Bicentennial Notes on Restoration History . . .

THE NOBLEST ACT IN BARTON STONE’S LIFE

When it comes right down to it, most of us would be at a loss in pointing to the noblest thing we’ve ever done. The idea might prove to be a suitable entree to some profitable soulsearching. We might conclude that our more remarkable accomplishment, such as making a lot of money or earning a high degree from a great university or getting a family reared and educated, may not be all that noble after all. One might be successful without being noble. Nobility of behavior points to something far beyond the self-serving things that consume most of our lives.

But it was no problem to Barton Stone. As he grew older he looked back on 1832 as the greatest year of his life, for something happened that year that not only changed his own life, but changed the course of the Restoration Movement in this country. By 1841 he was stricken with paralysis. With only three more years to live he began to pen some biographical notes. Looking back to that event in Lexington, Ky., when the “Christians” of the Stone movement and the “Reformers” of the Campbel1 movement became a united force for the oneness of Christ’s church, he wrote: “This union I view as the noblest act of my life.”

Stone not only founded our Movement at old Cane Ridge back in 1804, while Alexander Campbel1 was yet a 16-year old lad back in Ireland, but he also united the Movement at Lexington in 1832, while Campbell was doing other things up in Bethany. Neither event was al1 that sudden or all that simple, but it was Stone’s concern for renewal that gave the Movement its birth in the revival fires of Cane Ridge, and it was his passion for unity that gave cohesion to two concurrent reformation efforts, influences that might otherwise have spent themselves into oblivion. That the “Stoneites” and “Campbe1ites” could ever get together as they did is a lesson of unity in diversity that we, their heirs, have too soon forgotten, if indeed we ever really learned it.

Stone’s passion for the unity of God’s people may wel1 be the most dramatic fact in our exciting history. He was the right man with the right idea at the right time. He saw unity as the very essence of the Christian faith. This is why the Christ gave up heaven and took upon himself earthly poverty, to make men one in the Father. The purpose of the gospel is to make men brothers, not to divide them into warring sects. Some years after his death, John Rogers said of him: “He hailed with enthusiastic joy the least indications of a growing spirit of forbearance and brotherly love among the different denominations. For in the universal prevalence of the spirit of union among Christians, he saw the monster, sin, dethroned and the world converted.”

This conviction gave birth to one of the great mottoes of our Movement: “Let Christian unity be our polar star.” It is most insightful in that it recognizes that unity is more of a means in God’s plan than as an end in itself. This is the point of our Lord’s prayer for the oneness of his disciples. They were to be one so that the world will believe. Stone recognized that a divided church could never win a lost world. The union of believers, their love for each other as brothers and sisters, will guide us in the mission we have as God’s church: to manifest to a sin cursed world the love of Jesus.

He makes one point about the sin of division that is especially noteworthy, (and this is a characteristic of the founders of our Movement: they rediscovered the horrid sin of partyism), and that is that its real cause is pride. Party pride. Creedal pride. Institutional pride. The pride of being right and exclusive and superior. John Rogers describes Stone’s last addresses on his last journey before going home. He told his people that the object of his life had been to unite the people of God, that he considered this the greatest work that man can do upon this earth. Says Rogers of the venerable saint: “He reminded them, that if they would promote the unity and purity of the church, they must be humble. That pride had been the bane of union in al1 ages. That under the influence of pride men become selfish, self-willed, ambitious, resolved to make to themselves a great name, to make a party and stand at the head of it.” Stone emphasized the point that humility always tends to promote unity in that it disposes one to look after the happiness of others, while pride prompts us to esteem ourselves better than others.

There must have been something about Stone’s bearing, that inner being that illumined his whole personality (Aristotle would cal1 it ethos) that caused the party spirit to scringe in his presence. Something like a foulmouthed reviler controlling his tongue while in company with people so different from himself. When Stone moved to Jacksonville, Illinois a few years after the union in 1832, he found two congregations, one after the Campbell tradition and the other after Stone. His very presence seemed to have cohesive power. Partyism could only blush and be ashamed in the face of such a holy man. He would not join either one, nor would he rest in peace until they caught the spirit of Lexington. They soon became one congregation, working together in love, despite their differences.

The difference between Stone and most of us who are the heirs of what he began is that he really believed that partyism is a sin against God and that Jesus’ prayer for unity can be realized by his disciples if they truly want that prayer answered. He saw unity as God’s gift to the church through His indwelling Holy Spirit. This can be ours if we really want it. But we today talk about how we have “restored the church to its pristine purity” and that we and we alone are “the New Testament church,” and that the answer to division is for everybody else to line up with us. This is not the unity of the Spirit, nor was it the plea that gave zest to our Movement. It is rather an inane and arrogant demand for conformity. Stone would blush in the face of such trifle. The movements that he made into one, by turning men’s hearts to the Spirit of God, was by no means predicated upon doctrinal agreement. In the face of substantial differences, some of which they never resolved, they became one congregation of Christ. They put into practice what reformers had been saying since Luther: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love.”

