David Lipscomb

David Lipscomb was a minister, editor and educator in the American Restoration Movement, born on 21 January 1831 and dead on 11 November 1917 at the age of 86. He was 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). He and James A. Harding founded the Nashville Bible School, now known as Lipscomb University in his honor. He revived the Gospel Advocate in July 1866 and was for a time its sole editor. The American Civil War deeply affected him and led him to reevaluate the relationship between Christians and government, shifting from strong support of American democracy to a more Mennonite-like view that Christians should not participate in war or actively participate in government, and he expressed these views in the Gospel Advocate and, after the war, in a book titled Civil Government.