Reviving the Ancient Faith

The Story of Churches of Christ in America

Richard T. Hughes

• Publisher: Abilene Christian University Press
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9780891128557
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

A history of the churches of Christ in America with emphasis on who they are and why. Fourteen chapters with pictures of Restoration leaders from both the 19th and 20th centuries.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Character of Churches of Christ

This book is a history of Churches of Christ in the United States, but that statement requires qualification. Over the years, Churches of Christ have divided and subdivided to such an extent that The Encyclopedia of American Religions lists eight major wings of this tradition.¹ Together, the various wings of Churches of Christ embraced roughly 1,700,000 members in 1990. ²

Through that maze of division, I seek in this volume to follow the majority, mainstream tradition of the movement. While I do take seriously, for example, the Pre-millennial Churches of Christ, the Non-Class Churches of Christ, the One-Cup Churches of Christ, the Anti-Institutional Churches of Christ, and the International (Boston) Churches of Christ, as well as those congregations that are predominantly African American, none of these traditions stands at the heart of this volume. Instead, this book is principally about the white mainstream of Churches of Christ that traces its American heritage to Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell in the early nineteenth century and that, in the twentieth century, has thrived especially in a region running from Middle Tennessee to West Texas. At the same time, particularly when dealing with the twentieth century, I attempt to tell the story of mainline Churches of Christ from the viewpoint of various dissenting streams of this tradition — a point clarified later in this introduction.

It is my contention in this book that four major themes have shaped the character of this tradition from its nineteenth-century beginnings.

First, the defining characteristic of Churches of Christ throughout their history, until late in the twentieth century, was the notion of the restoration of primitive Christianity — the attempt to recover in the modern age the Christian faith as it was believed and practiced in the first century. This vision flourished especially in the heady, utopian climate of the early nineteenth century when Churches of Christ in America first began. Many Americans of that period, deeply impressed with the glories of the new nation and of the land it occupied, imagined that a golden age was near, perhaps even the final triumph of the kingdom of God. In that context, a number of religious movements dedicated themselves to recovering primitive Christianity in all its purity and perfection. The two most notable manifestations of that impulse in the antebellum period were the Churches of Christ and the Latter-day Saints, though these two traditions took that impulse in very different directions.³ Throughout this book, I use the term primitivism to refer to this attempt to recover the ancient Christian faith.

Second, Churches of Christ began as a sect in the early nineteenth century and evolved into a denomination during the course of the twentieth century.⁴ This fact would hardly be striking, or even very interesting, were it not for the fact that Churches of Christ have passionately rejected the labels sect and denomination as pertinent to their own identity. Indeed, their resolute rejection of these labels has been central to what Churches of Christ have been about for almost two hundred years. Since their denial of these categories flies in the face of social reality, their story is one of deep irony and absorbing interest.

Often, these people have argued that they have restored the primitive church of the apostolic age and are therefore nothing more or less than the true, original church described in the New Testament. For this reason, Churches of Christ generally have denied that they had a defining history other than the Bible itself and have expressed little or no interest in their particular history in the United States. Many members of Churches of Christ remain to this day virtually ignorant of Alexander Campbell, the early nineteenth-century leader who helped give shape and texture to this movement in its founding years. What is more, many of these same people studiously avoid learning about Campbell or any other important leader from their past: they fear that to acknowledge dependence on any human leader would make them a denomination with a human founder rather than the true, primitive church founded by Christ. This unique self-understanding has served to create institutional identity out of a denial of institutional identity, and it has shaped the history and character of Churches of Christ in countless and often paradoxical ways. The material I present in this book substantiates the assertion a colleague and I have made elsewhere that churches that root their identity in efforts to restore ancient Christianity are susceptible to the illusion that they have escaped the influence of history and culture altogether.⁵

Third, this book will argue that the nineteenth-century sectarian character of Churches of Christ drew from two first-generation leaders, not one. To the extent that scholars and members of Churches of Christ have acknowledged their history, most have assumed that the tradition is indebted mainly to Alexander Campbell. While acknowledging Campbell's significance, I will argue that Barton W. Stone was equally important for shaping this tradition. It is my contention that one cannot understand the history and character of Churches of Christ unless one understands the thought and contributions of both of these men.

Fourth, I will argue that Campbell and Stone understood the Christian message and oriented themselves to the world in which they lived in very different ways. These differences contributed not only to the character of Churches of Christ but also to divisions that ruptured this movement, both in the nineteenth and in the twentieth centuries. Three terms are pertinent in this context: apocalypticism, postmillennialism, and premillennialism.

Since Alexander Campbell embraced a highly optimistic view of the world, we will refer to his outlook as postmillennial. Like many Americans living in the early nineteenth century, Campbell imagined that human progress would usher in the kingdom or rule of God (the millennium) and that Jesus would return only at the conclusion of that golden age. Thus, he believed that Jesus’ second coming would be postmillennial.

Barton Stone, on the other hand, embraced a pessimistic understanding of the world. We will refer to Stone's perspective as apocalyptic. Apocalypticism in this context does not involve millennial theories or speculation regarding the time of the second coming. Instead, it signifies an outlook on life whereby Stone and many of his people lived their lives as if the final rule of the kingdom of God were present in the here and now. Stone and many who looked to him for leadership denied that human progress could contribute anything at all to the creation of the kingdom of God on this earth. They gave their unqualified allegiance to God's rule and rejected allegiance to human governments and to the popular values of the culture in which they lived. This outlook gave their activities a radical, even countercultural dimension.

