The archive of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society is housed in the Thomas W. Phillips Memorial Archives building in Nashville, Tennessee, but a move is being planned.
By Mark A. Taylor
The Disciples of Christ Historical Society has decided to move its archive from the T.W. Phillips Memorial Archives building in Nashville, Tennessee, to a college or seminary affiliated with the Disciples of Christ. Dr. Todd Adams, interim president, said the Society”s directors plan to choose a place in March; actually preparing the archive to move could take three years, he said.
A press release distributed in November explained the move, saying, “there are insufficient funds to maintain both an archive and the T.W. Phillips Memorial Library building.”
Adams, associate general minister and vice president with the Disciples, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, expects to continue as interim president until at least July. “We don”t have funds to pay a president at this time,” he told me.
Adams explained that building a new, climate-controlled facility to house the Society”s archive will likely cost between $1 million and $1.5 million. He believes the current library building is worth $7 million. Even after an anticipated $100,000 to $150,000 cost for moving the archive, he said the profit on the building sale will create an endowment to guarantee the future of the Society”s archive.
“The challenge of maintaining this building and keeping an adequate staff has been a problem for some time,” he told me. Currently 55 percent of operating receipts go to building maintenance. “And this is not a cheap building to maintain,” he said. “You can”t put a tar patch on a leak in a slate roof,” for example.
He said the Phillips family is “fully aware” of the decision to move. “They are interested in partnering with us,” he said, “depending on where the archive lands.” He added that they are not interested in giving a large enough gift to maintain or repair the existing building.
Adams, in consultation with the Society”s directors (trustees), has determined that the archive can be well kept in a space smaller than the current building, which was constructed in 1958 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. But in that beautiful building, which includes meeting rooms, offices, and other public areas, the space dedicated to archival storage is currently too small. “Even if you could afford to maintain the building, the stacks would need major renovation to be truly useful,” he said, citing study carrels and shelves filled with boxes full of material waiting to be indexed and properly shelved.
Meanwhile, foot traffic to the site has fallen off in recent years. “Times have changed; research has changed,” Adams explained. Fewer and fewer researchers are asking to come sift through paper archives. More and more are e-mailing requests for digital documents. Adams mentioned that a significant goal of the move is to place the archives with a source that will invest in additional digitizing of the archive”s contents.
During this transition time, the Society remains open to visitors by appointment. The current staff is only one full-time person and a part-time employee.
Some members of independent Christian churches or a cappella churches of Christ may wonder if the Society”s archive will be fully available to them after it moves to the campus of a Disciples school. Adams assured me that it will. “We will maintain our current mission””to be the archive of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Stone-Campbell family.”
He justified the decision to place the archive with a Disciples college on the basis of two factors.
First, he asserted that 95 percent of the archived material legally belongs to the Disciples of Christ. (The Disciples claim as theirs all materials created before the three streams divided.)
But Dr. Rick Cherok, professor of church history at Cincinnati (Ohio) Christian University, questions that. (Cherok is the sole Society trustee from the independent Christian churches and churches of Christ.) “To get this number, one must assume that all historical items before the two separations belonged solely to the Disciples,” Cherok told me. “In other words, the materials from the beginning to the 1906 division with the churches of Christ are only Disciple materials. And, things like the Christian Standard or North American materials before 1971 are only Disciple materials.”
Second, Adams also told me that almost all of the financial support to the Historical Society comes from Disciples sources, including about $100,000 annually from the Disciples Mission Fund and a similar amount from the Christian Church Foundation. Cherok doesn”t dispute this. But he said, in 14 years of association with the Society, “I pushed and challenged the DCHS to pursue funding from the other streams of the movement.” Cherok believes the Society could have received greater support from the other two streams if it had worked harder to get it.
The news release listed seven new directors, elected at the board”s October meeting. All of them are members of the Disciples of Christ and, according to Adams, have experience reshaping ministries. In addition to Cherok, David Ayres, preaching minister with North Main Church of Christ, Winters, Texas, remains on the DCHS board, the only member from the a cappella churches.
Adams told me there are false rumors swirling around news of the decision to move. For example, there is no intent to sell off the archives. Nevertheless, the move of the archive to a Disciples-owned site will undoubtedly send a concerning message to some in the other two streams.
This is no time to reduce or remove support of the DCHS. Indeed, now is the time to increase our engagement with the Society.
Adams and the Society”s board need to know that many in the independent churches are concerned about preserving the history kept in the archives. We view much contained there as “our” history, too, regardless of what legal technicalities have supported Adams”s 95 percent figure.
And we can change the fact that almost all of the Society”s support comes from Disciples sources. I”m guessing that, if Adams or his permanent successor would approach Christian churches and churches of Christ as friends and brothers and make the case for greater financial support, that support would come.
Until then, all of us can express our concern for the future of DCHS to Adams at [email protected]. Or better yet, write him a letter at 1101 19th Ave S, Nashville, TN 37212. And enclose a check.
Scholars have good reason to want archives preserved and available. If Stone-Campbell historians can locate in one place the documents which reflect the thinking of our predecessors in the movement, that will be good. I believe that was the intention of the donors of the building. That the building reflects an incorrect aim is obvious. That is, it was hoped that it could host groups intent on promoting unity, and the differing views of what unity entails caused many in the Stone-Campbell movement to distrust anything suggested by Disciples who thought the church should reflect current ideas rather than the goals of our pioneers. We feel that the pioneers had high regard for the apostolic writings, which is not reflected in current “Disciple” leaders and has not been now for nearly a century.