PROPOSITION:
The word of God authorizes the use of instruments of music for praise in the church of Jesus Christ
J. Carroll Stark Affirms Joe S. Warlick Denies

About the Book
The Stark-Warlick discussion of 1903 in Henderson, Tennessee has been called the most important struggle over the instrument of music in Christian worship. W.W. Stone, a visitor from Texas who was at the debate, said, “It appears to me that instrumental music in the church received the most complete and exhaustive defeat in this debate that it has ever before met with.” Noted church historian Earl I. West said regarding Stone's comment, “Judging from what happened, he may have been right.” After the debate the West Tennessee Christian College at Henderson, which was under the control of the Christian Church, closed its doors. Shortly afterwards, A.G. Freed and N.B. Hardeman reopened a college connected with members of the churches of Christ. This institution, now Freed-Hardeman University, has flourished and is influential even today. About the Disputants To defend instruments of music in the worship of the Christian Church the leaders brought in J. Carroll Stark, a preacher who had recently moved to McMinnville, Tennessee from Hamilton, Illinois. He had just written the book, The King and His Kingdom, in which he had said that “instrumental music was eminently scriptural.” He had been pushing this point of view in the McMinnville area. A.G. Freed, N.B. Hardeman, L.L. Brigance and others had led students and interested people in the Henderson congregation to study the question of instrumental music in worship. They asked Joe S. Warlick to represent them in debate with Stark. Born in 1866, Joe Warlick began preaching in 1885 at the age of nineteen. By the end of his life he had held gospel meetings in almost every state in the U.S. and in Canada, baptizing thousands. Warlick composed several songs; edited a paper, the Gospel Guide; and participated in 339 debates. He died in 1941.