In Memoriam: Barton W. Stone . . .

“LET CHRISTIAN UNITY BE OUR POLAR STAR”

Barton W. Stone was born 200 years ago this Christmas Eve. It is appropriate that he be honored as an apostle of religious freedom and as a founding father of the Restoration Movement. In 1831 at Lexington, Ky. he helped to effect a union between “Disciples” and “Christians” that became the first major merger of churches in the American ecumenical movement, and uniting as it did those confluences in Virginia and Kentucky that were dedicated to the task of uniting the Christians in all the sects, thus placing all the heirs of the Restoration Movement in his debt.

Born in Port Tobacco, Maryland, he and his seven brothers and one sister suffered through the trying years of the Revolutionary War. But he was able to get a good education for a youth of his time, studying at Guilford Academy, a one-man institution that was conducted by a graduate of a famous log cabin school that was later named Princeton University.

Though apparently inclined toward the clergy, he never seemed to square with the status quo. When ordained by the Presbyterians in 1798 he was asked if he accepted the Westminster Confession of Faith. “I do as far as I can see it consistent with the word of God,” was his sincere reply, prophetic of the theological upheaval that was to characterize his life. His first charge was to minister to two churches in rural Kentucky, Concord and Cane Ridge.

It was at Cane Ridge that the great revival took place that eventually changed the direction of Stone’s life. The American frontier was secularistic and atheistic, with interest in religion at a low water mark. Even the church had largely imbibed the carnal spirit of the new world. The time was ripe for what is now known as the Great Awakening, beginning in New England with Jonathan Edwards and following the frontier west. On the eve of great revivals in his own area Stone observed: “Apathy in religious societies appeared everywhere to an alarming degree. Not only the power of religion had disappeared, but also the very form of it was waning fast away.”

The revivals served as an antidote for such apathy, for they were phenomenal in nature and so demonstrative of the power of the Holy Spirit that the rankest of sinners were led to repentance. What Stone say “on the edge of a prairie” in Logan county, Ky, “baffled description,” as he put it. At the preaching of the Word many fell. to the ground as if dead, remaining there for hours” Then would come signs of life, with groans and piercing shrieks along with prayers for mercy. Even children spoke with eloquence and wisdom in declaring the wonderful works of God and the glorious mysteries of the gospel. “Their appeals were solemn, heart-penetrating, bold and free” Stone testified. He believed it was of God, providentially ushered in for the purpose of reformation, even though. there was much fanaticism associated with it that he rejected.

The Cane Ridge revival took place in the summer of 1801, attracting 25,000 people, For five days and nights as many as seven preachers, representing several denominations, would address the multitudes at the same time at different parts of the camp, without confusion, Multitudes turned to the Lord. Stone described sinners responding to the gospel with various exercises known as the jerks, falling, dancing and laughing, and even barking. One infidel, a friend of Stone, approached him amidst such demonstration and reproached him for deceiving the people with such antics. Stone responded with a few gentle words, pitying the man for his implacability, At which point the man fell immediately as if dead, and rose no more until he had confessed the Lord.

We give this background so as to point out that it was out of such a Holy Spirit revival that the Restoration Movement in Kentucky was launched. It may appear odd to us now, a people known for our negative reaction to such experiences in the Spirit, that the Cane Ridge congregation, which may well be viewed as the first Church of Christ in America, began amidst a Holy Spirit revolution with such attending phenomena as jerks, shouts and faintings. It was in the heart of this revival that Stone stood in the Cane Ridge pulpit and urged Mark 16:16 upon the hearers.

Such goings on did not set well with Presbyterian officialdom, so Stone found himself at variance with his presbytery. Desiring to be a free man in Christ, one with the liberty to pursue truth wherever it may lead, Stone decided to withdraw from the Transylvania presbytery and organize his own. The old presbytery sent a committee to counsel with him, hoping to save him for Presbyterianism, only to have him convert some of the committee to his position! Finally Stone is excluded from the synod, the next highest court in the Presbyterian judicatory, along with several other ministers who had joined him. They formed the Springfield presbytery, which included the several churches ministered to by the preachers involved.

