The papers were inevitably involved in the higher criticism controversy. The _Christian Standard's_ position was never in doubt. It was against it, not only on Professor McGarvey's page, but on every other page as well. The _Christian-Evangelist_ was cautiously liberal editorially. Its editor was not a technical scholar in this field, but his mind was always alert to discover new truth. He was hospitable to the critical methods and was not alarmed by their results, even though he did not personally accept all of them. For several years he had Dr. Willett write for the paper the weekly article on the Sunday school lesson. This showed editorial courage, rather than caution, but it was part of a consistent editorial policy that did as much as a university could have done for the education of the Disciples.
"Open membership" had few advocates during the period under consideration, but there had already begun to be lively discussion of baptism in relation to the problem of union. When Thomas Campbell wrote the _Declaration and Address_--the event marked by the 1909 centennial as the beginning of the Disciples--he had not yet adopted the immersion of believers as part of the basis of union and communion. But after that practice was adopted by the Brush Run Church, it became an integral part of the program of the Campbells and it was a pivotal point in Scott's technique of evangelism. The "Christians" in Kentucky generally practiced immersion but considered it a matter of opinion and did not insist upon it. Those who merged with the Disciples yielded on this point and became strict immersionists. Campbell's reply to the "Lunenburg letter" showed that he regarded the pious unimmersed as Christians. Later developments showed that he would also commune with them as Christians. But he would not have favored admitting them as members, even if such a proposal had been made.
The first Disciple to argue for the admission of the unimmersed was Dr. L. L. Pinkerton, in 1868. Pinkerton, a medical doctor as well as a preacher, was a remarkably free spirit and may be called the first thorough "liberal" among the Disciples. He also challenged the theory of the inerrancy of the Bible, though he probably never heard of the higher criticism. Apparently no other Disciple of his time shared his views about either baptism or the Bible, except John Shackleford, co-editor with him of the _Independent Monthly_, a breezy magazine which lived less than two years.