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.

Alexander Campbell's Four-Part Series "On the Breaking of Bread"

In their quest to rehabilitate what Alexander Campbell referred to as "the divinely authorized order of Christian worship in Christian assemblies," early leaders of the Restoration Movement identified weekly communion as a central practice. [1] For example, when Thomas and Alexander Campbell and like-minded believers established the Brush Run church in Washington County, Pennsylvania, in May 1811, "their first act of worship was the observance of the Lord's Supper, which they resolved to celebrate weekly thereafter." [2]

In February 1825, Alexander Campbell inaugurated a series of articles titled "A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things," which he published in his monthly magazine, The Christian Baptist. The completed series included thirty-two installments. Four of the earliest articles, numbers six through nine, were subtitled "On the Breaking of Bread." [3]

Campbell began his series with an indictment of the monthly, semi-annual, and annual observances of the Lord's Supper within the various branches of Protestantism. Neither the frequency nor the demeanor of those observances met the standard of the New Testament. Campbell's complaint likely includes a veiled reference to the yearly summertime festal communions held by the Presbyterians, the denomination of which he and his father were former members. He notes especially that some believers had turned the Lord's Supper into a morose affair, a somber observance. [4] By contrast, he wrote:

It was the design of the Saviour that his disciples should not be deprived of this joyful festival when they meet in one place to worship God. . . . He did not assemble them to weep, and wail, and starve with him. No, he commands them to rejoice always, and bids them eat and drink abundantly. [5]

The heart of the series took up the question of frequency. Campbell well understood that the New Testament contained no explicit command that Christians should observe the Lord's Supper on a weekly basis. This led him to highlight the significance of approved examples in biblical interpretation. Campbell noted that the New Testament

does not altogether consist of commands, but of approved precedents. Apostolic example is justly esteemed of equal authority with an apostolic precept. Hence, say the Baptists, shew us where Paul or any apostle sprinkled an infant, and we will not ask you for a command to go and do likewise. [6]

Passages from three chapters of the New Testament make up the scriptural centerpiece of Campbell's argument for the weekly observance of the Lord's Supper: Acts 2, Acts 20, and 1 Corinthians 11. In the first of these, Acts 2:42 describes how the earliest Christians in Jerusalem "continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." Campbell noted that "the first congregation organized by the apostles after the ascension of the King, did as steadfastly attend on the breaking of bread in their religious meetings, as upon any act of worship or means of edification." [7] Thus we learn "that the breaking of bread was a stated part of the worship of the disciples in their meetings." [8]

Based on the first half of Acts 20:7-- "And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread"--Campbell insisted that "above all, we ought to notice that the most prominent object of their meeting was to break bread." [9]

From 1 Corinthians 11:20, Campbell argued that when Paul reproved the church at ancient Corinth for their abuse of the Lord's Supper, by implication he pointed to the central place of the breaking of bread in Christian worship. Paul wrote, "When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper." Campbell, in order to make his point, offered a comparison. If a man hired workers, but later found them idle, he might say to them, "You did not come here to work." Thus, in 1 Corinthians 11:20 Paul indirectly identifies the Lord's Supper as an essential part of Christian worship. [10]

Campbell concluded his series "On the Breaking of Bread" by pointing to early church history as a verification for his conclusions about the frequency of the Lord's Supper. He emphasized that while the New Testament foreground has no authority, it is useful as an answer to those who say, "Innovation!" in reaction to authentic New Testament teaching. The following brief passage includes two disclaimers regarding the authority of tradition. It also provides two reasons for studying church history:

We lay no stress upon what is no better than the traditions of the church; or upon the testimony of those called the primitive fathers, in settling any part of Christian worship, or Christian obedience. Yet when the scriptures are explicit upon any topic, which is lost sight of in modern times, it is both gratifying and useful to know how the practice has been laid aside, and other customs been substituted in its room. There is, too, a corroborating influence in authentic history, which, while it does not authorize any thing as of Divine authority, it confirms the conviction of our duty in things Divinely established, by observing how they were observed, and how they were laid aside. [11] 

At the end of the third of his four essays on the Lord's Supper, Campbell offered the following synopsis of his position on the topic. It serves as a good summary for this blog post as well:

"To recapitulate the items adduced in favor of the ancient order of breaking bread, it was shewn, as we apprehend--

1. That there is a divinely instituted order of christian worship, in christian assemblies.

2. That this order of worship is uniformly the same.

3. That the nature and design of the breaking of bread are such as to make it an essential part of christian worship in christian assemblies.

4. That the first church set in order in Jerusalem, continued as stedfastly in breaking of bread, as in any other act of social worship or edification.

5. That the disciples statedly met on the first day of the week, primarily and emphatically for this purpose.

6. That the apostle declared it was the design or the primary object of the church to assemble in one place for this purpose, and so commanded it to the churches he had set in order.

