Furthermore, there is a great story behind the writing of all four documents – a story of commitment  and hardship in the struggle for truth and liberty. The story behind the writing of The Last Will and Testament is particularly impressive in that it concerns five preachers who are performing "the last rites" – sort of – for a "church" they had just started!

Well, it wasn’t exactly a church – an ecclesiasticism might be a better term. It was called a presbytery – the Springfield Presbytery – an organization of several (former) Presbyterian churches. The preachers had recently been through a great revival, known in history as one of the largest revivals on the American frontier – the Cane Ridge Revival of 1801.

While hundreds of others turned to Christ during this time, these Presbyterian preachers – one of whom was Barton Warren Stone – had a "conversion" experience of their own. The revival was so authentically spiritual and evangelical – and free of the party spirit – that these preachers resolved that henceforth they would preach only the gospel, and that they would surrender any semblance of the sectarian spirit. This included forsaking all human creeds – including their own Westminster Confession of Faith – and accepting the Bible only as their rule of faith and practice. They would also lay aside all party names and be Christians only. We have seen that this became part of their plea for unity. They would no longer be Presbyterian-Christians, but just Christians.

Now that they were more devoted to the study of the Bible, apart from creedal directives, they came to question their infant baptism by sprinkling. Deciding to be baptized by immersion, they were not as fortunate as Alexander Campbell, who, when he made a like decision found a Baptist friend who would do the immersing. The erstwhile Presbyterians, now Christians only, when they could not find someone to assist them, proceeded to immerse each other!

It is a neat story that informs us of who we are. Former Presbyterian ministers, now Christians only, resolving to be directed by Scripture alone, immersing each other into Christ as a corrective of infant baptism! That commitment to meaningful change is how we started – at least on the Stone side of the Movement.

But they still had the presbytery they had formed during their pilgrimage of freedom. They feared – probably unnecessarily – that their little ecclesiasticism might compromise their plea for unity, for as they came to see it there is but one church, the body of Christ. Barton Stone said their presbytery "savored of the party spirit."

Inspired by a desire to cast off the slightest suggestion of the party spirit, they wrote what might be the most poignant line of our documentary heritage: "We will that this body die, be dissolved, and sink into union with the Body of Christ at large, for there is but one Body and one Spirit, even as we are called in one hope of our calling."

If these former Presbyterian ministers were at the outset motivated by a desire to be free, it is evident that their concern is now unity. They wanted to be united with the body of Christ at large, no more and no less. "We will that this body die" is a challenge for all sects and denominations. Let them all die! And let there be only the body of Christ, the church. This is the genius of our heritage. It is a dream that need not fade.

They went on to include a surprising practical suggestion on how to diminish division and promote unity: "We will that the preachers and the people cultivate a spirit of mutual forbearance, and pray more and dispute less." Pray more and debate less! Had we heeded this gem of wisdom from our pioneers we would now be a more united people.

From these humble beginnings the movement led by Barton W. Stone grew to be some 15,000 members in several hundreds of churches. By 1832 they were ready to unite with the movement led by Alexander Campbell, which we recount below.

The second founding document, The Declaration and Address, authored by Thomas Campbell in 1809, was also a unity document, and much more detailed in setting forth principles of unity and how it might be realized.

Thomas Campbell came to this country from his native Ireland in 1807, leaving his eldest son Alexander to watch after the family until they could join him in the new world. Because of his more open views he soon found himself rejected by his particular Presbyterian sect. He eventually created the Christian Association of Washington (Pa,), the purpose of which was to be a peace movement among the churches. Today we might call it a para-church organization in that its members remained in their own churches. It so happened, however, that this organization of some thirty people became the first congregation of the Campbell movement in 1811, called the Brush Run Church, some six miles from Bethany, Va., the longtime home of Alexander Campbell.

The Declaration and Address was composed as a kind of "white paper" for the Christian Association, to serve as an apologia for its mission of peace and unity among the churches. It has rightly been described as "a manifesto for Christian unity." But C. L. Loos, a professor at Bethany College and a friend to the Campbells, may have best described it as "a prospectus of the reformation" led by the Campbells. It has lived on as the founding document of the Stone-Campbell movement, if but one document is named.

Like The Last Will and Testament before it, the Declaration points to the essential oneness of the church . The way Campbell put it – "The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one" – reveals that he saw the church as a living reality at that time, and that by its nature it is one and cannot be divided. Since he did not yet have even one congregation of his own called "Church of Christ," it is evident that he and his son had no idea that they were "restoring" the "true church" that had ceased to exist. "The Church of Christ upon earth" – it is a great phrase, and he saw that church as made up of all those who are in Christ, scattered as they may be among all the sects. It was his mission – and that of his son Alexander – to unite all such Christians, and to bring an end to sectarianism. Thomas Campbell insisted that if we are going to be united in heaven, we can be united on earth. And he scored divisions among Christians as caused by things of which the kingdom of God does not consist.

In the Declaration he referred to one passage, again and again, as the only practical way to unity. "Therefore receive one another, just as Christ has received us, to the glory of God" (Rom. 15:7). We were not right about everything – and we didn’t agree on everything -- when Christ received us. At the ACU Lectures a few years back I suggested that we in Churches of Christ make this verse "the purple passage of our heritage," for it urges us to be the accepting people that our unity heritage has called us to be – and right out of our founding document.

Not only did our pioneers encapsulate unity principles in mottoes and spell them out in more detailed documents, but they themselves effected a union between two frontier churches, constituting the first merger of churches in American history. And it was a matter of their practicing what they had been saying about unity, for they had substantial differences between them.

In my own history of the Stone-Campbell Movement I listed seven substantial differences between the two groups at the time of the merger – such as the design of baptism, methods of evangelism, frequency of Communion, and the name they were to wear. It was a matter of practicing their own rule for unity: In essentials unity; in opinions and methods liberty . . . They found their unity in their common allegiance to Christ as Lord, and in the authority of Scripture. It was clearly unity in diversity.

Raccoon John Smith, a colorful frontier preacher, was the keynote speaker at the unity gathering in Lexington, Ky., New Years’ Day, 1832. He talked about the Lord’s prayer for unity in John 17. And about faith and opinion. He noted that an opinion never saved anyone or damned anyone, and Christians can never unite on opinions. "There may be a thousand opinions," he told them, "but there is but one faith." And it is that one faith that unites us!

He concluded with an exhortation that goes far in defining our heritage. "Let us, therefore, no longer be Campbellites or Stoneites, or New Lights or Old Lights, but let us come to the Bible which is the only light we need."

Raccoon joined Samuel Rogers in riding horseback among the churches, declaring that their people were no longer two separate movements, but were now one church, one unity movement. We were about 25,000 strong at that time. We grew to be an influence to be reckoned with, numbering upwards of a half million by the time of the Civil War. And we had scores of churches in Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand.

Before he died in 1844 Barton Stone looked back on what happened at Lexington as "the noblest act of my life." While Alexander Campbell was not at Lexington in 1832, what happened there gave him a buoyant view of the future. Before he died in 1866 – at a time when most churches were dividing over the Civil War -- he ventured that the unity movement they had launched would never divide – so long as they are true to the principles we have put in place.