[1]: 361–362  Lipscomb edited the journal for fifty years following the Civil War, making him the most influential spokesman of the time among the Churches of Christ.

[1]: 362  Despite these differences in editorial focus, throughout its entire history the Advocate has consistently sought to promote a Christianity based on New Testament precedents.

[1]: 362 In 1884 a Texas preacher named Austin McGary, who had written some articles in the Gospel Advocate, began publishing the Firm Foundation, which—in contradistinction to Lipscomb's irenic manner, grace-laden theology, and more-inclusivist concept of fellowship—stridently proclaimed support for rebaptism, McGary's views on that subject being remarkably similar to those of John Thomas (1805-1871), with whom Alexander Campbell had severed fellowship.

[citation needed] Although the controversy animated the difference between the two papers for some time, they closed ranks in opposition to missionary societies and instrumental music in worship, issues which split the churches of the Restoration Movement officially in 1906.

[4]: 97 [5]: 306  By the end of the 20th century, however, the divisions caused by this debate were diminishing, and in the 2000 edition of the directory Churches of Christ in the United States, published by Mac Lynn, congregations holding premillennial views were no longer listed separately.