Personal Recollections Of Dr. Harold B. Sightler's Early Ministry
And The Heritage Of Tabernacle Baptist Church
Dr. Harold B. Sightler
This is the last picture taken of Daddy before
he went Home on September 27, 1995. Papaw, as we all called him, was
seated on the platform in the Chapel, the first auditorium of
Tabernacle Baptist Church, where the first service took place on
July 20, 1952, the third Sunday.
These comments are set
down to provide background detail to the history of the founding of
Tabernacle Baptist Church and its continuance in the way of old time
religion. My Dad became pastor of Mauldin and Pelham Baptist
churches in 1943. I remember Mauldin as a typical country Baptist
church with a white frame clapboard building. As I recall there were
curtained partitions that set off Sunday school rooms at both
churches. Both buildings were of course un-air-conditioned. I
remember sitting in church at Mauldin and looking out the open
windows at farm fields nearby and at mules and wagons tied to trees
in the churchyard. There were more cars than wagons but the wagons
were well represented; tires and gasoline were both rationed. There
was very little grass in the churchyard as was the case with many of
the farmhouses. I remember the noise of Mitchell B-25 bombers and
other planes heard often on Sunday from training flights at
Donaldson Air Force Base which was only about 5 miles away.
We had a car radio, and on the way to church
from our home at 14 Underwood Avenue in Greenville we always heard
the broadcast of the Sunday morning gathering at Renfro Valley
Kentucky, narrated and directed by John Lair. The format of this
program would often include an elderly man and his wife riding to
church in a horse drawn buggy, while discussing life's problems and
God's solutions for them. When they arrived the sound of music from
the church could be heard, a pump organ, accordion and guitar,
singing the old hymns in a country way. It seemed that the program
would end just as we arrived at Pelham. What a wonderful memory!
These things bring to mind the words from an old song by the Spencer
family, which I love to hear: "It was there in than little country
church house, I first heard the word I based my life upon." From
1945 on my dad pastored at Pelham full time and that church became
able to have preaching every Sunday. I believe God led him to this
and made the change possible.
In 1924 when my dad was 10 the family moved to
Greenville and attended East Park Baptist church. Daddy was baptized
by Preacher G. B. Lee. Daddy became the secretary of the
Evangelistic Club at East Park by about 1938. Later after Daddy was
called to preach G. B. Lee took him to the registrar at Furman and
enrolled him in college. Both Preacher Lee and Pastor Earnest
Driggers of East Park Baptist Church were sound on doctrine and
evangelism. But my Dad did not take to the methods of preaching and
pastoring presented to him later at Furman from 1942 to 1946. I
believe this was in God's hands. Pastor Lee was also a contractor
and built my Dad's first small house on Underwood Avenue. Daddy did
not have a car for several years between 1937 and 1942, and had to
walk to church, to work at Thomas and Howard's grocery wholesale
warehouse on Washington St., and also from there to classes at
Furman. He had been prepared for walking so much by his paper routes
he carried as a schoolboy. G. B. Lee and B. T. Witcher, a car dealer
and member of East Park, helped Daddy get a used 1936 Ford coupe and
helped him build a small house at 14 Underwood Ave. in Greenville
where we lived from about 1942 to 1949 while my ad finished Furman,
pastured at Pelham, and
began the Bright Spot Hour in 1943.
My Dad used to speak
often of his maternal grandfather Bennett in Olar, SC and how he
would take my Dad to an old Baptist church there, in a mule drawn
wagon by the light of a lantern, and sit with his ear cupped to hear
the word.
I can also remember my
Dad and mother attending home Bible study meetings under "uncle"
Charlie Mount who lived just off East North street in the Overbrook
community, sometime between 1942 and 1946. He also spoke often with
Otto Harrison who lived a block away from us on Laurens road and who
had a radio program. He was privileged to be pastor of Oliver
Greene's parents at Mauldin and was a friend and admirer of Dr.
Greene. Uncle Charlie Mount was a dispensational Bible teacher as
was Henry Greer, chairman of the board of deacons at Pelham. Mr.
Mount attended Pelham Baptist very often but was not a member.
When my Dad was a student at Furman he once
registered for a course to study the book of Revelation. At the
first class the professor presented a preterist, amillenial point of
view and said that everything in Revelation was symbolic and had
already been fulfilled in 70 A.D. My Dad closed his book and said to
a student next to him “I’ll not be back tomorrow.”
My Dad's brother Carey
went to Elberton, Georgia in September 1939 to hear Oliver Greene
preach in a tent meeting there. My Dad heard Oliver preach at an
early date, quite some time before he entered college in 1942. He
could have attended the Greer or Mills Mill meetings but certainly
attended the 1939 Laurens Road tent meeting since the Evangelistic
Club of East Park Baptist church supported that meeting. J. Bennett
Collins told me that he first met my Dad in 1941 at Oliver's
Newberry tent meeting. My Dad went there not only to attend the
service but also to get information on organizing and conducting
tent meetings, and he bought his first tent later that year. He
bought surplus seat ends from Oliver Greene, tent stakes from
junkyard Model A rear axles, and was allowed by Thomas and Howard to
keep the boards used to brace canned goods in railroad boxcars for
use as tent seats.
Daddy also admired J. Harold Smith and Preston
Garrett and B. B. Caldwell. B. B. Caldwell preached my Dad's
ordination sermon at East Park. My Dad told me that he heard Cyclone
Mack (Baxter McClendon) preach in Columbia before the family moved
to Greenville in 1925. He also had heard Billy Sunday and R. G. Lee
preach and regularly listened to Charles E. Fuller's radio
preaching. His call to preach came after he had been listening to
Dr. Fuller preach on the radio, The Old Fashioned Revival Hour, for
a period of months. This apparently took place about 1936, before
Oliver Greene entered North Greenville. B. B. Caldwell preached my
Dad's ordination sermon at East Park in 1942.
