Highlights in Restoration History . . .

STONE’S FOUR KINDS OF UNITY

Barton W. Stone is one of the most admired of our pioneers, not only for his quiet and irenic spirit, but also for his passion for Christian unity. “Let Christian unity be our polar star” was his theme, a motto that has burned in the hearts of our people all these years and one with great depth of meaning. It recognizes that only a united church can win a lost world, and so since our mission is to redeem the world, our guiding star must be a united church.

His genial personality was especially evident in his relation to Alexander Campbell, who was some 15 years his junior. Stone saw that the young reformer had gifts of leadership greater than his own, and so he graciously wrote: “I am constrained, and willingly constrained to acknowledge him the greatest promoter of this reformation of any living man. The Lord reward him!” The reader should note that Stone called their work “this reformation,” which is . the way they viewed their efforts, more than restoration. Stone went so far as to write: “I will not say, there are no faults in brother Campbell; but that there are fewer, perhaps, in him, than any man I know on earth.”

But unity was his consuming theme, even more so than with Campbell, and his involvement in the union between the Christians and Disciples in Lexington in 1832 (Campbell was absent) led him to say: “This union, irrespective of reproach, I view as the noblest act of my life.” He was persuaded that if the principles were followed that were set forth by Campbell that the movement they had begun would never divide. Since we his heirs have been so divisive it is well for us to examine those principles to see where we have failed. Stone’s recognition of four kinds of unity, three of them false and one true, captures at least one of those principles.

Book union. Stone saw that there is no way to unite upon a book as such, not even the Book of all books. When Jesus left this earth, he did not leave a book behind - nor a philosophy or a system of doctrine. He left a united community behind, one filled with the Spirit, who was its helper and comforter. Their unity was a gift of the Spirit within them. They were not united upon a book but a person. Those who are united upon a book, whether it be the Bhagavadgita of Hindus or the Bible of the Jews and Christians, may achieve some sort of conformity of doctrine but it will not be the unity for which Jesus prayed and which is the Spirit’s gift to the church. Two people may see eye to eye on everything in the Bible and still not be joined in heart and mind by the spirit of Christ.

Book unity is creedal, as Stone saw it, providing for an authoritative base in religion, but one that might well starve the heart. While the Scriptures are, of course, vital to the edification of the saints and for the strengthening of the tie that binds, the tie itself must be a Person.

Head union. Mankind has sought in vain for peace in some human philosophy or intellectual system. Wisdom may enlighten but it does not necessarily reconcile. We can get our “heads together” and work out disagreements, perhaps, but unity is not a matter of resolved propositions. Head union may produce peaceful coexistence, as in a marriage, but not the fellowship of the Spirit.

Water union. It is interesting that Stone would list union in baptism as one of the false unities. This may be because of the controversy on that subject during the time of the union between the Stone and Campbell movements, which was effected in spite of their disagreement. Even when they agreed on immersion, this was not real unity, Stone insisted. Seeing certain truths alike is not unity, for unity, being a gift of the Spirit, is a relationship. A mutual acceptance of facts may produce agreement, but only a Person can create relationship.

We may “convert someone on baptism,” but this may be something different from coming to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. While baptism is certainly an “answer” of the conscience set upon pleasing God (1 Pet. 3:21), it is not in itself uniting. Only Jesus makes us one. The indwelling Spirit is one of the promises that attends baptism - “Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38) - but it is the Spirit that creates the oneness, not the act of being baptized.

In being baptized for the remission of sins one can know that he is a Christian, for he has obeyed the ordinance of God that formally demonstrates what God has done inside the person. But it is what God does through the Spirit that makes us one, not what we do.

Fire union. This is the only union that is real unity, Stone believed, for it refers both to man’s spirit and the Holy Spirit. Unity has to do with heart more than mind - the human heart touched by the heart of Christ. Fire union is a matter of feeling, not merely intellectual assent to propositions. The unitist is a person in love, one in a caring relationship with his sisters and brothers and with Jesus.

Back in the 1940’s the national convention of the Disciples of Christ commissioned some of their scholars to make a restudy of their heritage. The statement they eventually made to the convention included a word about the nature of fellowship: “Fellowship among Christians is based on the relation they sustain to Christ. It is, therefore, personal, not organizational; religious - personal commitment to Christ - not theological; moral, not legal. The sole element of constraint is the love of Christ.”

This beautiful statement reflects the best thinking of our heritage on one of the greatest of all subjects, the fellowship of the saints, and it is what Stone meant by fire union. It is a unity that reaches beyond creeds, theology, structures, and party preferences to a personal relation to Jesus Christ. It is fire union in that it reaches the deeper recesses of the human spirit and burns within the soul. --- the Editor

ON HANGING IN

Einstein could not speak until he was four years old, and did not read until he was seven.

Beethoven’s music teacher said that as a composer he was hopeless.

When Thomas Edison was a young boy, his teachers said he was so stupid he could never learn anything.