Alexander Campbell on the Biblical Tabernacle

Campbell published his four-part series on the biblical Tabernacle in the Millennial Harbinger 1861, the year he turned seventy-three. By that point in his life, Campbell was not nearly as sharp or focused as he had been when he was younger.

Perhaps his disappointments and heartaches, not to mention the distress of the unfolding war, were taking their toll. Whatever the causes, the articles in the series are rambling and disjointed. Lauding the glories of Creation, at other times chiding skeptics, Campbell sometimes writes several paragraphs that never mention his subject. At other points, he includes long quotes from other sources. In the second installment, Campbell quotes almost all of Psalm 72, again, without an obvious need or a necessary connection to his subject.

Nevertheless, the series contains a few particulars about Campbell's understanding of the Tabernacle. For example, regarding the three sections of the Tabernacle and its precincts, Campbell wrote:

"The outer court, at the proper angle of vision, represents the world, dead in trespasses and in sins; the holy place, the church; and the holiest of all, heaven itself." (No. 2, p. 151)

On the great significance of the Tabernacle and the rituals that took place there, Campbell said:

"Were we to enter into all the details of the Tabernacle and its worship, we should need a small volume rather than a short essay. We generally, in our college duties, deliver annually a series of lectures on this institution, and our opinion is, that the Tabernacle and its worship, thoroughly developed, is the best system of theology, properly so called, known to us in all the theologies of our country." (No. 2, p. 156)

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 perhaps the main 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.

El Meta, Lockney, and Hereford: Comparing Three Christian Colleges

One idea I have is to compare the brief careers of three Christian colleges:

El Meta Christian College (later, El Meta Bond College, 1889-1920)
Lockney Christian College (1894-1918)
Hereford Christian College and Industrial School (1902-1912)

Why were these colleges established? How did they get their start? And, why did all they have such short lifespans? Three factors combine to make these schools good candidates for comparison.

Religious Connections

In the first place, all three were private institutions founded by Christians with strong ties to the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. This movement, a powerful impulse on the American religious scene growing out of the Second Great Awaking, eventually gave rise to the Disciples of Christ denomination, the independent Christian Churches, and the Churches of Christ.

Because of their connection to the Restoration Movement, the founders of these schools shared the same vision regarding the purpose and goals of formal education. They inherited this outlook from their religious ancestor Alexander Campbell. Far more than any other person in Restoration history, it was Campbell who shaped the movement's philosophy of education.[1]

For Campbell, education was not an end in itself. Rather, it was a means to an end. The true goal of education was a knowledge of God which, in addition to its eternal benefits, would lead to a morally-sound, well-ordered society, one that would promote human flourishing. According to Campbell's educational philosophy, a person's intellectual growth went hand in hand with his religious and moral development. Ideally, all of these accompanied and aided the other. Education was vital.[2]

For example, writing in the pages of The Millennial Harbinger in 1836, Campbell asserted that whatever a person's natural capacities might be, "without education neither intellectual greatness nor moral goodness can be attained." He went on to say that "it is the primary duty of all parents to educate their children." Naturally, Campbell assumed that parents themselves would serve as their child's first teachers. But, he added, "schools, primary and secondary, or schools and colleges, are the most ancient and useful inventions for this purpose."[3] In an 1856 address, Campbell indicated the significance he assigned to teachers:

I have come to the conclusion that no class of men, in any department of society, have more of the good or evil destiny of the world in their hands and under their influence than the teachers of our schools and colleges."[4]

Campbell's commitment to formal education led him to establish Buffalo Seminary in 1818, the year he turned thirty. He conducted the boarding school in his house. Classes met on the ground floor. Students were housed upstairs. And Campbell and his growing family lived in the basement.[5] As one might guess, this experiment lasted for only a few years (1818-1823). But it must have provided several practical lessons that Campbell was able to put to good use when, in 1840 and '41, he planned and opened Bethany College. Sometimes called the mother of all Disciple colleges, nearly 180 years old, Bethany College is still in operation.

Time Frame

Another reason why El Meta, Lockney, and Hereford can be compared is that all three operated at roughly the same time. The school known for many years as El Meta Christian College began at Silver City in the Chickasaw Nation in 1889. The next year, almost all of the tiny community of Silver City moved seven miles to the west to be near the railroad, the Chicago Rock, Island and Pacific, which was laying track, extending the line south out of Kansas. Meta Chestnutt and her schoolhouse made up part of of the migration and helped to start a new town they called Minco, which was home to the college until its closing in 1920.

Charles Walker Smith and St. Clair W. Smith, of no relation to one another, established Lockney Christian College in Lockney, Floyd County, Texas, in 1894. The school remained in operation until 1918.

Hereford Christian College and Industrial School in Hereford, Texas, opened its doors in 1902. Randolph Clark, the school's first president, was a co-founder of what is now Texas Christian University. For a few years, the school at Hereford was known as Panhandle Christian College. After only a decade in operation, the college closed in 1911.

Regional Relations

A third factor that makes these three schools comparable is that they were located in what is essentially the same region. Whites who settled in Texas and Oklahoma were a nineteenth-century extension of a pattern of migration that began more than a century before. Around the year 1718, waves of migrants from northern Ireland and from the border regions of southern Scotland and the north of England began arriving at the ports of Newcastle, Delaware, and Philadelphia. Typically, these people, who represented a distinctive cultural type, moved past the cities of the American east coast to the wilderness of the western frontier. They were the white settlers of the backcountry, especially the lands that became the the American South [6] It would be hard to overestimate the significance of the size of this migration and its meaning for the future of the United States. For example, during the six decades leading up to the American Revolution, over 100,000 people from the province of Ulster in Northern Ireland alone had immigrated to British North America.[7]

Beyond the historic similarities between Texas and Oklahoma, one can say that far more than any other part of Texas, the Panhandle Plains region of the Lone Star state bears a close resemblance to Oklahoma. Historian Donald Worster takes note of this in his monumental study titled Dust Bowl. He observes that by the 1930s, especially in the area from Lubbock to Amarillo, "the cultural patterns were almost identical to those farther east." Worster mentions that this is not surprising because, for example,  in spite of the 100th meridian, the line dividing western Oklahoma from the Texas Panhandle, both sections were part of a regional cotton kingdom. He suggests that Woody Guthrie personifies this connection. Born in Okemah, Oklahoma in 1912, Woody "moved to Pampa, over in the Texas panhandle, in 1929 and remained there through the dust storms until he hitched a ride to California in 1937."[8]

Looking for links between Oklahoma and the high plains of Texas, students of Restoration history might point to R. W. Officer. At the turn of the twentieth century, Officer made his home in Atoka, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory. But sometime after he buried his wife, Lota Venable Officer, he moved west to what is now Turkey, Texas in Hall County. He died and was buried at Turkey in 1930, having lived to the age of 85.

