Austin McGary
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Austin McGary (February 6, 1846- June 15, 1928) was an American Restoration Movement evangelist and publisher of a periodical entitled The Firm Foundation, which was first published on September 1, 1884.
Born in Huntsville, Texas to Isaac and Elizabeth (Visier) McGary, McGary's father was said to have fought at the Battle of San Jacinto and to have guarded the recently-captured Antonio López de Santa Anna. McGary's mother died while McGary was a child.
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[edit] Texas lawman
Before becoming an evangelist, McGary was elected sheriff of Madison County, Texas, a post he held for two years before resigning to work for the state of Texas in transporting prisoners to penitentiaries. This work took place near the United States-Mexico border.
[edit] Personal life
McGary was married three times, to Narcissus Jenkins in 1866 (two children) until her death in 1872, Lucie Kitrell in 1875, (nine children) until her death in 1897, and finally, to Lillian Otey.
[edit] Church of Christ evangelist, publisher, and debater
McGary became interested in religion and studied the Alexander Campbell-Robert Owen debate of 1829 [1]. He was said to have been educated in part by Church of Christ ministers including Benton, Thomas, and Basil Sweeney. [2]
McGary was converted to the Church of Christ and baptised by Harry Hamilton after hearing sermons by the latter in Madisonville, Texas. The baptism took place on December 24, 1881.
He began publication of the Firm Foundation in 1884, in his own words:
- "to oppose everything in the work and worship of the church, for which there was not a command or an apostolic example or a necessary scriptural inference."
In debates with David Lipscomb, editor of the rival publication the Gospel Advocate, McGary advanced positions regarding the relationship between baptism and salvation, some of which were already seminal in the formation of the group of Christian churches known as the Churches of Christ, others of which would become the basis for continuing disagreement among members of that body.
The substance of McGary's argument was based on the notion, generally accepted by members of the Churches of Christ, that the state of human salvation begins at the moment of that individual's immersive baptism. However, McGary further asserted that another condition of salvation lay in the believer's knowledge and acceptance of this idea (of baptism securing the remission of sins) at the moment of baptism, concluding that baptisms occurring outside of this condition were invalid, and did not bring about the salvation of those baptised in the absence of that state of belief. Lipscomb took the opposite position: that baptism for any scriptural reason qualified as scriptural baptism, independent of the candidate's full knowledge and acceptance of that concept. McGary's position, often dubbed "The Texas Heresy," was much later reborn in the Boston Movement of the International Churches of Christ.
After resigning the editorship of the Firm Foundation, McGary lived in California and then in Oregon before returning to live in Texas.
Other later periodicals published by McGary included The Lookout and The Open Arena.