7. That there is no law, rule, reason, or authority for the present manner of observing this institute quarterly, semi-annually, or at any other time than weekly.

8. We have considered some of the more prominent objections against the ancient practice, and are ready to hear any new ones that can be offered. Upon the whole, it may be said that we have express precedent and an express command to assemble in one place on the first day of the week to break bread. We shall reserve other evidences and considerations until some objections are offered by any correspondent who complies with our conditions." [12]
______________________________________

Notes

[1] "Order of Worship", Christian Baptist, Vol. II, July 4, 1825, p. 164. Along this line, another of Campbell's phrases was "the ancient order of worship in the Christian church." See Ibid.

[2] Paul M. Blowers and Byron C. Lambert, "The Lord's Supper," in Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, p. 489.

[3] The first installment in Campbell's series titled "A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things" appeared in The Christian Baptist dated February 7, 1825. The final, thirty-second installment was published in the issue dated September 7, 1829. Campbell published The Christian Baptist from 1823 to 1830.

[4] "On the Breaking of Bread. No.--I" Christian Baptist, Vol. III, August 1, 1825,  pp. 174-75. For more about the origins and history of festal communions and camp meetings, see Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scotland and the Making of American Revivalism, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001). For the famous 1801 Cane Ridge Revival as a Presbyterian festal communion, see Paul K. Conkin, Cane Ridge: America's Pentecost (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), a book that owes a good deal to Leigh Eric Schmidt's 1987 Princeton PhD dissertation, and to Marilyn J. Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625-1760 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).

[5] "On the Breaking of Bread. No.--I," Christian Baptist, Vol. III, August 1, 1825,  p. 174.

[6] "On the Breaking of Bread. No.--II," Christian Baptist, Vol. III, September 5, 1825, p. 179.

[7] Ibid., 181.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] "On the Breaking of Bread. No.--III" Christian Baptist, Vol. III, October 3, 1825, p. 187.

[11] "On the Breaking of Bread, No. IV," Christian Baptist, Vol. III, November 7, 1825, p. 194. It is interesting to note how Churches of Christ historian Everett Ferguson offers much the same rationale for, and caveats regarding, the study of Christian history in the introductory chapter of Church History: Early and Medieval, 2nd ed. (Abilene, TX: ACU Press, 1985).

[12] "On the Breaking of Bread. No.--III" Christian Baptist, Vol. III, October 3, 1825, pp. 187-88.

Restoration Roots, by Lynn McMillon

McMillon, Lynn A. Restoration Roots: The Scottish Origins of the American Restoration Movement. Henderson, TN: Hester Publications, 1983.

Armchair historians of the American Restoration Movement immediately recognize the names Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell. In fact, the religious saga in which they play the two leading roles has more recently been named the Stone-Campbell Movement. Students of this story also know the names of other heroes, especially Thomas Campbell, Alexander's father and mentor, and Walter Scott, one of the movement's great evangelists in the early 1800s.

However, if you were to ask, "Who came before them?" most of their spiritual descendants would look all the way back to the sixteenth century and mention Martin Luther and John Calvin. A gap would separate the reformers of the sixteenth century from the restorers of the nineteenth century. Restoration Roots: The Scottish Origins of the American Restoration Movement was written to fill in part of that gap. It traces some of the lines that tie the Reformation in Scotland to the eventual movement that, under the leadership of Stone and Campbell, sought to restore primitive Christianity on American soil.

Like several other fine works of history, this little book is the revision of a doctoral dissertation. McMillon completed it at Baylor University in 1972 under the guidance of Professors Glenn O. Hilburn, John Davidson, and Robert Reid. The original title was Quest for the Apostolic Church: A Study of the Scottish Origins of American Restorationism. In the early 1980s, the author, a long-time educator and leader among the Churches of Christ, made a few minor changes and republished the book as Restoration Roots.

The "Introduction" in the current edition was written by Earl West. Well known among the Churches of Christ for his multi-volume history of the American Restoration Movement called The Search for the Ancient Order, West offers some penetrating insights about McMillon's topic.

Chapter I sets the stage by reviewing the history of the Reformation in Scotland. Beginning with the influence of Oxford scholar John Wyclif, an Englishman who flourished in the late 1300s, McMillon identifies a strong Scottish attraction to the doctrine of sola scriptura (scripture only), a teaching that was later advanced by men like Patrick Hamilton, George Wishart, above all John Knox, and Andrew Melville.

