Restoration Movement


The Restoration Movement is a Christian movement that began on the American frontier during the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. The pioneers of this movement were seeking to reform the church from within and sought "the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the church of the New Testament."
The Restoration Movement developed from several independent strands of religious revival that idealized early Christianity. Two groups which independently developed similar approaches to the Christian faith were particularly important. The first, led by Barton W. Stone, began at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, and identified as "Christians". The second began in western Pennsylvania and Virginia and was led by Thomas Campbell and his son, Alexander Campbell, both educated in Scotland; they eventually used the name "Disciples of Christ". Both groups sought to restore the Christian church based on visible patterns outlined in the New Testament, and both believed that creeds kept Christianity divided. In 1832, they joined in fellowship with a handshake.
Among other things, they were united in the belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; that Christians should observe the Lord's Supper on the first day of each week; and that baptism of adult believers was necessarily by immersion in water. Because the founders wanted to abandon all denominational labels, they used the biblical names for the followers of Jesus. Both groups promoted a return to the purposes of the 1st-century churches as described in the New Testament. One historian of the movement has argued that it was primarily a unity movement, with the restoration motif playing a subordinate role.
The Restoration Movement has since been divided into multiple separate groups. The three main groups are the Churches of Christ, the Christian Church, and the independent Christian Church/Church of Christ congregations. Additionally, there are the International Churches of Christ, the International Christian Church, the Churches of Christ in Europe, and the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, and the Churches of Christ in Australia. Some characterize the divisions in the movement as the result of the tension between the goals of restoration and ecumenism: the Churches of Christ and unaffiliated Christian Church/Church of Christ congregations resolved the tension by stressing restoration, while the Christian Church resolved the tension by stressing ecumenism.

Name

Because the Restoration Movement lacks any centralized structure, having originated in a variety of places with different leaders, there is no consistent nomenclature for the movement as a whole. The term "Restoration Movement" became popular during the 19th century; this appears to be the influence of Alexander Campbell's essays on "A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things" in the Christian Baptist. The term "Stone-Campbell Movement" emerged towards the end of the 19th century as a way to avoid the difficulties associated with some of the other names that have been used and to maintain a sense of the collective history of the movement.

Principles

The Restoration Movement has been characterized by several key principles:
  • Christianity should not be divided; Jesus intended the creation of church.
  • Creeds divide, but Christians should be able to find agreement by standing on the Bible
  • Ecclesiastical traditions divide, but Christians should be able to find common ground by following the practice of the early church.
  • Names of human origin divide, but Christians should be able to find common ground by using biblical names for the church.
Thus, the church "should stress only what all Christians hold in common and should suppress all divisive doctrines and practices".
Several slogans have been used in the Restoration Movement to express some of the distinctive themes of the movement:
  • "Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent."
  • "The church of Jesus Christ on earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one."
  • "We are Christians only, but not the only Christians."
  • "In essentials, unity; in opinions, liberty; in all things love."
  • "No creed but Christ, no book but the Bible, no law but love, no name but the divine."
  • "Do Bible things in Bible ways."
  • "Call Bible things by Bible names."

