Best books on CoC history

[agricola]

That was exactly the problem. He kept saying 'he never heard that' and he promoted the 'unity in diversity' a lot - which is a very nice idea, but in my experience was exactly what everybody SAID, but never actually FOLLOWED.

And that is why I say he had a blind spot bout CoCs generally. If CoC's actually followed that nice idea, there would be very very few splits over 'doctrine' and a lot less inter-group competition.

It has been too many years since I read his book to be able to be more specific. All I have now is the memory of a strong impression that he lived in a bit of an academic bubble. So to speak.

I WOULD recommend his book for the history at least. It was interesting and he knew a lot of people important to the history of the Coc, though mostly further west than central Tennessee, which is a kind of second hub, together with Arkansas/Texas as the other hub, of CoC congregational life (as far as I can tell). I suppose Florida is the third wheel.

[Ivy]

For anyone who might be interested, here is a link to a collection of his writings, housed at ACU:

h**ps://digitalcommons.acu.edu/leroy_garrett/

[SolaDude]

It's really hard to gauge the history of the CoC when there is no overall recognized leader or leaders of the entire group. Individual congregations boast their own autonomy and so "history" essentially boils down to the collective histories of these congregations.

How can there be a "history" showing the collective splits of all of these congregations and what those splits actually MEANT. How could history ever show any progressive meaning over time of any congregations of the CofC? Which are the "real" CofC congregations? Which are the "renegades"? What is the original CofC "standard" against which to measure that history? (And by "standard", I'm not talking about the traditional CofC playbook answer, that being "scripture" as the standard or "first century church" as the standard....those standards are really quite illusory).

Now, history of the Stone-Campbell movement could perhaps be better ascertained, with splits into Disciples of Christ, CofC, independent Christian Churches, etc. But again, it would seem to me that the concept of the "history of the CofC" would amount to nothing more than a myth. For example, the myth of the "five steps"....many CofCs added a sixth step to that. In other words the so-called "history" of the CofC really amounts to whatever any individual CofC congregations decided to do, perhaps full of hundreds and hundreds of variations over time, the meanings of which could never really be reasonably ascertained by any historian. Just ongoing, chaotic "mush".

[Moogy]

For anyone who might be interested, here is a link to a collection of his writings, housed at ACU:

h**ps://digitalcommons.acu.edu/leroy_garrett/

Nice picture of Br. Garrett. But he is posed in front of a cross, which never would have been allowed in the churches I attended.

[Ivy]

For anyone who might be interested, here is a link to a collection of his writings, housed at ACU:

h**ps://digitalcommons.acu.edu/leroy_garrett/

Nice picture of Br. Garrett. But he is posed in front of a cross, which never would have been allowed in the churches I attended.

I didn't even notice!! LOL!! He probably did it on purpose. My kids call that "trolling".

When we were attending a small, uber "librel" cofc, years ago, my DH and I were fortunate enough to have met Bro Garrett and to hear him speak several times. He enjoyed attending the little church, I think, because they were welcoming, grace-oriented, and thought outside "the box". There was no located preacher, so diverse people from all kinds of religious backgrounds were able to share messages from the pulpit.

[longdistancerunner]

I am reading Hughes book Reviving the Ancient Faith. It is really excellent. It sets the real beginning of the distinction between DoC and CoC at 1906 and goes into detail about the reasons for the split. A lot in the book about Foy Wallace, there was an interesting guy who was very abrasive. It is very interesting how much the book talks about pacifism being associated historically and somewhat even today with pacifism. Hughes was a professor at Pepperdine and has a special appointment at David Lipscomb now. It gives an excellent description of the controversy in Memphis TN of the Highland church building an attractive building, which was severely criticized.

[Moogy]

I thought I might want to read this, too, so I checked Amazon. Almost $30 for a Kindle version, so I will pass.

It occurred to me what a bizarre notion it is that the COC represents the “Ancient Faith.” First century Christians would not recognize the COC. If you want an ancient Christian faith, look at Orthodox churches.

[SolaDude]

If anything, he was more of a "unity in diversity" advocate, and didn't agree with the distortions and derailment he saw in the cofc during his lifetime.

Ah, yes, I remember the CofC saying “In Essentials, Unity; in Non-essentials, Liberty; in All Things, Charity,” yet to me that in and of itself could be considered a "creed" of the CofC. I just always marveled at how the CoC was never even close to that. I guess it made them feel good to go around believing and saying that. It's the "Non-essentials, Liberty" part of that that threw them all the time. And the "All Things, Charity", I'm not sure if there's any CofC out there like that, but perhaps I'm being too harsh and judgmental. And the "Essentials, Unity" part was really more of a weapon for them than a unifier.

There are indeed disadvantages to a structured denomination, however one great thing is that there is ACCOUNTABILITY for the elders, ministers, etc. The CofC on the other hand simply lets any band of elders do what they want because they are elders and that's it. So when the congregation gets itself into the hands of a group of elders that pretty much excudes other CofCs from what they believe, the disunity game begins.

So as much as he might have disagreed with what he saw in the CofC, he could do nothing about it. No one can in the"autonomous" way the CofC is set up. Even the first Christian groups were NOT autonomous. They were led by the Jerusalem Council.

[Shane R]

The Cane Ridge Reader edited by Hoke S. Dickinson. This is a compilation of works mostly by Barton W. Stone. It was a revolutionary book in my development. Being a first hand source, one is exposed to the fact that Elder Stone was very far from the positions which came to define 20th century CoC doctrine. For example, he was always a proponent of the revivalist conversion experience and somewhat ambivalent to baptism.

[Shane R]

I had a frustrating conversation with my father, a CoC minister, a couple of nights ago. He got off on some tangent about how the CoC had existed in England since the early 1600s and the American CoC was a continuation of that project. Utter crap. You can't claim every non-conformist English splinter group as the CoC in history and be taken seriously.