Jack Greene told me that Oliver had taken bible
classes under B. B. Caldwell who was then pastor of Laurel Creek
Baptist Church. Both Oliver and my Dad had learned something of
pre-millennialism before entering college. My Dad told Benny Carper,
his grandson, now directing the Bright Spot Hour, that he used to
sit at home discussing the pre-millennial return of the Lord with
his mother and Dad and with his brothers and sisters, even before he
was called to preach. This then probably would have been after he
dedicated his life to the Lord in 1937 and before his first sermon
on the first Sunday in March of 1940, a sermon preached in the
morning service at East Park Baptist Church. In my Dad's case this
served to insulate him from the liberal and amillennial teaching he
encountered at Furman. In Oliver's case the issue of
pre-millennialism and dispensationalism led to his withdrawal from
college and the start of his evangelistic career. Jack said also
that, when Oliver left North Greenville, C. L. Norman, at Morgan
Memorial Baptist Church, took him "under his wing" and tutored and
encouraged him. C. L. Norman later founded Hampton Avenue Baptist
church, which became Hampton Park, and also taught and befriended my
Dad.
I spoke with Bill Norman, son of C. L. Norman,
who gave me some interesting background to his Dad's ministry and
his influence on Oliver Greene and my Dad. The Norman family came to
Greenville from Lockhart, near Union, where Brother Norman had grown
up and begun his ministry. J. Harold Smith, who was from Woodruff,
had preached a revival in Lockhart for C. L. Norman in 1935. Both
Lockhart and Woodruff are mill towns, very much like Pelham. J.
Harold Smith's first pastorate was at Conestee First Baptist, also a
small cotton mill town between Greenville and Mauldin. Dr. Smith
began his radio program, The Radio Bible Hour, over WFBC in
Greenville in the mid 1930's.
Brother Norman also engaged in tent meetings
and street preaching before he became pastor of Morgan Memorial in
Greenville. He had accumulated a supply of parts and accoutrements
for gospel tents over the years and these were stored in a garage at
his residence at 610 Laurens road. This was only about 3 blocks from
the home of my grandfather Horace and my Dad's house as well on
Underwood Ave. My Dad bought pole rings and tent stakes (Model A
axles) from him, probably in 1941. Dad also bought seat ends from
Oliver Greene at about the same time.
My uncle Carey told me that he went with my Dad
to Dalton, Georgia in 1941 to buy a gospel tent. It was 20 by 40 and
cost 150 dollars, which my Dad borrowed from the bank. The trip was
made in Carey's 1936 Ford coupe. That trip took two days back then,
and Carey and my Dad spent the night in the car, parked at an all
night gas station. My Dad made seats for the tent by salvaging
lumber from freight car food shipments that came to Thomas and
Howard where he worked. He also was able to acquire a public address
system for the tent and for street preaching. This consisted of a
vacuum tube type amplifier on which a turntable was mounted. There
was a microphone and a set of black box type loudspeakers which
could be mounted on top of a car. It could be powered by household
current or by a 6 volt automobile battery. Carey told me that Daddy
used to mount the speakers on his car and preach near restaurants
and nightclubs in Greenville and Travelers Rest. We should not
forget that J. Harold Smith had already been preaching from
loudspeakers mounted on a red Piper Cub which he flew a few hundred
feet in the air over Greenville. This would have been an example to
my Dad. Bill Norman said that his Dad also owned a similar PA system
and it is at least possible that my Dad bought his from C. L.
Norman, who by then had organized Hampton Avenue and was pastor
there.
When Oliver, who had been an exemplary student
and the leader of the preacher boys, was asked to leave North
Greenville in March 1939 he drove his 1934 Chevrolet 2 door sedan
with all his belongings to C. L Norman's house and, in tears, told
Bill he wanted to see Brother Norman. He was taken in and given a
place to stay for a month or so. He also was asked to preach a
revival at Morgan Memorial. Later, in September, during Oliver's
Elberton tent meeting, C. L. performed the wedding ceremony for
Oliver and Mrs. Greene. Oliver had been asked to leave North
Greenville because of pre-millennialism and because of his fervent
preaching, his tent and street preaching, and his belief that
believers can and should be filled with the Spirit. Bill Norman told
me that Oliver's teachers at North Greenville told Oliver in private
conversation that being filled with the Spirit was not possible.
It took no small courage for Pastor Norman to
take in and give a pulpit to a young man who had just been ejected
from one of his own denomination's schools. Later on the church
meeting in which Brother Norman was asked to give up his pastorate
was moderated by a Furman religion professor, Dr. Province, who had
been called as moderator by a deacon at Morgan Memorial. Brother
Norman then took a number of his members and organized Hampton
Avenue Baptist Church as an independent work in 1940. According to
J. Bennett Collins a group of local preachers led by Brother Norman,
at some point soon after Oliver was asked to leave, went to North
Greenville and confronted the President of the college over Oliver's
treatment. They got no clear explanation. Similarly, it also took
courage for Ernest Driggers to allow the Evangelistic Club of his
church, East Park, to participate in Oliver Greene's Laurens Road
tent meeting in the summer of 1939. Brother Driggers was also often
present at meetings at J. Harold Smith's Tabernacle.
Howard Wilson came from Lyman, a small cotton
mill town, to be pastor of Dunean Baptist church, also in a mill
community. He also was close to C. L. Norman and J. Harold Smith and
often had J. Harold to preach at Dunean. Duck Finley, who pastored
near Sans Souci, also came from Lyman where he had been converted
under Howard Wilson's preaching. From Victor Baptist Church in Greer
where R. P. Lamb was pastor, another mill church at Victor Mill,
several good preachers were called, including Dan Greer and Walter
Satterfield.
And further on the subject of mill towns my Dad
says in his book The Story of My Life
that one of the first meetings he preached was at Inman, SC, for Toy
Howell, at an old unpainted, frame, sawdust-floored tabernacle,
where "Toy would shout and I'd preach." I remember it had a small
portable pump organ played by Toy's wife. It had only a single
pot-bellied iron stove in the center of the building. You were
always warm on the front side facing the stove, and cold on the
other. He also preached while a student at Furman in a brush arbor
built by Toy at Columbus, N. C., near Landrum. Tommy Ellison said
that my Dad came to Belton, another mill town, in 1942 and got
permission to hold a meeting in an old tabernacle which was being
used only sporadically. This building had once been an automobile
repair shop, with concrete floor. He truly was willing to preach
anywhere and undertook the risk and financial strain of his own
radio broadcast, the Bright Spot Hour, in 1943.
On October 5, 2001 my
wife and I visited J. Harold Smith at his broadcast studio in
Newport, TN, one week before he entered the hospital for the last
time. He had written me and said he wanted to talk with me when he
was again in Greenville. Because of his age we decided we wound not
wait until he might be able to come again and so visited him there.
On the floor of his office was a large model of a red Piper Cub like
the one he had flown over Greenville years before. Also there was a
large photograph of the radio station XERF in Del Rio Texas. Dr.
Smith gave the money from his own pocket, nearly 100,000 dollars, to
repair and refurbish the station and get it back on the air. This
was done just at the end of World War II. In return for his
contribution he got only a contract to be allowed to preach daily on
the station for twenty years at no charge; he did not want or
receive ownership or part ownership of the station. The station was
clear channel and powerful enough, 50,000 watts, to reach all of
North America. By 1947 my Dad was also on XERF at night with his
soloist Horace Jones and was also able to reach a nationwide
audience. His radio budget for the Bright Spot Hour had by then
reached about 2000 dollars a month. I think Dr. Smith's radio
ministry was an example for my Dad and that their friendship may
have helped my Dad to get the opportunity to broadcast over XERF. J.
Bennett Collins said that J. Harold Smith was the first to warn him
of the problems with liberalism in the SBC seminaries and colleges.
As far as I know J. Harold Smith never preached in the First Baptist
Church in Greenville which has always had close ties to the
department of Religion at Furman.
It may well be that this entire group of local
Greenville area preachers was encouraged to stick to pre-millennial
guns in some degree by the example of John R. Rice, who, out in
Texas, experienced much the same kind of pressure as Oliver Greene
at North Greenville, and over the same issues. Dr. Rice came out of
the SBC in 1928 and founded the Sword of the Lord in 1934. Remember
the masthead of the Sword has always read: "An Independent Christian
Publication, Standing for the Verbal Inspiration of the Bible, the
Deity of Christ, His Blood Atonement, Salvation by Faith, New
Testament Soul Winning and the Pre-millennial Return of Christ;
Opposing Modernism, Worldliness and Formalism." It is likely that my
Dad, C. L. Norman, B. B. Caldwell, and J. Harold Smith had learned
of the controversy in their reading of the Sword or in travel and
contact with others who knew of it. Dr. Rice's ministry had been
used of God in a great way even though he had separated himself from
the convention. He held a city wide revival at Textile Hall in
Greenville in 1945, and my Dad and many other local preachers
cooperated in the face of what was probably rather quiet opposition
by the county associational leadership. Then in 1949 Dr. Rice held a
meeting for my Dad at Pelham and spent a few days in our home at
Pelham.
At Pelham there was an unusual concentration of
humble, earnest, God fearing people. I believe my Dad found them
congenial and that they reminded him of his folks in Columbia and
Olar and of his experiences in his early meetings at the Wardlaw
home at Westboro Weaving and at Toy Howell's tabernacle in Inman and
at the brush arbor. Morris Satterfield also provided a place in his
yard where my Dad could hold an open air meeting, preaching from the
front porch as he had also done earlier from the porch of the
Wardlaw's home at Westboro Weaving Mill in Greenville.
One of my earliest
memories of Pelham Baptist Church was the Christmas program just
after the war years, always organized and directed by Mrs. Jennie
Christopher, who taught at Pelham School. There was a manger scene
at the front of the auditorium, and I remember Horace and Lloyd
Jones and John Cox walking down the aisle to it as they sang "We
Three Kings of Orient Are." At the end of the program the children
were given fruit and candy from a silver painted cedar tree on the
right side of the auditorium.
I remember that Henry Greer, chairman of the
board of deacons, always sat in the choir on the front row, right
side, nearest the pulpit. He was one of the greatest inspirations
and teachers to my Dad. He always had a brief testimony on prayer
meeting or Sunday nights. Before the days of streetlights Mr. Greer
would have several members of Pelham assemble at his house and,
using his own large flashlight, would escort them to prayer meeting.
I remember Odell Good and Dan Norris driving an
old prewar Ford two door coupe through the streets of Pelham
preaching over loudspeakers attached to the top of the car and
playing and singing gospel music. It is likely that this public
address system with turntable was the same one used in l940-43 by my
Dad in his tent and open air meetings. I remember they often played
"They Were Walking My Lord Up Calvary's Hill," "Thirty Pieces of
Silver," and "Tramp on the Street," by Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper.
Odell's house was across the street from the parsonage about a
hundred yards away and I can remember him whistling and singing as
he went about his chores. He prayed daily, outdoors, near the creek
behind the parsonage, loud enough to hear him clearly from our side
porch. In those days you could sleep on that porch at night, without
fear, and listen to the water going over the dam at the site of the
mill, which closed in 1936 and had burned in 1940.
In 1946 only three people were baptized at
Pelham, and so in early 1947 a week of prayer meetings were held at
night at the church, prayer only, for revival and salvation of
souls, with no preaching or singing. People began to get saved, and
the church grew. It was during these meetings that my Dad testified
that he was filled with the Holy Ghost. The first of the Greer
campmeetings was held in a brush arbor at Pelham in 1947. By 1949
there were two Sunday night servcices at Pelham because of the large
crowds, and this also allowed people from Greenville to come down to
the second service. The prayer meetings continued, and by 1949 were
being held on Sunday nights after church in a pasture belonging to
Thomas Leonard, located about 200 yards north of the intersection of
what is now Westmoreland Road and Abner Creek Road. These often drew
a hundred people and sometimes lasted until one o'clock in the
morning. A rock altar was built around a tree. According to Thomas
Leonard each represented a person being prayed for by name. On one
Sunday night in 1950 there were 64 Baptist preachers in this pasture
praying, according to Maze Jackson's testimony on a radio broadcast
of The Truck Driver's Special that I heard some time after his
death. After a time of praying my Dad asked Maze to preach. Maze
replied that it was too dark to read a text. My Dad told him to
quote one from memory and strike out preaching, and Maze did it. On
this occasion one of the neighbors was frightened by the noise and
called the Highway Patrol. I remember seeing the Patrol car drive up
to the intersection of Westmoreland Road, which was not paved at
that time, and Abner Creek Road. The officer got out, listened for a
minute or so, and then drove away without interfering in any way.
On Wednesday June 13, 1951 my sister Carolyn
was killed when a drunk driver, travelling 80 MPH, struck the rear
of my mother's car on Highway 29, just north of Greer. My mother was
in a coma from brain contusion and concussion for days thereafter,
suffered a broken jaw and the loss of several teeth, and required
surgical correction of the fractured jaw. This left a permanent
change in her face. My sister Elizabeth was also bruised and
battered, but suffered no permanent effects. Lurleen Jones, widow of
Horace Jones, and her two children Ken and Judy were also injured.
Judy required neurosurgery. I was with my Dad, who was preaching at
Woodlawn Baptist Church in High Point, NC that night, when four
souls were saved. I can remember our prayers on the drive back and
our arriving at the emergency room of Spartanburg General Hospital
early on the morning of June 14, about 2:45 A.M. My uncle Colvin
Vaughn, my mother's youngest brother, and my uncle Carey Sightler
were there. Carey met my Dad in the hospital parking lot when we
came in and when my Dad got out of the car he asked how bad the
accident was and Carey replied only "it's bad, Harold." Lila Davis,
a faithful member of Pelham Baptist Church, who was also an RN and
the unofficial 'town doctor' for Pelham, was also there and was in
the emergency room when physicians were trying to save my sister's
life.
I remember seeing the doctor, in a corridor
outside the emergency room, tell my Dad that Carolyn "had expired."
Carolyn had actually died before we arrived, but my Dad was not told
immediately. After we had seen my mother and sister Elizabeth, who
did not have to be admitted, my uncle Carey took me and Elizabeth
back to the home of my Dad's parents in Greenville on Monticello
Avenue. Carey carried Elizabeth out of the emergency room in his
arms to the car. I will never forget the sound of my grandmother's
crying when we arrived; it was exactly what I had heard when my
uncle Carey left for service with the Army Air Corps in World War
II. My uncle Colvin took my Dad back to the parsonage at Pelham
early on June 14. Their most trying moment was seeing the dishes on
the supper table, just where they had been when my mother and her
guests left to take their short trip to see an antique auto museum.
My uncle Colvin washed them and put them away; for my Dad could not
bear to do it. Uncle Colvin told me of this about 4 years after my
Dad passed away. My Dad never spoke to me, or anyone I know, of the
anguish of that terrible moment, but kept it to himself. Colvin
married Ruby Good, the daughter of Odell Good, our praying neighbor
at Pelham.
I remember especially two preachers who visited
Spartanburg General Hospital to encourage my Dad, in addition to
Odell Good and Dan Norris. One was Anthony Zeoli. The other was an
old white-haired railroad engineer, who pastored Zion Hill Baptist
Church at Tuxedo, NC. He used to take steam engines over the
mountain from Asheville to Erwin, Tennessee. He wore a vest with a
railroad watch and chain. His name was Horace Stansbury. He said to
my Dad: "Son, I came down to tell you that I was glad God had a
preacher in South Carolina that he wasn't afraid to turn the devil
loose on. You can't go any deeper; your next move is up". He also
had lost a daughter who died at a young age. My Dad preached at
Pelham Baptist Church on the Sunday after my sister's funeral on
Saturday. That sermon is available from Dr. Ben Carper who has
continued the Bright Spot Hour.
My mother remained semicomatose from a brain
contusion at Spartanburg General for about 3 weeks. She then had to
be sent to Highland Hospital in Asheville, NC for further therapy
and recuperation. She remained there for about 7 months, until about
the end of 1951. During that time my father continued his revival
meetings and my sister and I saw him usually only on Sundays and
Mondays. The rest of our time we stayed with my Dad's parents in
Greenville or with my Uncle Bert Adams or my aunt Louise Banks.
Another facet of this tragedy I learned about
only in September, 1999, when I sent Dr. Peter Ruckman, whom I had
not spoken with or seen for 49 years, a copy of the book I wrote,
A Testimony Founded Forever: The King
James Bible Defended in Faith and History.
I quote here from a letter I received from him of September 17,
1999:
"I knew your father very well; as a matter of
fact, he was the first man to give me an opportunity to preach in a
church when I was at Bob Jones University. In those days, Pelham
Baptist Church, where your Daddy preached, was off-limits. Students
were not allowed to go there because of the old fashioned preaching,
singing, and shouting, but I went there
anyway. Due to my street work, your
Daddy found out about me, and one night invited me to draw a picture
there at the church. Up until then, nobody would have me. I had just
been saved a couple of years, and was rougher than a cob, but your
Dad took a chance on me, and it was a good service. I'll never
forget something he said to me as I went up into the pulpit, and he
came down and passed me and in my ear, where nobody could hear, he
said, 'Don't forget, Brother Ruckman, no pew can get any higher than
the pulpit.' I've never forgotten that. I play tapes of your Daddy's
preaching to my preacher boys' classes here, and have for 35 years.
To give them an overview of the different styles, I play them the
tapes of Maze Jackson, Oliver Greene, Charlie Fuller, ancient
recordings of Moody, and Sunday, and J. Frank Norris, recordings of
Bob Jones, Sr., and most of the brethren. I attended the church the
Sunday after his little girl was killed in the auto accident, and
often use that illustration in a message I have called 'Why Do the
Righteous Suffer'."
I had not known that Dr. Ruckman was present at
Pelham on that Sunday after the funeral to hear my Dad preach. On
October 17, 1999 I went to White Plains Baptist Church in Mt. Airy,
NC to hear Dr. Ruckman give his testimony and life story. After the
service I shook his hand and asked why Pelham Baptist Church was
off-limits. As I expected, he affirmed it was because of the old
fashioned singing, shouting, and preaching found there. There were a
few other University students who also came to Pelham, against the
rules. My Dad never told me, or anyone else that I know of, that
Pelham was off-limits. He may not have known about it himself. I do
not know.
It cannot be too strongly emphasized that, even
though my Dad was Dr. Ruckman's pastor, Dr. Ruckman, according to
the conversation I had with him on October 17, 1999, never mentioned
his difficulties with the administration at BJU to my Dad, and my
Dad never gave him any advice in regard to those problems. It should
also be remembered that my Dad's position on the King James Bible
was reached independently, by his own study, as I have shown in
A Testimony Founded For Ever,
between 1943 and 1947, when the RSV appeared, and that he did not
arrive at his position by any influence from Dr. Ruckman and never
read Jasper John Ray's book, God Wrote
Only One Bible. BJU did not come to
Greenville until 1947, and Dr. Ruckman came about 3 years later.
My Dad always tried to, and did, maintain good
relations with the University in spite of their differences. I
remember that we attended the service at Rodeheaver Auditorium in
1950 when Billy Graham preached there with Senator Strom Thurmond on
the platform. My mother and Dad, along with my sister and I, in
1955, had lunch at the BJU dining common with Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. and
his wife. They both sat across the table from us. I remember that
Dr. Bob asked me where I planned to go to college. I had to reply
that I would go to Furman because the pre-medical courses at BJU had
not at that time attained the strength and influence that they were
later to do. Otherwise, I would have attended BJU, as my sister
later did in 1964. The meeting ended amiably and Dr. Bob did not
comment on my choice of colleges.
We have mentioned the music played by Odell
Good and Dan Norris as they preached on the streets at Pelham.
Further on the subject of music, my Dad's sisters, Lucille and Ruby
Nell, sang for him on the radio when the Bright Spot Hour began in
1943. Lucille played the piano, but only from books written in
shaped notes. She had learned shaped notes from her mother, and used
a Broadman Hymnal in shape notes.
My Dad's father had an old hand cranked
victrola, and, about 1946, I used to listen by the hour to
recordings of Roy Acuff singing songs like "I Saw the Light," "I
Didn't Hear Nobody Pray," "The Great Speckled Bird," "Night Train to
Memphis," "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," "When I Lay My Burdens
Down," and "Fireball Mail." Also there were songs by Gene Autry,
such as "Back in the Saddle Again," and Gid Tanner and his Skillet
Lickers, singing "Watermelon on the Vine," "Turkey in the Straw,"
and "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane." My Dad was not a record
collector, but this was the kind of music often heard in the house
in which he grew up.
They also had "The Old Rugged Cross" and
"Life's Railway to Heaven" recorded in the late 1930's by Homer A
Rodeheaver (for whom the Rodeheaver Auditorium at Bob Jones
University is named) and Virginia Asher, "My Blue Ridge Mountain
Home," and "Where We'll Never Grow Old." Country music has its roots
in gospel music of the mid-19th century. Gospel music came first.
The primitive Scottish pentatonic tunes heard in the old hymns,
Amazing Grace is a good and familiar example, were heard in the
country and bluegrass tunes of the 1920's and on until the
unfortunate advent of comtemporary music in the 1970's.
At the present time Chuck Sightler and his
family have a gospel singing group which uses stringed instrument
accompaniment. He is the grandson of Jerome Sightler, who was my
Dad's uncle. Claude Lucas, recent national champion fiddler, is
married to Melva Sightler, sister to Marvin Sightler in Gaston.
Marvin and Danny Sightler tell me that there once was a country
store in Gaston within sight of my Dad's grandparents home place,
where folks would gather to play and sing country or bluegrass music
at the store. Marvin's father, George, played the guitar and banjo
and Harry Lee Sightler and Bill Sightler, both now deceased, played
the banjo and guitar. These men would now be 85 to 90 years old. It
is likely that my Dad encountered their singing and playing when he
lived in Columbia and visited Gaston.
Later on when he was pastor at Pelham and
Tabernacle we always listened every weekday to broadcasts of the
Blue Ridge quartet and on Saturday night to singing broadcast from
the Tremont Avenue Church of God and woke on Sunday morning to the
sound of the Hi-Neighbor Quartet on the radio from Anderson. To grow
up in a Baptist household in Greenville in those days was to be
immersed in the best of Gospel music in its golden age.
There was a shape note singing school at Pelham
Baptist Church, at that time it was called Corinth Baptist Church,
as early as 1907, and most likely others before that. Horace Jones,
who sang on the Bright Spot Hour from its beginning, and his brother
Lloyd, who led singing at Pelham, both learned what music they knew
from these periodically held shape note schools at Pelham. In the
1930's the Gainus Brothers had taught shape note schools there. J.
L. Williams of Victor Baptist Church in Greer also held a singing
school there.
There were at least two church quartets at
Pelham, the Harmony Quartet and the Gospel Four. Horace and Lloyd
sang at times in these quartets. The Harmony Quartet consisted of
Hubert Kirby, J. L. Jones, Horace Ward, and John Cox. Mrs. Paul
Greer (Louise, daughter in law of Henry Greer, who was Pelham's
chairman of the board of deacons) played for the Harmony Quartet.
She also played the organ for Horace's solos before Minnie Brewer
took over that task. Horace and Lloyd Jones also sang as a trio with
Wyatt Garrett. Horace later went on to develop his singing style
through educating himself by close observation of popular and
religious soloists.
I remember hearing my Dad say that he first
heard "Looking for a City" at Brightwood Baptist Church in
Greensboro where H. P. Gaulden was pastor, about 1948. He was so
impressed with their singing and with that particular song that he
had it sung at Pelham, from small paper back Stamps-Baxter songbooks
that were used to supplement the
Broadman Hymnal. At that time the
Broadman was available in shape note form, and naturally that was
what we had at Pelham.
As early as 1950 the Baker family of the Parker
Community in Greenville, the center of the mill communities, began
to attend the late Sunday night services at Pelham singing Southern
Gospel music. They also sang live on the Bright Spot Hour. John
Baker led the group and Betty Baker played the piano. Charles Baker,
along with his brother Bill, also sang. Several people from
Greenville, including the Thomas Chappelear family, had asked my Dad
to organize a church in Greenville. Before he did this he asked Maze
Jackson to do it, but Maze did not feel led to do so. Cottage prayer
meetings began to be held at the home of the Chappelears, both
before and after the organization of Tabernacle.
In March 1951 my Dad bought a lot on E. Lee
road. Our house there was well under way in the summer of l951 and
was completed sometime in late 1951 or early 1952. We moved into it
about June or July of 1952. The contractor who built it was Ollie
Neal who lived on Beechwood Ave. parallel to Monticello and just
behind my Grandad's house. He had also built a house for the father
in law of Carey Sightler.
When Tabernacle was organized on the third
Sunday in July in 1952, after a two week meeting had just been held
in the new building, some of the preachers present were Tom Leonard
of Pelham, Clyde Billingsley, and Curtis Carpenter, of Cornelia,
Georgia. The organizational meeting was moderated by J. Henry
Jenkins, pastor of Hatch Memorial Baptist Church in Paris, SC, near
Taylors. The associational missionary, O. K. Webb, was also present.
At the first service at Tabernacle Ruth Baker played the organ and
Betty Baker the piano.
Mr. Wallace Cordell had built the brick
building, now known as the chapel, between May and July of 1952; the
first floor was shavings on the ground, and the seats were tent
pews. My Dad, Wallace Cordell, Thomas Chappelear, and Norman Long
borrowed the money for building the church by putting up their
automobiles and homes as collateral. Their wives signed renunciation
of dower on the loan for 5600 dollars to buy the land and get
started. The money was lent by Mr. J. A. Roper of Roper Motor
Company in Easley. Dr. J. Harold Smith told me that Mr. Roper had
also befriended him and kindly and readily loaned him money for his
radio ministry. These men who had borrowed for the first building
were among the first deacons of the church. People often came by the
site and gave money for the building while it was under construction
and even before the revival in July and the organization on the
third Sunday in July. In August 1952 the church, by that time
organized, borrowed the remaining money, 21,000 dollars, for the
building from Atlantic Gulf States Insurance Company. My Dad, Mr.
Cordell, Mr. Chappelear, and Mr. Long signed that mortgage; the
finance committee was my Dad, Mr. Cordell, and Mr. A. G. Thompson.
In August 1953 the men who bought the land gave it to the church for
one dollar.
The deacons, along with my father-in-law, Mr.
J. E. Sparks, who later built the main auditorium in 1957, were
present at a meeting with associational leaders in late 1952 at
Earle Street Baptist Church in Greenville. No minutes of the Earle
Street meeting were kept by that church or the association, but we
know from testimony of those present that Tabernacle's membership in
the association was discussed. In 1942 Rev. G. B. Lee, who had
baptized my Dad, took my Dad to see the registrar at Furman and
asked him to get my Dad enrolled. His expenses had to be paid by the
State Convention and by Furman. I believe my Dad applied for
membership in the Greenville County Association and the SBC in part
out of loyalty to those Southern Baptists who had ordained him and
encouraged and supported his ministry. But at that meeting it became
clear that Tabernacle would not be a welcome member of the
association, because it would not support the Cooperative Program or
the WMU and BYPU, vowed to use only the Bible as its Sunday School
literature, and was viewed by the associational leaders as being
more than tinged with religious fanaticism. Tabernacle's application
for membership was never brought to the floor of the county
association or state convention. In fact, it was never mentioned in
the minutes of the county association that Tabernacle had even made
application. If it had been brought up a floor fight would have
ensued, for there were a number of Southern Baptist Churches in
Greenville and elsewhere who would have supported our application. I
believe J. Dean Crain, pastor of Pendleton Street, Henry Jenkins,
pastor of Hatch Memorial, Maze Jackson, Howard Wilson of Dunean
Baptist, Dan Greer, J. Harold Smith, Duck Finley, Ansel Pruitt, Tom
Leonard and many others would have supported us. In the providence
of God the matter was simply dropped by both sides.
In 1953 the county association, because it was,
I believe, determined to keep out churches such as Tabernacle and
Tanglewood, who would not hew to the party line, passed a resolution
which required that the application of any new church for membership
would have to lie on the table for a year before it could be acted
on. But most of the charter members of Tabernacle were millworkers
from Greenville who had been coming to Pelham for some time before
the church was organized. They were happy to remain independent and
to keep their old time religion. The deacons who left that Earle
Street meeting then knew exactly what the score was. This knowledge
soon also became apparent to the entire church. I believe my Dad
predicted, at least to himself, what the outcome would be before the
meeting. Thus when Tabernacle was refused membership in the
Greenville Baptist Association in 1952 and became independent it
should be seen as the culmination of a process that had been going
on in my Dad's heart for some time. He would have encountered
liberal attitudes in some of his professors at Furman between 1942
and 1946. My Dad was certainly saddened by the behavior of the
Convention and Associational leadership, but he was not discouraged.
God had turned events so as to assure my Dad that he had the support
of many Baptists locally and across the country.
Several shape note singing schools were held at
Tabernacle in the early days, taught by Rupert Craven, who was a
representative of J. D. Vaughan Publishing, and by Jim Poole of
Renfrew at Travelers Rest. Harold Taylor was a charter member of
Tabernacle who had come from Pleasant View Welcome Baptist Church,
and was appointed as songleader. He chose the early hymnbooks, first
a paperback Stamps or Vaughan type book, possibly
Heavenly Highway;
later when the floor and pews were installed the shape note
Church Hymnal, the
old red book, was ordered. This book alone was used until about
1961. Harold Taylor left early in 1964 to join Triune Baptist
Church, which soon became White Horse Heights Baptist Church.
In 1952 Bill and Charlie Baker and Hubert Kirby
and Harold Taylor formed the Tabernacle Quartet. Ruth Baker, Bill's
wife, played the piano for this group. Three other special singers
in the early days were Winkie Redmond and Frank Lark and Furman
Nelson, playing bluegrass and country gospel music. They helped me
to learn to sing and play a guitar. Other notable singing groups who
came to Tabernacle in the early 1950's were the Blind Davis Trio of
Grady Costner's church in Gastonia, NC, the Koone Sisters Trio from
Kingsport, TN, and Becky Blackburn Luther of Landis, NC, daughter of
Mr. Campmeeting, Arthur Blackburn. The Gospel Trio from Landis, NC
also came several times. The Clyde Carter Family from Dante, VA also
came at an early date. The Burns Trio first sang at Tabernacle in
late 1956, in the chapel, with C. J. Burns, Harold Burns, and Bonnie
Burns. Naomi Burns played the piano. In 1959 Bonnie moved and Jimmie
Burns, who was about 12, took her place. Naomi also played for the
Grace Trio, which sang from about l956 to 1959. Harold Taylor,
Christine Talley, and I formed this trio. The Talley trio also sang,
consisting of Christine Talley, Vance Talley, and Tommie Talley. In
1957 the Melodyaires Quartet was organized by Bill Baker. C. J.
Burns and I sang with him; Charlie Baker sang bass, and Ruth Baker
played. Hubert Kirby became owner and manager of WBBR, AM radio, and
remained a faithful member of Tabernacle to the end of his life. The
Bright Spot Hour was broadcast over WBBR before WTBI was organized.
The Weatherford Quartet, The Inspirations, and The Statesmen Quartet
also came during the 1960's.
A new auditorium seating 1500 people was
completed in 1957, and, as growth and success followed, it became
one of the leading churches in the fundamentalist movement.
Tabernacle Christian School was founded in September 1960; the Bible
College followed in 1963, and, I believe because of those
developments, Tabernacle at some time was no longer considered 'off
limits' as Pelham had been. My Dad was given an honorary doctorate
at Tennessee Temple in 1964 and became an organizer, with John
Waters, of the South Carolina Baptist Fellowship and later of the
Southwide Baptist Fellowship. My Dad's association with Lee Roberson
came as early as 1953 and was from the first focused on support of
independent missionaries.
During the 1950’s Tabernacle Baptist Church was not able to
underwright the cost of the Bright Spot Hour, as it later did in the
1980’s, and my Dad on numerous occasions personally borrowed money
to keep the program on the air.
For the first 13 years
of the Bible College, from 1963 to 1976, Church History was taught
by the faculty but Baptist History was not offered
because the faculty, largely from BJU or Tennessee Temple,
did not think it necessary to teach it. My Dad taught Hermeneutics
but no history. At Furman he would have been taught that Baptists
began in England in 1641 with the sebaptism of Smith and Helwys.
Then in 1976 my Dad, dissatisfied with the absence of Baptist
History, made the decision to offer Baptist History and to teach it
himself. Dr. Clark obtained several Baptist History books for him,
and from these Daddy chose Orchard's
Concise History of the Baptists
published by the Bogard Press in Texarkana. This book had an
introductory essay by J. M. Graves, the 19th century editor of the
Tennessee Baptist, which my Dad always recommended that his students
read. Daddy also used The Trail of Blood
in his course. These books teach that the Baptists began when the
church began and that they have always existed outside the Roman
Catholic Church and were not a product of the Reformation.
In 1985 Daddy obtained, from the Bogard Press,
permission to reprint the sermon Why
Baptists are not Protestants, by Dr.
Chester E. Tulga (1896-1976). This was combined with the book
Baptists in History
by W. D. Harvey and the combination was offered as a 38 page booklet
by the Bright Spot Hour. Daddy taught until 1990 when he became
unable because of illness to carry on his courses in Baptist History
and General Biblical Introduction. He then asked me to take these
courses and I have taught them to the present, in the same way that
he did.
Because of challenges at that time within the
church and school to the authority and accuracy of the King James
Bible it became necessary to begin to teach the history of the
transmission of the received text and the superiority of the
received text and the King James Bible also beginning in 1990 in
Biblical Introduction. The task of teaching this was so great that
it took up most of the course in Biblical Introduction.
Almost imperceptibly, as the schools were
staffed and the church grew, the singing changed, over a period of
19 years, from 1961 to 1980, from Southern Gospel to a more formal
'singspiration' style, in a way that could not have been foreseen,
and in a way that the 'off limits' rule, that Dr. Ruckman and a few
others had ignored at Pelham, could not have accomplished.
