David Lipscomb (January 21, 1831 – November 11, 1917) was a minister, editor, and educator in the American Restoration Movement and one of the leaders of that movement, which, by 1906, had formalized a division into the Church of Christ (with which Lipscomb was affiliated) and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). James A. Harding and David Lipscomb founded the Nashville Bible School, now known as Lipscomb University in honor of the latter.
Personal life
Lipscomb was born to Granville Lipscomb (born January 13, 1802, in Louisa County, Virginia, died November 16, 1853) and his second wife Ann E. Lipscomb (born January 25, 1799, in Louisa County, Virginia, died January 29, 1835, in Illinois) (called "Nancy" in some sources). Granville had previously been married, on December 14, 1825, in Spotsylvania, Virginia, to the former Ellen Guerner.
Granville and his older brother William Lipscomb were active in the Bean's Creek Baptist Church, where they were listed as the church clerks for 1828–1831 (Granville Lipscomb) and 1844–1876 (William C. Lipscomb). Attempts to convert the Bean's Creek church to Restoration Movement theology were poorly received, and Granville Lipscomb's family was expelled in 1831. David Lipscomb was born in Huntland, Tennessee.
The Lipscomb family, originally Baptist, were said to have converted to Restoration Movement Christianity in the mid-1820s while reading Alexander Campbell's periodical Christian Baptist, copies of which had been sent to the Lipscomb's family by Ann's sister Elizabeth (born ca. 1797) and brother-in-law, physician Lunsford Lindsay (born ca. 1793) of Todd County, Kentucky, who would later participate in the formation of the Cadiz Christian Church in 1837.
The Lipscombs were said to be charter members of the Old Salem church, according to Earl Irvin West's Lipscomb biography, The Life and Times of David Lipscomb.
:The Old Salem congregation began in May 1834 with two male members and two females. Also, five colored people belonged. By Christmas that year the number had grown to thirty-four whites and twelve blacks.
The Lipscomb family moved to Illinois in 1834 for the purpose of freeing their slaves. Some time after 1849 David Lipscomb "owned a good farm, a few negroes, and enough stock and fixtures of all kinds to carry on his business as a farmer." Lipscomb founded Lipscomb University as a segregated educational institution that refused to accept African-American students well into the late 1960s. Despite owning slaves and founding a segregated school, David always believed that racial divisions in the church are inconsistent with Christianity. David's half-brother, also named Granville, was born to Jane Breedan Lipscomb. William Lipscomb would help to found Neely's Bend Church of Christ in April 1872 . Granville Lipscomb Jr. would become a leader in the Lebanon Church of Christ founded in 1879 in Weakley County, Tennessee.
Lipscomb was married to Margaret Zellner on July 22, 1862. Only one child was born to them. Little Zellner died at the age of 9 months of dehydration while teething. They reared, however, several foster children. David Lipscomb died on November 11, 1917, at the age of 86 years. Funeral services were held in the College Street Church, where he had been an elder for many years.
Tolbert Fanning and Franklin College
thumb|right|David Lipscomb (1831–1917)
Lipscomb, along with his older brother William, was greatly influenced by Nashville, Tennessee, church leader Tolbert Fanning. Lipscomb was baptized by Fanning in 1845. He entered Fanning's Franklin College in 1846, graduating in 1849. While a student at Franklin, Lipscomb roomed with the father of Edward Ward Carmack.
Fanning was an enforcer of strict orthodoxy with regard to Restoration doctrines, seeing anything not specifically authorized by the New Testament as unnecessary and hence sinful addition to the "primitive" Christianity of the 1st century, which the movement was by definition dedicated to restoring.
Gospel Advocate
In this spirit, in 1855, Fanning and William Lipscomb began publishing a magazine aimed at dissemination of this view throughout the Restoration Movement, the Gospel Advocate. Following the resumption of mail service, which had been interrupted by the American Civil War, David Lipscomb revived the Gospel Advocate in July 1866, with himself and Fanning as editors: Fanning withdrew making Lipscomb the sole editor until he was joined by P. S. Fall, John T. Walsh, Jacob Creath Jr., T. W. Brents, and Carroll Kendrick in 1867.
Although the Advocate has always been conservative and Bible based, the "tone and direction" has varied as editors have changed.
- Governments need to make laws.
- Governments are created for the public good.
- Democracy is for the common good.
Stringham further describes Lipscomb's beliefs as follows:
Lipscomb, along with his mentor Tolbert Fanning, opposed the newly formed American Christian Missionary Society. The use of musical instruments in worship had been discussed in journal articles as early as 1849, and initial reactions were generally unfavorable. However, some congregations are known to have been using musical instruments in the 1850s and 1860s.
A deeper theological concern for Lipscomb was the adoption of German liberal theology by many among the Disciples wing of the Restoration Movement. Those whose primary focus was unity gradually took on "an explicitly ecumenical agenda" and "sloughed off the restorationist vision."
Thus in 1906, the U.S. Religious Census listed the Christian Churches and the Churches of Christ as separate and distinct groups for the first time. This, however, was simply the recognition of a division that had been growing for years, with published reports as early as 1883. In sum, for a movement based on Christian unity based on the Bible, one side went in the direction of unity and the other side went in the direction of Restorationism.
Legacy
According to The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, Lipscomb's "greatest contributions came through the Nashville Bible School, the Gospel Advocate, and his other writings." As the Churches of Christ have no denominational hierarchy, through much of its history the views of the brotherhood have been heavily influenced by its journals and their editors (although an argument can be made that since the 1980s lectureship speakers and university leaders have tended to have more influence than editors).