Two famous Restoration personalities of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries reveal an attitude toward disagreements on doctrinal matters that is highly instructive.
J. W. McGarvey is considered by many to be the greatest intellectual of his age within the Movement. Not surprisingly, he was drawn squarely into the brewing controversies–instrumental music and the missionary society. By and large, the Movement was dividing into two camps–anti-mechanical instruments and anti-missionary society on the one hand, and pro-mechanical instruments and pro-missionary society on the other. Some churches were pro-mechanical instruments and anti-society. But McGarvey stood out for being pro-society and anti-instrument.
However, although he vigorously opposed the instrument, McGarvey refused to divide over the instrument. McGarvey often spoke at instrumental congregations, only asking that they not play the instrument while he was present.
Now, the irony of this is that most of the arguments used to oppose the instrument today derive from the work of McGarvey. McGarvey was not entirely original, as his work was built on the Calvinist doctrine called the “regulatory principle,” which goes back at least to the first generation of Calvin’s disciples.
The regulatory principle was forged in the battles of Calvin and his disciples against Medieval Catholicism. The regulatory principle holds that worship is of special concern to God and so must only be done by means specifically authorized in the Bible. All unauthorized methods of worship are therefore sin.
However, those who followed McGarvey expanded this principle in two ways. First, they made it a test of fellowship, contrary to McGarvey’s own practice. Second, they expanded it to include many other doctrines: church organization, the church’s name, the doctrine of divorce and remarriage, the Sunday school, the age of the earth … the list is quite long, of course, and getting longer. Hence, Calvin’s regulative principle came to supplant grace in the area of doctrine disagreement.
McGarvey agreed with Scott and Stone, and disagreed with Campbell, in rejecting the word-only view of the Spirit.
McGarvey’s legacy is one of great intellectual accomplishment and an example of tolerance at a time when tolerance was no longer tolerated. Sadly, however, his work has been used to achieve ends he would never have approved.
Another important figure from about this same time is T. B. Larimore. Larimore wrote very little, spending his life in evangelistic preaching. He famously said, “I propose to finish my course without ever, even for one moment, engaging in partisan strife with anybody about anything.” Larimore was a popular, respected figure, but refused to take sides in any of the disputes of the day, preferring to save souls.
Many within the Movement tried to persuade him to take sides, some even threatening to disfellowship him for daring to fellowship those they disagreed with. Larimore just kept on preaching. He said, “No man has a right to make a test of fellowship of anything which God has not made a condition of salvation.” Larimore considered the society and instrument issues “opinions,” meaning that he understood Campbell and Scott better than most of his contemporaries.
As a result, Larimore has been credited with founding more churches in the South than any other Restoration Movement preacher. Sadly, the course of the Churches of Christ in the 20th Century was set by the editors, not these two preachers and teachers.
Had the attitudes of these men prevailed, far more people would know Jesus today–and those who know Jesus would know him far better.
