Stone-Campbell Restoration History and Teaching: A Brief Survey

The following is a brief overview of the history and outlook of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. I wrote it in order provide basic information to readers of an academic paper who are not of Disciples heritage, who are not members of the Christian Church or Churches of Christ. My goal here is to evaluate and improve this statement. I welcome all respectful questions and comments: 

The phrase Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement refers to a back-to-the-Bible tradition that grew out of the teachings of Barton W. Stone (1772-1844, pictured here), Thomas Campbell (1763-1854), and, above all, his illustrious son, Alexander Campbell (1788-1866). The great evangelist of the movement was Walter Scott (1796-1861), a distant relative of the famous Scottish novelist by that name.[1] These leaders and their followers pursued a distinct religious goal: the restoration of primitive Christianity. They spoke of restoring “the ancient gospel,” the Bible’s most basic claims about Christ which everyone must believe and respond to in obedience. They sought to discover the biblical progression by which one becomes a Christian, and they identified the following steps: faith, an assent to the claim that "Jesus is the Christ, the son of God" (Matthew 16:16); repentance, a radical turn from sin and self, and a turn toward God; baptism by immersion for the forgiveness of sins, the gift of God's Holy Spirit, and the promise of eternal life.[2] They also set out to restore what Alexander Campbell called “the ancient order of things,” especially the Bible's teaching about baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the congregational offices of elder and deacon, church discipline, and approved names for believers and for the church. Additionally, restoration pertained to matters more personal and inward: to self-control, pure speech, right living, the love of mercy, and the hopeful spirit of the New Testament.[3]

The project of restoration involved tearing down as well as building up. Christians of the Stone-Campbell movement sought to erase all distinctions between clergy and laity. Along with what often seemed to them the arbitrary authority of religious elites, they also rejected the authority of creeds, confessions, extra-biblical traditions, and specialized, learned theology. They replaced all such traditions with a populist hermeneutic according to which every person was welcomed, even expected, to read and understand the Bible for oneself. Having embraced the tenets of Enlightenment philosophy and American freedom, Stone, the Campbells, and like-minded believers acted upon their conviction that the imposition of illegitimate authority in matters of faith provoked disunity and amounted to a certain type of idolatry, a defiance of Almighty God. Such pseudo-authorities were never needed anyway, since the essential teachings of the Bible, the Word of God, could be understood and agreed upon by all responsible people who were truly seeking the Lord.[4]

The movement both commended and critiqued the Christian past. For his part, Alexander Campbell celebrated the goals and achievements of sixteenth-century reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Martin Bucer.[5] "The Protestant Reformation," he wrote, "is proved to have been one of the most splendid eras in the history of the world, and must long be regarded by the philosopher and the philanthropist as one of the most gracious interpositions in behalf of the whole human race."[6] Yet much like the Puritans, Campbell complained that the earlier reformers had not gone far enough. They were certainly on the right track. But to have a restored church, the initiatives of the sixteenth century would have to be "carried out to their legitimate issue."[7] In Campbell's view, no group in Christian history had ever truly united by building "upon the Bible alone." But that had changed "during the present generation."

Tired of new creeds and new parties in religion, and of the numerous abortive efforts to reform the reformation; convinced from the Holy Scriptures, from observation and experience, that the union of the disciples of Christ is essential to the conversion of the world, and that the correction and improvement of no creed, or partisan establishment in Christendom, could ever become the basis of such a union, communion, and co-operation, as would restore peace to a church militant against itself, or triumph to the common salvation; a few individuals, about the commencement of the present century, began to reflect upon the ways and means to restore primitive Christianity.[8]

As the foregoing suggests, the ultimate goal of the Stone-Campbell Movement was the unity of all believers in Christ, a oneness that was essential the Lord's plan to redeem the entire world. Leaders often noted that on the night when Jesus was betrayed into the hands of the authorities, he prayed that his followers would be one, even as he and God the Father were one. According to Jesus as he prayed to God the Father, the purpose of Christian unity was that “the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me” (John 17:23). The unity of the church was necessary for a lost world to believe the gospel, to recognize the true identity of Jesus Christ as well as God’s unique love for those who follow Christ [9]

Ironically, sometime after the Civil War, Christians associated with what Alexander Campbell called “the current reformation,” a movement designed to unify all true believers on the basis of the simple gospel and plain Bible teaching, splintered into two distinct groups. On one side stood those Christian Churches that would eventually give rise to the Disciples of Christ denomination and the independent Christian Churches. (Those two now-distinct churches emerged as separate groups during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries). Predominately, these congregations were in northern states, with power centers in places like Cincinnati and Indianapolis. They tended to value the later Alexander Campbell’s emphasis on Christian forbearance and unity at the expense of doctrinal particulars. However, influenced by then soldier-preacher and future U.S. President James A. Garfield (1831-1881), representatives of the northern congregations used resolutions issued by the Disciples’ American Christian Missionary Society to officially endorse the Union.

