John T. Benson

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
Religious publications that supported independent clergymen date back at least as far as John Wesley’s The Armenian Magazine. [1] After Cane Ridge, Alexander Campbell began issuing the Christian Baptist in 1823 [2] to spread ideas that led to the Disciples of Christ. [3]

These publications did more than provide a means for evangelists to spread their ideas. They generated income for men who earned little from their religious meetings.

John McClurkan was an itinerant Cumberland Presbyterian [4] preacher in Tennessee who also worked as a school teacher before the Civil War. His son James was ordained in 1881. He too worked as both a minister and a teacher. He probably only received some financial security when he became pastor of a congregation in San Jose, California. [5]

McClurkan lost that income when he became sanctified, and left the church to preach his own interpretation of Holiness doctrine in 1895. [6] His daughter said he always peddled tracts, velvet mottos, and other religious objects from a basket. [7]

He moved to Nashville in 1897, [8] where Methodists were in turmoil over the Holiness movement. The year before the state convention spent a day debating the status of Benjamin Franklin Haynes, before voting against his Tennessee Methodist monthly. [9] It continued under the name Zion Outlook. [10]

John T. Benson, henceforth called John 1, [11] was converted to Holiness at a tent meeting McClurkan held in 1897. [12] A year later, he and Haynes helped McClurkan organize a Holiness convention in Nashville. [13] It may have been Benson’s first exposure to "the fervency of shouts, testimonies, preaching, praying and singing" that characterized some Holiness meetings. [14]

Two years later John 1 purchased Haynes’ publication for McClurkan’s Pentecostal Mission. [15] He quit his job with a mercantile brokerage in 1901 [16] to organize the Pentecostal Mission Printing Company in 1902. [17] He and his wife, the former Eva Green, edited the first songbook in 1904. [18]

The Azusa Street revival erupted in Los Angeles in 1901. [19] McClurkan rejected speaking in tongues in 1907. [20] Phineas Bresee began agitating for an association of Holiness groups who did not accept glossolalia. [21] John 1 was among those who went to the exploratory meeting in Pilot Point, Texas, in 1908. [22] The same year, he publicized Soul Stirring Songs [23] by sending a quartet to provide music at revivals and camp meetings. [24]

The market for songbooks must have been expanding with the growth of the Holiness movement after Azusa Street. John 1 opened a commercial printing company in 1909. [25]

McClurkan resisted a merger with Bresee, but John 1 suggested they invite Bresee to hold his next general assembly of the Nazarene in Nashville in 1911. Stephen Hoskins thought one reason Bresee accepted was he wanted a joint venture with Benson’s printing company. [26]

John 1 prepared the third edition of Jewel Songs for the event. [27] Hoskins said:

"Nazarenes from around the country and the world sang from the book at the nightly services conducted in the Ryman Auditorium, and visitors took Jewel Songs home and ordered large quantities for their camp meetings, revivals, and gospel choirs."

He added: "Jewel Songs helped establish the spiritual life of the denomination in its formative decades and has continued to do so." [28]

McClurkan died from typhoid fever in 1914, [29] and his Pentecostal Mission merged into the Nazarene in 1915. [30] Bresee didn’t get John 1’s company, but Benson did reorganize its publishing operations in Kansas City. [31] Haynes already was editing its weekly Herald of Holiness. [32]

End Notes
1. Samuel J. Rogal. "John Wesley’s Arminian Magazine." Andrews University Seminary Studies 22:231-247:Summer 1984. Wesley began publishing his popular magazine in 1778.

2. The Christian Baptist was replaced by the Millennial Harminger in 1830. [33]

3. The Disciples of Christ in Pamlico County, North Carolina, were mentioned in posts about Minnie Lee, especially the one for 26 January 2020.

4. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church was organized in 1810 by men who had been expelled by the Presbyterian Church for perpetuating the Cane Ridge revival. [34]

5. "James O. McClurkan." Interchurch Holiness Convention website.

6. John T. Benson (2). A History 1898-1915 of the Pentecostal Mission, Inc. Nashville: Trevecca Press, 1977. 16.

7. Merle McClurkan Heath. Cited by John 2. 38.
8. John 2. 16.

9. "Tennessee Methodist Wakes Up a Mighty Lively Discussion." Nashville American. 28 October 1896. 3.

10. Stan Ingersol. "Man of Zeal and Courage: the Methodist Roots of B. F. Haynes." Herald of Holiness 76:11:15 June 1987.

11. The forms of the Benson names changed when men died; I’m standardizing on a simple number to make clear the identities of men through three generations.

12. John 2. 16.

13. John 2. 26. The executive committee elected by the first convention included John 1 as secretary and Haynes.

14. John 2. 33.

15. William J. Strickland. J. O. McClurkan: His Life, His Theology, and Selections from His Writings. With H. Ray Dunning. Nashville: Trevecca Press, 1998. 37. The original name was Pentecostal Alliance. It was changed to Pentecostal Mission in 1902 for the same reasons Campbell changed the name of the Baptist Christian: to broaden its appeal and eliminate any connotations of associations with other religious groups.

16. Benson 2. 38. Cummins, Benson, and McKay was "one of the largest firms of mercantile brokers in the south." [35]

17. Strickland. 42.

18. John 2. 209. It might have been Living Waters Songs. World Cat listed it with a publication date that probably was derived from latest copyright date of 1894. Zion Outlook’s name had been changed to Living Waters after a merger with a group of that name in 1903. [36] Eva played piano. [37]

19. William Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival were the subject of the post for 7 December 2017.

20. John 2. 94.

21. Vinson Synan. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997 edition. 147–148.

22. John 2. 100.

23. Soul Stirring Songs. Nashville: John T. Benson Publishing Company, 1908. [Amazon entry]

24. Steven Hoskins. "Singing Jewel Songs: Innovative Evangelism in the Church of the Nazarene." Grace and Peace website. 2 October 2012.

25. Jno T. Benson, Sr (1). Obituary. Nashville Tennessean. 25 June 1930. 5.

26. Hoskins. "Nazarenes also longed to launch a joint publishing venture with Benson’s printing company for the denomination’s many publishing enterprises and its new paper, Herald of Holiness, launched after the General Assembly."

27. Mr. and Mrs. John T. Benson. Jewel Songs. Nashville: Pentecostal Mission Publishing Company, 1910. [Amazon entry]

28. Hoskins. He noted it contained older hymns by Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts, Holiness songs like Fannie Crosby’s "Blessed Assurance," newly written gospel songs by men like Charles H. Gabriel, and Southern favorites like "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms."

29. Rev J. O. McClurkan. Obituary. Nashville Banner. 6 September 1914. 2. Reprinted by NashvilleTony. "Rev James Octavius McClurkan." Find a Grave website. 5 August 2012.

30. Benson 2. 179.
31. John 1.
32. "Centennial Celebrations: Herald of Holiness and NNU." Holiness Today website.
33. Wikipedia. "Christian Baptist" and "Millennial Harbinger."
34. Wikipedia. "Cumberland Presbyterian Church."

35. "Cummins-Kirkman Co. to Succeed Cummins, Benson & McKay." The [Phoenix] Arizona Republican. 1 February 1902. 1.

36. John 2. 56.
37. John 2. 154.