David Lipscomb (January 21, 1831 – November 11, 1917) was a minister, editor, and educator in the American Restoration Movement and one of the leaders of that movement, which, by 1906, had formalized a division into the Church of Christ (with which Lipscomb was affiliated) and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). James A. Harding and David Lipscomb founded the Nashville Bible School, now known as Lipscomb University in honor of the latter.
Personal life
Lipscomb was born to Granville Lipscomb (born January 13, 1802, in Louisa County, Virginia, died November 16, 1853) and his second wife Ann E. Lipscomb (born January 25, 1799, in Louisa County, Virginia, died January 29, 1835, in Illinois) (called "Nancy" in some sources). Granville had previously been married, on December 14, 1825, in Spotsylvania, Virginia, to the former Ellen Guerner.
Granville and his older brother William Lipscomb were active in the Bean's Creek Baptist Church, where they were listed as the church clerks for 1828–1831 (Granville Lipscomb) and 1844–1876 (William C. Lipscomb). Attempts to convert the Bean's Creek church to Restoration Movement theology were poorly received, and Granville Lipscomb's family was expelled in 1831. David Lipscomb was born in Huntland, Tennessee.
The Lipscomb family, originally Baptist, were said to have converted to Restoration Movement Christianity in the mid-1820s while reading Alexander Campbell's periodical Christian Baptist, copies of which had been sent to the Lipscomb's family by Ann's sister Elizabeth (born ca. 1797) and brother-in-law, physician Lunsford Lindsay (born ca. 1793) of Todd County, Kentucky, who would later participate in the formation of the Cadiz Christian Church in 1837.
The Lipscombs were said to be charter members of the Old Salem church, according to Earl Irvin West's Lipscomb biography, The Life and Times of David Lipscomb.
The Old Salem congregation began in May 1834 with two male members and two females. Also, five colored people belonged. By Christmas that year the number had grown to thirty-four whites and twelve blacks.
The Lipscomb family moved to Illinois in 1834 for the purpose of freeing their slaves. David's mother Ann, along with three of his siblings, died of a fever in 1835 while they were still in Illinois. David's later belief that racial divisions in the church are inconsistent with Christianity were shaped by this experience.
Lipscomb's father moved the rest of the family back to Tennessee in 1835 or 1836 and he married his third wife, Jane L. Breedan (died September 8, 1885), on April 11 or August 11, 1837. David's half-brother, also named Granville, was born to Jane Breedan Lipscomb. William Lipscomb would help to found Neely's Bend Church of Christ in April 1872 . Granville Lipscomb Jr. would become a leader in the Lebanon Church of Christ founded in 1879 in Weakley County, Tennessee.
Lipscomb was married to Margaret Zellner on July 22, 1862. Only one child was born to them. Little Zellner died at the age of 9 months of dehydration while teething. They reared, however, several foster children. David Lipscomb died on November 11, 1917, at the age of 86 years. Funeral services were held in the College Street Church, where he had been an elder for many years.
Tolbert Fanning and Franklin College
Lipscomb, along with his older brother William, was greatly influenced by Nashville, Tennessee, church leader Tolbert Fanning. Lipscomb was baptized by Fanning in 1845. He entered Fanning's Franklin College in 1846, graduating in 1849. While a student at Franklin, Lipscomb roomed with the father of Edward Ward Carmack.
Fanning was an enforcer of strict orthodoxy with regard to Restoration doctrines, seeing anything not specifically authorized by the New Testament as unnecessary and hence sinful addition to the "primitive" Christianity of the 1st century, which the movement was by definition dedicated to restoring.
Gospel Advocate
In this spirit, in 1855, Fanning and William Lipscomb began publishing a magazine aimed at dissemination of this view throughout the Restoration Movement, the Gospel Advocate. Following the resumption of mail service, which had been interrupted by the American Civil War, David Lipscomb revived the Gospel Advocate in July 1866, with himself and Fanning as editors: Fanning withdrew making Lipscomb the sole editor until he was joined by P. S. Fall, John T. Walsh, Jacob Creath Jr., T. W. Brents, and Carroll Kendrick in 1867.