When Dr. O.S. Fowler came to Waco in 1880 to lecture on his area of expertise — the now-discredited science of phrenology — he could little have predicted what an uproar he’d cause with one of his pronouncements from the stage.

By phrenologizing an individual — that is, examining the shape and size of his or her skull — the practitioner purportedly could ascertain virtually everything about the person’s character.

Traveling “professors” of phrenology, or “craniographers,” testified that human beings could change the size and shape of the brain’s organs through exercise, thereby diminishing the less desirable character traits while promoting more positive tendencies.

One who practiced the now-discredited science of phrenology would examine a subject’s skull to determine nearly everything about the person’s character.

According to J.B. Cranfill (1858-1942), editor of The Baptist Standard at the turn of the 20th century, Fowler’s lecture series was followed each night with a call for volunteers from the audience:

“In the course of his phrenological examination of a volunteer, Fowler stunned and startled the audience by the statement that ‘This man is a skeptic on the subject of religion,’ ” Cranfill reported years later.

While some hissed and booed, and others stewed silently, other aggrieved patrons left the rented hall in a huff, Cranfill said.

Fowler knew something was amiss, but learned only after the show that he had just dubbed as an atheist the leading Methodist pastor in town.

Fowler “sensed that it would be wise to cut his Waco schedule short, but nonetheless maintained that his reading of (the volunteer) — J.D. Shaw — was correct — even if no one believed it,” Cranfill wrote in a 1929 essay about the clergyman.

Some months after the infamous visit of the itinerant head-probing Fowler, Shaw began, in fact, preaching a sermon series on inconsistencies he found in the Bible.

At first his adoring flock was tolerant of this liberal bent, Cranfill noted. But as his views veered more and more from the straight and narrow path of established orthodoxy, he faced an inquisition from his congregational stewards.

Shaw admitted at a church proceeding, for example, that he no longer accepted the Bible’s accounts of miracles as literal truths. And, he added, he found more wisdom in the writings of Confucius than he did in the words of the Hebrew prophets.

“Then, the fireworks began,” Cranfill wrote.

Even though the newspaper he wrote for at the time, the Gatesville Advance, was more than 50 miles away from the action, the public scandal of the prominent Waco minister’s noisy defection from his faith and life calling was so compelling to his mesmerized readers that “the recital of it held first place as headline for days on end.”

Shaw had come to Waco to lead Fifth Street Methodist Church in 1878, some eight years after joining the denomination. The assignment paid $1,700 per year (equivalent today to a salary of $37,400).

A captain in the Confederate Army by the end of the Civil War, Shaw was said to be an imposing figure and eloquent speaker, an intellectually curious, self-educated clergyman.

According to a published account, phrenologist O.S. Fowler (above) “read” the skull of Waco clergyman J.D. Shaw (below) in 1880 and determined the Fifth Street Methodist Church leader “is a skeptic on the subject of religion.” The statement upset Shaw’s congregation, but Shaw later admitted that he no longer accepted the Bible’s accounts of miracles as literal truths.

J.D. Shaw

Word about his abdication of the Protestant party line reached the ears of his superiors. At the annual session of the Northwest Methodist Conference, a meeting in November 1882, a motion was made to bring charges of heresy against him.

Shaw appeared before the examination committee in Cleburne to defend his beliefs, offering his views on the inspiration of the Scriptures, the divinity of Christ, the vicarious atonement and the punishment of the wicked.

At the conclusion of his address, he was asked to surrender his preaching credentials because his views were “detrimental to religion and injurious to the church.”

Shaw resigned the pastorate and his numerous posts within the conference. His farewell address to Fifth Street Methodist drew hundreds, including reporters from throughout Texas. Returning to Waco after being defrocked, Shaw gathered supporters (including some of his former parishioners) to found the Religious and Benevolent Association on Dec. 2, 1882.

After meeting at the McLennan County Courthouse for many months, his new congregation built a meeting place by 1884, called Liberal Hall, a frame structure at Seventh Street and Jefferson Avenue.

Shaw and other guest speakers conducted weekly lectures of uplift rather than church services. The association helped Shaw found the Independent Pulpit, a monthly journal of freethought published for more than 25 years when he edited.

The introduction of the free-spirited association was decried by Christian churchmen across Central Texas. B.H. Carroll, pastor of the Baptist church in Waco, was inspired to pen one of his most famous sermons, “The Agnostic,” presented on June 1, 1884, in which he made no attempt to veil the animosity he felt toward his former colleague of the soul-saving persuasion.

Cranfill himself called the association the “Hell and Damnation Society” and cautioned his readers that Shaw would turn them from God’s truth. He described the association as an “asylum for erratic thinkers on religious subjects.”

In spite of opposition, the association continued to grow to about 250 members until Oct. 5, 1889, when Liberal Hall was destroyed by fire.

Although Shaw and his followers were determined to rebuild, the association withered away. Shaw turned his energies toward leading the Liberal Association of Texas and continued to publish the Independent Pulpit.

And of O.S. Fowler, the professor of phrenology who started the ruckus? Shaw invited the discredited showman-scientist back to Waco for a return engagement, his reputation enhanced enormously by the former pastor’s conversion to secularism.

Shaw wasn’t a believer in phrenology, but said he was open to possible scientific truths and favored investigation of its claims.

The twice-widowed former minister-turned-journalist, a moral crusader in Waco’s dangerous days as Six Shooter Junction, moved to California in 1910 to live with a daughter.

After his death in 1926, his ashes were returned to Waco and buried in Oakwood Cemetery.

Additional sources: Texas Collection at Baylor University; Blake W. Barrow, “Freethought in Texas: J.D. Shaw and the Independent Pulpit” (M.A. thesis, Baylor University, 1983); Virginia Ming, “J.D. Shaw: Freethinker,” Waco Heritage and History, Summer 1979; Handbook of Texas Online; SkepticFiles.org.

tjryan@wacotrib.com

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