Notes

[1] John L. Morrison, "Education, Philosophy of," in Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004), 292-94; M. Norvel Young, A History of Colleges Established and Controlled by Members of the Churches of Christ (Kansas City, MO: Old Paths Book Club, 1949), 25-33. Significantly, Young's entire section on the "Attitude of the Movement toward Education" is an overview of the attitudes of Alexander Campbell. For more on this topic, see also the fine essay by Thomas H. Olbricht, "Alexander Campbell as an Educator," in Lectures in Honor of the Alexander Campbell Bicentennial, 1788-1988 (Nashville: Disciples of Christ Historical Society, 1988), 79-100.

[2] Morrison, "Education."

[3] Alexander Campbell, "Remarks," Millennial Harbinger, 1836, 201.

[4] Alexander Campbell, "Address on Education," in Popular Lectures and Addresses (Philadelphia: James Challen & Son, 1863), 245.

[5] Leroy Garrett, "Campbell, Alexander," in Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, 120.

[6]  David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), notes that peak years were 1718, 1729, 1741, 1755, 1767, and 1774. The decade from 1765 to 1775 witnessed two-thirds of the entire migration (605-08). For Texas and Oklahoma as two places where the descendants of these immigrants moved during the nineteenth century, see 633-39.

[7] Patrick Griffin, The People with No Name: Ireland's Ulster Scots, America's Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World, 1689-1764 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 1-8.

[8] Donald Worster, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 61. Worster might have also mentioned that even before Woody Guthrie moved to Pampa, his father, Charlie, broken by tragedy, moved there first.

"Timothy" on Christian Communion and the Lord's Supper, The Christian Messenger, 1828 (Part 2 of 2)

My first post about a certain series in The Christian Messenger, written by "Timothy," and dealing with the Lord's Supper, took up preliminary questions.

To repeat, our best evidence indicates that the author of the three articles, "Timothy," was one Thomas Smith. In addition, the evidence suggests that Smith was a leader in the early-nineteenth century Christian movement associated with the names Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell. Apparently, Smith was a Kentuckian who, at the time he wrote this series, served as a preacher in Lexington. In fact, he was an old friend and associate of Stone's, and also was acquainted with Alexander Campbell. So, it is reasonable to suppose that Thomas Smith was present when, on New Year's Day, 1832, at the Hill Street Church in Lexington, Kentucky, "Raccoon" John Smith and Barton W. Stone shook hands, symbolically uniting two early-American restoration movements.

On that occasion, John Smith called upon the assembled to no longer be "Campbellites or Stoneites, New Lights or Old Lights, or any other kind of lights." If believers would simply come together on the basis of the Bible alone, that would provide "all the light we need."[1] Having established the context of Smith's three articles, then, we turn our attention to the material itself.

Timothy, "The Communion of Christians at the Lord's Table--No. I." The Christian Messenger 2, no. 12 (October 1828), 271-75.

In his first article, Smith, writing as "Timothy," begins with the question, "Who have a divine right to partake of the Lord's Supper?" (271).

Smith observes that "Paedo-baptists" practice open communion, while Baptists do not. I take the author's mention of Paedo-baptists as a reference primarily to Methodists and Presbyterians, two prominent denominations in the South and West at that time. Both groups practiced infant baptism. Of course, the same could be said about Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Congregationalists. But they were not nearly as prominent at that time and place. (See Smith's own designations on p. 273).

By contrast, Baptists, at least the fellowship known as "United Baptists," practice close(d) communion. Smith announces his conclusion: when it comes to the practical question of open versus closed communion, the right way lies somewhere between these two extremes, "which, I conceive, all christians [sic] would do well to avoid" (271).

Smith asserts that the practice of open communion by a "sect" is inconsistent. For, by definition, a sect establishes strict qualifications for membership. And, a sect treats all who do not meet those qualifications as outsiders. Smith raises the question of why "Paedo-baptists" practice open communion. He answers that the practice attempts to ingratiate those who are not a part of the sect, with the hope that this will bring the outsider around to appreciating and perhaps joining them. Essentially, as they invite people who do not subscribe to their creed to share the Lord's Supper with them, they pray:

O Lord, our creed contains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth;--we beseech thee, therefore, convert our neighbors and the world to our sect (272).

But, Smith writes, the practice is entirely inconsistent, because when Methodists and Presbyterians serve the Lord's Supper to all sorts of believers, they admit in practice that members of other groups are genuine Christians, the children of God. Thus, it is as if Christ has a Presbyterian Church, a Methodist Church, a United Baptist Church, and so on. The "free communion" of the Paedo-baptists is, thus, inconsistent. Furthermore, it is less than honest, "a mere sectarian engine" (272). So long as these groups cleave to their cherished sectarian names and human creeds, their claims to ecumenicism are, at best, temporary, hollow, and ineffectual.

Smith celebrates that there are thousands of people "in the different sects" who deplore current conditions "in the church." His critical remarks do not apply to those people, he writes, for they are the very ones who recognize and resist the problem (272-73).

At this point, Smith transitions into the second half of his article, in which he draws a comparison between Christianity in the Roman Empire and anti-sectarian Christianity in the contemporary world. He states that in the Roman Empire, all religions were welcome and encouraged, provided that were not seditious or intolerant; provided that they did not deny the legitimacy of other religions or speak against Rome authority.

When Christianity came onto the scene, it did both. Christians denied the legitimacy of every other religious persuasion. Christians were absolutely convinced that they were following the truth. And, they spoke and lived as though they truly meant it. Quoting his source on Roman history, Smith writes

They (the christians) dared to ridicule the absurdities of the Pagan superstition, and they were ardent and assiduous in gaining proselytes to the truth. Nor did they only attack the religion of Rome, but also all the different shapes and forms under which superstition appeared in the various countries where they exercised their ministry (274).[2]

Consequently, all religious and imperial power came together in an attempt to destroy Christianity. What else might explain the deadly persecution of the church from the New Testament era to the time of Constantine?

Then, Smith draws his analogy. The various modern religious sects tend to get along just fine with one another, even to the point of claiming communion with each other as they openly serve the Lord's Supper to members of any mainstream group. But, if a movement should emerge that stands consistently against all of the sects with their creeds and dogmas, at that moment all of the groups will line up together in strong opposition to them.

Smith intimates that this is exactly what has happened in his own time. Paedo-baptists and all other sectarians have lined up against mere "Christians," believers who reject all systems of theology and human traditions, and who insist on the authority of the Bible alone. Leaders of the sects have made themselves the enemies of "the sons of religious liberty" (274).

