Carroll Ellis Symposium

Tuesday, April 8, 2025 8:30 AM-4:00 PM

Hillsboro Church of Christ

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In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the Restoration Movement underwent a wrenching division that formed two distinct churches: Churches of Christ and the Christian Churches/Disciples of Christ. Among Churches of Christ the division was followed by several decades of internal identity-forming controversy. Who would define their new identity?

The landscape became a “wild democracy,” where various parties pressed their case for what comprised the true New Testament pattern of the church. Three traditions emerged and competed for predominance:

  • the “Texas tradition” (Austin McGary, R. L. Whiteside, Foy Wallace Jr)
  • the “Nashville tradition” (James Harding, David Lipscomb, J. N. Armstrong) 
  • the “Indiana tradition” (Daniel Sommer and his followers)

By about 1930, after three decades of intense controversy, something close to a core doctrinal consensus was emerging. It was epitomized in five small volumes entitled Sound Doctrine (1920–25), by C. R. Nichol and R. L. Whiteside and four volumes of N. B. Hardeman’s Tabernacle Sermons (1922ff).

This symposium recounts this story and points to its impact on Churches of Christ through the twentieth century.

Speakers include: 

  • John Mark Hicks, Leonard Allen, Edward Robinson, Shelley Jacobs, Bobby Valentine, and others.

Presentations include:

  • John Mark Hicks, “A Wild Democracy (1890s-1910s): The Clash of Three Traditions”
  • Shelley Jacobs, “Unrelenting Controversy: Innovations, Rebaptism, Women, the Holy Spirit” 
  • Bobby Valentine, “The Texas David Lipscomb: R. L. Whiteside and the Establishment of Sound Doctrine”

Cost:    $45  
Includes lunch and a copy of Faithful Defiance: Marshall Keeble’s Life & Legacy (the book from the last Ellis Symposium—new release on April 8)
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Registration information coming soon!