Pre WW2 CoC

[B.H.]

BH is making fun of my great grandma!! BH!!

No Ivy, I'm making fun of the people who disagreed with her.

Honestly, from what I've heard about her (she passed away long before I was born) she was way more gentle spoken than that. I don't see her
acting that way or being mean spirited at all. I wish I had known her; my mom loved her (Grandma and Grandpa) very much.

I'm sure she was a good loving woman.

[B.H.]

In the very earliest days of my CoC preaching I encountered a few old-timers who had come up in that era. From what I gathered it was indeed transitional. They loved the added services - more chances to preach. But what they really always wanted to talk about was how Gospel Meetings could go every night for 2 or 3 weeks. Dozens would be baptized and so on. Many of them had a boner for N.B. Hardeman.

What! I thought it was a sin to pop a boner on anyone but Foy Wallace.

[zeek]

In the very earliest days of my CoC preaching I encountered a few old-timers who had come up in that era. From what I gathered it was indeed transitional. They loved the added services - more chances to preach. But what they really always wanted to talk about was how Gospel Meetings could go every night for 2 or 3 weeks. Dozens would be baptized and so on. Many of them had a boner for N.B. Hardeman.

What! I thought it was a sin to pop a boner on anyone but Foy Wallace.

I suppose this was a regional phenomenon; in the Nashville area, I believe the stud everyone had the hots for was Guy Woods. He reputedly could quote from Gen.1:1 through Rev. 22:21 without missing a word. He must have had a photographic memory.

[B.H.]

He was well respected, woods that is. He had a photographic memory and even had a law degree. I've read some of his debates and he lacked the ability to use logic and tie together what he could remember well. For example he debated Max King in the early 70s over what is now called Realized Eschatology and he came across as to me in the transcript as not resolving at all the issues King brought up. I don't agree with King either, just Woods did a poor job responding to Kings legitimate issues about the second coming and the fall of Jerusalem.


I'm not saying this to be ugly to Woods. I've only heard good things about him as a man.

[Shane R]

Many years ago my old man was supposed to have a debate with the local hillbilly institutional minister. Dad was bringing in J.T. Smith to do the heavy lifting and the other bloke thought he was going to get Guy Woods. Except, he didn't. So the debate got canceled and we had a Gospel meeting with J.T. Smith using all of the material he had for the debate. A weeklong meeting on the institutional question is just as horrific as you might imagine.

[B.H.]

Many years ago my old man was supposed to have a debate with the local hillbilly institutional minister. Dad was bringing in J.T. Smith to do the heavy lifting and the other bloke thought he was going to get Guy Woods. Except, he didn't. So the debate got canceled and we had a Gospel meeting with J.T. Smith using all of the material he had for the debate. A weeklong meeting on the institutional question is just as horrific as you might imagine.

I can understand the one cup position---they claim the one container represents the new covenant and that is why one cup is needed. The cup itself represents something like the bread does the body and the grapejuice/wine does the blood.

The non-sunday school doctrine makes sense too. It says in Hebrews 10 you are to assemble together and other verses forbid a woman teaching in the assembly. However, Bible class brethren use those verses to stop women teaching men in bible class but claim they are not an assembly at the same time but the verses only forbid teaching in the assembly not outside of it. Consistency and logic should make the class folks not ban women from teaching men in the classes. It's a logical error and most non-class brethren will admit there is nothing wrong with studying in groups at the building but won't because of all this. Got to keep away from doing anything with the appearance of evil.....

The non-institutional doctrine is all over. I can't follow it. It seems there is no logic or coherence to either side. On one hand it does seem the mainline folks do abandon their argument against a missionary society to support the colleges and orphan homes, but then again the non-institutional people will let non-christian err not Church of Christ visitors drink from their water fountain and crap in their bathroom paid for out of church contribution which is a supposed no no.

[agricola]

When I was little (in the 50s) there was still a feeling in the church that politics were outside the building. This was just post WW2/Korea, and many of the men had seen military service, so that was not something that was opposed, but it was also not celebrated. The message from the pulpit was that we were to be 'apart from the world' which meant no church positions on political matters DIRECTLY. Of course, the preaching itself was certainly aligned with/or against various political positions, but very few church men in any position of authority were very obvious about it.

The Civil Rights movement in the 60s led to talk and a little bit of action - our preacher, for instance, arranged with a black CoC preacher to have joint services one Wednesday night. There wasn't a lot of follow through. And there was at least one (probably more) elder who was very VERY racist, and had been known to loudly turn away visitors who showed up at the door while being black.
I had his kid in the kindergarten class in VBS one summer. He was quite loud in his opinion that black children were black all the way through and bled black too. Not a big question about where he learned that.

We did sing Jesus loves the little children, red and yellow, black and white, but the church congregation throughout the 50s and 60s was lily white entirely.
Still is majority white, but has a FEW black members, and a Spanish language service - indicating a reasonably sized Hispanic element nowadays.

[Shane R]

"and a Spanish language service - indicating a reasonably sized Hispanic element nowadays."

That is really fascinating. I live in Southeast Ohio now and the two most common churches are Church of Christ and Methodist. I've never seen a Church of Christ advertising a Spanish service.

[Ivy]

I shouldn't do this but...

the local hillbilly institutional minister

More likely an NICOC minister, huh? I wonder if they ever developed any minimum standards /detailed job descriptions for a FT pray-cher. Just so there are no surprise firings in the middle of the night.

But BH, Sister Ivy came from hillbilly culture, so be respectful.

[agricola]

"and a Spanish language service - indicating a reasonably sized Hispanic element nowadays."

That is really fascinating. I live in Southeast Ohio now and the two most common churches are Church of Christ and Methodist. I've never seen a Church of Christ advertising a Spanish service.

They just added a FRENCH one, which I TOTALLY fail to understand - maybe Vietnamese? Where in tarn hill does Nashville acquire any significant FRENCH speaking minority with enough to cause a CoC to add FRENCH??

I'm in N Georgia now, and as far as I can tell, the most common small town churches are Baptists and Methodists, with a scattering of Presbyterian and the CoC, of course. But I also see Kingdom Halls, and at least one Society of Friends is nearby (Quakers). Not a lot of LDS, which were everywhere around when I was living in Nevada. Occasionally Roman Catholic - but those tend to be better organized and spaced out further apart.