Foy E. Wallace

Early life

Foy E. Wallace Jr., was born September 30, 1896, on a farm south of Belcherville, Texas in Montague County, Texas.^[1] His father, Foy Edwin (Foy E. Sr.) Wallace (1871–1949), was a prominent preacher within churches of Christ in Texas, having been at the forefront of debate with the Disciples of Christ over mechanical instrumental music in Christian worship and missionary societies. Charles Ready Nichol (1876–1961) and Robertson Lafayette Whiteside (1869–1951) were also very influential^[2] in Wallace's thinking as was his older brother Cled Eugene Wallace (1892–1962).

He was baptized by his father in 1909 and preached his first sermon in 1912 at Stephenville, Texas. While his initial appointments derived largely from his shared name, within a short time he had made a name for himself as a preaching prodigy. Wallace would carry the nickname of "The Boy Preacher" even into early adulthood.

Wallace very rarely preached as a local minister. While he lived in a progression of Texas towns (Lott, Temple, Vernon, Wichita Falls, and Fort Worth), these cities usually served him simply as bases for his "gospel meetings" (commonly called "revivals" outside churches of Christ).

One of Wallace's few significant works as a local preacher occurred from 1928 to the middle of 1930 with the Central church of Christ in Los Angeles, California.

In the middle of 1930 Wallace was called from Los Angeles, California to Nashville, Tennessee by Leon B. McQuiddy to serve as editor of the Gospel Advocate Wallace continued in this role until 1934 when severe financial difficulty in the Great Depression combined with a series of family medical problems led to Wallace's resignation as editor of the Gospel Advocate in an attempt to recover financially. However, late in 1934 Wallace declared bankruptcy while affirming his debts. In 1937 Wallace returned to Nashville and with the assistance of longtime family friend John W. Akin (1873–1960), satisfied all debts.^[3]

Premillennialism

On February 11, 1909, Robert H. Boll (1875–1956) became the front-page editor of the Gospel Advocate. After several years of work widely acceptable to his readership, his premillennial views were expressed within its pages, to the dismay of most of the Advocate's management, including J. C. McQuiddy (1858–1924). After considerable friction, Boll was dismissed, re-hired and dismissed again in 1915. In 1916 Boll became the editor of The Word and Work, a paper formerly edited by Stanford Chambers (1876–1969), of New Orleans, Louisiana. The paper Word and Work was founded in 1908 by premillennialist Dr. David Lipscomb Watson. Especially under Chambers' ownership after 1913, Word and Work took an explicitly premillennial view. Boll moved the magazine to Louisville, Kentucky, where it continued to promote premillennialism within churches of Christ.

Boll's promotion of premillennialism led to continuing controversy from 1915 on into the 1920s, culminating in a written debate with H. Leo Boles in 1927. That debate ended amicably, but in 1932, the Advocate, under Wallace, turned its eye back toward the debate with a series of critical articles on premillennialism.

Wallace himself engaged in two well-known debates regarding premillennialism with Charles McKendree Neal (1878–1956) in 1933 at Winchester, Kentucky and Chattanooga, Tennessee. These debates established Wallace as the leader of those opposed to the premillennialists within the church.

In November 1934 Wallace participated in an equally contentious debate, also on the millennium, with Texas Baptist fundamentalist J. Frank Norris, in Fort Worth. After three raucous evenings of debate, each side claimed victory.^[4] For churches of Christ the debate became particularly divisive when ministers Frank M. Mullins and Jesse Wood from two Dallas-area Churches of Christ went to the microphone in support of Norris, a development which Norris had encouraged. Walter Estal Brightwell (1893–1957), a supporter of Wallace, wrote of the debate:

in the words of some of the boys who returned from France after the late war, I would not take a million dollars for the debate and the privilege of attending it, but I would not give a dime for another one just like it.^[5]

In October 1935 Wallace founded the Gospel Guardian as a monthly magazine primarily to combat the views of the premillennialists. The Gospel Guardian ended in June 1936 and merged with the Firm Foundation. In 1937 Wallace was the front page writer for the Firm Foundation. In 1938 Wallace founded the Bible Banner, initially also dedicated to the defeat of premillennial doctrine. By the early 1940s, every significant paper and college associated with churches of Christ took the amillennial position, often, like Wallace, never using the terms amillennial or amillennialism. By 1949, when Wallace ceased publishing the Bible Banner, this campaign had been so effective that fewer than a hundred congregations adhered to the premillennial view, and those generally isolated from the mainline, as they have remained for decades.

