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An occupational hazard of a position like mine is that people expect you to have a perspective on current events. So I have occasionally been asked, “Is this the most challenging moment, the most critical period, in the history of the Church of God Movement?” I know of no better way to answer than through the lens of history, for how are we to gauge the present if we are ignorant of our past? Furthermore, the absence of a historical perspective distorts our view of the present and leaves us vulnerable to whoever’s opinion is the loudest, if not just plain demagoguery. At this particular moment in the life of the Church of God Movement a historical perspective may be even more important. Many men and women who care deeply about the movement worry about its present and rightly so. The many changes and even troubles of recent decades justify such concern. In the spirit of helping us read our present I offer these chronological reflections on some pivotal moments in our past.
November 1883—Annapolis, Ohio Meetings
After publishing the Gospel Trumpet for roughly three years, D. S. Warner decided the moment had come for readers to gather for the first general assembly of the saints. Of course, meetings had occurred in brush arbors, tent meetings, and schoolhouse meetings for years. But meetings at Annapolis Warner intended to be the first general gathering. He eagerly anticipated the meetings in the expectation that spiritual gifts would be strengthened, the power of the Lord made manifest in healings, that sinners would be saved and believers sanctified. Evidently Warner did not consider the possibility that the Trumpet’s radical message on the church might attract people with other, unrelated radical notions. To Warner’s dismay, at Annapolis exponents of a variety of doctrines advocated their views, and the “sample of the reign of heaven” descended into chaos. Preachers called on saints to cast off their eyeglasses; others spoke against the ordinances and the doctrine of holiness. Had the matter ended, Warner might have been able to interpret the Annapolis meetings in a positive light. But they were but the first in a series of steps that led Warner into a serious depression by early 1884. Doug Welch and Dale Stultz have helped us appreciate the role of Joseph Fisher in rescuing Warner and the Gospel Trumpet. Fisher became the de facto editor of the paper until Warner emerged from his despondency and re-asserted control.
1898-1915 Anti-Cleansing Heresy/Necktie Controversies
Warner died in 1895 and was succeeded as Editor by Enoch E. Byrum. Shortly after assuming leadership Byrum was confronted by a heterodox interpretation of the doctrine of sanctification. Named for its principal exponent, “Zinzendorfism,” as it was known, taught the idea that sanctification—like justification—is imputed; i. e., believers are not actually cleansed of their sin and sinfulness in sanctification. God considers them cleansed even though they actually are not. During the 1890s Zinzendorfism developed a following in the Holiness movement, including the Church of God Movement. By 1898 advocates could even be found among the Gospel Trumpet family.
During that year the Trumpet ran articles refuting the doctrine, a fairly reliable indicator that it had taken root. At the camp meeting at Moundsville, West Virginia, in 1899 Byrum confronted the “anti-cleansers,” as he dubbed them. In the aftermath of the meeting several important ministers left the movement. Nobody knows for certain, but perhaps as many as half of movement ministers departed. Eventually some returned to fellowship, but there was no denying the significant loss.
E. E. Byrum had resolved the anti-cleansing conflict, insisting that sanctification genuinely cleansed the souls of believers. Ironically, the resolution of this issue led to another. If the hearts of believers were truly cleansed, how would cleansed hearts be evident in daily life? Extreme holiness advocates put forward a very high standard, insisting that saints abstain from most forms of entertainment and nearly all aspects of personal adornment. The focal point was the necktie, but a host of other symptoms of worldliness were also named: jewelry of any kind, the use of rouge or makeup, superfluous additions to clothing (for example, feathers on ladies’ hats or pleats in their skirts), attendance at the theater, novel reading, and among some preachers even attendance at baseball games. (I find this last prohibition especially painful.) The chief exponent of the anti-necktie faction was C. E. Orr, a particularly sensitive spirit. For more than a decade Orr and others kept the pot stirring with charges that the saints were being led astray by ministers who had let down the standard of holiness. In the end more moderate voices prevailed, but not without the schism that led to the establishment of a segment of the church of God that rallied around Faith Publishing House in Guthrie, Oklahoma.
