The idea
Our movement's animating impulse was eschatology. Not looking backwards, but looking forwards to embody the age to come. Not just for the church, but for the world.
How it connects
- Stone saw Cane Ridge as the Spirit moving towards something
- Stone saw the Springfield Presbytery in light of the age to come
- Alexander Campbell says in his first sermon that Communion is a taste of the Millennial Church. This connects with the Communion theme throughout.
- David Lipscomb takes eschatology as reason for radical non-conformity
- Sets up Restoration & Science theme
Events
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The Millennial Harbinger Launched
1830
Campbell closes the polemical Christian Baptist and opens a journal named for the age to come — turning from attacking the present order to building for the one he expected.
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Bacon College Founded
1836
Bacon College opened in Kentucky as the movement's first sustained educational venture, pairing Restoration ideals with a program of classical learning and ministry formation.
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Bethany College Founded
1840
Alexander Campbell founded Bethany College to train preachers, teachers, and citizens through a broad liberal arts education shaped by the movement's commitment to reason and reform.
Documents
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Millennial Harbinger
1830–1870
Launched in 1830, Alexander Campbell's *Millennial Harbinger* became the flagship periodical of the movement, carrying essays, debates, congregational news, and missionary reports that advocated primitive Christianity, believer's baptism, and a reasoned, reforming faith.
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The Christian Baptist
1823–1830
From 1823 to 1830 Alexander Campbell issued *The Christian Baptist*, a feisty monthly that critiqued denominational traditions, defended believer's baptism, and called readers to restore New Testament Christianity.
Read aloud
The church of Christ on earth must always be reforming, because it has never yet attained to the standard of its divine Founder.
Every man must be permitted to investigate for himself, and to follow the truth wherever it may lead him.