Nonetheless, Wallace's opposition to premillennialism caused anger in some of these power bases. Harding College president John Nelson Armstrong (1870–1944) had refused to condemn premillennialism in 1934; a partial rejection of the doctrine in 1935 did little to silence his critics, Wallace chief among them. A war of words between the two camps ensued, with Wallace and Earnest Rosenthal Harper (1897–1986) accusing Harding of sheltering premillennialists and premillennial sympathizers; Armstrong, for his part, compared Harper to the Nazis and Wallace to a pope.

Pacifism

As America entered the Second World War, another controversy emerged among churches of Christ. Christian pacifism had a long history in this body as a significant minority position, especially around Nashville and among those who attended the Bible Schools of David Lipscomb, James A. Harding and their disciples. However, in every major armed conflict the majority of members of churches of Christ participated as soldiers. Major leaders within the churches of Christ including Daniel Sommer in the north and G. H. P. Showalter in south opposed pacifism. By World War II pacifism was waning because of the surge of patriotism engendered by the war, particularly following U.S. entry into it following the attack on Pearl Harbor.. However, a significant and influential number of preachers within the churches of Christ were still pacifists. David Lipscomb had consolidated his arguments on the Christian relationship to the civil state in his book Civil Government that emerged after, and perhaps because of, Lipscomb's experience of the American Civil War. Lipscomb's views were still influential but were considered extreme by some. For example, Lipscomb believed that a ballot not backed by the bullet was worthless. Lipscomb wrote, "The man who votes to make to others fight (and all who vote do this) ought himself to fight—that is, if he is legally liable to performs this duty. He who supports the law that requires others to fight, morally and legally fights himself."^[6] Therefore, David Lipscomb did not vote. Wallace, though earlier in life sympathetic to some aspects of Lipscomb's position, his father taking the non-combatant view, supported the Christian's right to serve as a policeman or in the armed forces of the United States. He was considered by some to be an implacable foe to conscientious objectors.

As part of this effort, the Bible Banner under Wallace took issue with the writings of Lipscomb regarding pacifism in an effort that Wallace led. Wallace's point of view again largely triumphed, and most men of military age of churches of Christ embraced military service including the sons of many pacifists; however, the victory again earned him well-connected opponents. Chief among these was B. C. Goodpasture, the latest editor of the Gospel Advocate, who was publicly quiet on the "war question" but raised money for pacifist Christians placed in conscientious objector camps.^[7]

Racism

Wallace's views on race have been much discussed in recent years. Wallace was a native of the Deep South and was born and reared in a time when segregation was the law, though this had not stopped earlier figures, including David Lipscomb, from making a clean break with racist ideas, even calling them blasphemous. Nevertheless, segregated churches were the norm in the Jim Crow South.

In 1941 Wallace wrote an article in the Bible Banner titled "Negro Meetings for White People" in which Wallace argued against the mixing of the races during church meetings, stating: "I am very much in favor of negro meetings for the negroes, but I am just as much opposed to negro meetings for white people, and I am against white brethren taking the meetings away from the negroes and the general mixing that has become entirely too much of a practice in these negro meetings. Such a thing not only lowers the church in the eyes of the world but it is definitely against the interest of the negroes. If any negro preacher says that this is not true, that will be the evidence that it is true, and that he has been spoiled by the white brethren and wants to preach to white audiences. And if any of the white brethren get worked up over what I have said, and want to accuse me of being jealous of the negro preachers, I will just tell them now that I don't even want to hold a meeting for any bunch of brethren who think that any negro is a better preacher than I am! So that we can just call that argument off before it starts--and the meeting, too." He further stated that for a white man to share a room with a negro man was "a violation of Christianity itself, and of all common decency."^[8]

