Rev. John Vant Stephens

Rev. John Vant Stephens, who has filled the Murdock chair of Church History in the Theological Seminary for ten years, is a Missourian. He is a graduate of Lincoln University, of the Theological Seminary, and of Union Seminary. In 1901 he was justly honored with the degree of D.D. by Trinity University. Dr. Stephens was for a considerable term of years secretary of the Board of Missions, and was called from a successful pastorate at Bowling Green, Ky., to the position which he how occupies.

His studies in the special line of church history had begun long before the time of this call; his library is extensive, and his collection of books relating to the early history of our own Church large. He is one of the Church's representatives in the Pan-Presbyterian alliance, and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Western Section. He never returns to the Seminary from one of this committee's meetings without some trophies in the shape of rare books, discovered in out-of-the-way places. His published works include, besides a number of pamphlets on various subjects, the Following: "Infant Church Membership" (1897), "The Causes" (1898), "Cumberland Presbyterian Digest" (1899), "Elect Infants" (1900), "Evolution of the Cumberland Presbyterian Confession" (1902). In selecting Dr. Stephens to prepare that important work, the Digest, our General Assembly found the man of all our communion most fitted for that important work. Dr. Stephens' works on our church history and on points of doctrinal importance are known without our own bounds as well as within them, as clear and conclusive presentations of the truth.       F. K. FARR.

[Source: The Cumberland Presbyterian, December 3, 1903, page 714]

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John Vant Stephens, D.D., Professor of Church History in the Theological School of Cumberland University from 1894 to 1909, was born near St. Louis, Missouri, September 16, 1857. In his twenty-third year he entered college, and received the A.B. degree from Lincoln University, Illinois, in 1884. After completing his college course he spent a year in Union Theological Seminary, New York City. he then came to Lebanon, where he completed his theological course in the Theological School of Cumberland University, being a member of the class of 1886, and receiving the B.D. degree.

After graduation he was settled over a mission church in Knoxville, Tennessee. His success in this field led the Oak Street Church in Chattanooga to call him there, which call he accepted. Later he served as Secretary of the Cumberland Presbyterian Board of Missions, with headquarters in St. Louis. While engaged in this service he was the editor of the Missionary Record, improving it and making it a standard publication. His last pastorate, before coming to Lebanon, was at Bowling Green, Ky.

In 1909-10 Dr. Stephens taught in the Presbyterian Seminary of the South, and was its President. In 1910 he became Professor Church History in Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, which service he continued until May, 1932, when he retired, rounding out thirty-eight years of continuous service as a theological teacher. He resides in Cincinnati.

The following books were written by him: Infant Church Membership, The Causes, The Cumberland Presbyterian Digest, The Evolution of the Cumberland Presbyterian Confession of Faith, Presbyterian Government, The Presbyterian Churches, and The Providential Purpose of Our Country. For four years he was the editor of the Teacher's Monthly Sunday School Magazine. Some years ago he was a member of the Committee which prepared the Intermediate Catechism of the Presbyterian Church. In 1935 he published a small but attractive volume, Cumberland University Theological School.

[Source: The History of Cumberland University, 1842-1935. By Winstead Paine Bone, 1935, pages 237-238]

Eulogy for John Vant Stephens | 1946

By Jesse Halsey

Our Mr. Valiant for Truth has crossed the river, and with all the trumpets sounding on the other side, the thoughts of our hearts and their vocal expression are but an echo of that approval that he has earned from our Lord, “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”

I am honored to speak a word at his funeral, especially as relates to his service to the Church at large through his ministry in our own Presbytery. Many who knew him before I did, report the same feeling one sensed immediately in Dr. Stephens, the talent and the spiritual quality that was the man. Long before I met him face-to-face, I had heard from his friends and colleagues concerning the “stuff” that was in him. He never failed; anything that he undertook he carried through to conclusion. With the high quality of mental and spiritual achievement that were his, he knew how to coin in proper phrase or resolution or friendly word, and pass on, his own spirit. He was the embodiment of the law and the gospel; a rare combination. Always, at the expense of himself, he served his Lord and the Church.

He was the leading personality in a relatively small denomination. In the beginning of the century, all his efforts were bent in the direction of union of his Church (The Cumberland Presbyterian) with the mother Church. He stood to lose everything, and like those commended by our Lord, he threw away his life to find it in the joy of a larger service. Having served as the State Clerk of his own denomination he became a clerk in the larger group, and merged his own person ad his own work enthusiastically in perfecting the Digest of our General Assembly (having finished that of his own). To this he devoted days and months of tedious and painstaking and (always with him) joyous labor, a service of love.

We owe to him in this Presbytery and to his colleague, Dr. Parr, a great debt for the spiritual quality that they brought to us from the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. With James H. Miller and James Clark, they brought into the U.S.A. church a great heritage of spiritual and intellectual quality that had repudiated one hundred years before some of the ultra strictness of the “second generation doctrines” that were never inherited from John Calvin. They brought back not “something new,” but something older than that which had become accepted tradition in certain sections of the U.S.A. church.

His work as a Stated Clerk in our Presbytery was a reflection of that larger and longer service that he rendered to his denomination in earlier years. When he felt himself slipping, on his own initiative he resigned (and possibly we were not too wise in accepting that resignation.)

He never lost the “spiritual glow” that comes from lasting and deep friendships. He carried on (beyond his physical abilities at times) a correspondence which is unusual as one grows older. You may remember your friends, but to include the younger generations—that is genius; the genius of real friendship!

There are few living today of his contemporaries and his “fellow soldiers” in other years. We have heard him tell on occasion of how, as a boy, he carried the brunt of family responsibility for his father who espoused the Union cause and went at Lincoln’s first call, and who, years afterwards, came back, not recognized by his own son when he met him at the gate.

It seems as one reviews this wonderful life, that from the first to the last, in every appointment, he has accepted it at the Hand of an always Beneficent Providence, trusting and unafraid. John Stephens was the faithful servant of his Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “It is better to minister than to be ministered unto.” Like his Master, “first he wrought and afterwards he taught.” In all things he adorned the doctrine of God, our Saviour.

This is not the time to recount, except in our own hearts, the debt of gratitude that we feel toward hi and toward God, in the gift of this life. Its blessing, its example, his contagious spirit, his thoroughness in his work that shamed us in our shabbiness; his deep purpose, his unfailing zeal, his enthusiasm, his words of good will and encouragement, and his meticulous care in the performance of every duty—for these we thank God.

We here echo, “Well done, good and faithful servant,”—with all the trumpets sounding for him on the other side!

Let us pray.

Almighty God our Father, in whose hand our breath is and whose are all our ways, we acknowledge Thy great goodness in this finished life. We desire to thank Thee for the friend whom Thou has now called from our earthly fellowship and we rejoice in the hope of immortality.

For this good man who, like his Master, went about doing good, the law of kindness on his tongue, we thank Thee. For his good counsel and brave testimony, for what he was and what he did; the things that he said; the texture of his mind and heart; the touch of his sympathy, his wise and ready help—for all we render our thanksgiving.

O Thou Whose best gifts come to us in human form, Whose love came to us incarnate in Christ, we thank Thee for Thy servant, John Stephens, and we ask that we, in our day and generation, may in some measure, in his spirit, adorn that same doctrine and follow the same Christ.

To God’s gracious mercy and protection we commit ourselves yet again, with the whole family of God in Heaven and on earth: The Lord preserve our going out and our coming in from this time forth and even forevermore. Amen.

Courtesy of The Jesse Halsey Manuscript Collection, Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries, Special Collections.