Hence, those who have christian courage, fortitude and piety enough to stand up and oppose the desolating tide of popular and and [sic] fashionable religion, are every where (like the ancient christians) spoken against (275).

Timothy, "The Communion of Christians at the Lord's Table--No. II." The Christian Messenger 3, no. 1 (November 1828), 11-14.

Having identified in his first article the inconsistencies of the "Paedo-baptists," Thomas Smith now turns to to the Baptists and their practice of closed communion. Against such practice, Smith states, he has three objections:

First, Baptists teach that faith in Christ and immersion in water are the two essential requirements for becoming a child of God. If one has this status, of course he or she should be welcome to partake of the Lord's Supper. But, writes Smith, the group known as "United Baptists" withhold the Lord's Supper from "Separate Baptists," even though all of their members, like other sorts of Baptists, believe in Christ and have been baptized! Smith adds that United Baptists treat not only Separates but also other sorts of Baptists in the same way. In fact, there are at least potentially many others who would qualify as children of God according to the Baptist understanding, who would be denied the Lord's Supper by United Baptists. Thus, in this regard, the United Baptists are as rigid as the Roman Catholics.

Second, writes Smith, there are sometimes more differences among the United Baptists than there are between United Baptists and other groups. How ironic! So then, how can their practice of closed communion be consistent? As it is, their distinctions are in fact completely inconsistent, obviously sectarian. Apparently, their rule is, only if one is in the good graces of a United Baptist congregation is that believer worthy to partake of the Lord's Supper. If not, then one should be debarred from the Supper.

Third, the United Baptist practice of closed communion forces them to say, in effect, that they are the only Christians. Otherwise, how could they insist on closed communion?

The Baptists are thus hung on the horns of a dilemma: they teach that anyone who comes to the Lord as they have are thereby true children of God. At the same time, they teach that only members in good standing of United Baptist congregation should take the Lord's Supper. While their doctrine of salvation is biblical, their observance of the Lord's Supper is sectarian. Smith concludes, then, that the United Baptists will never be relieved of their problem until "they abandon the ground they occupy" (14).

Timothy, "The Communion of Christians at the Lord's Table--No. III." The Christian Messenger 3, no. 2 (December 1828), 33-37.

Having dealt with both Paedo-baptists and Baptists in the first two installments of his series, in the third and final installment Thomas Smith sets out to explain his own convictions.

Interestingly, he uses the phrase "the ancient order of things" and identifies the Lord's Supper is "an ordinance of the Church." Smith states that the church should "spread the Lord's table," believing and knowing that there are Christians, pious and God-fearing people, among the various sects (33). He goes so far as to say that many unimmersed "Paedo-baptists" certainly are true Christians, as their lives and devotion attest:

For who that has had any considerable acquaintance and intercourse with religious society can doubt  the piety of many Paedo-Baptists? The contrary opinion is too shocking to be admitted. The purity of many of their hearts, evinced by the holiness of their lives, proclaims them loudly and clearly to be the children of God. Their humility, the benevolence, their humanity, and unreserved devotion to the interests of Christianity, present many of them as patterns of piety and good works, whom, even those who have been immersed, would do well to imitate (34). 

Their error is not one of will, but of understanding. They therefore have every right to the Lord's table. Citing 2 Corinthians 8:12--"For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not"--Smith concludes that the Lord does not demand of people an understanding that they do not have. Rather, they are judged by the Lord according to the understanding they do have (35).

But how or why would someone be ignorant of the will of God? Smith answers that the King James Bible does not translate the word that means immerse as such. Instead, that translation consistently uses the much more pliable word baptize. Paedo-baptists have been taught by their revered teachers that their sprinkling as infants matches that meaning of baptize. These people, Smith suggests, are stuck in Babylon. They might not make it out of Babylon as soon as one would like. Human nature being what it is, who would expect that they would? Not to mention that those who have been immersed as believers most assuredly have their own set misunderstandings.

But what about the Baptists, asks Smith? They would likely say, "If we take the position of 'Timothy,' how will we ever convince a Paedo-baptist that there is something defective about his understanding? We must exclude him until he learns what is true, agrees with the doctrine and follows it.

Smith rejects such thinking and its practical approach because, he says, the excluded Paedo-baptist will not feel challenged by rejection. Rather, he will feel disrespected. He will conclude that those who deny him the Supper must not recognize his true piety and Christian character.  In other words, the United Baptist approach is bound to backfire. On the other hand, if a Paedo-baptist is received as a brother at the Lord's table, then

he feels the cords of Christian affection binding him to you; he has confidence in you, and therefore every avenue to his mind is open to you; and thus you pave the way to his conversion to the truth (37).

Four Observations

For me, this series written by Thomas Smith provokes at least four observations.

First, although judging from its title this series might seem to be primarily about the "Lord's Supper," in fact it has everything to do with that other phrase: "Christian Communion." Here, those words clearly refer to what is sometimes called "fellowship." Smith's leading question, "Who have a divine right to partake of the Lord's Supper?" does not address typical questions like frequency of the Lord's Supper, the meaning of the ordinance, etc. Much more broadly, Smith is asking, Who is a Christian? The practical concern is the issue of how a church's quiet observance of the Lord's Supper loudly responds to that question. What does the church's practice imply about what identifies a true Christian?

Second, the central question in Smith's series is two-sided. That is, it not only asks about the Christian identity of individuals, more to the point it asks about the character of the movement of which Smith is a part. He seeks to raise and respond to the question, Will we "Christians" (or "Disciples" or "Reformers") practice open or closed communion, or will we take a third alternative? That is to say, the series is not so much about the Christian identity of individuals. Rather, it deals with the Christian identity of the "Christians."

Third, Smith's rejection of both open and closed communion indicates that the practice in many, likely most, of today's Restoration churches regarding the Lord's Supper reaches all the way back to the very first generation of the movement. Many restorationists today have heard and repeated statements like, "It is not our supper, it is the Lord's Supper" and "We neither invite nor debar." Such mottoes do not fully explain the rationale behind the custom to which they point. Such is the nature of mottoes. Yet, these words do express and emphasize an approach to the Lord's Supper that is consistent with the goal of being Christians only, while never claiming to be the only Christians.

In my own experience growing up among the acappella Churches of Christ, though we did not repeat the mottoes I have quoted here, we essentially followed them. In the congregations of my youth, it was understood that the Lord's Supper was for baptized believers. It was also understood to be a duty and a blessing for Christians to partake. Yet, no one was especially welcomed or discouraged to participate. Individuals made the decision for themselves.

