Restoration or Reformation?. . .

WHAT KIND OF MOVEMENT WAS IT?

Those who read the writings of all three of the churches emanating from the Stone-Campbell heritage, as I do, will notice that we are using the term “Restoration Movement” less and the Stone-Campbell Movement more. I don’t know how much the wide-circulation of my history book that bore that title has to do with it, maybe none, but I am pleased that we are using “Restoration” less. I have argued both in this journal and in my history text that our pioneers were reformers more than restorers, and what they launched was a unity movement more than a restoration movement.

There has been considerable controversy over the thesis I set forth in my history book that restorationism is by its nature divisive, and is largely responsible for our proclivity to divide, over and over again.

In his essay I am making further observations on the subject that may serve to answer my critics and at the same time put the restoration/reformation motifs in clearer perspective.

I will seek first to give a clearer definition of restorationism, sometimes called primitivism, and practiced by such sects as Plymouth Brethren and the Mormons as well as some of our own people. It usually has these beliefs: (1) the true church apostatized and ceased to exist; (2) the many denominations that emerged are false churches and in no way represent the true church; (3) the New Testament provides an exact pattern, a kind of blue print, for the makeup of the church; (4) the true church has been restored in its pristine purity, and we are that church “in name, organization, worship, and practice” or some such attending claim.

I was taught this in a Church of Christ-related college by way of an illustration. Should the game of baseball become extinct for centuries, some future generation could “restore” the game by following the plan outlined in the old book, “The Game of Baseball,” turned up by the spade of an archaeologist. The rules of the game, the shape of the field, the position of the players are all prescribed, so the game would be reproduced precisely as it was played centuries earlier. So it is with the church, I was taught. Even though the true New Testament church ceased to exist, it too can be “restored” by following “the rule book,” the New Testament, that clearly identified the true Church of Christ in detail.

It was something of a shock when I was forced to recognize that the New Testament is not the kind of book that my teachers had led me to believe. There is far too much diversity in the New Testament to make it into a rule book or an exact pattern. If it were all as simple as a baseball manual, with all the details spelled out, there would no disagreements such as we have in the church today. Since the New Testament is not all that simple and lends itself to varying interpretations, it is understandable that we do not see everything alike.

But restorationism demands conformity, with each restorationist arrogating to himself the role of an infallible interpreter. Restorationism thus has a hermeneutics all its own, making the New Testament a collection of documents they were never intended to be. It claims what the New Testament never claims for itself: that we are to do today precisely as the primitive church did. It might be better argued that we are to do for our time what the earliest Christians did for theirs, drawing upon living principles found in the New Testament that are more descriptive than prescriptive.

It is necessary to make some changes as the church progresses through the centuries. Common sense and experience alike show us that there is no way to be a first century church in the twentieth century. And yet the basics of the Christian faith never change, transcending all time and all cultures. But methods and secondary doctrine will change in order to meet the challenge of our kind of world. But restorationism allows for no such diversity. Each restorationist party has its own list of “issues” that cannot change, and these are the reason for its existence as a separate “loyal church.”

Restorationist hermeneutics thus assumes what cannot be proven: that the pattern for “the true church” is spelled out with such clarity that there is little place for diversity, so that a plea for unity when coupled with restoration is hardly more than a demand for conformity. In that it promotes the “loyal church” fallacy restorationism fosters more and more divisions, with each faction convinced that it is the only true church and the only faithful Christians. This is because each faction has a different interpretation on what the New Testament pattern describes.

The reformation tradition, however, holds that the church has always been in need of reform, including the New Testament churches. The church upon earth never has and never will be perfect, so renewal is an ongoing process. But that imperfect church as the Body of Christ has always existed. Just as a sick person is still a person, so the church, however ill it may become, is still the Church of Christ upon earth. The gates of hades will never prevail against it, just as Jesus promised. Reformers are hesitant to judge a “corrupt” church as no longer Christ’s church, just as Paul spoke of the Corinthians as the Body of Christ in spite of their imperfections. The reformer thus calls for repentance and renewal, not for a “restored church” to displace the erring one.

While restorationism has been the dominant motif in the recent history of the Churches of Christ/Christians Churches. it was the reformation motif that dominated our earlier history. The Stone-Campbell Movement, as our heritage may properly be described, was an effort to unite Christians by an appeal to certain renewal and reformatory principles and ideals. It was therefore a unity movement rather than a “Restoration Movement,” a term of more recent vintage, for it was not called this in its early history.

