders of some congregation in Nashville to take charge of this fund, Brother Dimitry will receive the funds personally through the Gospel Advocate office, and all receipts will be acknowledged. Let us build the church in Bagdad.

– Foy E. Wallace, Jr. “Building a Church in Bagdad.” GA 73.8 (February 19, 1931): 196.

In 1920, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate to rule “Irak,” the name given to a newly-formed country that had been carved out of the now-defunct Ottoman Empire. It does not seem to have gone all that well for the British. FEW’s brief narrative hints at just how turbulent the situation was. That is probably why in 1932, a short time after this piece was written, Britain washed its hands of the whole affair and granted Iraq its independence.

To my knowledge, this may be the first SCRM presence in Baghdad. (I could be wrong, of course. Let me know if there’s someone I’m forgetting.) We are familiar, of course, with the work of James Barclay in Jerusalem in the 19th century. Among the a cappella Churches of Christ, some of the first Middle Eastern efforts were made by Alexander Yohannan, a Nashville Bible School graduate and close friend of J. W. Grant, who returned after graduation to his native Armenia to evangelize. By the 1920s, geopolitical events had driven his small flock to seek out the relative safety of British rule in Baghdad. Here is a fascinating story waiting to be told. What remains of Yohannan’s papers or of his evangelistic work?

Other questions remain. FEW suggests that “arrangements [be] made for the elders of some congregation in Nashville to take charge of this fund.” He would later — for a time, at any rate — reject this sort of arrangement. But in 1931, views on intercongregational cooperation were still fluid. Certainly, no large scale argument had erupted, as it would over the next couple of decades. At any rate, West End, perhaps at the suggestion of its new minister Cecil Douthitt, lends its support to the effort — if not to the ‘sponsoring church’ role.

Additionally we might mention just how careful Brother Dimitry is in his approach to the Nashville churches. Might they have been inclined to be suspicious of him? If so, why? What sort of credentials did he bring with him? Which bank in Baghdad was to handle these funds? Whatever the answers, this is still an interesting window into the mission work of the churches in this period.

W. C. Graves (1886-1946)

Chris — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 23:03:03 +0000

In the materials that I’m working with in my research the name of John T. Lewis is inseparable from the churches in Birmingham. That is as it should be. Lewis spent sixty years in the Magic City and deserves every bit of the credit he gets for the number and strength of the churches in that city.

But he was not without help. One of the most fascinating aspects of this research has been uncovering the stories of Lewis’ helpers in the work in Birmingham. I say uncovering because the story I’d like to tell here is largely absent from He Looked for a City and I’ve had to piece it together from several other sources.

That said, what appears below is more of a dossier than a biography proper. I’ve tried to make it as readable as possible, though.

****

William C. Graves (1886-1946) was born in Alabama. In his own narrative of his early life, included in S. H. Hall’s Sixty Years in the Pulpit (1955), Graves recounts that he was raised in Methodist and Presbyterian settings. By the time he had entered his 20s, he had gone to Atlanta. There he was baptized by S. H. Hall in East Point (an Atlanta suburb) in May 1912. Presumably at the encouragement of Hall, he entered the Nashville Bible School in the fall of 1914. He graduated in the spring of 1917. After graduation, he was off to Dalton, Ga., for a brief time before returning to Atlanta.

The date isn’t exactly clear, but Hall indicates that Graves had left Atlanta for Birmingham by the summer of 1920 (“Georgia and the Far Southern Field.” GA 62.33 [August 12, 1920]: 791). In the Advocate, Hall reports that R. L. Harwell, one of the West End (Atlanta) elders, had been in Birmingham over a recent weekend and had worshipped at West End (Birmingham) while in town. Graves happened to be preaching that day and Harwell took a glowing report of the day back to Atlanta with him. It’s clear that it gave Hall great pleasure to relate this: Graves was clearly a student of whom he was very proud.

So, Graves was preaching at least occasionally at West End very soon after his arrival in Birmingham, perhaps on Sundays when C. M. Pullias was away. The pace of his work only increases thereafter. In 1921, we find a report in the Gospel Advance (Price Billingsley’s monthly out of McMinnville, Tenn.) indicating that Graves is going to be working full-time with the church in Gadsden, northeast of Birmingham. It’s unclear what happened there; I’ve found no other references to it.

Marshall Keeble (1878-1968)

Castleberry’s first reference (of two) to Graves comes from this early period: “The work among the black people in the area was started in Ensley by W. C. Graves. [He] supported himself as a representative of the Southern Bell Telephone Company” (He Looked for a City, pg. 6). The relationships are never made explicit, but it is reasonable to suppose that Graves became familiar with Marshall Keeble’s work through S. H. Hall and through his time in Nashville. At any rate, when Keeble first came to Birmingham in 1921, Graves played a prominent role in that work (Hall, Sixty Years in the Pulpit, pg. 38). In his first Birmingham meeting that summer, Keeble baptized 45 people, who became the nucleus of the “New” Church of Christ in Ensley. Keeble returned numerous times over the next few years to hold protracted meetings and to work with this congregation, sometimes staying in Birmingham for over a month at a time. Between visits by Keeble, Graves and James H. Davis (who later served as a deacon and elder at West End) preached and taught for the fledgling congregation.