    Background

During the late Middle Ages, dissenters such as John Wycliffe and Jan Hus called for a restoration of a primitive form of Christianity, but they were driven underground. As a result, it is difficult to find any direct links between such early dissenters and the Restoration Movement. Beginning with the Renaissance, intellectual roots become more straightforward to discern presently. At the heart of the Reformation was an emphasis on the principle of "scripture alone". This, along with the emphasis on individuals' rights to read the Bible and interpret it for themselves, and a movement to reduce rituals in worship, contributed to the intellectual background of early Restoration Movement leaders. The branch of the Reformation movement, which was represented by Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin, contributed an emphasis on "restoring biblical forms and patterns."
The rationalism of John Locke provided another influence. Reacting to the deism of Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury, Locke sought a way to address religious divisions and persecution without abandoning scripture. To do this, Locke argued against the right of government to enforce religious orthodoxy and turned to the Bible to supply a set of beliefs that all Christians could agree upon. The core teachings which he viewed as essential were the messiahship of Jesus and Jesus's direct commands. Christians could be devoutly committed to other Biblical teachings, but in Locke's view these were non-essentials over which Christians should never fight or try to coerce upon each other. Unlike the Puritans and the later Restoration Movement, Locke did not call for a systematic restoration of the early church. One of the basic goals of the English Puritans was to restore a pure, "primitive" church that would be a true apostolic community. This conception was a critical influence in the development of the Puritans in Colonial America. It has been described as the "oldest ecumenical movement in America":
During the First Great Awakening, a movement developed among Baptists known as Separate Baptists. Two themes of the movement were the rejection of creeds and "freedom in the Spirit." The Separate Baptists saw scripture as the "perfect rule" for the church. However, while they turned to the Bible for a structural pattern for the church, they did not insist on complete agreement on the details of that pattern. The group originated in New England but was especially strong in the Southern United States, where the emphasis on a biblical pattern for the church grew stronger. In the latter half of the 18th century, Separate Baptists became more numerous on the western frontier of Kentucky and Tennessee, where the Stone and Campbell movements would later take root. The development of the Separate Baptists on the southern frontier helped prepare the ground for the Restoration Movement. The membership of both the Stone and Campbell groups drew heavily from the ranks of the Separate Baptists. Separate Baptist restorationism also contributed to the development of Landmarkism in the same region as the Stone-Campbell movement and at about the same time. Under the leadership of James Robinson Graves, the Landmark Baptists sought to define a blueprint of the so-called "primitive" church, believing that any deviation from that blueprint would prevent a person from being part of the "true" church.
James O'Kelly was an early advocate of seeking unity through a return to early Christianity. In 1792, dissatisfied with the role of bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church, he created a schismatic movement of his own. O'Kelly's movement, centered in Virginia and North Carolina, were originally called the "Republican Methodists". In 1794, they adopted the name "Christian Church". During the same period, Elias Smith of Vermont and Abner Jones of New Hampshire led a movement espousing views similar to those of O'Kelly. They believed that members could—by looking to Christian scriptures—be Christians without being bound to human traditions and the denominations brought by immigrants from Europe.
File:1839-meth.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|1839 Methodist camp meeting, watercolor from the Second Great Awakening
The ideal of restoring a "primitive" form of Christianity grew in popularity in the U.S. after the American Revolution. This desire to restore a purer form of Christianity played a role in the development of many groups during this period, known as the Second Great Awakening. These included the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Baptists and Shakers. The Restoration Movement began during and was greatly influenced by, this Second Awakening. While the Campbells resisted what they saw as the spiritual manipulation of the camp meetings, the Southern phase of the awakening "was an important matrix of Barton Stone's reform movement" and shaped the evangelistic techniques used by both Stone and the Campbells.

Stone movement

Cane Ridge revival

In 1801, the Cane Ridge Revival in Kentucky planted the seed for a movement in Kentucky and the Ohio River valley to disassociate from Christian denominationalism. In 1803, Barton W. Stone and others withdrew from the Kentucky Synod and formed the Springfield Presbytery. The defining event of the Stone wing of the movement was the publication of Last Will and Testament of The Springfield Presbytery at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1804. The brief document announces their withdrawal from Presbyterianism and their intention to be solely part of the broader Christian Church. The writers appeal for the unity of all who follow Jesus, suggest the value of congregational self-governance, and declare the Bible as the source for understanding the will of God. They denounced the "divisive" use of the Westminster Confession of Faith and adopted the name "Christian" to identify their group.
By 1804, Elias Smith had heard of the Stone movement; he had heard of the O'Kelly movement by 1808. Although not formally merged, the three groups were cooperating and fellowshiping by 1810. At that time the combined movement had a membership of approximately 20,000. This loose fellowship of churches was called by the names Christian Connection or "Christian Church."