Marshall Keeble, the best known African American Evangelist among churches of Christ, responded to Wallace's segregationist article by defending Keeble's own work but calling the article "instructive and encouraging."^[9] Further Keeble continued to write to Wallace in the ensuing years to maintain his support and assistance.^[10]

Institutional debate

Shortly before World War II, the issue of institutionalism – that is, support of outside organizations from churches' treasuries – was debated. Some leaders (most prominently G. C. Brewer) had actively promoted church funding of Bible colleges. Others, such as Wallace, had written and spoken in opposition.

After the war, pro-institutional church members started tying church support of colleges with church support of other institutions, orphans' homes being a notably contentious example. The addition of an emotional element proved successful at persuading many who had been on the fence to the institutional side during the 1950s. It also led, however, to rancor; what had previously been a debate characterized by logic erupted into name-calling. Non-institutional brethren were called "orphan haters" and "Pharisees" and the like; for their part, non-institutionals such as Wallace returned (and at times initiated) the rhetorical fire.^{[citation needed]}

In 1951, the church of Christ in Lufkin, Texas, where Wallace's brother Cled preached, split over personal disputes between non-institutionals.^[11] Thereafter, Foy Wallace, who had been the most polarizing figure in the debate, ceased arguing in favor of the non-institutional position; indeed, by the mid-1960s, he associated himself mostly with institutional churches.^[12] By the end of the 1950s Wallace claimed that the non-institutional position had been radicalized (though there had been no noticeable changes in position among those with whom he now disagreed). Wallace objected to debates among brethren "on whether it is scriptural for a congregation to perform a humanitarian service to someone not a member of the church, or whether it is right for an able church to help a weak one maintain a preacher among them ..." Wallace argued that such debates "demoralizes the church within and degrades it without." Such debates were, Wallace averred, "a sorry spectacle."^[13]

Personal life

Wallace married Virgie Brightwell on November 29, 1914.^[14] Walter E. Brightwell, Virgie's cousin, served as best man, and Wallace's older brother Cled E. Wallace performed the wedding ceremony. Together the Wallaces had five children. In 1952, while Wallace preached a gospel meeting in Cushing, Oklahoma, his wife suffered a major stroke. He cancelled his engagements in order to remain by her side and took more than a year to nurse her back to as much of her former health as possible. Family friend Roy J. Hearn (1911–2000) noted that he took care of his wife "just like she was a little baby." ^{[citation needed]}

Later years

Wallace lived out his later years, holding meetings, writing or re-writing almost of all of his books and writing occasionally for the religious press. The last twenty years of his life Wallace wrote a commentary of Revelation, two books on civil government, on the new versions of the Bible, on the non-institutional movement and on modernism. His estrangement with his son William was ended by their reconciliation in 1975.^[15]

In 1966 Wallace wrote a series of articles published by the Firm Foundation arguing that what the Holy Spirit does, the Word of God does. Wallace viewed the expression "gift of the Holy Spirit" from Acts 2:38 as in the possessive case. Thus the "gift of the Holy Spirit" did not mean the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit's gift which he believed were "the blessings of the Holy Spirit's dispensation for the Jew and the Gentile." Wallace believed that the Holy Spirit did not dwell in the Christian personally but representatively through the Word of God which is to dwell richly in each Christian. Wallace opposed the idea that there was a personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Wallace's work on the Holy Spirit was published in 1967 as a 120-page booklet under the title, The Mission and Medium of the Holy Spirit.

In the 1970s he published a comprehensive 850-page book attacking modern-English translations of the Bible.^[16] Wallace wrote this work before release of the New International Version (NIV), but the ink was hardly dry before he was opposing the NIV as well.^[17]

Wallace developed a blood condition similar to hemophilia and required frequent blood transfusions; from these transfusions, he developed hepatitis. His condition necessitated a move to Hereford, Texas, near his son, Wilson. He continued preaching for a time, but after two weeks in the hospital due to his disease, he suffered a stroke and died on December 18, 1979.