Fourth, it appears that one reason why the Stone and Campbell movements were able to converge sometime around the early 1830s is that they took the same view of Christian identity, the same view of communion or fellowship in the broadest meaning of those words.

Famously, in the pages of the 1837 The Millennial Harbinger, Alexander Campbell replied to "a conscientious sister" who wrote from Lunenburg, Virginia. A brief quote from letter reveals the essential question: "Does the name of Christ or Christian belong to any but those who believe the gospel, repent, and are buried by baptism into the death of Christ?"

In his reply, Campbell wrote:

But who is a Christian? I answer, Every one that believes in his heart that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of God; repents of his sins, and obeys him in all things according to this measure of knowledge of his will.

Later, and reminiscent of Thomas Smith's statements from nearly a decade before in The Christian Messenger, Campbell made the following comparison:

Should I find a Pedobaptist more intelligent in the Christian Scriptures, more spiritually-minded and more devoted to the Lord than a Baptist, or one immersed on a profession of the ancient faith, I could not hesitate a moment in giving the preference of my heart to him that loveth much. Did I act otherwise I would be a pure sectarian, a Pharisee among Christians.[3]

Notes

[1] Lester G. McAllister and William E. Tucker, Journey in Faith: A History of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (St. Louis: Bethany Press, 1975), pp. 151-52. The full discussion of attempts to unite the "Disciples" and "Christians" appears on pp. 146-55.

[2] Along this line, the eminent historian G. W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), points out that Christianity of the second to fourth centuries invented the words martyr and martyrdom, and that these words uniquely belong to the early church. For a good overview of this period, see Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (New York: Viking Press, 2009), ch. 5. MacCulloch offers a fine description of how, to the Romans, the boldness of the early Christians seemed like a provocation, how their aloofness created suspicion, and how their distinctive use of political language represented an affront to imperial authority. The Christians worshiped none of the traditional gods. Were they atheists? In their assemblies, it was rumored, they ate flesh and drank blood. Were they cannibals? Suspicion and resentment sometimes resulted in the martyrdom of Christians, terrible ordeals that generated for the church more and more heroes. One can only wonder why MacCulloch ignores one of the earliest and most-interesting episodes in the history of Rome's various encounters with early Christianity: the conflict over the Cult of the Emperor in the province of Asia during the reign of Domitian, the unmistakable back story of the New Testament's Book of Revelation.

[3] For the initial exchange between the lady from Lunenburg and Campbell, see The Millennial Harbinger, New Series, Vol. 1 (1837), 411-14.

"The Lord's Supper" in The Christian Messenger, 1831

John Allen Gano (1805-1887, pictured at left) was a protege of Barton W. Stone and served as a prominent leader among the "Stoneite" Christians in Kentucky and nearby states. His career as an evangelist covered the sixty years from 1827 to 1887, during which time Gano baptized more than 10,000 people. [1]

In 1831, Gano wrote two pieces about the Lord's Supper for The Christian Messenger, a monthly that Stone had published from Georgetown, Kentucky beginning in 1826. His second piece, a letter to the editor, was a response to an opponent named John G. Ellis. After Gano published a letter of rejoinder, Ellis then wrote in response to Gano's rejoinder. Thus, in their exchange the two men wrote a total of four pieces.

On occasion, Editor Stone himself would briefly weigh in on the topic and the discussion between Gano and Ellis. This post will review and comment on the entire discussion as it unfolded and on the outcome of the exchange.

1. John Allen Gano on "The Lord's Supper" 

Gano's initial article, titled simply "The Lord's Supper," appeared in the Messenger dated February 1831. He began by raising the question of frequency: "How often," he asked, "is it the privilege and duty of the Christians, to attend to the Lord's Supper?" He noted that when Jesus instituted the Supper in Luke 22:19, he said to his apostles "this do in remembrance of me." But clearly, that command did not address the question of frequency.

Gano assumed that "the gospel system is perfect, that its laws and commands are perfect" and that Christians are thereby "thoroughly furnished." Consequently, he wrote,

we feel disposed to examine farther, and if not from the lips of the Saviour, from the practice of his apostles at least, learn the proper understanding of this command, and the attention due to it.

From there, Gano observed that according to Acts 2:42, "breaking of bread," which he equated with the Lord's Supper, was one of the "acts of public worship" listed in that verse in which the earliest Christians at Jerusalem participated. From Acts 20:7, he concluded that not only did the first-century church assemble "upon the first day of the week," they did so in order "to break bread," that is, to observe the Lord's Supper.

Gano added that Paul's instructions to the church at ancient Corinth reinforces the basic point. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul repeatedly corrects and warns the congregation because of their abuse of the Lord's Supper. But, wrote Gano, "how could they abuse that, which they did not attend to?" In other words, the specific way in which Paul addresses the problem underscores weekly observance of the Lord's Supper as the New Testament pattern:

Let us imagine one thus addresses his congregation, "Friends, when you come together, it is not to hear preaching, for one sleeps, another laughs, and another talks." Would not such a reproof or admonition plainly prove, that they did come, or ought to have come together to hear preaching? If so, the language of the passage just cited, being similar in form, this conclusion irresistibly follows; That [the earliest Christians] met every first day; when they did meet it was to eat the Lord's Supper; therefore [Christians in all times] eat it every first day of the week.  

In fact, he argued, based on the relevant New Testament passages, someone could just as easily deny that the first day of the week is when Christians are to assemble as he could deny that the primary purpose of the assembly is to share in the Lord's Supper.

Gano bolstered his case by referring to "the History of the Christian Church, for the first three centuries of its existence so far as it has come to us." He emphasized that early Christian tradition is "not inspired" and that all believers should establish their faith and practice on "the Bible alone." Nevertheless, for comparison's sake, early Christian history establishes that believers "assembled on the first day of the week, sung hymns, prayed, commemorated the death and resurrection of the Lord."

Finally, Gano responded to the possible objection that weekly observance of the Lord's Supper would make it all too common, and that its repeated practice would descend into cold formalism. Gano replied that this danger is connected to anything that Christians do repeatedly, since "every act of religious worship not attended to in the Spirit of Christ, is mere form." On the other hand, if the Lord, by the inspired teaching of this apostles, has taught us to break bread upon the first day of the week, then "assuredly it becomes us humbly to obey."

2. Barton W. Stone's Remarks

Immediately following Gano's article, Stone added a few of his own "Remarks." As if he anticipated a negative response from some who read the Messenger, Stone commented that Gano's arguments were "plausible, if not convincing to all." Further, he invited those who "may think differently" to "communicate for the C. Messenger the result of their investigation," yet always in "the meekness and gentleness of Christ." He also encouraged Gano "to continue for the Messenger his exhibitions of truth."