On the other side stood congregations that typically wore the name Church of Christ. Following the war, these churches were influenced by leaders like Tolbert Fanning (1810-1874)—who as a young man had been mentored by Alexander Campbell—and especially Fanning’s protégé, David Lipscomb (1831-1917). Both Fanning and Lipscomb resided in Middle Tennessee. The Churches of Christ were characterized by their commitment to the earlier Alexander Campbell’s emphasis on biblical primitivism and strict doctrine. For them, this specifically meant opposition to instrumental music in worship, and to all para-church institutions like the Disciples’ American Christian Missionary Society, which members of the Churches of Christ insisted were not authorized by Scripture. Unlike the Disciples of Christ, who prized Christian unity, the Churches of Christ more often saw the restoration of the faith and practice of the New Testament church not as a means, but as an end.[10]

With two fellowships of autonomous congregations having gone their separate ways and having begun to grow apart from one another, it fell to the federal Census Bureau in 1906 to enquire, call attention to the fact of division, and finally provide, at least for their purposes, distinct names for the groups. Nowadays, three discrete church bodies trace their roots back to Stone and Campbell: the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), which embraces its denominational identity, the independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ (sometimes referred to as Independents), and the acappella Churches of Christ.[11]

Beginning in the early decades of the twentieth century, historians referred to this tradition as the American Restoration Movement, or simply the Restoration Movement.[12] The more recent moniker, Stone-Campbell Movement, first appeared more as a descriptor than as a title per se, in, for example, Lester G. McAllister and William E. Tucker’s 1975 history of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) titled Journey in Faith.[13] The newer name has had some success in replacing the older one, especially among scholars, ever since 1981, when Leroy Garrett published the first edition of his interpretive survey, The Stone-Campbell Movement: An Anecdotal History of Three Churches.[14]

Notes

[1] Perhaps the best source for becoming acquainted with the Stone-Campbell Movement is Christian History 106 (2013), an issue of the magazine titled "The church to end all churches? The unifying vision of the Stone-Campbell Movement." All four leading figures of the early movement have entries in both the Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement and Oxford's multivolume American National Biography. Although the Restoration Movement, sometimes called the Stone-Campbell Movement, is often considered an American phenomenon, it is significant that three of the four founders mentioned here were not born in America. Both Thomas and Alexander Campbell were born in Northern Ireland, and Walter Scott was born in Scotland. More to the point, as James L. Gorman has recently argued, "[t]he influences of the evangelical missionary movement that emerged throughout the transatlantic region in the 1790s was the clearest and most comprehensive context that produced the earliest manifestation of the Campbell Movement in 1809." See Gorman, Among the Early Evangelicals: The Transatlantic Origins of the Stone-Campbell Movement (Abilene, TX: Abilene Christian University Press, 2017), 15. For a summary of Gorman's important work, see the author's review in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History 70, no. 1 (January 2019), 203-04.

[2] See, for example, Walter Scott, The Gospel Restored, A Discourse of the True Gospel of Jesus Christ in which the Facts, Principles, Duties, and Privileges of Christianity are Arranged, Defined, and Discussed, and the Gospel in Its Various Parts Shewn to Be Adapted to the Nature and Necessities of Man in His Present Condition (Cincinnati, OH: Donogh, 1836).

[3] Here, the best primary source is Alexander Campbell's thirty-two-part series titled "A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things," installments of which appeared in his monthly magazine The Christian Baptist from 1823 to 1829. The first appeared in The Christian Baptist 2, no. 7 (February 7, 1825): 124-28. The final installment, "Official Names and Titles," appeared in Volume 7, no. 2 (September 7, 1829): 585-86.

[4] See Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), esp. 3-46 and 67-80. For an explanation of the Puritan roots of the Stone-Campbell Movement, especially its Bible-centered primitivism, see Theodore Dwight Bozeman, To Live Ancient Lives: The Primitivist Dimension of Puritanism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988). A good overview of the basic theological outlook of American restorationist leaders can be found E. Brooks Holifield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), ch. 14. Paul M. Blowers, Douglas A. Foster, and D. Newell Williams provide a fine review of the historiography of the movement in “Stone-Campbell History Over Three Centuries: A Survey and Analysis,” in the Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, xxi-xxxv. For a good historical summary of the worldwide Restoration Movement, see Douglas A. Foster, "Disciples of Christ," Encyclopedia of Protestantism, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand (New York: Routledge, 2004), 2:593-97.

