SBC President Endorses Feet Washing

Well, that is a little like the “click bait” I see for news articles on Yahoo and elsewhere, expect that it is the truth. The person just did not write the advocacy at the same time he was SBC President. James Bruton Gambrell, who served as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention 1917-1920, wrote three articles to The Baptist (edited by J. R. Graves) in 1869 pleading for and defending the practice of feet washing as a church rite. Graves called Gambrell “the champion advocate of feet-washing in the Southwest” in 1882, and in Feb 1884 had no knowledge that Gambrell had dropped the advocacy of the rite. I do not know what position he held from 1884 until his death in 1921. I have not found that he renounced it, but perhaps he may have just quietly quit talking about it.

James Bruton Gambrell was born in Anderson County, South Carolina, on August 21, 1841, the son of Joel Bruton Gambrell and Jane Williams. His family moved to Union County in northeastern Mississippi when he was only four years old. J. B. Gambrell was ordained at Cherry Creek Baptist Church in Pontotoc County, Mississippi in November of 1867. While pastoring at the Baptist Church in Oxford, he enrolled in the University of Mississippi. He graduated in 1877, and that same year founded The Baptist Record.

Gambrell served in numerous capacities for the Baptists in the South, including:

• Founder and Editor of The Baptist Record, the state paper of the Mississippi Baptist Convention
• President of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia
• Superintendent of state missions for the Baptist General Convention of Texas
• Editor of the Baptist Standard, the state paper of the Baptist General Convention of Texas
• Faculty of Southwestern Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas
• President of the Southern Baptist Convention

Gambrell died at his home in Dallas on June 10, 1921. He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery of Dallas. George W. Truett of the Frist Baptist Church conducted the services.

Below is an excerpt from his writing July 10,1869 (The Baptist, Memphis Tennessee, J. R. Graves, editor, page 1)

“It is a painful thing to be compelled to differ in religious matters with those for whose opinion we have great reward. Especially is it painful to differ with brethren who have generally taught correctly on the distinctive principles of the Baptist Church. On the subject of feet washing I am compelled to differ with the majority of my brethren, and I may safely say that nothing but an honest convention that the subject has not been fairly dealt with induces me to writes at all in opposition to their views. With regard to feet washing we are confined almost entirely to what is said of it in John xiii. Here we are to learn all that God would have us know on the subject. The allusion to feet washing in Timothy affords but little additional information, yet it is my opinion that both passages should be carefully considered. I propose to ask a few questions in connection with the subject at issue, and at the same time answer the questions myself, inviting those who think differently to answer as they like. Under each question I shall consider the prominent objections of the objectors...

“It will not do to say that Christ only intended that his apostles should fulfill the design of feet washing in some other way. The definiteness of the language compels us to believe that he designed that they should perform this very act. The object with Christ evidently was to teach humility, and in enjoining feet washing on his disciples he must have designed that the great lesson of humility should be kept fresh in their minds by a repetition of the same humbling act. Bro. Ray has shown the disciples were strangely inclined to forget his oft-repeated lesson on humility. How appropriate that he should at or near the close of his stay with them, leave with leave an ordinance which would remind them of his teachings.”

 

From an historical point of view, Baptists have not been quite as dogmatic on the "only two ordinances" phrasing as we are today. Feet washing has commonly had minority support as an ordinance. (On the other hand, some churches that practice it regularly scruple to call it an example rather than an ordinance.) The Separate Baptists of Shubael Stearns fame are fairly well known for holding up to nine ordinances or rites -- Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the love feast, laying on of hands, the washing of feet, anointing of the sick, the right hand of fellowship, the kiss of charity, and devoting children. (However, a lot of people misunderstand and think every Separate Baptist church held all seven. Some might have two, some three, some four, some seven, etc.)

The Philadelphia Baptist Association added two articles of faith to the London Confession, on singing and laying on of hands, which they called ordinances. Morgan Edwards was a Regular (Particular) Baptist who was long time clerk of the Philadelphia Baptist Association. He listed the nine rites of the Separate Baptists in his Materials Toward a History of Baptists. However, in his church manual, The Customs of Primitive Churches, first published in 1768, he listed thirteen rites. (Can't remember the other 4 at the moment.) Just saying our history shows much more variation here than we have in our day. (Interestingly, we still practice some of those rites of the Separates and Philadelphia Association, but do not normally call them ordinances.)

Would likely be quite intriguing.