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American Origins of Churches of Christ
Without question, the essays in this volume are landmarks in the historiography and self-understanding of the Stone Campbell Movement, especially Churches of Christ. Written by two insiders and one outsider, each reflects significant developments in Stone-Campbell studies in the last forty years...Read, learn, and enjoy! -From the Introduction, By Douglas Foster
- GenresHistory
118 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 3, 2017
This is a fantastic little book, probably the best overview of key ideas in the American Churches of Christ that I've ever read. Foster provides a healthy critique and analysis of the three essays, plus there is a reading list of church histories written by authors in the Disciples of Christ, Independent Christian Churches, and Churches of Christ.
I took some notes to summarize major contents of the book:
-The forces behind the movements of Elias Smith, James O'Kelly, Barton Stone, and Campbell were largely political: they sought freedom from religious authorities in the new republican world. There was a crisis of authority among the popular culture of the frontier. Liberty was the lens through which all things pertaining to life and godliness would be seen among these movements. This meant freedom from church organizations and clergy/laity distinctions, freedom for every man to read the Bible for himself, and freedom to incorporate social experience with theological inquiry. The desire to exercise liberty within the church also colored the Restoration understanding of the primitive church. As Hatch says, "they referred to the early church as a republican society's with a New Testament constitution" (30). There was also a sense of urgency within the various movements: ushering in the millennial kingdom that would overthrow all earthly kingdoms.
-The radically-individualistic hermeneutic of these Christians was simple: reject anything (systematic theology, language, etc.) not specifically found in the New Testament. Their coarse rhetoric in debates appealed to the uneducated man, but this left clergymen unable to respond in effective ways. The movement gained popularity. It was appealing to the rugged sense of frontier individualism that grew out of the 18th century suspicion of certainty.
-Harrell's chapter on the class distinctions between Northern Disciples and Southern CoCs was eye opening. He counters the notion that the sharp division between Disciples and CoC came about through disagreements regarding music and missionary societies; instead, he suggests that the split was sectional. The Southern churches had a bias against the North's urban (aristocrat) businessman-ideal, while the Northern church was pessimistic about church growth in rural communities. Moses Lard saw the farmer as the picturesque preacher.
-Richard Hughes suggests a further reason for the split: the apocalyptic views of Barton Stone against the modernist optimism of Alexander Campbell (the "party of memory" vs the "party of hope"). Both groups had the radical expectation of ushering in the kingdom of God through a form of primitivism, but they differed on the initiator of the millennium: the optimists could usher in the kingdom through their return to primitive Christianity and the pessimists, skeptical of human progress, saw the kingdom coming through divine initiative. Hughes sees the influence of Campbell prominent among Disciples, and Stone among CoC. However, these positions reverse after the WW1 era. Campbell held to a "rational, progressive primitivism". He believed that scientific and rational progress had a part to play in ushering in the millennium. Stone's restoration ideals embodied simple living and holiness in contrast to forms of the early church. His "apocalyptic primitivism" was thoroughly anti-modern and countercultural. Mainstream CoC in the twentieth century maintained Campbell's biblicism, yet they also largely adopted Stone's counterculturalism.
-According to Hughes, David Lipscomb was the hybrid of these two positions: biblicism that bordered legalism, and apolitical separatism. He diverged from his mentor, Tolbert Fanning, on the church as the kingdom of God. Unlike Fanning, who saw the Church of Christ as the eschatological kingdom itself, Lipscomb saw the kingdom "in its church form" as a lower stage of the developing eschatological kingdom. Hughes also notes the premillennial views of James A. Harding, Phillip S. Fall, and E.G. Sewell. Lipscomb's understanding of the millennium had nothing to do with a literal thousand year reign in Jerusalem; instead, Lipscomb saw the millennium as "the eternal rule of God on this earth" (91). This language of Christ reigning in His kingdom on a restored earth is making a slow comeback in many contemporary Churches of Christ. However, Lipscomb did not debate premillennialism because, as Hughes notes, it was the working assumption of Churches of Christ in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama through the nineteenth century.
-From 1915-1940, Churches of Christ spoke out against premillennialism, largely a reaction to the teachings of R.H. Boll. Boll's dispensational and proto-fundamentalist influences were foreign to previously held apocalyptic views in the church. I was taken aback at the way J.C. McQuiddy was intimidated by the Attorney General of Tennessee on the issue of pacifism. The government targeted the CoC to abandon pacifism for patriotic reasons. Hughes notes that by the 1960s pacifism was almost nonexistent in the church. In this time period other traditional Stone-Lipscomb views (apocalypticism, separation from the world, reliance on God's power over human initiative) dissipated. M.C. Kurfees, Foy E. Wallace, and O.C. Lambert revived a form of Campbellite modern optimism in place of Lipscomb's ideology. It was only after Lipscomb's death that he and others who sympathized with his pacifism were criticized so harshly. The attacks of the WW2 era were pro-US government, suggesting that Lipscomb's orientation towards government was irresponsible. In the end, the Churches of Christ definitively became the party of hope, developing a deep sense of patriotism and optimism in human progress; yet there remained elements consistent with the Fundamentalist movement that stoked church's sectarianism.
