A Brief Review

We are just about to the end of this series of studies that we’ve been doing on the History of the Church, and for a number of weeks, now, we have been talking about the Restoration Movement. We began last week [Lesson 15 – Part 1] talking about the 20^th Century period of time, the growth that was experienced among churches of Christ during the 20^th Century. We noted that, following the official separation between the churches of Christ and the Disciples of Christ and Christian Church that took place in 1906 with the religious census that was done in America, the churches of Christ really “took a hit,” so to speak, in terms of numbers. There were many churches, many church buildings that were lost; many institutions of higher learning—colleges, and so on—that were lost to those folks who were part of the Disciples and the Christian Church movement. As a matter of fact, according to that 1906 religious census, the membership in churches of Christ was less that 160,000 nationwide.

However, there would be a period of, really, what was considered t be phenomenal growth in the 20^th Century, particularly through the middle and end part of the 1960’s. And, by the late 1960’s, membership in churches of Christ across the country was about 2.5 million. The churches of Christ were referred to, as I mentioned last week, by the religious editor of the United Press International [UPI], Louis Cassels, as “the fastest-growing major religious body in the United States,” and this was in the year 1967.

We talked a little bit about the reasons for that phenomenal growth in the early to middle part of the 20^th Century. There were many effective, influential, well-known preachers of the day, men like C. R. Nichol, N. B. Hardeman, J. C. Brewer, Foy E. Wallace, and just a whole raft [a large quantity] of others, who were very powerful orators, who were very good speakers, great Gospel preachers. They carried on debates with denominationalists; they went about preaching meetings that would last not for a few days, but would last for weeks at a time.

There were also a number of influential journals, and we can’t discount the influence and the effect of these journals during that period of growth.

Restoration Movement Colleges, Universities and Seminaries

Last time, we got to the point where we were ready to talk about the colleges, the institutions of higher learning. There were a number of colleges that were well-known. There was a significant expansion in the 20^th Century, but there were some mistakes that were made along the way in that regard. For example, in their eagerness to replace many of the colleges that were lost when that division took place in 1906, many of our brethren during the early part of the 20^th Century desired to establish colleges, but they were probably established at much too rapid a rate. And so it would be that from the year 1906 on up to the late 1920’s to about 1930, many, many colleges would be established among the brotherhood. However, because of the number of colleges; because of the on-coming period of financial woes in our country, many of those colleges would not last very long. In fact, many of them would end up failing.

There are some names that failed. Many of them are not familiar to me; maybe some of them would be familiar to you, particularly if you’re from Texas, because a number of these schools that I have note of here were in Texas; for example, Lockney Christian College; Gunter Bible School; Clebarro College; Sabinal Christian College. These were all Christian colleges, brotherhood schools that were begun and failed in the 1920’s and 30’s. And this became even more of a problem after the crash of the stock market in 1929, when colleges were just financially unable to continue. And so, the 1930’s witnessed even more of these schools that would end up being closed and going defunct, schools like Thorp Springs Christian College, Cordell Christian College, Burritt Christian College. The Burritt Christian College was located in Spencer, Tennessee, and had been operated since 1849, so that was a college that had not just started up after the division in 1906.

By 1940, after all of these starts and closures, and so on, the brotherhood had five colleges which had survived the depression years. There was David Lipscomb College that was founded in 1891 by David Lipscomb as the Nashville Bible School; it was the oldest. And then, the second, Freed-Hardeman College in Henderson, Tennessee, which was founded by A. G. Freed and N. B. Hardeman in 1908; third, Abilene Christian College, originally called Childers Classic Institute until 1920, which was founded by A. B. Barret in 1906. It would host the Bible lectures, which began in 1918; that would become the largest annual gathering of members of the church, and was so for many, many years. Then, there was Harding College, which began in 1924. And Harding College had its beginning through a merger of Harper College in Harper, Kansas, and Arkansas Christian College in Morrilton, Arkansas. Harding moved to their present location in Searcy, Arkansas, in 1934. And then the fifth college is, Pepperdine College in Los Angeles, which was begun in 1937. Of course, Pepperdine is named for the chief benefactor of the college, George Pepperdine, who was a very well-known Christian businessman; and he was the founder of the Western Auto Company.

In 1940, these five schools I’ve mentioned had a total enrollment of about 2,000. And, at that time, only Pepperdine was accredited and offered graduate work.

Well, since World War II, there has been the establishing of many brotherhood schools, and all of these five colleges that were mentioned before became fully accredited; many of them now have graduate programs, and so on. And then additional colleges—it’s hard to say how many additional colleges have been established, but I’ll mention just a few, like Alabama Christian College, which is now Faulkner University; there is Michigan Christian College, which is now Rochester College; there is Ohio Valley Christian University in Parkersburg, West Virginia; Cascade College, which is up in Portland, Oregon; Florida Christian College, and many others.

The below listing is from a Restoration Movement website. I thought it was interesting from a couple of standpoints. First of all, I thought it was interesting to see how many colleges and universities there are who claim a link; who claim to have roots in the Restoration Movement. As you go down through the list, you will recognize some of these—some of whose names I’ve just mentioned: Lipscomb, Harding, Lubbock Christian University, Pepperdine, Freed-Hardeman, and so on. This does account for many, if not most of the colleges and universities that we recognize today.