The Hope of the Believer . . .

WHICH OF OUR CHURCHES WOULD
CAMPBELL JOIN?  

Am I asked why I am not a party man? or why I do not join a party? I ask in return, Which party would the Apostle Paul join if now on earth? Or, in other words, which party would receive him? — Alexander Campbell  

Alexander Campbell made that statement when he was only 22 years old and belonged to no denomination. Having "walked out" of a Presbyterian sect back in Ireland, he was now in America where he joined his father in a movement to "unite the Christians in all the sects." His father, Thomas Campbell, had come to America two years before his son's arrival, and he also had had such unfortunate experiences with the same Presbyterian party in the new world that he too saw himself as belonging to no sect. It is remarkable that both men saw themselves disenfranchised by their church by experiences involving the Lord's Supper.

Back in Scotland where Alexander was studying at Glasgow University while waiting to join his father in America, he had extra curricular activities that afforded him such intimate contact with reformation movements in that country that he could no longer be the "sublimated Pharisee" that he once described himself as being. The moment of truth came for him on a Sunday afternoon in 1809 when he was waiting to take Communion in a gathering of his Anti-Burgher Seceder Presbyterian Church. He held in his hand a metal token that allowed him to enter the Communion room.

Realizing that the reformers with whom he had been associating would not be allowed to break bread with him since they belonged to a different party, young Campbell dropped the token in the plate and walked out without partaking of Communion. His biographer, Robert Richardson, dates Campbell's own reformation efforts in America from that dramatic event back in Scotland. It was now evident that he could no longer belong to a Presbyterian sect or any other sect. Such was his disposition of mind when he made the above statement about belonging to no sect.

Thomas Campbell had every intention of remaining a Presbyterian when he began his ministry on the growing edge of the American frontier, even though he too had had such ecumenical experiences back in the old world that he had already begun to think in terms of the unity of all Christians. Since preachers were few and far between on the frontier, he sought to serve all believers equally, and this included the serving of the Lord's Supper. When his superiors heard that he was practicing "open" Communion, it set in motion a series of events that led to his expulsion from his denomination.

These circumstances set the stage for the dramatic events that followed, once father and son were united in western Pennsylvania. The same year that Alexander arrived in America Thomas Campbell wrote the Declaration and Address, which one historian has described as "a prospectus of the reformation" that he had begun. He had also organized the Christian Association of Washington as a beachhead for his unity movement. Born full grown as a preacher, Alexander preached his first sermon and began to itinerate among a frontier people, mostly in homes and the out-of-doors. People were saying that he was even a better preacher than his father.

In 1810 they organized their first congregation at Brush Run, though it was not their intention to start another denomination. On the very first Lord's day, before they had a building, they spread the Lord's table under the shade of the great elms that served as their cathedral. From that day until now the people that have their roots in the Campbell movement have not missed a Lord's day breaking bread together.

Alexander married the following year, and when his first child was born he was forced to make a decision about infant baptism, which he had begun to question. His subsequent study of baptism, which included the Greek New Testament, led him not only to discard infant baptism but to submit himself to baptism by immersion. When the time came his father joined him in being immersed. This was some two years after they had founded the Brush Run Church of Christ, which means that while they met in the name of Christ and broke bread each Lord's day it was still an unimmersed congregation, except for a few who had been immersed before the Campbells were. Were they Christians and a true Church of Christ?

The Campbells certainly believed they were Christians (and members of the Church of Christ!) all those years that they were "sprinkled as infants" Presbyterians. This is why they were hesitant to be baptized again, for it looked as if they were "going out of the church only to come back into it," as Thomas put it. But Alexander decided that he had never been scripturally baptized, and so he was immersed strictly on the basis of his confession that Jesus is the Christ, which the Baptist minister who immersed him admitted to be "contrary to Baptist usage but consistent with New Testament practice."

This is where Alexander Campbell was when he made the statement that leads this article. He was not a party man and had joined no party. He had belonged to a party but had left it. While he had formed a congregation after the ancient order as he then understood it (He continued to grow and change), he had no intention of starting another party or denomination.

