David Edwin Harrell (1930–2021)

This lengthy book is an excellent source for persons interested in learning about the churches of Christ stream of the Stone-Campbell religious tradition as it developed and splintered in America during the 20th century. Readers will learn of issues and personalities that caused the churches of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples) to separate; then to factionalize more within itself. The author writes from the perspective of the “noninstitutional” faction within the churches of Christ.

The book also is a biography of Homer Hailey (1903-2000), a gospel preacher and teacher who was aligned with the noninstitutional faction for many years.

The book contains eight chapters, organized into three parts:

Part I: Homer Hailey and the Churches of Christ: Origins

Chapter 1. Homer Hailey and the Churches of Christ: An Institutional History and a Personal Saga

Part II: The Mainstream Church of Christ: 1920-1999

Chapter 2. The Churches of Christ, 1920-1950: A Heritage of Controversy
Chapter 3. Consummating the Institutional Division
Chapter 4. The Mainstream Becomes a Divided Stream

Part III: Homer Hailey and the Noninstitutinal Churches of Christ: 1925-1999

Chapter 5. Texas Preacher and Professor
Chapter 6. Hailey in the Eye of the Storm: The Florida Years
Chapter 7. Arizona Retirement, Reluctant Notoriety: 1973-1999
Chapter 8: Homer Hailey: Persona and Legacy

A number of photos are included in the book. The author provides numerous notes by way of documentation. A helpful index is included.

I am happy to have read the book and have it in my library. It is available on the new and used book markets.… (mere)

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson, born in1930, is the son of U.S. Senator A. Willis Robertson, a conservative Democratic United States Senator from Virginia. Ordained as a minister of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1961, Robertson is best known as a television evangelist and media personality. In 1960, he had established the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia Beach, VA, which included his own television program, The 700 Club. He came to hold a charismatic theology not traditionally common among Southern Baptists and even did work as a faith healer. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, he joined with a number of others, such as Robert Grant, Paul Weyrich, Terry Dolan, Howard Phillips, Jerry Falwell, William Bright, James Dobson, and Richard Viguerie to encourage more participation by those considered conservative, fundamental, or evangelical Christians in the political process, including support of Ronald Reagan’s campaign and presidency.
In September 1986, Robertson announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States at the 1988 Republican National Convention. This friendly biography by David Edwin Harrell Jr., then chairman of the history department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham whom I have had the privilege of meeting and hearing speak on several occasions, written in 1987 during the height of Robertson’s quest as a campaign biography concerned with political views, gives a personal portrait, a religious portrait, and a political portrait of Robertson and includes an objective assessment of the candidate's chances, concluding that, even if he were not nominated, he would be a power broker at the Republican convention. Following his unsuccessful presidential campaign, Robertson started the Christian Coalition, a 1.7 million member Christian right organization that campaigned primarily for conservative candidates. As a result of his seeking political office, he no longer serves in an official role for any church.
Through the years, Robertson has taken various positions and made numerous statements on a wide-range of issues that have attracted criticism. There are a lot of areas in which I strongly disagree with him, but there are other areas where I heartily concur with what he teaches. A completely new edition of this biography entitled Pat Robertson: A Life and Legacy, revised with updated information by Harrell, now Daniel F. Breeden Eminent Scholar Emeritus at Auburn University, based on thousands of documents from the files of the Christian Broadcasting Network, the private correspondence of Robertson himself, and more than 100 hours of interviews with 75 people in seven countries, including extensive interviews with the Robertson family, was published in 2010 by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. While to many, especially liberals, Robertson is little more than a Christian huckster, Harrell portrays the religious broadcaster as a centrist, painting him in a sympathetic and even-handed but not fawning light. The book is thorough and insightful, making no excuses for Robertson's reckless comments but giving him credit for uniting conservative Roman Catholics, evangelicals, and Pentecostals on many culture war issues.… (mere)

A masterful and magisterial investigation into the history of churches of Christ in the twentieth century, using the life of Homer Hailey as the vehicle for the analysis.

The first section introduces the life of Hailey and the early part of the century for churches of Christ; the middle section focuses mostly on the disputes in the church over pre-millennialism and much discussion over the division over the institutional matters in the middle of the century. Harrell then spends some time going through the developments within the "mainstream" churches through the rest of the century.

The rest of the book traces a thread of the history of the non-institutional churches of Christ throughout the rest of the century by focusing mostly on Homer Hailey and his interaction with FCC and his work in retirement afterward.

The material that the book covers is mostly excellent; the author sympathizes with the non-institutional position, but he fairly handles the history of the "mainstream" churches. The clearest bias is evident when the author discusses his own role in the story relative to association with those who teach divergent doctrines on marriage, divorce, and remarriage: the author's position and plea, seen at times throughout the book, is that there has been a wide variance in interpretation of marriage, divorce, and remarriage issues in the history of the Restoration movement, and questions of association should be handled on a local level. Harrell does speak of the opposition to this viewpoint, but the discussion is very clearly tilted toward his view.

It would have been nice to have seen a more comprehensive history of the non-institutional churches in the latter half of the century akin to what existed for the "mainstream" churches, but apparently that must wait for another time or another author.

Nevertheless, a must read in order to understand the history of churches of Christ in the twentieth century.… (mere)

Harrell's magisterial analysis of the social thought of the Restoration Movement in America from 1865 to 1900. While the book cannot avoid a discussion of the factors (religious, socioeconomic, and cultural) that led to the division between the Disciples of Christ and the Churches of Christ, the book focuses mostly on the attitudes toward the social issues of the day, especially as evidenced within the major papers of the day, liberal, moderate, and conservative. The issues include labor unions, temperance, women's rights, African-Americans, Native Americans, immigration, Roman Catholicism, politics, urbanization, various matters of morality, and the "Social Gospel."

Voluminously researched and cited, Harrell provides the full spectrum of views among Disciples of Christ regarding these issues and demonstrates that the internal turmoil and conflict within the Restoration Movement is parallel to the internal turmoil and conflict within the United States, especially Protestant/Evangelical America, during the same time period.

The work remains fairly even-handed and mostly free from polemic/biased language, although the use of "sectarian" to describe the conservative Southern element could be perceived as slanted, even if it conforms to accepted historical standards of language to describe such religious groups.

On the whole, an indispensable guide in understanding the history of the Restoration Movement.… (mere)