The Immutable Kingdom – Part 58
By Scott A. Klaft
John T. Johnson
Reserved, strongly emotional, and always active, it is said that John T. Johnson had a lawyer’s mind and a poet’s heart, appealing to logic as well as tugging the emotions. Never having participated in a formal debate, it was his skill as an evangelist that brought his name to some renown. He was a man of great power and ability who baptized many hundreds into Christ; and, in the days before the Civil War, few were as highly admired or widely loved.
As a preacher, he was incomparably successful at making every sermon theme something that lived in the present. It was observed that when he spoke on the subject of hell, the listeners were made to think they were looking into the very abyss of torment. It was only natural that an evangelist of such skill could move and motivate people as few ever have. His temperament was occasionally curt, but he was rarely discouraged; he remained buoyant in even the most adverse circumstances. His demeanor was chaste, dignified, though easy and familiar, but he had no time for boorishness.
The eighth of eleven children, Johnson was born on October 5, 1788 near Georgetown, Kentucky. He was very much influenced by his family connections to the military. Considering the times, John T. Johnson was a well-educated man; when he was young, he studied under a man who left Presbyterianism along side Barton W. Stone and was present for the Cane Ridge Revival. Johnson finished his education in that local school and left for Transylvania to study law. He graduated and received a license to practice before the age of twenty-one. He married, bought a one hundred and fifty acre farm, built a mill, and went into business with his younger brother. He tried a successful hand at politics in 1815, being elected to the state legislature.
Between politics, his farm, and his business, he managed to build up significant wealth, but it was short-lived due to the tenderness of his heart. He had co-signed many promissory notes for friends and neighbors, but in 1819, an economic panic swept through and they could not pay, leaving Johnson with the obligation. He gave up fifty thousand dollars worth of real estate in order to pay these notes.
In 1820, he tried national politics and was elected several times to Congress. Johnson was there during the hotly contested Presidential election in 1825 that had to be decided by Congress, which settled in favor of Andrew Jackson. When reelected in 1828, Johnson announced his retirement from public office after that term. Still lodged in his memory was the great revival at Cane Ridge in 1801, and in 1830, he found time to examine a publication called the Christian Baptist, as well as something the community was derogatorily calling “Campbellism.” Determining for himself the truth according to the scriptures, Johnson later wrote, “…the debt of gratitude I owe to that man of God, A. Campbell, no language can tell.”
After his conversion in early 1831, he helped to build, in a year’s time, a congregation of seventy members. He began to collaborate as co-editor at various times with men like Barton W. Stone, and B. F. Hall. He contributed to the uniting of Stone’s and Campbell’s efforts. Johnson and Jacob Creath became long-time companions, preaching meetings together continuously for years, baptizing so many the denominations became alarmed for fear that “the whole country was going to the Campbellites.” An accounting of his preaching excursions and accomplishments would be tremendous and lengthy indeed.
His health was apparently good until the first week of December of 1856. Johnson preached his last sermon on Sunday, leaving the services complaining he was cold. Pneumonia set in with several attacks of severe pain. When it was plain he would not live, his reply was one of confidence: “I did not think death was so near, but let it come.” Mere hours before it came on December 18, he requested the song from his bedside, “O Land of Rest For Thee I Sigh,” which was tearfully sung while he feebly tried to sing along. Only a few moments after sunset, he closed his eyes and breathed his last, bringing a sudden shock of sadness to the whole brotherhood.
(Next Week: Philip S. Fall)
