The Story, Promise, and Future of the Churches of Christ
Quiz
We are Christians only…
…but not the only Christians.
One movement
Three Instigators
Barton W. StoneCane Ridge, Kentucky. Last week.
Thomas CampbellIreland, then Pennsylvania. Today.
Alexander CampbellHis son. Today, and most weeks after.
Stone: memorial portrait at the Cane Ridge shrine, a later painting (photo Chris Light, CC BY-SA 4.0). Alexander Campbell at about 65.
Our Wild Democracy · Chapter 2
Thomas Campbell’s Heresy Trial
Ireland 1798 — Pennsylvania 1810
Ireland · summer 1798
A Presbyterian meeting house near Richhill, County Armagh — probably his own at Ahorey — during the Sunday service.
A troop of cavalry surrounded the church.
“Pray, sir!”
a venerable elder, sitting near Mr. Campbell · Richardson, Memoirs 1:44
He began in the words of the forty-sixth Psalm
“Thou, O God, art our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.”
The captain listened to the end, bowed, and rode away with his troop.
Ireland
Armagh · the 1790s
Ireland was tearing itself apart.
Orangemen and Defenders by night. The United Irishmen by secret oath. Most of his own people had joined.
Thomas Campbell was asked to preach on Oaths and Secret Societies.
Asked to preach on the lawfulness of oaths and secret societies
“…he presented so candidly and earnestly his views in condemnation of them that a large portion of the audience became excited and exasperated.”
Richardson, Memoirs 1:42
He had to be escorted through the crowd.
Thomas Campbell, 1763–1854
His designation in Ireland
Old Light
Anti-Burgher
Seceder
Presbyterian
of the Anti-Burgher Synod of Ulster
under the General Associate Synod in Scotland
Division After Division
1798
He helped found a missionary society open to every denomination.
His synod voted it inconsistent with the Secession Testimony. He gave it up.
1804
He proposed reuniting Burghers and Anti-Burghers in Ireland.
Glasgow “allowed him to argue his case but refused to allow the proposition to come to a vote.”
Unity vs Authority
Unity failed.
His doctor prescribed a sea voyage.
Robert Salmon, British Merchantman in the River Mersey off Liverpool, 1809 A ship of the kind, not the Brutus
April 1807 · Londonderry
Voyage to America
He left his eighteen-year-old son, Alexander, in charge of the family and the school.
August 1807 · seventy miles from home
Reading Howell, A Map of the State of Pennsylvania, 1792 · Library of Congress
Who was out there
“This part of the country was then thinly settled, and it was seldom that ministerial services were enjoyed by the various fragments of religious parties, which, having floated off from the Old World upon the tide of emigration, had been thrown together in the circling eddies of these new settlements.”
Richardson, Memoirs 1:224
Faithful Presbyterians who had not received communion in years.
Not for lack of a minister. For lack of a minister of their own sub-sect.
The token
A Scottish communion token, 1750
Examined beforehand. Handed a lead ticket. Surrendered at the table.
He did not fence the table
“…Mr. Campbell’s sympathies were strongly aroused in regard to the destitute condition of some in the vicinity who belonged to other branches of the Presbyterian family, and who had not, for a long time, had an opportunity of partaking of the Lord’s Supper, and he felt it his duty, in the preparation sermon, to lament the existing divisions, and to suggest that all his pious hearers, who felt so disposed and duly prepared, should, without respect to party differences, enjoy the benefits of the communion season then providentially afforded them.”
Richardson, Memoirs 1:224
Two years later, in his own words
“…the Lord’s Supper, that great ordinance of unity and love.”
Declaration and Address, 1809
It was well received.
But not by everyone.
The young minister assisting him, William Wilson, reported it to the presbytery.
The Trial
The Libel · January 1808
1that appropriating Christ as one’s own Savior does not belong to the essence of saving faith
2that a church has no divine warrant for holding Confessions of Faith as terms of communion
3that ruling elders may pray and exhort publicly in vacant congregations
4that our people may hear ministers in stated opposition to our testimony
5that Christ was not subject to the precept of the law, as well as its penalty, for his people
6that a man may live without sin in this life
7that he preached in another minister’s bounds without appointment
YOU are the court.
Guilty, or not guilty?
The Verdict · February 1808
1that one may have doubts even in the midst of saving faithguilty!
2that a church has no divine warrant for holding Confessions of Faith as terms of communionguilty!
3that ruling elders may pray and exhort publicly in vacant congregationsguilty!
4that our people may hear ministers in stated opposition to our testimonyguilty!
7that a divine calling, ordination, and the invitation of the people is sufficient warrant to preach, without authorization of church authoritiesguilty!
The Appeal
May 1808 · his appeal to the Synod at Philadelphia
“For what error or immorality ought I to be rejected, except it be that I refuse to acknowledge as obligatory upon myself, or to impose upon others, anything as of Divine obligation for which I cannot produce a ‘Thus saith the Lord?’”
Richardson, Memoirs 1:227
May 1808 · his appeal to the Synod · on creeds and confessions
“As to the expediency of such, I leave every man to his own judgment… a matter on which… the Scriptures are silent…”
Thomas Campbell, Protest and Appeal · A. Campbell, Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell (1861), p. 14
May 1808 · his appeal to the Synod at Philadelphia
“It is, therefore, because I have no confidence, either in my own infallibility or in that of others, that I absolutely refuse, as inadmissible and schismatic, the introduction of human opinions and human inventions into the faith and worship of the Church.”
Richardson, Memoirs 1:227
The Judgment
Communion · Article 2
“It is erroneous… to assert that a church has no divine warrant for holding Confessions of Faith as terms of communion.”