1929—1934 Debate between John Morrison and F. G. Smith
In 1916 Enoch Byrum’s former personal secretary, F. G. Smith, succeeded his old boss as Editor of the Gospel Trumpet and de facto head of the company. Despite his suspicion of the growth of “ecclesiastical machinery,” it was Smith who steered the Movement through the stormy waters of institutionalization between 1917 and 1929. However, by 1929 Smith’s influence in the Movement, once nearly invincible, was beginning to wane. A growing number of voices challenged his theology of the church, especially the notion of “come-outism.” Some ministers worried about his extensive influence so much that in 1929 he lost a bid for re-election as president of the Missionary Board; although he was the incumbent, Smith was not even nominated to run for another term.
Smith’s conservatism pushed him to some questionable positions. He even opposed a request from the Fundamentalist preacher Billy Sunday to hold a revival in Anderson’s camp meeting tabernacle. Perhaps it was a sense that his influence was waning that prompted Smith to act through his wife and an associate, R. L. Berry, to prefer heresy charges against Russell Byrum, author of Christian Theology and a professor at Anderson College. Byrum was exonerated of all charges, but the trial persuaded John Morrison and E. A. Reardon to encourage Smith’s removal as Editor in 1930. In that year the Publication Board denied Smith another term, eventually settling on Charles E. Brown as his successor. However, the dispute between Morrison and Smith was hardly finished. In 1934 Smith and his followers campaigned against Morrison’s ratification for another term as the college president. They nearly succeeded; of more than seven hundred ballots cast, Morrison won ratification by a margin of only 13 votes.
John Morrison and F. G. Smith contended with each other over their respective visions for the future of the Movement. Smith anchored his vision to older writings, often called “our standard literature,” which committed the movement to a sectarian posture typified by the idea of “come-outism.” Morrison, on the other hand, held a progressive vision of the church in which “we reach our hands in fellowship to every blood-washed one.” Eventually that more expansive vision won the day.
For one example, it was C. E. Brown, Smith’s successor, who replaced “come-outism” with what he called a “new approach to Christian unity.” As Brown saw the church, all the saved in Christ are members of God’s church, regardless their denominational home. It was also Brown who advanced the ideal of “spiritual democracy,” a notion which led to more inclusive participation in the national affairs of the movement.
1944-1953—The Slacum Controversy
By the mid-Forties grumbling in the movement reached a point where only a spark was necessary to stir up controversy. Some ministers were troubled by the fact that power and influence were concentrated in the hands of a few top national leaders at the center of an “old boys” network. Others worried about rumors that Anderson leaders were letting down the standard of holiness by going to movies and consulting physicians. In 1944 Muncie pastor L. Earl Slacum provided the spark with a sermon titled “The Watchman on the Wall.” Within a few years Slacum and likeminded individuals led a schismatic move out of the Movement. One of his principal complaints had been the growth of organization in the movement, but to Slacum’s dismay the schism of which he was part generated more organization in fewer years than the movement had created in twenty-five. Slacum possessed the humility and graciousness to admit this problem, and in 1953 he asked to be restored to the Church of God ministry. His protest had a positive outcome, in that the Executive Council was reorganized to include greater participation by grassroots ministers.
This brief survey illustrates that the peaceful waters of the Church of God Movement often have been troubled in our past. In fact, the troubles have been so frequent that lately I have wondered about what constitutes “normal” in the life of the movement. Those of us born shortly after World War II grew up in a Church of God Movement that advanced from victory unto victory. From 1946 to 1970 or so statistics document the growth of congregations and Sunday schools and the growth of World Service budgets (which were frequently met). Three national “agencies,” as they were known, actually had sufficient surplus cash to contribute $1 million to the new Pension Board of the Church of God. That amount in the early 1950s is roughly equal to over $7 million in today’s dollars. The colleges were growing. Even AC’s football team prospered; during the last five years they lost no more than six games total. But my question is, given our history of idealistic, well-intended disputes, were the decades from 1950 to 1970 truly “normal?”
My question leads then a final comment. We all received the “140 Days” memo from General Director Jim Lyon in which he referred to a pair of studies. Their message was that, for the Church of God, to borrow a phrase from Charles Dickens, today “. . . [is] the best of times; it was [is] the worst of times.” My study of the history of the Church of God Movement tells me that we have known many challenging times, and out of each of them some good has come, a new direction has been defined. If we truly believe that God raised up the Church of God Movement, we can face our future with a measure of confidence. Unless we believe that God has forsaken us, we ought not leave the work of our future up to God alone. I believe God expects His people to roll up our sleeves and get to work shaping that future with Him, preferably shoulder to shoulder.
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