[5] Richard L. Harrison, Jr., "Alexander Campbell on Luther and the Reformation," Lexington Theological Quarterly 19, no. 4 (1984), 131-32. See also my article, "Why Should We Care about Martin Luther?" Christian Chronicle 74, no. 10 (October 2017), 26.

[6] Alexander Campbell, The Christian System, 2nd ed. (Pittsburgh, PA: Forrester & Campbell, 1839), 3.

[7] Ibid., 179.

[8] Ibid., 5.

[9] The unity of the church is a prominent theme in the two great “charter documents” of the Stone-Campbell Movement. The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery, signed by, among others, Barton W. Stone in 1804, quotes from “the seven ones” passage found in Paul’s Epistle of the Ephesians, chapter 4. The “Imprimis” of The Last Will and Testament reads: “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.” Similarly, Thomas Campbell’s 1809 Declaration and Address cites or alludes to Christ’s prayer for the unity of his followers, recorded in John 17, as well as to “the seven ones” passage several times. See Christopher R. Hutson, “Scripture Index to the Declaration and Address,” in The Quest for Christian Unity, Peace, and Purity in Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address: Text and Studies, eds. Thomas H. Olbricht and Hans Rollmann (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2000), 129-47. See also Alexander Campbell, "A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things. No. III," Christian Baptist 2, no. 9 (April 4, 1825), 198-205.

[10] On the earlier versus later Alexander Campbell as a key to understanding some of the differences between Churches of Christ and the Disciples of Christ, see Richard T. Hughes, Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Story of Churches of Christ in America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 32-44. For some of his insights, Hughes credits an unpublished manuscript by Don Haymes, “A Battle of Giants: Alexander Campbell and Bishop John Baptist Purcell in Cincinnati, 1837.” For restoration as the means to unity versus restoration serving the goal of purity and, thus, salvation, see Jay Smith, “Notes on Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address,” Restoration Quarterly 5, no. 3 (Third Quarter, 1961): 113-18.

[11] The names used in the Library of Congress subject authority records are: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, and Churches of Christ. Catalogers and researchers sometimes refer to these three groups simply as Disciples, 4Cs, and 2Cs. Although restorationist champions of undenominational Christianity would no doubt object to the use of such terms, everyone conversant with the history understands exactly what they mean. The state-of-the-art treatment of the worldwide history of the entire movement can be found in D. Newell Williams, Douglas A. Foster, and Paul M. Blowers, eds. The Stone-Campbell Movement: A Global History (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2013), especially chaps. 1-5. The history of the nineteenth-century American Restoration Movement and, after division, the twentieth-century Churches of Christ is best told by Richard T. Hughes, Reviving the Ancient Faith.

[12] See, for example, M. M. Davis, The Restoration Movement of the Nineteenth Century (Cincinnati, OH: Standard Publishing Company, 1913); Charles Crossfield Ware, North Carolina Disciples of Christ: A History of Their Rise and Progress, and Their Contribution to Their General Brotherhood (St. Louis, MO: Christian Board of Publication, 1927), 23, 52, 62, 78, 137, 323, 333, 343, and 372; Homer Hailey, Attitudes and Consequences in the Restoration Movement (Los Angeles: Citizen Print Shop, 1945); Enos E. Dowling, The Restoration Movement (Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 1964); and, more recently, Henry E. Webb, In Search of Christian Unity: A History of the Restoration Movement (Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 1990).

[13] Lester G. McAllister and William E. Tucker, Journey in Faith: A History of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Saint Louis: Bethany Press, 1975), 149, 253, 443.

[14] Leroy Garrett, The Stone-Campbell Movement: An Anecdotal History of Three Churches (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1981). Because Garrett's book contained "Stone-Campbell" in its title, some have assumed that Garrett coined the phrase. Yet it actually predates even McAllister and Tucker. For example, Allie Vandaripe, "Perryville: Motorcade to Cane Ridge," (Danville) Kentucky Advocate, July 31, 1955, describes the Cane Ridge Meeting House as follows: "This historic spot is greatly revered by all congregations of the Christian Church, since it was at this place more than a century and a half ago that the Stone-Campbell Movement began in the one-room structure." The author seems to be using what was to her a familiar term.

