(Derward Culp, of Monroe, La., one of our subscribers, asked some interesting questions about our Stone/Campbell heritage. In answering them I thought our readers in general might be interested in what I had to say.)

Was Barton W. Stone the person who formed the group that was known as the Christian Church that had the Cane Ridge Revival in 1801 while Campbell was still in Ireland?

Yes, Stone and several other Presbyterian ministers organized the Springfield Presbytery, which produced "The Last Will and Testament" (1804) which led eventually to their calling their several congregations Christian Church/Church of Christ. They used both names, seeing them as the same. Stone described himself as "Elder, Church of Christ." Yes, this happened while Campbell was still in Ireland, and only 16 years old. He came to the U.S. in 1809.

Was Barton's group very emotional, appealing to the "Holy Spirit" extravaganza and the mourner's bench?

Yes, the Stone people were more emotional than Campbell's, and they were more ardent about the work of the Spirit, and at least in the early days they made use of the mourner's bench, which Campbell did not.

I suppose that Cane Ridge was really a "Christian Church" and not a Church of Christ .

Cane Ridge was actually a camp meeting revival, but out of it came events that created the Stone unity movement. The Stone churches used both names, seeing them as identical in import, as noted above.

Was Brush Run established by Campbell a Church of Christ ?

Yes, they used that name. When they started their second congregation (nearby Wellsburg) they called it a Church of Christ. The Campbell churches did not use Christian Church, at least not early on, but eventually, by 1830, they also used Disciples of Christ, the name Campbell preferred. Unlike Stone, who saw "Christian" as a divinely given name, Campbell said it was a nickname given by outsiders, noting that in the NT no disciple ever calls himself a Christian or any other believer. Not even Luke in Acts, who, after saying the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch, goes on calling them disciples.

I think the "Campbellites" were very rational and "heady" and wanting to do things just right.

This is an overstatement. Yes, Campbell is sometimes called a son of the Enlightenment, which would make him a "rationalist" after the order of Dugald Stewart and John Locke. But he was also a son of Presbyterian piety and a man of the Spirit. Early on he wrote of "the education of the heart" as well as mind, and he emphasized this in his educational work at Bethany.

If you mean by "wanting to do things just right" that the Campbellites were legalists, this would not be right. Campbell was not rigid in his judgments. He drew an important distinction between "errors of the mind" (Even an angel can be mistaken, he said) and "errors of the heart," which are much more serious. He also distinguished between "willful ignorance" and "unwillful ignorance," noting that only the former was culpable while the latter was forgivable. He also wrote of the principle of available light — that a person is responsible only for the light he has. God does not expect a blind man to see, he insisted, nor a lame man to walk. Campbell was in fact quite liberal and open when it came to making judgments. He once wrote a make-believe essay that had Luther saying his Catholic parents were in heaven because they were "pious" — following such light as they had, while he had to leave the Catholic Church because he had more light than his parents. This is vintage Campbell. He made "sincerity" — which to him meant having a a heart for God — as the basis of God's acceptance.

Was "our" group formed by Stone or Campbell?

If by "our group" you mean Churches of Christ (non-instrumental), the answer would have to be, sadly enough, that we were formed by neither Stone or Campbell. When the Stone and Campbell movements united in 1832 it created a united unity movement known variously as Disciples of Christ/Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, but they were one church. What we call "Churches of Christ" was not yet part of the picture. We did not exist until the first division came, which we conveniently date as 1906. Our "group" took one of those names exclusively — Churches of Christ — and declared ourselves completely separate from the rest of the Movement, and as the only true church. And we more or less repudiated any founding influence by Stone or Campbell. We were the true restored church that goes back to Pentecost. We became a historical with no meaningful connection to Stone/Campbell. This "only true church" dogma was, of course, foreign to the Stone-Campbell plea for unity, which saw the church as always existing — and as both essentially one and catholic — but always in need of reformation. Stone and Campbell believed they were continuing the reformation begun by Luther.

This is also true of Independent Christian Churches. They did not exist until well into the 20th century, representing still another break from the mainstream of the Movement. This is why "Christian Churches" and "Churches of Christ" misjudged history when in 2006 they sought to "undo" the division of 1906 in a mass meeting at the North American Christian Convention. The Independents did not exist in 1906, and it was the Disciples of Christ from which the Churches of Christ separated. And the Disciples — and we were all Disciples before 1906 — were left out of the "undo" gathering at the NACC. I called all this to the attention of the president of the NACC, urging that the Disciples at be included, but to no avail.

I read of the Stonite churches being represented by Stone and the Campbellites represented by Raccoon John Smith when the two groups were united in 1832.

Yes, you could put it that way. There were previous meetings that led to the 1832 union gathering. These were led by Stone and Raccoon, and John T. Johnson, famed Kentucky evangelist, also on the Campbell side. Raccoon "represented" the Campbell side in that he was the chosen speaker for the occasion. Stone made the response, taking Raccoon's hand in dramatic agreement and oneness. It has been referred to as "the handshake that shook the frontier." Stone afterwards spoke of his role as "the noblest act of my life." One would have thought that Alexander Campbell would have been there. He claimed illness, but the real reason may have been that he feared it was a bit premature, but he eventually gave his blessings.

Notes

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