3. A Response from John G. Ellis

The very next issue of The Christian Messenger, dated March, 1831, included a letter sent from Dry Creek in Campbell County, Kentucky. The writer, a certain John G. Ellis, asserted that Gano's position on the Lord's Supper was "dangerous to Christian liberty." [2] What was the problem?

Ellis noted that Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11:26, "For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death until he come." This language, he insisted, denies any restriction of the Supper to the first day of the week.

Furthermore, while Acts 20:7 indicates that "the disciples came together to break bread," these words should not be understood as a reference to "communion" since "neither wine nor cup is once named." Instead, here the breaking of bread should be understood in the same sense as it appears in Acts 27:35. According to that verse, Paul "took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all; and when he had broken it, he began to eat." Ellis pointed out that both passages include breaking bread, while neither passage mentions cup or wine. If one verse refers to the Lord's Supper, why not the other?

Ellis asserted that Acts 2 presents the same ambiguity. According to Gano's interpretation, the "breaking of bread" in verse 42 supposedly refers to the Lord's Supper, while "breaking bread from house to house" in verse 46 supposedly means the regular sharing of common meals among the earliest Christians.

Regarding 1 Corinthians 11, Ellis pointed out that the chapter nowhere specifies that the church at Corinth typically gathered "on the first day of the week." It is certainly true, wrote Ellis, "that Paul in these verses specially refers to the Lord's supper." Yet, Paul does not specifically mention "a special day." Moreover, none of stories of institution in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, or Luke indicate that the disciples did or should eat the Lord's Supper every Sunday. Ellis concluded,

Seeing this is the fact my Christian brethren, let us be careful not to take the suppositions of poor erring man, though he may possess all the acquired knowledge of the world. . . . I assure my Christian brethren, that I am firm in the belief, that if I were honestly and conscientiously to celebrate the Lord's supper every day in the week, there is not a passage in the good word of God, that forbids it. On the contrary, it tells me "as often as you do this . . . "  . . . I am certain that [the] Lawgiver, and his law will ultimately prevail over human wisdom, self aggrandizement, and tradition of fallible man. 

4. Gano's Rejoinder

As one might expect, the very next issue of the Messenger, dated April 1831, contains a rejoinder to Ellis.

By way of review, Gano observes that his original piece set out to show "that the Holy Scriptures do authorize and require the breaking of bread, or celebration of the Lord's Supper every first day of the week."  Contrary to Ellis's suggestion, he denies that his article endangers Christian liberty. It is true the gospel means freedom from many things, including sin, condemnation, Jewish ritual, etc. Nevertheless, the gospel does not mean freedom "from Christ, his laws, authority and service." Although free, Christians "are bound to obey" their Lord.

With that, Gano sets out to answer the particulars of Ellis's letter. He begins with Ellis's contention that Acts 20:7 does not refer to the Lord's Supper. This is supposedly true "because the cup and wine are not mentioned." Yet Ellis assumes that 1 Corinthians 11:30 does refer to the Supper even though "the words drink, cup and wine" are likewise missing, an obvious inconsistency in the argument.

Next, Gano argues, contra Ellis, that if the language of "breaking bread" in Acts 27:35 does not refer to the Lord's Supper, this is no reason to conclude that all such language never refers to the Supper. Gano asserts that the differences "can only be understood by attending particularly to the context." Do not the various contexts of Acts 2:42, 20:7, and 27:35 reveal different meanings? Are there not clear differences between giving thanks at one's dinner table at home, compared to giving thanks at the Lord's table in the Christian assembly?

Besides, if in the Scriptures all instances of "breaking bread" are the same, then how can we resist the conclusion that the Lord has no say, and that mere humans have the authority "to decide the whole matter" regarding frequency? Does not Ellis's position "at once introduce confusion and disorder?"

Gano suggests that 1 Corinthians 16:2 further clarifies the matter: "On the first day of every week, let each of you lay somewhat by itself, according as he may have prospered, putting it in the treasury." He regards this the best translation of the verse, which "proves they met every first day at Corinth." This verse, when combined with Paul's instructions about the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11, and with Acts 20:7, points to an established order, an order that prevailed during the time when "Jesus alone reigned among his professed followers." Gano concludes his response to Ellis by asking:

Is there a single passage of scripture, that speaks of monthly meetings by name? Is there any authority in the word of God for communing only every three months, or once a year? Is not this remembering a crucified Saviour in his institution very seldom? who is to determine, when we shall eat the supper, if the apostles have not? If a majority of each church are to determine, do the minority eat oftener or seldomer, without being considered disorderly? My object is information from the Bible, for the truth's sake, under the humbling sense I feel of my limited abilities, and information.

5. Ellis's Response to Gano's Rejoinder

The June 1831 issue of The Christian Messenger contains a second letter from John G. Ellis. Apparently, he was not persuaded by what Gano had written in defense of his article on "The Lord's Supper." And Ellis wanted to publish a follow-up statement of his own.

Ellis maintained that weekly observance of the Lord's Supper is not a scriptural precept, making the words of 1 Corinthians 11:26--"for as often as ye eat this bread"--the centerpiece of his argument.

He ridiculed Gano's distinction between public and private acts of worship by again referring to Acts 27:37 and commenting: "Here [Gano] wishes to hold out an idea that Paul did not perform an act of public worship on board of the ship, in giving thanks in the presence of 276 people." (What Ellis does not acknowledge is that Gano's distinction was between worship at home and in other private settings, compared to worship in the presence of the gathered church. The story in Acts 27 describes a scene that hardly fits either of Gano's categories).

Ellis denied that Acts 20:7 carried the force of "a command of Christ and his Apostles." He asserted that "if there is a command in all the New Testament to meet every first day of the week, to celebrate the Lord's Supper, I cannot find it."

Not even when using "Campbell's translation" of 1 Corinthians 16:2 can Gano provide "even the shadow of a command to meet every first day of the week, to celebrate the Lord's Supper." All such argument amounts to human "law-making or legislating for the church of Christ." Ellis is quick to note that he believed it was "the duty of christians to meet often together, and to commune or celebrate the Lord's Supper often." What he objected to was the idea that weekly observance of the Lord's Supper should be regarded a matter of following Scripture. Ellis closed with the following:

I can assure my christian brethren that I do not intend to write another sentence for the C.M. nor any other paper on the subject of weekly communion, as I am fully of the opinion that the scriptures authorise no such thing. I wish to invite my C. Brethren to examine minutely what bro. G. and myself have written, and compare it with the word of God. My prayer is that all christians may closely adhere to the word of God, that we may all grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

6. Barton W. Stone's Final "Remarks"

By way of wrapping up the exchange between Gano and Ellis, Editor Stone penned a few concluding remarks. He noted that both men, in private correspondence with Stone, indicated they would not be sending anything more on the subject. Both men were willing to end the discussion, "to rest it with the public to examine, and to decide its claims to truth." Then Stone added,

It must be acknowledged that but little is said in scripture with reference to the weekly communion, but all must acknowledge, that it was the practice in the first centuries of the church. Let us never make this subject a cause of debate and contention amongst us. My mind has been long in the belief that weekly communion was according to truth, yet I could never find sufficient scriptural reasons to convince my brethren that it was a positive command. What satisfied me, could not satisfy them. We are all free, nor would I willingly take away the liberty of one christian.

