And the Word Became Flesh

Studies in History, Communication, and Scripture in Memory of Michael W. Casey

Olbricht, Fleer

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781498274708
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In his fifty-three years, Michael W. Casey made an indelible impact upon all his academic friends in the United States, Great Britain, and elsewhere in the world. His thirty some years of research and publications were multinational. Mike was especially adept at looking into archival details on the numerous subjects that interested him in communication, Scripture, and history, especially as they focused upon Churches of Christ and the Stone-Campbell Movement. If a scholar ever believed that the grandest project depends on the accuracy of the smallest component, it was Mike Casey. He believed that words were enfleshed in concrete persons. All his studies recognized the persuasive powers of committed humans. The title for this volume, therefore, is And the Word Became Flesh. The essays in this volume are divided into three sections. Those in the first section are on Restoration History. The second section is on communication studies. And the final section contains essays on a specialty of Casey's, conscientious objection, just war, and Christian peacemaking.

Part I

Restoration History

1

R. W. Officer and the Indian Mission

The Foundational Years (1880–1886)

W. David Baird

In 1880, Robert Wallace Officer launched a mission effort among the Native peoples of Indian Territory, now the eastern one-half of the State of Oklahoma. As a well-connected minister in the Stone-Campbell movement, Officer’s enterprise was widely welcomed by journal editors, church leaders, and evangelists. Conservative and southern elements in the movement were especially enthusiastic, for Officer announced that he would accept support for his mission only from individuals and congregations rather than from the American Christian Missionary Society (ACMS), a para-church organization underwritten by the more progressive and northern congregations.

Scholars of the Stone-Campbell movement have seen Officer and the Indian Mission as pivotal in the late-nineteenth century controversy over whether the church should conduct mission work through “human societies” rather than the local church. It may also be true, as the scholars argue, that the Indian Mission was the most successful mission effort conducted according to the “Lord’s plan,” as David Lipscomb termed it.1 But it does not follow that Officer’s twenty years of labor in Indian Territory was a success when measured against his original expectations, or those of his supporters. By those standards, the Indian mission was a failure, although that failure had more to do with circumstances unique to Indian Territory than whether the methodology of mission work was Bible-based or not. This essay, however, focuses upon the foundational years of the mission, when calling was certain, vision was clear and hopes were high. The frustrations, disappointments and defeats of later years will be addressed in subsequent essays.

Born in August 1845, R. W. Officer was one of Alexander and Francis Officer’s ten children. The family lived in Murray County, northern Georgia, and farmed land only recently taken from Cherokee Indians. In the late 1850s and for undetermined reasons, the family moved to Polk County, Tennessee.2 Little is known about Officer’s formal education as a teenager other than it was interrupted by the Civil War. At the age of sixteen he and an older brother enlisted with other Polk County men in Company A of the 43rd (Mounted) Tennessee Infantry Regiment, CSA, in April 1862. He was assigned the rank of private, while his brother was commissioned 3rd Lieutenant. Barely a year later, his unit saw action at Vicksburg, where then Corporal Officer was wounded and on July 4, 1863, taken captive by Union troops. Eleven days later he was paroled after he swore “not [to] take up arms again against the United States . . . .” A prisoner exchange some three months later returned him to Confederate authority, whereupon he promptly joined the Army of East Tennessee, then commanded by General John H. Morgan, where he served as a scout until the end of the war. On May 21, 1865, at Chattanooga, Tennessee, Officer put the war behind him, when he gave his oath of allegiance to the United States. He was almost twenty years old, five feet, eight inches tall, with blue eyes, dark hair, and a fair complexion.3

In the immediate five years after his military discharge, Officer pursued various educational opportunities, changed residences, and found a bride. Of his education, we know only that he attended school at London, Cocke County, in eastern Tennessee, and at Oak Hill Seminary just east of Tullahoma, Coffee County, in middle Tennessee.4 Virtually nothing is known about these experiences, other than it left him with a good knowledge of history, a grasp of biblical languages, a love of rational thinking, and an ability to express himself well on paper or in the pulpit. In addition to an educational benefit, his move to Middle Tennessee made it possible for him to meet Lota, the charming, refined and well-educated daughter of William and Jane Curle Venable in nearby Winchester, in Franklin County. She became his wife on December 26, 1871.

Just twenty years old when she married, Lota Venable was one of the five daughters and two sons born to William and Jane Venable. Her father was a respected Winchester attorney and politician, having served in the State Senate (1847–49), the Nashville Convention (1850), as a founder of Mary Sharp College in Winchester, and as “minister resident” of the United States in Guatemala (1857). He died in Guatemala of cholera before he was able to present his credentials.5 William Venable left his family with interest in a considerable amount of property, including the family home in Winchester, some 600 acres of land, a number of slaves, and prospective legal fees from clients he and his partner represented. Adjudication of the estate was interrupted by the Civil War, complicated by dishonesty on the part of the executor, and litigated before the Tennessee Supreme Court. Settlement did not occur until the late 1870s.6

Lota’s inheritance from her father’s and mother’s estates did not make her wealthy, but it did provide her with financial resources well beyond what would be generally associated with a missionary’s wife located in a destitute place. Subsequently, Officer estimated that her inheritance amounted to somewhat less than $3,000, an amount large enough to cause friends and foe alike to mark him down as rich and without any need for “fellowship,” or financial support from the churches.7

If his biographer, F. D. Srygley, was right, R. W. Officer accepted his Christian faith in 1870 under the preaching of a Methodist minister. He announced, however, that he wanted to be baptized like the Ethiopian eunuch. When the minister declined to accommodate him, he found, taught, and converted a Mr. Burris, who then baptized him. T...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contributors
• Introduction
• Michael W. Casey’s Scholarship
• Part One: Restoration History
• Part Two: Studies in Rhetoric and Homiletics
• Part Three: Pacifism, Just War, and Areas of Related Inquiry