High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Tolbert Fanning (May 10, 1810 – May 3, 1874) was a Restoration Movement preacher and writer born in Cannon County, Tennessee. His conservative theology within that movement, often expressed in the pages of Fanning`s publication, the Gospel Advocate, inspired others such as David Lipscomb, leading to the 1906 identification of the Church of Christ as a distinct religious body, 33 years after Fanning`s death.