Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
Class Companion · Chapter 3

Declaration & Address (1809)

A few decades after the American Declaration of Independence, Thomas Campbell pens a declaration of Christian unity. The body of Christ is already one, and ought not be divided by the arrogance of human opinions. Read the Declaration & Address here.

(Oct 11)

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The idea

Our movement is a testimony to the freedom and unity of the universal church. Any attempt to impose another mechanism of unity — a creed or ecclesiastical hierarchy — cannot achieve the actual substance of unity in Christ.

How it connects

  • Chapter 2's closing line leads into the document's first sentence.
  • Alexander Campbell enters the story here, reading the proof-sheets in wet ink — the handoff to Brush Run (Chapter 5).

Events

  • Declaration & Address 1809

    Thomas Campbell issues a plea for visible unity grounded in Scripture, not human creeds.

Documents

  • Declaration & Address 7 September 1809

    Thomas Campbell issued this 1809 manifesto as the charter document of the Christian Association of Washington, pleading for visible unity grounded in the New Testament alone and rejecting creedal tests of fellowship.

  • The Christian Association of Washington 1809

    After his censure and withdrawal from the Seceder Presbyterians, Thomas Campbell gathered his hearers into the Christian Association of Washington — deliberately not a church, but a voluntary society for promoting simple evangelical Christianity. The *Declaration and Address* was written to explain it.

Read aloud

Division among Christians is a horrid evil, fraught with many evils. It is anti-Christian, as it destroys the visible unity of the body of Christ.
Thomas Campbell
Human authority has no right to lord it over the conscience of man.
Alexander Campbell

All quotes