G. C. Brewer - Politics and Pacifism

Politics and Pacifism

Despite Brewer's clearly stated patriotism, he was also a product of the teachings of James A. Harding and David Lipscomb. At their Nashville Bible School (Lipscomb University), where Brewer enrolled in 1904 after a year at Johnson Bible College, Brewer learned to downplay politics, a lesson he held dear his entire life. Hughes has noted "that shortly before his death in 1956 he recalled, 'I have never even voted in my life'" (186). Lipscomb had been a lifelong pacifist, even during the Civil War, yet Brewer believed that the threat of Communism was simply too great to ignore. Brewer therefore balanced his disengagement from the ways of the world with his active concerns for the Christian identity of American politics. This balance characterized many of the Churches of Christ in the mid-20th Century. (For the trajectory of Brewer's thoughts, from pacifism during World War I to anti-communism and American nationalism in the 1930s, see the book The churches of Christ by Richard Thomas Hughes, especially pages 123-125.)