Chapter II, one of the more interesting and significant parts of the book, shows how the Anabaptist branch of the Reformation, though sometimes overlooked or minimized, actually made a vital contribution to what would finally emerge as restorationism. For unlike those who sought merely to reform the Roman Catholic Church of the sixteenth century, Anabaptists used the language of the restitution of the true church, an idea that compares much more closely with the later concept called restoration. Too, the Anabaptist tradition was consistent with English and Scottish Congregationalism in its demand for the autonomy of individual churches, also a hallmark of future restorationism.

Chapter III tells the story of John Glas (1695-1773), who began as a minister of the Church of Scotland. In the 1720s, young Glas argued against the arrangement of the national church of which he was a part. Reminding his hearers that Jesus had said His kingdom was not of this earth, Glas advanced the idea of the separation of church from state. He rejected both presbyterian and episcopal forms of church government insisting on the autonomy of every congregation. After he was deposed by the Church of Scotland, Glas served as an independent church leader and encouraged the practice of congregationalism for the rest of his life. Glas espoused the singular authority of the Bible, the restitution of primitive Christianity, the leadership of a plurality of elders in each congregation, and weekly observance of the Lord's Supper not as a sacrament but as a memorial.

Chapter IV describes the early life and ministry of Robert Sandeman (1718-1771), who became John Glas's son-in-law and his most illustrious protege. In fact, it was the fiery Sandeman who extended the "Glasite" movement from its native Scotland into England and Wales. He did this largely through the publication of Letters on Theron and Aspasio. Sandeman's book was a direct response to an earlier one by minister James Hervey called Theron and Aspasio. Hervey's book breathed the warm, revivalisitic Calvinism which was popular in that day. Sandeman held up an alternate view of salvation, one that began with gospel facts in the mind rather than strange stirrings of the Spirit in the heart. His teaching made sense to many people, and established Sandeman as an important religious thinker of the time. As a result, many people in Great Britain became interested in Christianity as it was taught and practiced among the Glasite churches.

Chapter V continues the story of Robert Sandeman who came to America in 1764 preaching and planting churches in the Northeast. The most prominent of these congregations was at Danbury, Connecticut, where Sandeman died in 1771. His results in America were mixed. He was opposed by several prominent ministers. Also, many people who agreed with him on the basic question of salvation did not go along with the holy kiss, footwashing, and the strict discipline, etc., practiced in the Sandemanian churches. Above all, because of their non-participation in politics, the fledgling congregations appeared to be siding with the Tories and were consequently ostracized and persecuted at the dawn of the American Revolution.

Chapter VI advances to the next generation and the work of Robert and James Haldane. As the author explains, though they were also Scotch independents who learned much from their predecessors, compared to Glas and Sandeman, the Haldane brothers were a different sort of restorationist. They placed much more emphasis on openness, evangelism, Christian unity, and the training of preachers. McMillon writes: "The Haldanes were theological descendants of Glas and Sandeman, but the brothers were more broad-minded in their dealings with persons of differing beliefs. They also exhibited a more dynamic evangelistic zeal than did Glas and Sandeman. While the Haldanes might be characterized as aggressive evangelists, Glas and Sandeman were teachers who tended their flocks" (76). Something else at this point in time is different. By now, Alexander Campbell has been born in Northern Ireland (in 1788) and eventually has direct contact with the Haldanes and their associates like Greville Ewing.

Chapter VII, the last section, takes up "Alexander Campbell and the Restoration Roots." Although he sometimes pointed out the differences between himself and his predecessors, Campbell shared much the same outlook as did the Anabaptists, and Glas, Sandeman and the Haldanes. It seems that two ideas that all of them espoused were a commitment to Bible authority and some concept of the restitution or restoration of primitive Christianity. McMillon ends by telling the story of Campbell's visit to Great Britain in 1847, and his meetings with those who had influenced him, and who he had more recently taught through his journals and books.

So what did I think of this book? One of the first things I noticed is that McMillon writes very much like his former teacher, Earl West, mentioned earlier. He focuses on facts and provides simple description. The subject is religious history. Where he absolutely must, the author takes up political and philosophical contours of the story.

I enjoyed reading this book and learned a lot from it. Because I'm interested in the subject, I would have liked it even more if it had been longer. And what else might have been included? I realize that the decisions of an author never end, and that writers have to make choices about what to include and how far to go with a certain sub-topic. That said, I would have liked more by way of political, social, and religious backgrounds and sidebars, and fuller coverage at certain points. For example, the book barely mentions that a significant part of the growth of Sandemanianism in England was due to the conversion of whole congregations that were originally associated with Methodist preacher Benjamin Ingham. Also, the substance of the theological debate between Hervey and Sandeman is fascinating and deserves, I think, more description than McMillon provides.

That aside, Restoration Roots is nonetheless an important book, one of the few that's been written on its subject. It has been and will remain a significant contribution to the study of the antecedents of the Stone-Campbell Movement and will be enjoyed by those who are interested in this part of the history of Christianity.