Report on Forrest M. McCann, "Changes in Worship Music in Churches of Christ"

McCann, Forrest M. "'Time is Filled with Swift Transition': Changes in Worship Music in Churches of Christ." Restoration Quarterly 39 (Fourth Quarter 1997): 195-202.

This article was originally a speech, delivered at Abilene Christian University in 1997. Forrest McCann, a musician and historian, identifies and describes distinct episodes in the musical history of the Churches of Christ. According to him, they are as follows:

The Nineteen Century: The Campbell Tradition

No surprise, Alexander Campbell was the most significant influence on the worship music of the Disciples movement during the nineteenth century. Campbell had been raised a Presbyterian. Consequently, he favored the "metrical versions of the Psalms" well-known among the Presbyterians. His original hymnal of 1828 was republished a number of times. And, it served as the basis for hymnals produced by the American Christian Missionary Society between 1865 and 1882.

First Major Transition: Competition

In 1882, James Henry Fillmore published a song book that was much the same as the one produced by the ACMS. But, Fillmore's book was cheaper! Consequently, Campbell's dream of the the united Disciples having just one hymnal was crushed. Too, a new era of song-book competition began. Standard Publishing produced a hymnal in 1888, and in 1889, the Gospel Advocate came out with a hymnal whose lyrics were overseen and edited by E. G. Sewell. Interestingly, there was evidently no one among the Churches of Christ at the time who was qualified to oversee the music for the Gospel Advocate hymnal. So, a Methodist musician, Rigdon M. McIntosh who was on the faculty at Vanderbilt, did the job.

Second Major Transition: Advocate Books

Following the official separation between the Christian Churches and the non-instrument, non-society Churches of Christ in 1906, hymnals produced by the Gospel Advocate always had a non-instrument, Churches of Christ text editor. But, again, there was apparently no one in the group who was qualified to oversee the musical part of the hymnal. Consequently, an "instrumental" brother or someone like the Methodist Rigdon McIntosh edited the tunes. "The sad fact is that since the 1906 separation, Churches of Christ have never been a part of the mainstream of church song in America" (196).

Third Major Transition: Competition Again

Just as there was competition among Disciples hymnals in the 1880s, the emerging Churches of Christ witnessed similar competition. There were the Gospel Advocate hymnals, which competed with hymnals produced by the Firm Foundation, plus a large number of hymnals produced by independent editors. None of these hymnals featured songs whose words and music were consistently good.

Among the many hymnals published in the early 20th century, The Wonderful Story in Song (1917), by F. L. Rowe, was more substantial than most, and had some staying power (197). Some of the song books produced by the Churches of Christ in the first half of the twentieth century were of very low quality.

West of the Mississippi, Churches of Christ typically used the hymnals produced by the Firm Foundation headquartered in Texas. Hymnals were edited by G.H.P. Showalter, editor of the Firm Foundation magazine. The content of these hymnals was heavily influenced by F. L. Eiland, "the most prominent singing-school teacher among the Churches of Christ in Texas" and his proteges (197). Eiland's own Trio Music Company and subsequent Quartet Music Company produced several small, paperback hymnals, none of which lasted very long. These were filled with the words and music of Eiland and his students, songs which no one had ever sung before (and hardly since). Especially in the west, Churches of Christ were going their own way musically. This was a regional, mediocre tradition which produced very few songs which have lasted. Eiland's best-known book was The Gospel Gleaner (1901).

(FVB's guess is that the two best-known songs from this time and place are F. L. Eiland, "Time is Filled with Swift Transition," and a song by one of Eiland's students, Will Slater, "Walking Alone at Eve").

Fourth Major Transition: Great Songs

In May 1921, E. L. Jorgenson, a trained musician, completed Great Songs of the Church. Commendations poured in and were published in Word and Work, which had produced the new hymnal. Among Churches of Christ hymnals, the quality was unprecedented. And, this hymnal "reconnected the Churches of Christ with the great historic tradition of hymns and spiritual songs" (198). The book was a combination of Christian history and more-recent music produced by the Restoration Movement. Here was the best music from Christendom and from Restorationism. The musical isolationism of the Churches of Christ was coming to an end.

In producing Great Songs of the Church, Jorgenson was heavily influenced by the lesser-known W. E. M. Hackleman. For example, like Hackleman (and Fillmore), Jorgenson divided his collection into "Hymns" and "Gospel Songs."

Fifth Major Transition: The Dominance of Great Songs

The Gospel Advocate was silent about Great Songs, which was published by Word and Work, associated with R. H. Boll and premillennialism. Nonetheless, Great Songs became the standard everywhere, apparently because of its quality and despite its connections to "Bollism." By 1958, Jorgenson could say, "Nearly three million souls, in some 10,000 churches, now sing the Saviour's praises from its pages" (200). In the 50s, Jorgeson sold his standard-note edition of the hymnal to the Christian Standard, and the shaped-noted edition to Abilene Christian University. "The result of these transactions was that for the next decade and a half the heirs of the Stone-Campbell Movement again approached Alexander Campbell's dream of one hymnal for the churches" (200).

Sixth Major Transition: Imitation

Beginning in the mid-50s, producers of song books began simply copying songs straight from Great Songs of the Church. Sometimes the new books were 50 percent reproductions of songs from Jorgenson's work. They did so with impunity and apparently came to imagine that what they were doing was right. "His work, which has greatly elevated and standardized our hymnody, is now in its death throes because of inveterate copying. Perhaps my speech today is its requiem" (201). (Seems like this section should be called "Duplication" not "Imitation").

Seventh Major Transition: Current Events

McCann clearly saw the 1990s as an era of decline. A summary of his observations:

1. Only seventeen years later, it is astonishing to read McCann's assumption that part of the answer is to keep the best hymnals in print. (How many Christians sing from a printed hymnal anymore? They sing words projected onto a screen. In many cases, there is no musical notation).

2. Publishers of song books operate on the premise that more songs makes for a better book. McCann notes that by that time, there was a hymnal with over 1000 selections.

3. The advent of "so-called praise songs."

4. A trend toward performance music, music written for choirs and other trained musicians, not for "the average worshiper" (201).

In his conclusion, MaCann hints that the introduction of more-complicated music makes the adoption of instrumental music more likely. He quotes approvingly from a 1861 article by Isaac Errett in the Millennial Harbinger, which discusses the importance of music and singing.

See also, Forrest M. McCann, "Changing Our Tune: The History of Hymnals," Gospel Advocate 140 (December 1998), 12-16.

Abstract of Everett Ferguson on "Alexander Campbell's Sermon on the Law"

Ferguson, Everett. "Alexander Campbell's Sermon on the Law: A Historical and Theological Examination," Restoration Quarterly 29 (1987): 71-85.

This article explains the historical, religious, and polemical contexts of a sermon which, in printed form, became one of the seminal texts of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, especially in connection with attitudes toward the Old Testament. Ferguson observes that statements from the sermon were later taken out of these contexts and applied in ways that had the effect of discounting the authority and usefulness of the O.T. Ferguson argues that Campbell did not intend to demean the O.T. Instead, he was interested in cutting off typical Protestant appeals to it for practices such as infant baptism, observing Sunday as a Christian Sabbath, national covenanting, and the establishment of civil law. He concludes that if someone wants a better understanding of how Campbell understood the O.T. and used it as Scripture, he should read Campbell's Familiar Lectures on the Pentateuch.

Report on Bill Humble, "The Influence of the Civil War"

Humble, B. J. "The Influence of the Civil War." Restoration Quarterly 8 (Fourth Quarter 1965): 233-47.

In 1860, there were 1,241 congregations of Disciples in the North, and 829 in the South. Moreover, many of these congregations were in the Ohio Valley, and in border states like Kentucky and Missouri, where there was a good bit of internal division. These churches decided to stay completely out of politics because there were within the same congregation sympathizers on both sides of the slavery question. In time, preachers were completely hands-off regarding the War and its sources. The Disciples were determined to maintain the unity of their fellowship, unlike most denominations which had, by that time, already divided into North and South.

Christian Pacifism

Almost all of the Disciple leaders of the era (with the evangelist Walter Scott as a notable exception) argued for strict non-participation, either as a matter of conviction or in the practical interests of unity. J.W. McGarvey was an outstanding advocate of pacifism. This position was strong in Middle Tennessee, influenced by and reflecting the words of David Lipscomb.

At the same time, there were participants among the Disciples: both Alexander Campbell Jr. and Barton Stone Jr. wore the Confederate gray. James A. Garfield was a Union major general. And, in spite of the pacifists in the middle, brotherhood journals spanned the spectrum: from pro-Union abolitionists, to defenders of the Confederacy.

Franklin and Fanning: Sectional Symbols

Benjamin Franklin and Tolbert Fanning were mirror images of the other. Both were pacifists who mentioned their belief that the North (Franklin) and the South (Fanning) were in the right. And, they both believed as an expedient that, for the sake of unity, the only right course was for editors and preachers and churches to completely stay away from the war question.

On Record for the Union

During the first wartime meeting of the American Christian Missionary Society in 1861, there were no Southerners in attendance, and a pro-Union resolution was passed, encouraged by an out-of-session speech by James A. Garfield, wearing a blue uniform. In the pages of the Gospel Advocate, shortly before it discontinued publication, Tolbert Fanning reacted in shock and anger. Earlier, in 1859, Fanning had attended a meeting of the Society, announcing that congregations could and should conduct missionary activity, but also saying that he and others were one with those who supported the missionary society. It was when the society adopted the explicitly pro-Union statement that Fanning's language completely changed.

A Declaration of Loyalty

From the other side, there were abolitionists among the Disciples who felt strongly that the missionary society had not gone far enough, and that the organization should pledge an oath of loyalty to the Union. In 1863, the society formally made its pledge.

A Problem of Historiography

In 1866, Moses Lard confidently stated that the tensions of the Civil War had not broken the unity of the Disciples. Humble notes that a line of various restoration historians accepted and reported Lard's declaration:

1. W. E. Garrison, Religion Follows the Frontier
2. Garrison and DeGroot, The Disciples of Christ
3. Earl I. West, The Search for the Ancient Order, Vol. 1
4. James DeForest, Christians Only

Only David Edwin Harrell, in his 1962 Vanderbilt dissertation, "A Social History of the Disciples of Christ to 1866," challenged the assumption that the Disciples remained united through the Civil War.

"The assumption that the Disciples escaped a Civil War division requires drastic revision, perhaps a complete repudiation for the evidence proves that the Civil War did play an important role in the Disciples' schism" (245).

Humble observes that David Lipscomb, editor of the Gospel Advocate for decades starting in 1866, was even more bitter in his asides against the North than Fanning had been before the War. That is, the end of the war marked the beginning of wider division.

"The Civil War had so shattered the sense of brotherhood between northern and southern Christians that they could never again be called 'one people' in any meaningful sense.  . . . What had happened was that two threads of alienation--sectional bitterness and antagonistic understandings of the restoration principle--had become tangled together and had shattered the Christians' oneness" (246).

Humble says that if the Disciples had had a denominational structure, then the group would have divided into two distinct churches, much like other groups which did have a denominational structure. The Disciples told themselves that their unity had survived the war. In 1906, the United States Census Bureau said otherwise.

A is for Abductive, B is for Balderdash

It's not too often that you read "Hogwash!" in a scholarly book review. But that's exactly one of the comments that Tim Sensing, a professor at Abilene Christian University, makes in his review of the book A is for Abductive: The Language of the Emerging Church, by Leonard Sweet, Brian McLaren, and Jerry Haselmayer. Sensing's review appears in the most recent issue of Restoration Quarterly (Volume 51, Fourth Quarter 2009, pp. 251-253), and it serves as a model of one of the functions of good scholarship: to drive out bad scholarship.

According to Sensing, A is for Abductive is a dictionary type book that "advertises itself as a primer for people desiring to discern the thought processes of churches that are responding to postmodern culture." The book includes entries like "I is for Icon." But Sensing doesn't have to go beyond the very first entry, "A is for Abductive Method," to find what he calls "enough fodder" for his review. In that first entry, the authors cite the work of philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce, and advocate an approach to preaching that, instead of analyzing, looks to create an image or compose an experience. Sounds sexy, doesn't it?

But as Sensing points out, not only are the authors guilty of mere assertion, they apparently didn't bother to read the work of C. S. Pierce: you know, the work that supposedly provides the theoretical foundation for what they're saying. They do cite a 1970 dissertation dealing with Pierce's theory. So Sensing read the dissertation and compared it to A is for Abductive. What he found was "no basis for associating Pierce's understanding of the logic of scientific discovery to the abductive method presented by the authors." In short, Sweet, McLaren and Haselmayer have completely misappropriated C. S. Pierce, and are, at least in this case, patently guilty of a name-dropping sort of pseudo scholarship.

Meanwhile, Sensing points out, all of the sudden everyone's getting all "abductive." For example, a recent article by Paul Windsor, "A Space to Occupy: Creating a Missional Model for Preaching," (Stimulus, Vol. 13, no 1 [2005]: 20-25) cites A is for Abductive as though it were a genuine authority.

Carl Savage and William Presnell do much the same thing in their book Narrative Research in Ministry: A Postmodern Research Approach for Faith Communities (Louisville: Wayne E. Oates Institute, 2008). Sensing notes that Savage and Presnell cite A is for Abductive "to make claims about narrative research methodology. Relying on the authors' pseudo-work leads them to assert that the essence of narrative as the primary voice of theological research in ministry is 'non-logical.'" (This is where Sensing has to say, "Hogwash!"). He closes with, "Those footnoting this work contribute to the dissemination of ignorance."

Upon reading this review, I was reminded that some of the best preachers I've ever known didn't know much about communication theory per se. But they did love the Lord. They modeled, imperfectly, what it means to live for Him. And they understood a few things about how to convict and persuade people, how to show them the hope that is found only in Christ Jesus and build them up in faith. Most of that know-how came as a result of their deep study of the Bible and a passion for preaching God's Word.

I know, to some ears that might sound a bit sappy, nostalgic, inadequate. I can only protest that maybe that's part of what's behind the loss of vitality in American church life today. There can be no doubt that major shifts are taking place in American thought and life. I don't understand much about that. What I do know is that nonsense masquerading as Christian scholarship or "the next big thing" isn't the answer. How 'bout you?

When Wine Really Wasn't "Wine"

A current discussion over at Bobby Valentine's blog reveals a common gap in our thinking about wine, the ancient world, and the Bible. The posts and comments rightly criticize the tired, old argument that the wine mentioned in the Bible was unfermented grape juice, the Welch's of the ancient world.

However, what isn't mentioned is the fact that what the ancients called "wine" was actually wine mixed with a large amount of water. Therefore, to say that Jesus in John 2 turned water into wine is not the same thing as saying that Jesus turned water into something like Pinot Grigio. Consider:

"We call a mixture 'wine' although the larger part of the component parts is water"(Plutarch, Advice to Bride and Groom 20 in Moralia 140f).

The literature of the ancient world is filled with specific examples of mixing many parts water with a few parts wine. For example, in the Odyssey, Homer mentions a ratio of 20 parts water to 1 part wine (see 9.208f). Pliny the Elder speaks of an 8 to 1 mixture (Natural History, 14.6.54). Most writers have it a little stronger, but still very diluted. For example, in The Nurse, Athanaeus of Naucratis has the following conversation:

"A: Look, here is wine. Shall I pour a Triton [three parts water to one part wine]?

B. No, it's much better as one and four.

A. Too watery, that! However, drink it up and tell me the news; let's have some conversation while we drink" (see Deipnosophists 10.426c).

Because "wine" really meant "wine mixed with water," if a writer wanted to refer to undiluted wine, he was required to use some such adjective. For example:

"If the headache only came to us before we drink to intoxication, no one would ever indulge himself in wine immoderately. But as it is, foreseeing not that punishment for drunkenness will come, we readily give ourselves over to drinking unmixed cups" (Alexis, The Phrygian, in Deipnosophists, 10.429e, emphasis mine).

As in the previous quote, many writers warned against drinking unmixed wine:

"In daily intercourse, to those who drink it moderately, it gives good cheer; but if you overstep the bounds, it brings violence. Mix it half and half, and you get madness; unmixed, bodily collapse" (Athenaeus quoting Mnesitheus of Athens in Deipnosophists 2. 36a,b).

Quotes like these from the ancient world can be multiplied many times over. I cite these ones only to show that what we call wine and what the ancients called wine are two different things.

No, I'm not prepared to make the argument that the Bible demands total abstinence. What I am saying is that it is a category mistake for modern-day Christians to cite the biblical references to wine and then compare them to the products of Reunite and Beringer. The fact is, the average person in the New Testament era considered the drinking of unmixed wine a barbaric practice. That, I think, should give us caution.

For Further Reading:

Ferguson, Everett. "Wine as a Table-Drink in the Ancient World," in Restoration Quarterly 13 (Third Quarter 1970): pages 141-153. Like all of what Ferguson writes, this is a fine piece of work. The quotations in my post here are taken from this scholarly article.

Stein, Robert H. "Wine-Drinking in New Testament Times," in Christianity Today 19 (June 20, 1975): pages 9-11. Stein is another first-rate scholar. His article is written at the popular level, shorter and easier to get through than the one by Ferguson.

You Might Want to Read . . .

The November 2008 issue of the Gospel Advocate magazine features several articles on "The Emerging Church Movement." Evidently, when the Advocate, a Churches of Christ publication, sold all the paper copies of this one, they chose to temporarily post the feature articles on the Web. I haven't had the chance to read them yet. I suspect that they will mainly disapprove. But it should be interesting to hear the various takes.

Last spring, I did a few posts about the Ascension of Christ: a little complaining about how the biblical teaching has been overlooked, and then some of the teaching itself. More recently, Wade Hodges has published in New Wineskins magazine the best thing I've ever read on the topic. Take a look at the article Hail to the King!

A couple years ago, Restoration Quarterly published a very informative and challenging article by Evertt Huffard. Since then, RQ has begun to make some articles from their back issues available on the Web. I'm glad they chose to include this one by Huffard: "When Scholarship Goes South: Biblical Scholarship and Global Trends."

ResQ Online

Restoration Quarterly is the name of a 50-year old academic journal. It's written and read mostly by scholars and preachers from Churches of Christ. Every time a new issue shows up in my mailbox, I want to read it cover to cover. Right then. Few other publications are that important to me. Anyway, for a long, long time RQ was available only in print. More recently, some of its content from the past half century has been made available online. Check it out.

New Article by Evertt W. Huffard

One of the journals I never fail to read is Restoration Quarterly. Since its beginnings nearly 50 years ago, it’s been the scholarly serial publication among Churches of Christ. [The Stone-Campbell Journal, also by and for scholars, started much more recently; it is a decidedly Christian Churches and Churches of Christ publication. Like RQ, the S-C Journal contains a lot of great stuff].

The latest issue of RQ showed up in my mail box yesterday. As usual, I immediately read the cover and decided what I would dive into first. With one glance, I knew.

The lead article is by Evertt Huffard, the dean of my alma mater, Harding Graduate School. About 15 years ago, I took my first class with Evertt: “Church Growth.” One of the many things I loved about that class was the kind of response the teacher would give to some question about, for example, how our required readings connected to our work as church leaders. By the time Evertt was through, I’d think to myself, “That sounds like something Jesus would have said.” His answers were, at once, spiritual and practical and gracious and wise. Just right. Evertt has become one of the few people I really sit up and listen to every time. He has a good mind and a good heart, and he works hard for the Lord. He deserves to be heard by the churches.

The title of this new article is, “When Scholarship Goes South: Biblical Scholarship and Global Trends.” And it’s an eye-opener. For people with any sort of global vision, his facts aren't news. The contribution of this article is not what it reports, but how it synthesizes what many have already heard, and how it challenges leaders within the Restoration Movement.

Huffard basically says that the worlds of Christendom and of the Churches of Christ are radically changing. Here are two quotes:

In 1800, one percent of all Protestants lived outside Europe and America; today 66% do so.

The Churches of Christ have more congregations in Africa than in the USA. From 1989 to 2000 the number of congregations doubled from six to twelve thousand, at a time the missionary force decreased.

He goes on to explain some of the causes and effects of such change, as well as some developments that will impact (change!) the change. Above all, he describes how the world wide web, especially multiple reciprocal email, will “completely globalize the scholarly community.”

Finally, as you come to expect from him, he has a short, practical list. He calls it “Implications for Scholarship.” They are:

1. Globalize the audience of our scholarship

Huffard points out that this is important not only for connections between the USA and, say, India. It can also be positive for the American church’s mission where it is. If American scholars gave more attention to the conservative, traditional, and biblicist convictions of the global south and east, they might find a bigger audience at home too. He writes, “The churches that are growing numerically in the USA have a public respect for the Bible but less appreciation for scholarship.” (i.e., at least as scholarship has been done).

2. Equip the church to be a witness to the nations

“If the missiological call for incarnational ministry applies to scholarship, then several things will have to happen. The first, and possibly most difficult, is the openness to those who are more conservative than many scholars have become” (obviously related to the first point).

3. Make scholarship accessible—share resources

In short, recognize that there are hundreds of millions of poor people where Christianity is rapidly growing. Be merciful and kind. Make the process and results of scholarly work available to them too.

Finally, Huffard turns specifically to scholars in the Restoration Movement and, in so many words, says “You too. Let's do better. For example, we should publish things in this journal that, say, an African church leader can appreciate and use.”

Years ago, at a Restoration Quarterly breakfast, I heard John Wilson speak to Church of Christ Bible scholars. What he said to them was, You’ve earned respect among the world’s scholars. But for the most part you’ve neglected the church(es) you came from. Do better (which is not to say, necessarily, do better academically).

Years later, here’s another trusted voice saying much the same thing, only this time from a much more global perspective. I don’t know how many people effectively listened to Wilson’s speech. I wonder how many will make changes because of what our brother Evertt is saying. God, help us.