A brief outline of events leading up to the union of 1832 would be as follows:

1. In 1804, Stone and other Presbyterian preachers denounced all sectism, thus leaving the Presbyterian Church and becoming Christians only. Unable to find anyone to immerse them on simple biblical grounds, they baptized each other. They formed an independent presbytery, made up of some seven congregations, but this they soon dissolved, giving birth to The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery, in which they willed that their society should die and be swallowed up in the Body of Christ at large. It is one of the great documents of our history.

2. From 1804 until the late 1820’s this group, calling themselves simply Christians, grew slowly but substantially throughout Kentucky. They may have grown to as many as 10,000 by 1830. Barton Stone was the leader, and he suffered much persecution from his Presbyterian friends because of his innovative movement. He was later to say, somewhat humorously, that he especially welcomed association with Alexander Campbell since he could take a lot of calumny that had been his alone to bear. They were often dubbed as “Stoneites.”

3. At this time the “Christians” knew little or nothing of the “Reformers” that were associated with the Campbells. The Campbell movement began in 1809 in Pennsylvania and grew almost imperceptibly for the first 15 years, having only three or four congregations. We have seen that it was as part of the Mahoning Association of Baptist Churches in the Western Reserve (part of Ohio) and the evangelism of Walter Scott that the movement began to flower.

4. The Campbell movement grew very rapidly in the late 1820’s, moving on down into Kentucky, and they probably numbered about 12,000 by 1830. They were mostly Baptists “Reformed Baptists” — and they immersed thousands as they moved across the frontier, but they never re-immersed Baptists. As they grew stronger and bolder they were gradually “withdrawn from,” as it were, by the regular Baptists, and so they found themselves a separate communion. They generally called themselves Disciples of Christ and Churches of Christ.

5. It was now that the “Christians” and “Reformers” began to make contact with each other, for in some cases they would have congregations in the same frontier towns and cities. Stone now lived in Georgetown, Ky., as did John T. Johnson, who left Congress to become an evangelist among the Disciples, influenced as he was by Alexander Campbell, who had begun his forays into Kentucky in 1824. It was that year that Campbell and Stone first met. Raccoon John Smith, whose story we have recounted, also enters the picture as this point, becoming a “Reformed Baptist” under Campbell’s influence. He too was a principal character in the union of the groups.

6. It was Stone and Johnson who put together the first “unity meeting” in our Movement’s history there in Georgetown where they were neighbors. For four days their folk met together and resolved to become one people together in the Lord. That was over the Christmas holidays, 1831. A few days later, over the New Year’s weekend, a larger and more extensive gathering was held in Lexington, and so they began the new year, 1832, as a united movement “to unite the Christians in all the sects.”

It was this that they had most in common. A desire to make God’s people one on the basis of the scriptures alone, apart from the creeds and opinions of men. Both groups were immersionists, but the “Christians” did not see baptism as being for the remission of sins, as did the “Reformers.”

With Stone religion was more “experimental” than it was with Campbell, and something akin to the mourner’s bench continued to be common among them. Nor had Stone yet accepted a weekly serving of the Supper, as the Campbells had from the very first Lord’s Day at old Brush Run (even before they accepted immersion), influenced as they were by the Scottish reformers in the world from which they had come.

But only two differences were monumental enough to threaten the proposed union. The Stone people feared that the Campbellites had too much head religion and not enough heart, and they were strongly suspicious of their views on the work of the Holy Spirit. The Campbellites in return had serious misgivings about Stone’s speculations about “the Trinity,” especially in reference to the old Arian controversy on the pre-existence of Christ. They accused Stone of believing that the Christ was a created being and therefore not eternal with the Father. But it was his speculative and metaphysical turn of mind that most alarmed them, and they feared he would infiltrate the ranks with such opinions, the very thing they were seeking to escape.

It was here that Stone showed his magnanimity. Realizing that he had been too speculative in his handling of scripture, he resolved to cool it. He went on record as agreeing that there is but one thing necessary insofar as faith is concerned, for union in Christ, and that is believing that Jesus is the Son of God. And there is but one act that is required for entrance into the fellowship of the church, and that is immersion. Campbell had long stressed this believing the one fact, obeying the one act as the basis of fellowship, and Stone accepted it. Stone, however, never really believed in baptism as “essential to salvation,” the view that eventually emerged among the Campbellites, though Campbell himself avoided stating the idea that strongly. Stone’s definition of a Christian will interest you: “Whoever acknowledges the leading truths of Christianity, and conforms his life to that acknowledgment, we esteem a Christian.”