If we at this juncture transport Alexander Campbell by way of a time tunnel to our situation, we can appropriately ask which of our various segments or fellowships (euphemisms for sects?) would he join? To answer that we should look at his more extended answer to the question he raised back in 1810. "I dare not be a party man for these reasons," he said, and he gave four reasons, as follows:    

1. Because Christ has forbidden me. He has commanded us to keep the "unity of the spirit."   
    

2. Because no party will receive into communion all whom God would receive into heaven. God loves his children more than our creeds, and man was not made for the Bible, but the Bible for man.  
    

3. The man that promotes the interests of a party stands next in guilt to the man that made it.    
    

4. Because all parties oppose reformation. They all pray for it, but they will not work for it.  

It is remarkable that Campbell at such an early age had such a grasp of the principles he was to give his life to, such as his awareness of the sinfulness of division among Christians. The church has been slow to realize that Christ forbids partyism. And he had the Bible in proper perspective, seeing it as a means to an end, not the end itself. "Man was not made for the Bible, but the Bible for man," he recognized, which means that while sectarianism seeks to stretch man to fit its interpretation of the Bible, the peacemaker seeks to adapt the Bible to the needs of man by recognizing that the point of the Bible is to show that God is for man and not against him. And Campbell saw early on what his own life testified to and what all history confirms: Every party will oppose and even persecute its reformers, even while it prays for reformation!

But it is in his second reason that Campbell gives the essence of his plea for unity, which is all the reason anyone needs for not being a party man: No party will receive into communion all whom God would receive into heaven. Campbell is saying that wherever God has a child he has a brother or sister and that he will accept him or her as such. He is saying that a sect receives only those who conform to its party line, rejecting others that God will receive into heaven. So, Campbell is saying that he will join no party because it will not receive all those that God receives.

There we have our answer. We are not true heirs of the unity movement that Campbell launched if we reject any of God's children over our opinions and our particular interpretations of Scripture. When we insist that Christians must sing acappella like we do, speak in tongues like we do, interpret the millennium like we do, see the "marriage question" like we do, serve the Supper precisely as we do, baptize exactly as we do, and conform to all our unique methods and interpretations, allowing for no honest differences of opinion, we are a party and sectarian to the core. And Alexander Campbell would pass us by in his quest for a non-sectarian people.

Some years ago I was giving an address in Murfreesboro, Tn. on our heritage in the Restoration Movement. It was in a neutral location, for even though we had several congregations of the Movement in that city, none felt free to have the likes of me on its premises. (On second thought I recall that I did address the Disciples of Christ the Sunday morning I was in town.) Louis and Bess Cochran, historians of our heritage and Disciples of Christ, were in the audience, and in the open forum that followed my presentation, Louie asked me which of our three churches of the Movement would Alexander Campbell join if he lived today.

I turned the question back on him, wanting to know how he would answer it, being the Campbell scholar that he was (and what a prince of a man he was!). He thought Campbell might join the Churches of Christ since he objected to instrumental music. At this point his wife Bess spoke up, objecting to her husband's conclusion. "I don't think he would have anything to do with any of us, for we have all departed from what he stood for!" And I concluded that there is a time when the woman should have the last word.

But I answer the question in a different way. Campbell viewed the church more in terms of individual Christians and local congregations than he did in terms of denominational bodies. His plea for unity was a unity of believers, not a union of denominations. And I am persuaded that if Alexander Campbell lived in your community he would search out a congregation, irrespective of denomination, that came nearest to exemplifying the freedom of the Christian faith as set forth in his reasons for not being a party man. Even if Campbell joined a party, he would not be a party man, which is where many believers are today, in a party but not of a party.

Alexander Campbell was a forbearing man. He would work with any church that showed a willingness to grow in the grace of God and to manifest the spirit of Christ. He knew that no church is perfect and he was tolerant of those who were innocently in error. He often distinguished between errors of the mind and errors of the heart, and so he could enjoy fellowship with those who are right in heart even if wrong in doctrine. It was this attitude that led him to write as follows about his party spirit earlier in life:  

I was once so straight that, like the Indian's tree, I leaned a little the other way. I was so strict a Separatist that I would neither pray nor sing praises with anyone who was not as perfect as I supposed myself to be. In this most unpopular course I persisted until I discovered the mistake and saw that on the principle embraced  in my conduct, there never could be a congregation or a church upon the earth.

This plan of of making my own nest, and fluttering over my own brood; of building our own tent, and confining all goodness and grace to our noble selves and the "elect few" who are like us, is the quintessence of sublimated pharisaism. (Christian Baptist, 1826)