These conclusions are supported by these considerations:

1. There are at least five founding documents of the Stone-Campbell Movement, all of which are unity documents in that they call for the unity of all Christians in one way or another. Only one of the documents, the Declaration and Address by Thomas Campbell, makes any reference to restoration. But Campbell was not a restorationist as above defined or he could have never written in that document what is now the most famous quotation in our history, “The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally and constitutionally one.” He wrote that in 1809 before he launched his movement and before he had his first congregation. So he had no illusion about “restoring the true church” that no longer existed. “The Church of Christ upon earth” was his testimonial that the church then existed and always had since Pentecost. In that same document Campbell refers to the “variety of opinion and practice, without any breach of Christian unity” of the apostolic churches, concluding that the same unity in diversity can obtain today.

2. Barton W . Stone, the founder of the movement, if only one person is named, referred to his “ardent desire for the restoration and glory of the ancient religion of Christ-the religion of love, peace, and union on earth,” (Chris. Mess., 1826, p. 2), a conception of restoration that is universally accepted. I have found no instances in which Stone uses the term in reference to restoring the church itself, as if it did not exist. He rather referred to his and Campbell’s efforts as “this reformation.” He was clearly a reformer, as he was at last described on his tombstone at Cane Ridge. He believed in the inviolability of the church, and he saw himself as continuing in the great tradition of Martin Luther. Unity was his constant theme, his motto being, “Let Christian unity be our polar star.” One would suppose, judging by some interpreters of the movement, that Stone had said, “Let restorationism be our polar star.”

3. Alexander Campbell, the most illustrious figure of the Movement, identified part of his mission as “the restoration of the ancient order,” by which he particularly referred to restoring the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper to the modem church. Since he recognized that the church has always existed, even though imperfect, he sought to restore the ancient order to the church, not the church itself. Like his father and like Stone, he believed in the indestructibility of the church. This is why he believed there were Christians in other churches, which he referred to as “other denominations,” indicating his reluctance to see his own people as “the only true church” and all others as false. Campbell sometimes used restoration and reformation as synonyms, but he referred to his mission as “the New Reformation” and often wrote on “Principles of Reform.” When his young colleagues, Robert Richardson and C. L. Loos, wrote their accounts of the Movement they described it as “The Reformation of the Nineteenth Century.”

4. Walter Scott, another of the founding fathers, might appear on the surface to be a restorationist in the primitivism sense, for he often referred to “the Restoration” and to “the Restoration of the Ancient Gospel.” But he was referring to his own “five finger exercise” in which he preached baptism for the remission of sins and baptized one William Amend in 1827, the first in history since apostolic times to be so baptized, Scott supposed. Even Alexander Campbell supported this view for a time, referring to the gospel being restored in 1827, though he later backed away from such a daring claim. And even Scott in The Evangelist (1833, p. 16) modified the claim by explaining that it was “the practical exhibition and application of the Gospel” that was restored, not the gospel itself, which he granted had always been proclaimed by the church.

When Scott referred to the Movement in general he, like the others, called it the reformation, as in that same volume (p. 59) he refers to Alexander Campbell as “the leader in the present famous Reformation.” And when he referred to his own important contribution of clarifying the place of baptism, he used restoration as the Campbells did: “The church of God on that day, had restored to it publicly and practically and a manner of handling it” (Christian Evangelist. 1833, p. 162). Again one will notice the crucial distinction between restoring to the church that is already a reality something that is lacking and the notion of restoring the church itself as if it did not exist.

5. Even more impressive is that the great rank and file, including the workers out among the churches, consistently referred to the Movement as “this Reformation” or “the current Reformation” in their reports to the various journals. I have noted scores and scores of these. One would be hard put to find a single report that refers to “the Restoration Movement” which is so common among us today. This term, which was not used by our pioneers, must have come out of the emphasis given to restorationism in the emergence non-instrument Churches of Christ and the Bible college movement of independent Christian Churches.

Being realistic, I have to concede that we are probably stuck with the term “Restoration Movement.” So, we should upgrade the definition of “Restoration” to mean renewal, reform, etc., as some are now doing and as I do in the name of this journal. We must, however, also concede that in the larger Christian world such a term as “Restoration Movement” will have little meaning. Campbell could meaningfully call for a “New Reformation” in his day, but with “Restoration Movement” we are talking only to ourselves. Whatever terms we use in referring to our heritage we must look for fresh ways to appeal to the values we believe to be inherent in Christian origins.

The upshot of all this is that restorationism as a mindset must go, not only because of its abuse of the New Testament with its faulty hermeneutics, but also because it is inherently divisive, spawning as it does sects and sub-sects, not only among us but in the church at large. It is imperative that we recapture the true intent of our heritage as a unity movement. Restorationism and unity are antipodal. We can’t be restorationists and unitists, but we can be reformers and unitists, which is what our heritage is all about.—the Editor