Cane Ridge Communion (August 1801)

The idea

Our movement began with open communion. A wild and deep expression of the true identity of the church, that challenged existing authority structures, and emphasized the need for Christian freedom.

Ideas from the session

1. If you come from another tradition — in a sense, we do too. Our tradition arose when people of many other traditions came together, bringing the riches of each with them and placing them at Jesus' feet.
2. The central practice of unity was a shared table. A table opened beyond the limits authority had placed on it — opened by Stone himself, over the objection of his own elders; the demand he withdrew is the one a presbytery would enforce six years later.
3. The table was the age to come, arriving early. Hospitality alone does not explain a heresy trial, but if the meal is God's future breaking into the present, a gate in front of it has to come down, whatever it costs.
4. The table defines both hospitality and priesthood. Who may come is hospitality, and Cane Ridge answers it; who may preside is priesthood, and the rest of the class answers that — the same fence removed twice.
5. Wildness and rationality. Stone models the stance, neither credulity nor mockery: he granted “much fanaticism,” watched one fallen man for hours with critical attention, and was convinced by the evidence of changed lives.
6. Bigger than us. The work was carried into Ohio, Tennessee and North Carolina, and the camp meeting became the signature institution of the era — Cane Ridge belongs to American Christianity, not just to us.

Events

• Second Great Awakening 1790s

  A wave of revivalism shapes frontier faith and community.

• Cane Ridge Revival 1801

  A landmark revival gathering that shaped Barton W. Stone’s unity convictions and frontier worship practices.

Documents

• The Biography of Eld. Barton Warren Stone 1847

  Stone's autobiography, completed and supplemented by his protégé Elder John Rogers after Stone's death in 1844. Bound together with the Apology of the Springfield Presbytery (1804) and Rogers' six-chapter portrait of Stone's character, this is the principal first-person source for Stone's life, the Cane Ridge revival, the founding of the Christian movement, and the 1832 Stone–Campbell union.

Read aloud

All quotes