I took some notes to summarize major contents of the book:
-The forces behind the movements of Elias Smith, James O'Kelly, Barton Stone, and Campbell were largely political: they sought freedom from religious authorities in the new republican world. There was a crisis of authority among the popular culture of the frontier. Liberty was the lens through which all things pertaining to life and godliness would be seen among these movements. This meant freedom from church organizations and clergy/laity distinctions, freedom for every man to read the Bible for himself, and freedom to incorporate social experience with theological inquiry. The desire to exercise liberty within the church also colored the Restoration understanding of the primitive church. As Hatch says, "they referred to the early church as a republican society's with a New Testament constitution" (30). There was also a sense of urgency within the various movements: ushering in the millennial kingdom that would overthrow all earthly kingdoms.
-The radically-individualistic hermeneutic of these Christians was simple: reject anything (systematic theology, language, etc.) not specifically found in the New Testament. Their coarse rhetoric in debates appealed to the uneducated man, but this left clergymen unable to respond in effective ways. The movement gained popularity. It was appealing to the rugged sense of frontier individualism that grew out of the 18th century suspicion of certainty.
-Harrell's chapter on the class distinctions between Northern Disciples and Southern CoCs was eye opening. He counters the notion that the sharp division between Disciples and CoC came about through disagreements regarding music and missionary societies; instead, he suggests that the split was sectional. The Southern churches had a bias against the North's urban (aristocrat) businessman-ideal, while the Northern church was pessimistic about church growth in rural communities. Moses Lard saw the farmer as the picturesque preacher.
-Richard Hughes suggests a further reason for the split: the apocalyptic views of Barton Stone against the modernist optimism of Alexander Campbell (the "party of memory" vs the "party of hope"). Both groups had the radical expectation of ushering in the kingdom of God through a form of primitivism, but they differed on the initiator of the millennium: the optimists could usher in the kingdom through their return to primitive Christianity and the pessimists, skeptical of human progress, saw the kingdom coming through divine initiative. Hughes sees the influence of Campbell prominent among Disciples, and Stone among CoC. However, these positions reverse after the WW1 era. Campbell held to a "rational, progressive primitivism". He believed that scientific and rational progress had a part to play in ushering in the millennium. Stone's restoration ideals embodied simple living and holiness in contrast to forms of the early church. His "apocalyptic primitivism" was thoroughly anti-modern and countercultural. Mainstream CoC in the twentieth century maintained Campbell's biblicism, yet they also largely adopted Stone's counterculturalism.
-According to Hughes, David Lipscomb was the hybrid of these two positions: biblicism that bordered legalism, and apolitical separatism. He diverged from his mentor, Tolbert Fanning, on the church as the kingdom of God. Unlike Fanning, who saw the Church of Christ as the eschatological kingdom itself, Lipscomb saw the kingdom "in its church form" as a lower stage of the developing eschatological kingdom. Hughes also notes the premillennial views of James A. Harding, Phillip S. Fall, and E.G. Sewell. Lipscomb's understanding of the millennium had nothing to do with a literal thousand year reign in Jerusalem; instead, Lipscomb saw the millennium as "the eternal rule of God on this earth" (91). This language of Christ reigning in His kingdom on a restored earth is making a slow comeback in many contemporary Churches of Christ. However, Lipscomb did not debate premillennialism because, as Hughes notes, it was the working assumption of Churches of Christ in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama through the nineteenth century.
-From 1915-1940, Churches of Christ spoke out against premillennialism, largely a reaction to the teachings of R.H. Boll. Boll's dispensational and proto-fundamentalist influences were foreign to previously held apocalyptic views in the church. I was taken aback at the way J.C. McQuiddy was intimidated by the Attorney General of Tennessee on the issue of pacifism. The government targeted the CoC to abandon pacifism for patriotic reasons. Hughes notes that by the 1960s pacifism was almost nonexistent in the church. In this time period other traditional Stone-Lipscomb views (apocalypticism, separation from the world, reliance on God's power over human initiative) dissipated. M.C. Kurfees, Foy E. Wallace, and O.C. Lambert revived a form of Campbellite modern optimism in place of Lipscomb's ideology. It was only after Lipscomb's death that he and others who sympathized with his pacifism were criticized so harshly. The attacks of the WW2 era were pro-US government, suggesting that Lipscomb's orientation towards government was irresponsible. In the end, the Churches of Christ definitively became the party of hope, developing a deep sense of patriotism and optimism in human progress; yet there remained elements consistent with the Fundamentalist movement that stoked church's sectarianism.
July 29, 2022
Very significant book, with articles written three highly regarded religious historians. I have read lots of material by David Edwin Harrell, had Richard Hughes for a graduate class at ACU, and have regularly heard the name of Nathan Hatch. This short book offers three articles written by the men just mentioned, and they offer opinions about the cause of the division between the Disciples and the "Christians," that led to the formation of the "churches of Christ." There is a really interesting evaluation at the end by Doug Foster, that will help in some aspects. When all was said and done, there is one of these viewpoints that makes more sense to me.
July 24, 2011
READ SEP 2009
Very interesting background on the history of one group in the restoration movement.
Very interesting background on the history of one group in the restoration movement.
September 13, 2015
Very insightful essays on the history of a very perplexing facet of the Restoration Movement. They really shed light on what I always thought was a tragic schism in a rich and powerful movement.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews