Stone/Campbell Movement

[EdmundBlackadderTheThird]

I have been studying, and deeply so, the history of our movement and have come to realize that we really cannot rightly be called the Restoration Movement. The men that started the movement placed the so called restoration of the primitive church pretty far down the list of priorities. The movement started as a unity movement. Both Campbell and Stone felt that we could not make anything a requirement for communion except that which scripture shows to be necessary for salvation. This did not even include baptism. We have taken a unity movement and placed the focus on rules and regulations and have become exactly what the great men of God who started this movement preached against. Neither Stone nor Campbell was a patternist. Campbell was a Calvinist for most of his life but would not even make that doctrine a requirement for communion. They tried to get Baptists, Presbyterians, and so on to allow for full communion and fellowship based on nothing other than a belief in Christ as God's son and His being raised from the dead. We have done this great set of ideals a complete injustice by become partyist and sectarian. When we try to place restricitions on fellowship beyond what is required for salvation then we do nothing but further divide the body of Christ. Unity does not equal uniformity.

I call upon my brothers and sisters in the Stone/Campbell churches to pray long and hard about the ideals set forth by the great men who helped spur revival across the US. I think that if we returned to the midset these men had we could see revival in this country again. I am not talking about a single tent service called a revival but God moving across this land and bringing soul after soul to Christ.

This is not a call to abandon your beliefs on any topic. It is far from it in fact. The whole idea was that you are allowed to have your own beliefs but that outside of the requirements for salvation we cannot make anything a requirement for communion with one another. I would urge you in fact to keep your beliefs because unity does not equal conformity. I simply see more clearly what we should be concentrating on in this day and age. Let us return to the ideals of unity and cease bickering amongst ourselves over moot doctrinal points. I could see this forum as a praise forum for outreach in the Christian community. Let us stop the unnecessary debate and start reaching out and healing the gaps in our movement so that we can reach out and try to heal the gaps in all branches of Christianity. We can in time revive the full force of the Stone/Campbell movement and show the world that Christians can in fact be united as one body as scripture calls for.

[ischus]

I am just about to sign off, but I would love to discuss this with you later on. I agree with almost all that you have said here. I only question whether or not the Unity was actually achieved at any point. Campbell may have preached unity, but would you agree that his definition of unity grew smaller and smaller as time went on? Is there no patternism in The Christian System?

I am with you 100% with your call to revival and unity. I think that in our day we can see even greater things happen than either Stone or Campbell ever saw. The choice is before us even now.

[EdmundBlackadderTheThird]

I don't know that Campbell's defintion of unity necessarily shrank as time went on. There was certainly a strong element of patternism in his teaching but he never backed away from the call for unity based on only the requirements for salvation. The call for unity based on nothing but that allows a man to teach many different things from the pulpit and still be in unity with those who disagree. Even Stone held beliefs that would keep him from posting in the CO section here at CF but Campbell never broke off the friendship or fellowship over those beliefs. They were in fact the same beliefs that led Calvin to try Servetus at Geneva. He later did admit some changes in this belief but the fact that he held them and was in communion with Campbell's churches says much about the deepness of the desire for unity on both sides.

When we take something such as patternism and make it a requirement for for communion then we exclude many Christians that would never have been excluded by the founders of our movement. Now of course these founders were just men and by no means infallible. Their beliefs on baptism changed over time. As previously stated Stone's beliefs were less than orthodox on certain issues.

To further the discussion here are some links to pertinant documents:

Declaration and Address (http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/tcampbell/DA_REV1.HTM)
Last Will and Testament of Springfield Presbytery (http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/esmith/hgl1808/LWT.HTM)

It is to be noted that Stone and Campbell agreed that immersion baptism could be required for communion but that Campbell himself never preached it strongly, not near as strongly as his succesors and that Stone did not hold the belief that it was a requirement for salvation but consented for the better of the movement as a whole. Stone held that the only requirement for communion should be a belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. It could be argued that Campbell never really changed his beliefs on baptism but assented as well so that the movement would not be torn apart by partyism as he never preached it strongly.

It should also be noted that while we have what are essentially three denominations resulting from the movement and offshoots of those as well that this was never the intention of the men who founded the movement. In fact I think we could safely say that they would be disgusted at what has happened to the movement in modern times. But there is hope, there is always hope when the Holy Spirit is on the move!


The Christian Standard (http://www.christianstandard.com/buzz.asp)
Texas Churches Merge
"A fellowship of the church of Christ and Christian church": It’s an unusual subtitle on a church sign, but Christ Covenant Church (Beaumont, Texas) is an unusual church.

The ministers and elders from Parkside Christian Church and Cornerstone Church of Christ, both in Beaumont, began considering a merger over a year ago. The leaders of both churches discussed issues of doctrine and practice throughout the process, and found few dissimilarities. In its April 28 article about the merger, The Christian Chronicle reports the elders discovered identical understandings of baptism and Communion, and agreed the services of the new church would feature both instrumental and a cappella music.

As preparation, the churches held a joint summer preaching series and partnered to lead a VBS.

Several leaders also visited the "Ministry Impact ’04: Together" conference at Crossroads Christian Church (Grand Prairie, Texas) last October. "We sent some people to learn how to do a merger," says Tom McLeod, an elder at Christ Covenant. "We found out almost no one had actually done one before. It was certainly not our goal to be on the ‘cutting edge’ of anything!"

A majority of members from both churches voted to merge into one new church. Jerry Fenter, former minister at Cornerstone and now minister at Christ Covenant, credits the yearlong process of "fusion" between the two groups as key to the successful transition.

McLeod says the process also forced the elders of both churches to rethink core beliefs—"which things are traditions and which are nonnegotiable theological issues."

Christ Covenant held its first service on Easter Sunday of this year, with video greetings and congratulations from church of Christ ministers Rick Atchley and Mike Cope.

Christ Covenant Church, 6390 North Major Drive, Beaumont, TX 77713


Mergers like this are happening all over the country. Preachers, elders, and congregants alike are realizing the power of Christian unity and coming together in moves so bold that they are aking headlines in the Christian community. It is things like this that give me hope for our movement and an even greater hope for Christian unity as an ideal.

[ischus]

Although flesh99 will not be able to finish this discussion, I would just like to say that I agree with his comments about the Stone-Campbell vision of Unity. I think that this unity can and is being realized to an extent in our own movement, but surely not in the broad aspect that was hoped for.

This inability to achieve full unity, I believe, can be attributed to the hermeneutical assumptions which have been discussed in another thread. The reason that some mergers are happening only now is because until recently the CoC has been unwilling as a whole to evaluate their (our) own hermeneutical methods. When they finally do, good things happen.

I am always delighted to see the Unity that we all share in Christ being fully realized in concrete ways, as we are now seeing in merging churches. We have a long way to go, but each step we take is a step that we ought to praise God for.