Synopsis "Tant-Smith Debate: Was Alexander Campbell Baptized for the Remission of Sins?"
The purpose of water baptism in God's plan has been a topic of much disagreement among people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. Hundreds of debates have been held on this issue in the United States, especially between representatives of various Baptist churches and the churches of Christ. The role of Alexander Campbell in the religious history of our country has also been the focus of considerable controversy. This volume contains the text of a short written debate between C. A. Smith (Baptist) of Chickasha, Oklahoma, and J. D. Tant (Christian) of Brownsville, Texas. It began on March 7, 1935, and concluded on January 18, 1936. The proposition was: "I affirm that Matthias Luce did not baptize Alexander Campbell for (in order to) the remission of sins, according to history." C. A. Smith affirmed and J. D. Tant denied. C. A. Smith was 47 years old at the time of this debate, and he had been a Baptist minister for 26 years. This was his 49th debate in behalf of the Baptist cause. In addition to J. D. Tant, his opponents had included such well-known debaters as Will M. Thompson, W. Curtis Porter, J. W. Chism, J. N. Cowan, and J. W. Crumley.J. D. Tant's story is preserved in J. D. Tant--Texas Preacher, a biography written by his son Yater. At the time of this discussion he was 74 years old and had participated in more than 300 debates. In addition to the present debate, the Tant-Harding Debate and the Tant-Frost Debate are available from Thrasher Publications.This debate was originally printed as the Smith-Tant Debate on "Campbell's Baptism." It has been out of print for many years. That volume was scanned and processed using OCR software. In reviewing the manuscript, a number of errors were detected and corrected. The text was then re-formatted to the present form. The publisher hopes that the reader will find this volume interesting and worthwhile, while remembering that only the Scriptures are infallibly true and reliable.
