W. T. Moore and Earl I. West on Editors as Bishops

In his 1909 Comprehensive History of the Disciples of Christ, W. T. Moore wrote: "The Disciples have no Diocesan Bishops, and consequently their leading religious periodicals have practically occupied that place."[1] Among historians of the Stone-Campbell Movement, this passage has been paraphrased to say: "The Disciples do not have bishops, they have editors."[2] Moore noted that the editors of the most popular journals and magazines of the movement "came to be practically general bishops, and exercised nearly as much power as the bishops do in some of the religious denominations."[3] Consequently, "there can be no doubt about the fact that, from the beginning of the movement to the present time, the chief authority in regard to all important questions has been the Disciple press."[4] Forty years later, Churches of Christ historian Earl I. West reflected on the significance of periodicals in the history of the Restoration Movement and issued the same judgment: "The chief forces of opinion and policy in the brotherhood have always been the brotherhood publications. Here the issues are discussed. Here the merits of any issue are weighed. Here the opinions are finally fixed."[5]

First and foremost, this observation applies to Alexander Campbell. After his Christian Baptist magazine was discontinued in 1830, its successor, the Millennial Harbinger, became "the chief organ of the movement." Until he died in 1866, Campbell's editorial direction "was generally accepted without question."[6] In addition, Barton W. Stone published his monthly journal, the Christian Messenger, from 1826 until 1845. The journal was plagued by financial troubles and Stone sometimes had to suspend publication, the longest break stretching from January 1837 through August 1840. Nevertheless, as Carl W. Cheatham describes its influence, the Christian Messenger "was an invaluable means of expression and communication for Stone's followers. In the absence of any general organization among the churches, it became the chief instrument of their unity."[7]

Notes

[1] William Thomas Moore, A Comprehensive History of the Disciples of Christ (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1909), 12.

[2] In fact, that particular wording, which does not appear in Moore's history, has become something of a written and oral tradition among Restoration historians. It seems that the creator of the written tradition is Richard T. Hughes. See, for example, his Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Story of the Churches of Christ in America (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), 10; Hughes, Part One: The Churches of Christ: A History, in Richard T. Hughes and R. L.  Roberts, The Churches of Christ (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001), 115.

[3] Moore, Comprehensive History of the Disciples, 523.

[4] Ibid., 699.

[5] Earl Irvin West, The Search for the Ancient Order, vol. 2, 1866-1906 (Indianapolis, IN: Religious Book Service, 1950), 461.

[6] Moore, Comprehensive History of the Disciples, 522-23.

[7] Carl W. Cheatham, "Christian Messenger," Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, 194.