Baptist Blunders

An interesting “sideways” piece of Baptist history, although I do not agree with the theology of the author:

Baptist Blunders; and J. N. Hall and His Fridays in a Muddle – “The writer has had quite a good deal of experience in debates with the Missionary Baptists during the past fifteen years; and as a result of that experience, I have learned many things which would have been difficult to discover in any other way.” (By Joe S. Warlick, 1905)

The title seems rather odd, but by “His Fridays” he means his assistants, right-hand men, as Friday to Robinson Crusoe.

J. N. Hall and “His Fridays” are:

• John Newton Hall
• James M Bandy
• John Henry Milburn
• James Knox Polk Williams

A search did not reveal that Warlick mentions Ben M. Bogard in this book. Some sources say that Warlick held 399 debates. In The Encyclopedia of Religious Debates, Volume 1 (A – D), Thomas N. Thrasher says that Bogard engaged in 237 debates (p. 66). He held 23 debates with Warlick, probably all after Warlick wrote Baptist Blunders. Bogard wrote Campbellism Exposed as a response to their doctrine. 

Bogard and Warlick became friends through their years of experience together. I remember reading one humorous story about one of their debates (at least if memory serves, it was those). I searched online but couldn’t find it mentioned anywhere. I think I read this in The Life and Works of Ben M. Bogard. My memory is this: 

Out west, maybe New Mexico or Arizona, a wealthy Mormon invited Bogard and Warlick to come out and have a debate (and paid for their trip). Perhaps he thought it would be good wholesome entertainment for the community. On the way to the debate Bogard and Warlick rode together on the same train. They worked out a plan that instead of debating their own doctrines with each other, they would actually be disproving the doctrines of the Mormon Church with the debate. At least that’s the way I remember it! (I think this might have been their debate in Duncan, Arizona in 1919.) 

On learning of Warlick’s death, Bogard wrote in his Baptist Searchlight, “He and I had some hard contests, and we did not give an inch in our sharp contentions with each other; but our personal friendship grew with the years and we became as brothers in the flesh.”