Priesthood · Article 3
“It is erroneous… to assert that it is the duty of ruling elders to pray and exhort publickly in vacant congregations.”
Freedom of Conscience · Article 4
“It is erroneous… to assert that it is warrantable for the people of our communion to hear ministers that are in a stated opposition to our testimony.”
The Synod’s answer
“he was accordingly rebuked and admonished by the Mod’r”
He submitted — as “no more… than an act of deference to the judgment of the court.”
Minutes of the Associate Synod, May 1808
“…had they possessed the power, he would have suffered martyrdom at their hands, or, as he expressed it, that ‘nothing but the law of the land had kept his head upon his shoulders.’”
Richardson, Memoirs 1:219–220
The Break
September 1808
“It is with sincere reluctance… that I find myself in duty bound to refuse submission to their decision as unjust and partial… And I hereby do decline all ministerial connection with, or subjection to, the Associate Synod of North America.”
Thomas Campbell, 13–14 September 1808 · Chartiers Presbytery, Burgettstown
The Grove
“Sometimes the deep shade of a maple grove sheltered the assembly from the summer sun. Generally, however, the houses of his old Irish neighbors… were the places where he had his appointments for preaching, and where he discoursed weekly to all who chose to assemble.”
Richardson, Memoirs 1:231
What did they stand for?
That fall they asked him to write down what they stood for
“The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one; consisting of all those in every place that profess their faith in Christ…”
Next week: the Declaration and Address.
Declaration and Address, 1809
Idea 1 of 6
The unity movement did not begin in America.
Idea 2 of 6
They divided over hospitality, not doctrine.
Idea 3 of 6
Unity rose from below; division was enforced from above.
Idea 4 of 6
He trusted ordinary believers with the table, the pulpit, and their own ears.
Idea 5 of 6
“Thus saith the Lord” was a check on new boundaries — not a test for other people’s worship.
Idea 6 of 6
They stood for the universal church.
◆ for discussion
What is beautiful here? What do we carry forward?
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Sources and other information can be found on the site.
Alexander and the Sea
October 1808 — His family sailed
Sep 20The family sets out for Londonderry. The Hibernia is not ready; they wait eight days.
Oct 1The Hibernia sails, firing her ten cannon in farewell.
Oct 2Out into the Atlantic — then anchored again off Inishowen.
Oct 3Contrary winds off Malin Head. They run before the gale all night.
Oct 4The coast of Scotland. They anchor in Loch Indaal, on Islay, and wait for wind.
Oct 7Evening. Alexander wakes from a dream.
Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, A Shipwreck off a Rocky Coast Not the Hibernia, and not Islay
That night, a gale blew in.
The shipwreck · on the broken mast
“He thought of his father’s noble life… and resolved that, if saved from the present peril, he would certainly spend his entire life in the ministry of the gospel.”
Everyone survived. Stranded ten months, Alexander spent the winter at the University of Glasgow.
Richardson, Memoirs 1:101–02
1 · Article 4 · Glasgow, winter 1808–09
He went to hear other preachers.
Above all Greville Ewing — fifteen hundred people in a converted circus.
The very thing his father was convicted for: “occasional hearing.”
2 · Articles 2 & 3 · at Ewing’s house
Ewing told him the story of the Haldanes.
Two Scottish laymen who began preaching the gospel without ordination.
James Haldane was arrested at the instigation of the clergy.
What Alexander came to want
“…an entire emancipation from the control of domineering Synods and General Assemblies.”
Richardson, Memoirs 1:189
3 · The table · Glasgow, spring 1809
The communion season came. He was examined, and given the token.
Eight hundred communicants. Eight or nine tables. He waited for the last one.
Why he hesitated
“His conscientious misgivings as to the propriety of sanctioning any longer, by participation, a religious system which he disapproved, and, on the other hand, his sincere desire to comply with all his religious obligations, created a serious conflict in his mind, from which he found it impossible to escape.”
Richardson, Memoirs 1:189
“…the ring of the token, falling upon the plate, announced the instant at which he renounced Presbyterianism for ever — the leaden voucher becoming thus a token not of communion but of separation.”
Richardson, Memoirs 1:190
Family Reunion
19 October 1809 · the road into Washington, Pennsylvania
Thomas rode out to meet them.
On the ride back he told his son everything: the trial, the rebuke — and that he had left the Seceders.
On the road
“…instead of fearing opposition from him to the views to which he had himself been definitely brought while in Glasgow, he found him already, though by a somewhat different method, led practically to the very same conclusions.”
Richardson, Memoirs 1:220
The father opened the table to people who had no token.
The son held a valid token, and would not use it.
Neither knew.
That fall they asked him to write down what they stood for
“The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one; consisting of all those in every place that profess their faith in Christ…”
Next week: the Declaration and Address.
Declaration and Address, 1809
Addendum
Open Communion
What is open communion?
A working definition
The Lord’s Supper offered to every believer present — with no church test at the door.
Its opposite is close communion: only members of that church, in good standing, may partake.
Did you know this was part of our practice?
1945
Leroy Brownlow, Why I Am a Member of the Church of Christ · Reason XXIII, “Because of its scriptural teaching and observance of the Lord’s Supper”
On 1 Corinthians 11:28
“…no man or set of men has the right to judge who shall and shall not have the privilege of communion… The self-examination taught in this verse condemns the doctrine of close communion. Each is to examine himself; not somebody else.”
Leroy Brownlow, Why I Am a Member of the Church of Christ, 1945, p. 178
Barton W. StoneCane Ridge, Kentucky. Last week.
Thomas CampbellIreland, then Pennsylvania. Today.
Alexander CampbellHis son. Today, and most weeks after.