Two Observations

The exchange between Gano and Ellis in the pages of The Christian Messenger is remarkable on at least two different counts. First, anyone who reads Alexander Campbell's series "On the Breaking of Bread," which appeared in several issues of The Christian Baptist during 1825, will immediately conclude that Gano's 1831 article, "The Lord's Supper," is essentially a digest of Campbell's series. The similarities between the two are striking.

In fact, reading Gano after reading Campbell on this topic is a bit like reading the Gospel of Mark after the Gospel of Matthew. Campbell's series of four articles is significantly longer than Gano's article. But the general correspondence between the two is undeniable. Not only does Gano cite the same passages (Acts 2:42, Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 11), which is predictable, he also makes the same kind of inferential arguments. Finally, Gano bolsters his case for every-Sunday observance of the Lord's Supper by citing early Christian history, exactly as Campbell did, including the very same caveats. Even the order of the material is virtually the same. In short, the correspondence between Campbell and Gano is unmistakable. The conclusion that Gano had read Campbell's series, and that his article is essentially a synopsis of Campbell, is irresistible.

Second, anyone who reads the entire exchange between Gano and Ellis is likely to sympathize with Gano, as I do, in his inability to nail down anything in the debate over specific New Testament texts. It appears that two unspoken issues stand behind this frustration. First, unlike Gano, Ellis does not believe that the New Testament contains an implicit outline of worship for Christians, one that specifies a certain day for the assembly as well as specific activities. Second, Gano accepted an approved example in Scripture as carrying the same force of a positive command. Ellis did not. As one might expect, on both of these questions Gano's view corresponds to that of Campbell.

Notes

[1] Jerry B. Rushford, "Gano, John Allen (1805-1887)" in Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, 347. Rushford "wrote the book" on Gano, a 1972 master's thesis completed at Abilene Christian College in Abilene, Texas, titled "The Apollos of the West": The Life of John Allen Gano.

[2] John G. Ellis was not as well-known as John Allen Gano. For example, while Gano merits his own article in the Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, Ellis's name does not appear in the Index of that work. Still, Ellis does seem to have had an important ministry in Campbell County, Kentucky. For example, in an 1839 issue of The Millennial Harbinger, Ellis apparently responded to a request from Campbell for a status report on the congregations with which Ellis was familiar. His brief description of congregations near Dry Creek in Campbell County, Kentucky, indicates that Ellis had conducted an active ministry among those churches.

Campbell on "Communion" and the Lord's Supper

Alexander Campbell argued that a simple definition of communion and the specific usage of that word in translations of the New Testament preclude its identification with the Lord's Supper. He defined communion as "union in that which is common" and pointed out there are several ways in which the Lord's people have experienced this in both Old and New Testament eras:

Wherever there is union in common, there is communion. As the glory of the Lord equally filled all the tabernacle and the temple, so the Spirit of God animates, consoles, and refreshes the whole body of Christ.

It was in this general sense of the word that Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 13:14, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all." Here, Paul uses the Greek word koinonia, which carries the meaning of "fellowship" or "joint participation."[1] Clearly, replacing communion with Lord's Supper would cause that verse to no longer make perfect sense.

To be sure, wrote Campbell, "in the Lord's supper especially does God commune with his sons and daughters, and they with him." [2] The breaking of bread is a special time in the lives of Christians. Nevertheless, it is most unscriptural, he insisted, for "sectarian Christendom" to identify a "single ordinance," namely, the Lord's Supper, as communion.

Hence sectarians, or professors of most creeds will occasionally invite those of another creed to lead in prayer, in praise, in family worship, and afterwards debar them from the Lord's table, merely, too, in most cases, because of doctrinal or political differences. [3]

In this way, Campbell explained his rationale for not referring to the Lord's Supper, or the breaking of bread, as communion. Not only was that identification inexact and misleading, it was also the basis upon which some Protestant sects were guilty of a gross inconsistency. For while they were perfectly willing for visitors to sing, pray, and even contribute of their means, those same visitors were debarred from participating in what the sects called "Communion."

Notes

[1] Millennial Harbinger, 1834, pp. 568-69.

[2] MH, 1864, p. 152.

[3] MH, 1862, p. 529.

Restoration Leaders on the "Untaught Question" about the Lord's Supper

Regarding the Lord's Supper, should churches invite all in attendance to participate, permit only members in good standing to partake, or serve the Supper to all and leave it to individuals to decide? In 1861, this question and larger, related issues were addressed in the pages of The Millennial Harbinger by three important leaders of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement: Isaac Errett (pictured here), Robert Richardson, and W. K. Pendleton. [1] Their teaching as well as their references to contemporary practices of the congregations they knew provide a window on what some, certainly not all, restorationists of the Civil War era thought about this aspect of the Lord's Supper.

What was the historical background to their discussion? According to Lester G. McAllister and William E. Tucker, young Alexander Campbell and other reformers of the early first generation defended "close communion," which in their circles meant "the practice of admitting only believers baptized by immersion to the service of Communion." By contrast, Barton W. Stone and like-minded Christians in Kentucky did not forbid "defective believers" from participating in the Lord's Supper. Eventually, Campbell's outlook changed and his position moved closer to the one held by Stone.

As Campbell moved into maturity, he modified his view and joined some of the followers in shifting from close to open communion. The impulse to reflect the oneness of God's people around the Lord's Table was stronger than the will to hold fast to an exclusivist interpretation of New Testament Christianity. [2]

Such were the competing principles with which the first and all subsequent generations of restorationists have had to grapple. Is the Restoration Movement primarily motivated by Christian unity or doctrinal purity? Or, as McAllister and Tucker put it, "Is the church primarily an inclusivist or an exclusivist community?" [3]

Before examining the specific comments of Errett, Richardson, and Pendleton about the Lord's Supper, it would be best to establish the specific context in which they were written. Apparently, the three responses were occasioned by a letter from a certain "Bro. Hawley." According to Richardson's reply, a discussion had emerged "among the brethren in Detroit in regard to the question of open or close communion." The reference to Detroit provides an important clue. It is most likely that the author was Richard Hawley (1815?-1884). He attended the inaugural, 1849 meeting of the American Christian Missionary Society in Cincinnati and was elected one of its officers. Among the officers of the ACMS, he served as one of twenty vice presidents, who were geographically distributed. Hawley represented Disciples in the State of Michigan. [4]

"Bro. Hawley," as his name appears, sent the same letter or a similar one to both Errett and Richardson, who then responded in the pages of the Harbinger. W. K. Pendleton, then a co-editor of the magazine, also offered his reflections on the issues.

Isaac Errett

In his response written from Muir, Michigan, Isaac Errett began by acknowledging that the plea of the present reformation was to bring back the conditions that presumably existed among the churches of apostolic times. However, because "the church has not yet half recovered," he wrote, the people of God were "scattered and divided" among the various Protestant sects. Consequently, Christians of the Restoration Movement, immersed as believers, were compelled "to recognize as Christians many who have been in error on baptism, but who in the spirit of obedience are Christians indeed. (See Rom. ii. 28, 29)."

Referring to the various sects who had taught much truth over many generations, Errett insisted that it would never do "to unchristianize those on whose shoulders we are standing, and because of whose labors we are enabled to see some truths more clearly than they." Therefore, in regard to the Lord's Supper, the standard practice was "neither to invite nor reject particular classes of persons, but to spread the table in the name of the Lord, for the Lord's people, and allow all to come who will, each on his own responsibility."

Errett reported his impression that "fully two-thirds of our churches in the United States occupy this position," with those churches that were originally Baptist being "rather more unyielding." He concluded with words of both conviction and generosity: "For myself, while fully devoted to our plea, I have no wish to limit and fetter my sympathies and affections to our own people."

Robert Richardson

For his part, Robert Richardson argued that because Christianity in apostolic times was not divided into organized sects, the question at hand, being "anterior to the apostacy," could not be discussed or decided on the basis of Scripture. In other words, because the first-century church was presumably united on all essentials, the New Testament did not contain an answer to the question of whether a church should permit unimmersed believers to participate in the Lord's Supper. Therefore, "we neither discuss nor determine this question. We simply leave it to each individual to determine for himself. It is really, as the brethren . . .  say, an 'untaught question'."

Citing Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 11:28--"But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat . . . ,"--Richardson asserted that the practice he advocated was "precisely in the spirit of this injunction, and we very properly forbear to decide the question either way, and consequently neither invite nor prohibit."

Like Errett, Richardson noted that the Scotch Baptists "are especially rigid in regard to this matter." Yet, he could vouch for them as "generally faithful and pious brethren" and thus suggested that "great forbearance" should be extended to those congregations.

W. K. Pendleton

In his follow-up "Remarks" on the question, editor W. K. Pendleton expressed his doubt that "the subject is one likely to develop any very serious controversy among the brethren." He approved what he referred to as the "almost universal" custom in Stone-Campbell churches to deny any authority "to exclude from the Lord's supper any who, by their walk and conversation, and in their own hearts, approve themselves as the Lord's people." Pendleton called on his readers to remember that "we are laboring, not to introduce a totally new church, but to restore the things which are wanting in one already existing; not to overthrow what is good, buy to teach the way of the Lord more perfectly."

Pendleton concluded with a revealing flourish. In the following purple passage, there can be no doubt that the essential question was not "Who should partake?" The basic matter at stake was the question of who should be regarded as a believer?

If Peter had been left to his Jewish prejudices and exclusivism, he would doubtless have refused to admit Cornelius to baptism. It was the overwhelming evidence of his reception by God that compelled the apostle to say, 'Who shall forbid that he shall be baptized?' So ought it to be with us. Can we deny that God has recognized and is still recognizing the truly pious and full of faith and good works in the many divisions of professed Christians, as really and truly his people? Will any one take the absurd position that the noble list of illustrious men who have been the light and ornament of religion in the ages that are past, and whose piety and learning are still the admiration and glory of the Lord's people--that all these, because of an error, not on the significancy or divine authority of baptism, but what we must be allowed to call its mode,--that all these, because of such an error, must be pushed from our ranks as reprobate--torn from our Christian affections, as heretics--thrust from the communion of the body and blood of the Saviour, whom for a long life they so truly loved and devotedly served, and counted no more worthy of our Christian fellowship than so many heathens and publicans! The conclusion is too monstrous for any but the hide-bound zealot of a cold and lifeless formalism. I should feel that I had injured the Christianity which I profess and which I love, could I recall that even for a moment I had allowed by head so to interpret its pleading mercy, or my heart so to restrict its wide-embracing charity.

Such a vigorous defense of a generous restorationism clearly indicates that second-generation leaders of the Stone-Campbell Movement had much more than the Lord's Supper to discuss. The essential nature of the restoration plea and the position of the movement in the larger world of Christendom was the real issue.

Notes

[1] The responses from Errett, Richardson, and Pendleton appeared under the title "Communion with the 'Sects'" in the The Millennial Harbinger dated December 1861, Vol. 32, 711-714. This material was reprinted in Benjamin Lyon Smith, The Millennial Harbinger Abridged, Vol. 2 (Cincinnati: Standard, 1902), 239 and following.

[2] Lester G. McAllister and William E. Tucker, Journey in Faith: A History of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Saint Louis: Bethany Press, 1975), 237.

[3] The approximate birth and death dates for Richard Hawley are taken from McAllister and Tucker, Journey in Faith, 240. For Hawley as the ACMS representative from Michigan, see The Millennial Harbinger Abridged, Vol. 2, 400.

[4] McAllister and Tucker, Journey in Faith, 240.

Rice Haggard's Influential Pamphlet

This is the last post I'll do about Rice Haggard, for now anyway. I hope that this series helps to show that his role in early American Restorationism is probably more significant than our surveys usually suggest. For one thing, although younger than and not as prominent as James O'Kelly, Haggard was significant in the break with Francis Asbury and the Methodists. Later, he provided leadership among the Republican Methodists who became the Christian Church. Too, though he has not been remembered as a leader among the Kentucky Christians of the Stone movement, the facts speak otherwise. In addition, as this post helps to show, Haggard provided some help to the New England movement, associated with Elias Smith and Abner Jones, which came to be known as the Christian Connexion.

A short, far-from-complete list of resources for further study (with links) can be found at the end of this post. I'd be glad to hear your reactions to any of this.
__________________

The call for a return to the Bible and undenominational Christianity spread during the early years of the newly-formed United States. An early-American "restoration plea" was heard not only in places like Virginia and Kentucky, but also in the New England states.

One prominent reformer in the Northeast was Connecticut-born Elias Smith. A preacher and publisher, Smith drank deeply of primitive restorationism. In 1803--when Alexander Campbell was about 14 years old and still in Ireland-- Smith was excommunicated by the Baptist Church of Woburn, Massachusetts. On that occasion he said:

If you wish to know what denomination I belong to, I tell you, . . . I am a Christian; as a preacher, [I am] a minister of Christ; calling no man father or master.

In 1816, he wrote:

The Holy Scriptures are the only sure authentic and infallible rule of faith and practice; the name Christian is the only proper one of the believer; in all essentials the scriptures are plain to be understood.

Smith has been remembered for his founding of the Herald of Gospel Liberty, often touted as the world's first religious newspaper. When Smith started the newspaper in 1808, his list of subscribers numbered only 274. But within just a few years that number had grown to 1,500. In the issue for Friday, August 18, 1809, Smith wrote:

We have received a small, but valuable work, from one of our Brethren in Virginia . . . which we think will be read with pleasure by many.

The article that followed was not complete. It was merely the first installment of a series. More sections appeared in the months that followed until the anonymous work was concluded in the issue dated February 2, 1810.

It wasn't until a century and a half rolled by that someone finally realized what Smith had published in the pages of the Herald. John W. Neth, Jr., then a budding church historian, identified who had written the series of articles. Years before, Neth had taken a church history class in which the professor noted that Rice Haggard's pamphlet on the sacred origin of the name Christian was no longer available. Neth turned to a classmate and bragged that he would someday discover the lost pamphlet. It turned out to be a prophecy.

Years later, as he worked his way through old issues of the Herald, Neth suddenly suspected that the series of articles was a reprint of the long-lost Rice Haggard pamphlet. Careful research in the early 1950s confirmed the identity of the articles, and Haggard's pamphlet was republished in 1954--along with an interesting preface--by the Disciples of Christ Historical Society in Nashville.

Haggard titled his work, An Address to the Different Religious Societies, on the Sacred Import of the Christian Name. Throughout, Haggard focused on the blight of religious division and importance of Christian unity. As he saw it, nothing was more harmful to the cause of Christ than the disunity of His followers:

To me it appears, that if the wisdom and subtlety of all the devils in hell had been engaged in ceaseless counsels from eternity, they could not have devised a more complete plan to advance their kingdom than to divide the members of Christ's body.

Haggard also believed that a vital step in restoring Christian unity was for all to wear the name Christian. But this was not merely a practical thing. It was primarily a matter of ascribing to our Lord the honor that only He deserves:

If our religion be the religion of Jesus Christ, both justice and propriety demand, that it should be called by his name. Otherwise, he will be the author of a good, and other will have the honor of it.

In another passage, Haggard spoke against the practice of wearing a man's name simply because one embraces what that man taught:

I believe some things which great and good men have believed and taught; but I believe them not on their authority, but solely on the authority of Jesus Christ. It would therefore be iniquity in me to rob him, in order to compliment them.

The tested reformer fully realized that Christian unity would never come merely as the result of all believers adopting the Christian name. Unity would come as the result of everyone standing together in truth:

Would to God, that those distinctions, which have so long abounded and troubled [the church], were vanished away, never to return! and that union, the church communion, were every where established upon the original simple principles of the gospel!

Confident that Christian unity would take hold and ultimately prevail, Haggard concluded on a note of hope: 

Brethren, we are expecting happier times than the church has ever yet seen; when she shall "look forth" as the morning, fair as the moon, "clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners."

Haggard's pamphlet was first published in 1804 by Joseph Charless of Lexington, Kentucky. After it appeared in serial form in the Herald of Gospel Liberty, it was reprinted in pamphlet form in 1815 at Dayton, Ohio. It was, thus, one of the most widely-circulated religious tracts of the early 1800s, and no doubt made an impact for the cause of uniting believers under the name Christian.

One of the more remarkable things about the pamphlet is that it was lost for so very long. At the very beginning, Haggard reveals only this about himself:

Some may, perhaps, be anxious to know who the author of the following pages is, his name, and to what denomination he belongs. Let it suffice to say, that he considers himself connected with no party, nor wishes to be known by the name of any -- he feels himself united to that one body of which Christ is the head, and all his people fellow members.

I used to believe that those words were motivated by pure modesty on the part of Haggard. Since then, however, I have learned that his tract has at least two antecedents:

1. A booklet by Benjamin Grosvenor (1676-1758), An Essay on the Christian Name: It's Origin, Import, Obligation, and Preference to all Party-Denominations. London: John Clark and Richard Hett, 1728.

2. A sermon by Samuel Davies (1724-1761), later president of Princeton University, titled "The Sacred Import of the Christian Name."

It's clear that Haggard's ideas, and even their specific wording, were not his own. Any credit, I believe, belongs to Grosvenor. Upon reading Haggard's work, one realizes that he knew how to document his ideas. He even does it a few times. But for him to truly document his reliance on Grosvenor and/or Davies, he should have placed a footnote and Ibid. after many of his sentences.
Of course, that would have been quite a distraction in a pamphlet that Haggard believed was vital. If he was going to do so much copying, he'd have to do it anonymously. That's my theory for now, anyway.

Rice Haggard died in 1819 somewhere around Xenia, Ohio, and was buried in an unmarked grave. He was only 50 years old. Appropriately enough, at the time of his death he was doing what he believed was most important, taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of what was then the western frontier of the United States.
________________
For Further Study: In addition to the Haggard pamphlet, I have quoted from various parts of The Centennial of Religious Journalism, edited by J. Pressley Barrett, Dayton, OH: Christian Publishing Association, 1908. This is a fascinating source for people who enjoy reading about Restoration History. It includes, for example, a short biography of Elias Smith, from which I've quoted here, on pp. 314-16. Remembrances of Haggard, stemming from various sources, can be found on pp. 15-21 and 269-83.

Also, P. J. Kernodle's book Lives of Christian Ministers (1909) contains a short biography of Rice Haggard.

The obituary notice for Nancy Haggard, the widow of Rice, was submitted by Isaac T. Reneau and can be found in the Millennial Harbinger, vol. 6, no. 2 (February 1863), pp. 94-95.

The only book-length treatment is Rice Haggard: The American Frontier Evangelist Who Revived the Name Christian, by historian extraordinaire, the late Colby D. Hall.

I've mentioned already the article by R. L. Roberts, "Rice Haggard (1769-1819) 'A Name Rever'd'," in Discipliana 54 (Fall 1994), pp. 67-81. Because Roberts used the oldest and best authorities available, his article is by far the best secondary biographical source.