A green backed songbook, specially ordered in
shape note format, called Tabernacle
Hymns: Number Four, was adopted sometime
between 1957 and 1962, and used in addition to the
Church Hymnal for
choir and congregation.[1] According to Harold Taylor, who held out
for shape notes because they were familiar to the choir and
congregation, the Tabernacle Publishing Company in Chicago was
astonished to receive such a large order for shape note books. Their
astonishment came because shape notes only rarely had been used in
the North for over a century. This Number Four edition was first
published in 1941 and was reissued in 1956. The first edition of
Tabernacle hymns dates back to about 1926. When these wore out they
were replaced, about 1968, by the round note
Hymns of the Tabernacle.
The old time shape note singing schools had long since, before 1959,
disappeared.
Tabernacle Hymns
had a number of songs which the later
Hymns of the Tabernacle and
All-American Hymnal
did not have. Space permits listing just a few:
"All Things in Jesus," "Calvary Covers It All," "Grace Greater Than
Our Sin," "Since the Fullness of His Love Came In," "Jesus Has
Lifted Me," and "O My Soul Bless Thou Jehovah." But because
Tabernacle Hymns
had none of the Stamps and Vaughan songs, it was, necessarily,
supplemented by continued use of the
Church Hymnal.
Some time between 1965 and 1968 my Dad
persuaded the Benson Music Company in Nashville to make a special
printing of the All-American Hymnal
with the name changed to Hymns of the
Tabernacle. Both had responsive
readings, but these readings have never been used at Tabernacle.
There were none in the Church Hymnal,
and those in Tabernacle Hymns
were not used.[2] Hymns of the
Tabernacle did have about 6 of the old
Stamps and Vaughan songs, including "Victory in Jesus." This book,
published by Benson, was compiled in 1957 by Earl Smith, songleader
in High Street Baptist Church in Springfield, Missouri, a BBF
church. Mr. Smith was a friend of John T. Benson. It seems that
there was some hope on the part of the BBF that Tabernacle would
join the BBF fellowship, but this did not come to pass.
As Hymns of the
Tabernacle wore out, and could no longer
be obtained, they were replaced about 1974 with the
All-American Hymnal,
which was equivalent in that it had the same songs and the same
responsive readings. In a sad, striking, and unexpected development
Benson Music Group now has been acquired by Zondervan and Rupert
Murdoch, publishers of the NIV.
But the old Church
Hymnal, which still is and always has
been in use at Gospel Light Baptist Church in Walkertown, NC and
many other country Baptist churches in the South, continued for a
long time, in diminished use, until, after almost all were worn out,
it was left in the choir only. After 1978, because of continued
agitation against it, the Church Hymnal
was discarded completely. The objections were based on its content
of old time camp meeting songs and on its publication by a division
of Pathway Press, Tennessee Music and Printing Company, in
Cleveland, TN, which is associated with the Church of God. Most of
the country churches which still use the
Church Hymnal are
Baptist and not Pentecostal; Pentecostal churches have ironically
moved very rapidly toward contemporary Christian music. "Looking for
a City," and other old time songs, were not heard again at
Tabernacle for 11 years until the Church
Hymnal was brought back for both choir
and congregation in 1989.
Sources:
Harold B. Sightler, Helen Vaughn Sightler, Horace C. Sightler,
Pauline Sightler, Aubrey Sightler, Carey Sightler, James H.
Sightler, Danny Sightler, Marvin Sightler, Lucille Sightler Cothran,
Ruby Nell Sightler Ellison, Colvin Vaughn, Ruby Good Vaughn, Benny
Carper, Elizabeth Sightler Carper, Phyllis Cothran Foster, Oliver
Greene (biography), Jack Greene, Maze Jackson, J. Harold Smith,
Odell Good, Lottie Good, Toy Howell, J. Bennett Collins, Peter S.
Ruckman, Jess Stephens, Hobart Stephens, Melvin Aiken, Curtis
Carpenter, Mrs. J. Henry Jenkins, Frank Lark, Larry Jones, Don
Wardlaw, Thomas Leonard, Tommy Ellison, Betty Baker, Ruth Baker,
Wallace Ann Cordell Medlin, Bill Norman, Curtis Carpenter, Thomas
Leonard, Florence Ashmore, Wyatt Garrett, Horace Jones, Lloyd Jones,
Esther Greer Jones, John Cox, Harold Taylor, Hubert Kirby, Bill
Baker, Charlie Baker, Sybil Baker Davenport, Imogene Daniels, Mrs.
Paul Greer, Mrs. Henry Greer, Furman Ross, Mrs. Furman Ross, Lurleen
Jones, Lila Davis, Elsie Davis, Virgil Smith (Memories of Pelham and
Batesville, published 1999), Dot Greer Howard, Ruby Good Vaughn,
Miss Jennie Christopher, minutes of the Greenville County Baptist
Association, 1950-54.
JAMES H. SIGHTLER, M. D.
December 12, 2003
Research and copyright by Sightler Publications
SIGHTLER PUBLICATIONS
175 Joe Leonard Road
Greer, SC 29651
1-864-877-1429
[1] It has been impossible to fix the exact
date of purchase of Tabernacle Hymns, since there is no mention of
it in the church minutes from 1956 through 1964. Harold Taylor
remembers using this book and asking for shape notes, but he did not
leave until 1964. It could have been obtained later than 1957. It
has also been impossible to fix the exact date when Hymns of the
Tabernacle was adopted, and we can only say that it probably
happened sometime between 1965 and 1968.
[2] It is of interest that the responsive readings of the Tabernacle
Hymns: Number Four began with a section entitled The Holy Scriptures
and that that section included II Timothy 3:16 "All scripture is
inspired of God". In the All-American Hymnal copies we now have
left, the responsive reading on God's Word comes after about 7 pages
of other material and omits II Timothy 3:16. That makes it
consistent with the translations based on the critical text, such as
the ERV, RSV, and NASV footnote, which all read "every scripture
inspired of God is profitable".