Stone and his followers rejected party names and sectarian creeds, adopting the name Christian; Stone believing this to be a divinely-appointed name for believers. Even so they saw that their own presbytery was prone to be sectarian in that it separated them from the body of Christ at large. So they drew up The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery, in which they said: “We will that this body die, be dissolved, and sink into union with the Body of Christ at large; for there is but one body, and one Spirit, even as we are called in one hope of our calling.”

The Stone group, now known throughout Kentucky simply as “Christians,” continued to grow, with several new congregations being formed. While they had turned from sectarian names and creeds and accepted only the Bible as the rule of faith and practice, and were committed to the union of all believers, they had not yet become immersionists. Committed to the scriptures as they were, these former Presbyterian preachers resolved that they should be immersed. The Baptists were unwilling to immerse them unless they resolved to become Baptists, so they proceeded to immerse each other. They did not, however, think of baptism in reference to remission of sins until some years later when Alexander Campbell entered the scene. Stone was later to recall how in these early years he had made periodic reference to Acts 2:38 and Mk. 16:16, but that the full import of such scriptures awaited the influence of Campbell.

The Stone wing of the Movement was, therefore, some 20 years older than Campbell’s. When Stone and his fellow Presbyterian ministers were working their way out of the morass of sectarianism in Kentucky, Alexander Campbell was still a teenager back in Ireland. By 1809, the year Campbell arrived in this country, the Stone movement was well underway, and another 15 years were to pass before Campbell and Stone were to meet. These facts should help to correct a common misunderstanding, which is that the Restoration Movement began with Alexander Campbell.

But once the electrifying influence of Campbell began to spread, the Stoneites (known as “Christians”) and Campbellites (known as Reformed Baptists or Disciples) began to recognize that they had a great deal in common and that they should be one people. John T. Johnson, a congressman before he became an evangelist under the influence of Campbell (finally baptizing 10,000 souls!), was a neighbor to Barton Stone in Georgetown, Ky., and it was through the passion that these men had for the oneness of the church that the Restoration Movement was united.

Preliminary discussions were conducted in Georgetown between a small group of leaders from both groups. But it was over the Christmas holidays of 1831 in Lexington that the union was finally consummated. Besides Johnson and Stone, the other leaders in the union included Raccoon John Smith, John Rogers, and John A. Gano. Consolidation of the union was assured by John Rogers, from the Stone churches, and Raccoon John Smith, from the Campbell churches, being appointed to visit together among the congregations so as to encourage fellowship. The union was further symbolized by Johnson and Stone serving as co-editors of the Christian Messenger.

Probably no man in our history has been as dedicated to the cause of unity as Barton Stone. Division to him was a grievous and inexcusable sin. When he moved from Georgetown to Jacksonville, Ill., he found the Movement divided into a Stoneite church and a Campbellite church, the groups indifferent to what had happened at Lexington a few years before. He would not identify with either of them until they became one congregation, which they did. If more of our leaders through the years had demonstrated this kind of intolerance to the idiocy of factionalism, we might well have avoided the many divisions that have occurred in our ranks.

It is ironic that a Movement that began as an effort to unite the Christians in all the sects should itself become the most divisive of any persuasion in Christendom. It would be like Quakers evolving into bitter warmongers or like Pentecostals becoming apathetic to the call to holiness. Not only did our pioneers preach unity, they also practiced it. The union effected at Lexington could only have occurred among people who were prepared to accept each other despite differences and to honor the right of private judgment.

The Stoneites saw the Campbell groups as woefully negligent of the work of the Holy Spirit and as too legalistic on baptism, Stone complaining as he did that many of the Campbell people would not accept disciples as Christians unless they are aware of being immersed for the remission of sins. Too, Campbell’s coolness toward the name Christian, believing it was but a term of derision applied to disciples by pagans, disturbed Stone no little.