Graves’ racial attitudes are hard to speak to definitively. He enthusiastically believed in evangelizing Birmingham’s African-American population, which was quite a bit more than could be said for some of his brethren. Moreover, he clearly cared for the members of Keeble’s fledgling Birmingham church. That said, some of his comments will undoubtedly sound backhanded or patronizing to our contemporary ears. Consider these remarks from Graves’ pen in 1923: “Let me say a word about Brother Keeble. He preaches the gospel of Christ and knows how to behave himself. That’s enough” (W. C. Graves. “The Work in Birmingham Among the Colored Folks.” GA 65.41 [October 11, 1923]: 994-95). In this, I think we could fairly say that he is a product of his time and place. Birmingham in this period has been called “the most segregated city in America.” In some ways it is surprising that Graves crossed as many lines as he did.

Whatever we make of Graves’ stint in Gadsden, he is definitely back in Birmingham to stay by 1923. In the fall of that year, he established a mission congregation in Bessemer. Several members of West End, including O. B. Anthony, came along to help support this work. By 1924, Graves had started Truth in Love, a small four-page weekly publication. Truth in Love was part evangelism/teaching tool and part newsletter for the churches in the Birmingham district. JTL wrote extensively for it throughout the 1920s. It ultimately went through two iterations before Graves fell ill and sold it to Marion Davis and Gus Nichols in 1942, at which time the paper left Birmingham and ceased to be locally focused.

As the decade progresses, Graves’ fingerprints can be found on a number of Birmingham-area congregations. Truth in Love (quoted by Castleberry) indicates that he preached at North Lewisburg (later Fultondale) in 1926. During that same year — in the uncertain interim between H. F. Pendergrass and J. W. Shepherd at West End — he did fill-in preaching. The first issue of the Gospel Advocate for 1928 finds him preaching at Parkview (the forerunner of the Berney Points church).

We lose the trail for a bit in the early 1930s. But by 1936, Graves was preaching for the Tarrant City church. Castleberry’s other reference to Graves comes here: While in Tarrant, he debated a Primitive Baptist minister with JTL serving as his moderator. Reportedly, Graves got so flustered in the course of the debate that Lewis had to finish the debate (He Looked for a City, pp. 203-204).

In late 1936, Graves introduced a “reboot” of Truth in Love. It’s unclear how long the first version had been out of print by this point. Nevertheless, the new TIL was larger (8 pp.) and featured a mix of Birmingham and national names among the writers and editorial staff. (In 1937, the editors were Gardner Hall, Jack Meyer, and Gus Nichols.) Graves was the publisher of this version of the journal, only writing infrequently. JTL, likewise, only rarely appears.

After he sold TIL, Graves was still involved in other ventures. He ran a religious bookstore out of his house at 817 7th Street in Birmingham. (Ads can be found in several issues of TIL.) He’s listed as a staff writer for A. E. Emmons’ and Emerson Estes’ The Way of Life (published out of Birmingham from 1943-48) and also wrote extensively for Sound Doctrine, a journal published out of Montgomery in the early 1940s.

Around 1942, Graves published what I believe to have been his only full-length book, Lessons on the Church of Christ. S. H. Hall had written a book of the same title (published by McQuiddy in 1916 when Graves was a student at NBS). Jack Meyer, in the intro to Graves’ book says: “The author, W. C. Graves, has been a resident and gospel preacher of Birmingham, Ala., for 22 years. He has assisted in establishing several congregations, has been the editor of a local gospel paper, is building a substantial business as a dealer in new and used religious books, has materially contributed to the growth of the gospel of Christ in this area, and is correspondingly well known” (pg. 4).

Near the end of his life, Graves served as an elder at Fairview. His appointment

Foy E. Wallace, Jr.

was the occasion of a short tribute by Foy E. Wallace, Jr., in the Bible Banner for October 1945:

The latest addition to the eldership of this congregation was made in the appointment of W. C. Graves a year or so ago. He has been a definite strength to the official force of the congregation. Brother Graves has been active in the growth of the church in the district for over thirty years, as a preacher, a leader, and an elder. Several churches have been “planted and watered” by him. No man in Birmingham exerts a wider and stronger influence, and though he has worked quietly, without sounding a trumpet before him, no one man has accomplished more good in that locality. For years Brother Graves has been an executive in the Southern Bell Telephone Company and has exerted a salutary influence as a respected citizen and business man as well as a Christian and a preacher. He possesses a fine knowledge of the Bible, is unblemished in character, amiable in disposition, and has always backed any preacher who will stand for the truth. I regard him as among the great men in the church and I esteem him as a personal friend.

This was written, of course, after the fallout between Wallace and JTL. Is Wallace’s assertion that “no man in Birmingham exerts a wider and stronger influence, and though he has worked quietly, without sounding a trumpet before him, no one man has accomplished more good in that locality” a slap at Lewis? Who can say?

At the time of his death, Graves was the editor and publisher of Grace and Truth, a monthly evangelistic magazine. After an extended period of illness, he died September 24, 1946.

Graves’ obituary — Oct 1946 issue of Way of Life

As I said, stories like Graves’ are really interesting to me. Here we have a man every bit as involved in the Birmingham work as JTL. If we knew nothing about him beyond what Castleberry recorded our picture of events in Birmingham would be greatly diminished.

Does anyone out there have paper related to Graves and his work in Birmingham? Leave me a comment or send me an email.