Highlights in Restoration History . . .

OUR FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST
WAS A BAPTIST CHURCH

While in this essay I refer to the Brush Run Church, founded by Thomas and Alexander Campbell in 1811, as the first Church of Christ, it is to be understood that I am referring only to the Campbell wing of the Movement. The Barton W. Stone churches were Churches of Christ before the Campbells came on the scene, as were those churches started by the Republican Methodists under the leadership of James O'Kelly and Rice Haggard as early as 1794, reformers who eventually became "Christians only" and called themselves Christian Churches or Churches of Christ.

Since the Campbell influence eventually predominated and became the mainstream of the growing Movement, it is understandable that Brush Run would be looked to as the beginning congregation.

I will also be forgiven for not going back to 33 A.D. and the Jerusalem church as our first church. If I were speaking ecumenically or of the church universal, I would of course go back to Pentecost, for that is the original birthplace of all who profess to be disciples of Jesus Christ and members of his Body. But if other denominations trace their origins back to such places as Geneva, Oxford, and Wittenberg (and not Jerusalem!), it is appropriate for us to recognize that we as Churches of Christ-Christian Churches also have our origin as a denomination distinct from others. So we go back to Bethany and Brush Run.

This mental quirk of ours that supposes we can ignore two thousand years of history and thus identify ourselves as the only true successor of the original church — even to engraving "Established 33 A.D." on our cornerstones — caught the eye of an enterprising history buff. He saw such a cornerstone on a Church of Christ in Eastland, Texas. Years later he took a friend by to see this phenomenon, only to learn that the church had erected a new building and the cornerstone was not put into the new structure (Real progress, I'd say!). Not satisfied, the man recovered the old cornerstone from a landfill, and arranged for it to be stored at Texas Christian University as a kind of relic of the past. Unfortunately, the mentality that was once engraved on cornerstones has not been completely erased from our minds.

The Churches of Christ-Christian Churches as we know them today did not exist in the first century nor for almost 1800 years thereafter. We grew out of a 19th century reformation-unity movement led by Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone. Not only is it wise for us to recognize what is an obvious historical fact, but to learn the lessons that our own history can teach us — if we will but heed those lessons!

If ever you have opportunity to visit Bethany, which is not far from either Washington, Pa. or Wheeling, W. Va., you can also visit the site of the old Brush Run Church, which is only a few miles away. The area is now fenced off and is suitable for picnics and pilgrimages, but there is no church there. The old building, once the congregation moved into Bethany in about 1827, was moved and used as a blacksmith shop for a time. Some history buffs, realizing its significance, eventually recovered some of the lumber and it is now stored in Bethany. It might one day be restored but we don't know for sure what it looked like.

But there are some interesting facts about our first church that might stimulate our thinking as to who we should be in the 1980's.

1. The Campbells did not intend to start a church. They had created the Christian Association of Washington (Pa.) as a unity effort among all the denominations, and its members remained in their own churches. But because of "the continued hostility of the different parties," as Robert Richardson puts it in the Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, Thomas Campbell at last felt compelled to do what he was reluctant to do, start an independent church. So on May 4, 1811, the Brush Run Church was organized.

2. Our people have always struggled with what name to use, and it was no different at Brush Run. It was first called First Church of the Christian Association of Washington, but eventually Church of Christ was used, the name that is still engraved in stone above the door of the church they afterward erected in Bethany, which has recently been renovated and open to visitors. Too, when the Brush Run Church started a church in Wellsburg in 1823, with 32 of its members serving as charter members, including Alexander and Margaret Campbell and a young woman named Selina Bakewell who five years later would become the second Mrs. Campbell upon the death of Margaret, it was named as a Church of Christ.

3. When Brush Run was first organized and for some months afterward there was not a single member that had been baptized by immersion. When three members requested immersion, Thomas Campbell accommodated them by dipping them as he knelt on a root. Afterwards critics of the Campbells poked fun at this, referring to it as "root baptism." This odd incident may be due more to Campbell's ignorance of how people were usually immersed, having never seen an instance of it, than to his reluctance to get into the water himself. The following year, 1812, both of the Campbells and their wives, along with other members at Brush Run, were immersed by a Baptist minister. At the outset Brush Run accepted people on the basis of their being baptized by sprinkling, and would immerse only those who had not been baptized at all. Eventually however it became an immersionist church. Those who could not accept immersion only left the church.

4. Oddly enough, as much as Thomas Campbell eschewed anything sectarian at this time, he devised a creedal statement that was used as a basis of membership. It read, "What is the meritorious cause of a sinner's acceptance with God?" Only two prospective members could not give a satisfactory response and their membership was postponed. But this test question was soon dropped, due largely to the objection of Alexander Campbell.

5. The Brush Run Church was considered a Baptist church as long as it existed, belonging as it did to the Redstone Baptist Association. And Alexander Campbell was recognized as a Baptist minister, even if different, at least until the "Reformed Baptists," as they were called, became a separate group known as Disciples of Christ in 1832. It is noteworthy that the Campbells always endeavored to align their earliest congregations with some denominational association. Thomas Campbell even wanted his Christian Association of Washington associated with the Presbyterians, but they would not accept it. Their second church in Wellsburg belonged to the Mahoning Baptist Association, and their third church in Pittsburgh applied to the Redstone but was rejected. The Baptists must have figured that one maverick church was enough. But still the Campbells always sought denominational affiliation.

6. The Campbells believed in a formal ordination to office even from the outset, and the Brush Run Church formally ordained Alexander Campbell to the ministry. Thomas Campbell served as the only elder and there were four deacons. Plurality of elders came later.

7. From the very first Sunday, before they had a building and met under the trees, they observed the Lord's supper each Lord's day. They were influenced in this by the reformatory efforts of the Haldanes back in the old world from which they came.

These historical facts about the first Church of Christ pose some searching questions for us today, especially in reference to unity and fellowship. We can ask, first of all, if Brush Run was a true church when it did not have a single member that was immersed. Were the Campbells Christians before they were immersed? Could we accept the Alexander Campbell that was recognized for years as a Baptist minister? And is it not odd that the first Church of Christ was actually a Baptist church, belonging as it did to a Baptist association of churches? How would a Church of Christ be accepted among us today if it chose to affiliate itself with some denominational fraternity?

Brush Run sets the tone for us in one special way, and that is it learned quickly how to overcome the sectarian spirit. While at first they had a "test question," the correct answer to which gained membership, they soon dropped it as inappropriate, and based membership upon one faith and one baptism rather than theological opinions.

I fear that we have not done so well. We make a "test" over everything from instrumental music and Sunday Schools to premillennialism and speaking in tongues. Our creeds may not be written but they are nonetheless real. Many times I have heard the same story of how visiting Christians were graciously accepted at a Church of Christ until it became known that back home they were members of a Christian Church. That they had an organ in their church back in Ohio affected the way they were treated in a Church of Christ in Texas! And I have been among Christian Church folk when your acceptance depended on what you believed about the inerrancy of Scripture, and I once got myself in real trouble at a Christian Church when I observed that Billy Graham was our brother in the Lord and a member of the Christian church even if a Baptist. They didn't like my definition of the Christian church!

Bully for Brush Run! They started with that kind of nonsense but ceased and desisted when they saw it contradicted their plea for unity among all God's people based on essentials, not opinions. They learned to grow and to glow. A generation later when Alexander Campbell could count hundreds of churches and a quarter of a million members on several continents he looked back to Brush Run as the beginning. He likened those earliest experiences to the acorn that God through the years turned into a mighty oak. -the Editor