The Campbell wing, on the other hand, saw the Stone folk as far too speculative, and much to enamored with such theological questions as the incarnation and the atonement. And Campbell and Stone even found time to do some debating on these issues. Too, the Campbellites were far too rationalistic for the Stoneites. while the Stoneites were too “heart felt” for the Campbellites.

They had reasons enough to remain separated, and surely their differences were greater than many of those that keep the Movement divided today. The point is that they loved one another, a love that transcended the differences, a love that binds everything together in perfect harmony, as the apostle Paul puts it. Too, they realized that only a united church can lead the world to Christ, and they believed that their two groups shared in common those principles upon which the body of Christ could preserve the unity of the Spirit.

The magnanimity of Barton Stone had a lot to do with making the union possible. He was 16 years older than Campbell, and it was he, not Campbell, that had launched the movement to restore New Testament Christianity. Had he loved being the champion of a party more than he desired the oneness of Christ’s body, he easily could have obstructed the rise of Campbell and taken those steps to preserve his own imminence. Many a leader since Stone has created or preserved a party for the sake of self-aggrandizement. But like John the Baptist looked upon the Christ, Stone saw in Campbell the leader that the Movement needed, and he was willing to decrease so that Campbell and the work of reformation might increase.

“I will not say there are no faults in brother Campbell,” wrote Stone in his autobiography, “but that there are fewer, perhaps, in him, than any man I know on earth; and over those few my love would throw a veil and hide them from view forever.” He graciously adds: “I am constrained, and willingly constrained to acknowledge him the greatest promoter of this reformation of any man living. The Lord reward him!”

He is greater than I! It is rare for one leader to say that about another, but then it is rare for party men to surrender their parties and seek the union that is in the Christ.

Campbell reciprocated by showing love and tenderness toward Stone, even amidst their controversies. When Stone entertained what Campbell saw as injurious opinions about the preexistence of Christ, he would write to Stone, insisting that he was “Brother Stone” and was accepted and loved as a brother since he looked to Jesus as the Lord of his life, whatever his view of the incarnation.

Stone and Campbell were able to effect a union because they both accepted the premise that personal opinions cannot be made the basis of fellowship. They insisted that the ground of fellowship is belief in the one grand proposition that Jesus is Lord and obedience to that one institution, immersion.

Stone was indeed the forerunner in our current efforts to unite the Restoration Movement. Once the Union was realized in 1831 in Lexington, he expressed the hope that the Movement would never again divide. How his brave old heart would be grieved to know that since his time we have divided upteen different ways. Unlike Stone who would not rest when he moved into a town and found two Restoration churches, we arc complacent as we reside in communities with six or eight different kinds of our congregations, none in fellowship with the others. The concerned and passionate soul of Barton W. Stone should be the conscience of us all as we celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth.

“This union I view as the noblest act of my life,” he said of the miracle at Lexington. May the mantle of his love for the unity of the body fall upon us today. Let us too realize that there is no work nobler than being a peacemaker in the divided ranks of God’s people. “Let Christian unity be our polar star,” was Barton Stone’s constant cry. It was the rule and passion of his own life. And it reflects the right attitude toward unity, that it is a means to a much larger end rather than an end itself. Jesus prayed that the disciples would be one so that the world will believe. This is the glorious end of the union of believers, that the world will be led to the Christ. An ecumenicity that is an end in itself can only produce a vacuous institutional union, a super-church of some sort. Oneness of faith does not call for a conformity to a single super-church or an identity to some rigid doctrinal pattern. Congregations may well remain diverse, whether cultural or doctrinal, and still be one together in the Lord accepting and loving each other as fellow heirs of the promises.

Mariners watch the polar star for guidance to the goal in view. Stone saw that unity of believers is the road by which we reach the heart of an unbelieving world. A divided church contradicts the very message of love it proclaims. But when the world sees that believers love each other even when they do not agree, it is impressed. Jesus assures us that men will be convinced that we are disciples when they see our love for one another. This is our polar star. — the Editor