It is appropriate to state here that the leaders of our Movement, beginning with Stone and Campbell, have never been of the same interpretation in reference to baptism. It is also noteworthy that it was no “discovery of the truth about baptism” that launched the Movement. The Campbells began out of concern for a divided church, and Alexander concedes that the doctrine of baptism for remission of sins came along 15 years later — and 12 years after his own immersion! Stone states that when he first met Campbell in 1824 only two differences appeared important to him: that Campbell believed in baptism for remission of sins and “weekly communion.” He came to accept both, he says, albeit he never came to emphasize baptism as did Campbell. So his movement was also initiated by a desire for the union of all believers, apart from human names and creeds. Along the way, he was immersed out of obedience to Christ, but baptism never became the hallmark of the Movement in these early years.

We will leave it to the reader to decide whether either Barton Stone or Alexander Campbell, neither of whom was baptized for the remission of sins (as they saw it, at least) could be “fellowshipped” by their congregations in our day.

One can but admire the pragmatism that went along with the idealism that led to that union in Lexington. Stone invited John T. Johnson to join him as co-editor of the Christian Messenger, which served to symbolize the union. Raccoon John Smith not only wrote his “Address to the Brethren” in which he pled for forbearance of differences, but he joined John Rogers in riding horseback from congregation to congregation, uniting them in practice as well as in theory. I t was a task masterfully accomplished, and it surely stands as the noblest chapter in our history. The Movement really did become one, despite all its diversity. That is why Stone was able to effect the union of those two churches in Illinois that had not yet caught the message. We Disciples are a united people working for the union of all God’s church That was the message, and they all climbed aboard.

Love and forbearance were the rule by which they walked. Stone graciously stepped into the shadows when Campbell’s star arose, acknowledging him as the leader of the Movement even though Campbell was younger and later on the scene. He assured his people that Campbell was a true man of God, one with fewer faults than any man he knew. Campbell in turn accepted Stone as his dear brother in the Lord, despite misgivings about his views on the nature of Christ’s preexistence.

A few years later, in his debate with Rice, Campbell leveled a few charges at speculative theologians, including some in his own Movement. He mentioned Dr. Thomas and Barton Stone in particular, stating that he did not approve of some of Stone’s positions. It was something he did not have to say. He soon got a letter from Kentucky, signed by 12 evangelists and elders, including John Rogers and J. A. Gano, expressing regret that such remarks about brother Stone were being published to the world, and graciously reprimanding him as if to say, We Disciples are a united people and don’t do those things. Remember? Campbell did not contest their complaint.

In that letter to Campbell those twelve men penned a paragraph that must stand as among the greatest we have ever published: “It was not your joining brother Stone as a leader, nor his joining you as such; but all rallying in the spirit of gospel truth, liberty and love, around the one glorious center of attraction — Christ Jesus: thus out of two, making one New body, not Campbellites or Stoneites, but Christians; and so making peace. May it long continue to bless our land.”

John Rogers was confident that the Movement would continue in the spirit of Lexington and never divide. No one “came over” to anybody’s side. No one surrendered any truth. No one was even asked to give up any opinions he held, but only to make sure he held his opinions as private property and not make them tests of communion. They united upon the “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” — the essentials. In nonessentials they resolved to leave each man free. In all things they practiced love and forbearance.

And so wrote John Rogers after describing the union of the two groups: “We trust in God that no such disaster as that of division shall ever befall us. Nor can it, if we are true to our cause.” He went on to say that if the principles of unity as set forth by Campbell and Stone are adhered to the Movement will never divide, and it will go on “to be a great blessing to Christendom and to the world.”

And so it was right on through the Civil War. While others divided, our people did not. This caused Moses E. Lard to write in his Quarterly, just after the bloody conflict, that the Restoration Movement would never divide now that it had endured that awful war still as one people.

But John Rogers passed along to us that qualifying clause - if we are true to our cause. And there’s the rub!

Stone and Campbell united on the basis of belief in the one fact (Jesus is the Christ) and obedience to the one act (immersion). Nothing else. Opinions, deductions, interpretations or speculations about scripture cannot be made tests of fellowship. We can differ about a lot of things and still be one.

We are now divided 15 or 20 different ways, and in doing so we have betrayed a sacred trust. John Rogers would shame us for forgetting the spirit of Georgetown and Lexington. Barton Stone would say that we have taken our eyes off the polar star and thus lost our direction. Campbell would say that we have l11issed the point of the Movement in that we make the distinctive features of our own sects the basis of union, the very thing the Movement was trying to correct.

We might turn Rogers’ and Lard’s prophecy about not dividing around and say that we will never again be united until we return to those grand old truths that gave birth to our Movement. “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, love.” And they spelled that out for us. There is no way to miss it. It is a question of whether we want what they wanted. They became one because they had a passion for unity and because they believed the Lord’s prayer for a united church could be realized in their lives and among their churches. When we have their passion and their faith, we too will find the way.

“It was the noblest act of my life,” said the stricken and venerable Barton W. Stone, as he looked back over the years.

May God put it into our hearts and into our churches to seek that same nobility in our lives. When it is all over for us, and we look back over the years, what shall we say about this, the grandest theme man can contemplate, the unity of God’s people. What will we have done? How noble will it be? —the Editor