While I do not use the term apocalypticism in reference to any particular theory about the millennium or the final golden age, it is nonetheless true that Stone and many of his people embraced a decidedly premillennial reading of human history. They believed that this world could not become the kingdom of God unless and until God himself ordained it. Many therefore held that the world could not be renewed until Christ himself returned to establish his millennial rule on earth. Thus they believed the second coming of Christ would be premillennial, or prior to the final golden age.

A caution, however, is in order at this point. The reader should not confuse my use of the term apocalyptic with premillennial perspectives. While apocalyptic thinking has often given rise to premillennial perspectives, the two are not the same. I use the phrase apocalyptic worldview in this book to refer to the kind of piety that led Stone and many of his followers to place themselves directly under the rule of God and to refuse to conform themselves to the values of the world.

Understanding the ‘‘Nondenominational’’ Ideal

In addition to these key terms, we must also attempt to understand at the outset of this book what it means to say that Churches of Christ began as a sect and evolved into a denomination but denied that they were either. This is a critical consideration, since the transition from sect to denomination, along with the persistent refusal of Churches of Christ to acknowledge and come to terms with that transition, is one of the central stories in the history of this tradition. In fact, the conviction of its members that Churches of Christ constituted no denomination at all, but had recovered instead the purity of the primitive Christian communities, has been, until very recent years, its most important defining characteristic.

During the 1960s, Churches of Christ promoted a tract entitled ‘‘Neither Catholic, Protestant, Nor Jew’’ that illustrates this point well. Translated into French, German, and Arabic, and arguably the most widely distributed tract ever published by Churches of Christ or anyone associated with that tradition, it proclaimed that

the church of Christ is neither Catholic, Protestant, nor Jewish. We are unique and different for we are endeavoring to go all the way back to the original New Testament church. Using the New Testament as our blueprint we have re-established in the twentieth century Christ's church. It fits no modern label. It is not just another denomination.⁶

We need to be clear, therefore, about what we mean by the terms sect and denomination and about what Churches of Christ have meant when they have spoken of ‘‘nondenominational Christianity.’’

According to common understanding in the broad Christian context, the term sect refers to any segment of the universal body of Christ that regards itself as the total body of Christ. This understanding of the term is pertinent in this regard, since Churches of Christ for most of their history have regarded themselves as the whole of the body of Christ. On the other hand, the term denomination is commonly used to refer to a segment of the universal body of Christ that recognizes itself as a segment and confesses itself to be a segment. When applied to Churches of Christ, this understanding of denomination can be deceptive, since Churches of Christ have always verbally denied denominational status, but for most of the twentieth century they have behaved as though they were a part of the larger whole.

To unravel this knotty situation, we need to explore these terms from a sociological perspective. When used in their classic, sociological sense, the terms church, denomination, and sect signify social realities, not theological ideals. Sociologically speaking, the term church refers to a legally established ecclesiastical institution. In that sense, there is no ‘‘church’’ in the United States at all: the First Amendment to the Constitution places all religious communities on an equal footing before the law and leaves them with only two options — to exist either as sect or as denomination.

A sect stands over against the dominant culture for the simple reason that it views itself as the exclusive domain of both truth and salvation, from which it maintains that other religious bodies and the culture at large have departed. Moreover, it is often bellicose in the prophetic judgments it hurls against the culture and its handmaidens, the popular denominations. This was precisely the way Churches of Christ understood themselves and behaved in the nineteenth century.

A denomination, on the other hand, has typically made its peace with the dominant culture, abandoned its exclusivist rhetoric, muted its prophetic voice, and come to behave as a well-mannered, compliant member of the larger culture and of the larger Christian community. Churches of Christ began moving unmistakably toward such a position during the World War I era; now, in the waning years of the twentieth century, they have, with a few notable exceptions, practically completed their sect-to-denomination transition.

The point, again, is that in sociological terms every Christian tradition in America must exist as either sect or denomination. That is social reality, and Churches of Christ were — and are — no exception.

Throughout the history of Churches of Christ, there have been some — albeit a distinct minority — who understood this fact and who therefore viewed the notion of ‘‘nondenominational Christianity’’ not as something Churches of Christ could actually achieve but rather as a biblical ideal to which they might aspire. These people argued that the New Testament knows one church only, which implies that the denominational arrangement is wrong, but they refused to argue that they themselves did not partake of this sin. Among these people one finds the highest and noblest conception of the ‘‘nondenominational’’ ideal as it was understood by Churches of Christ.

Perhaps no one in the history of this tradition represents this perspective more clearly than did F. D. Srygley, a turn-of-the-century preacher and staff writer for the Nashville-based Gospel Advocate, the single most influential journal among Churches of Christ in his time. Srygley published a book in 1910 consisting of articles he had written for the Advocate over the years. This volume, entitled The New Testament Church, contains the essence of his perspective.

Srygley flatly rejected the notion that the Churches of Christ in the United States constituted the one, true, primitive church while all others were false and therefore denominations. When the editor of the Texas-based Firm Foundation argued that ‘‘the law of Christ is a wall of separation between the church of Christ and all other religious bodies of whatever name or faith,’’ Srygley took serious exception. He based his rebuttal on his simple conviction that Christians make mistakes. Accepting in principle the nondenominational ideal, he countered that ‘‘in the midst of all the denominations that beset this age and country, it would be absolutely miraculous if some Christians did not get into some of them occasionally. If there are no Christians in any denomination, it is the only place except hell they have all kept out of.’’ He asserted, for example, that there were Christians ‘‘in saloons, on the race track, at the theater, in the ballroom, around the gambling tables, in the calaboose, behind the jail doors, in the penitentiary, and on the gallows.’’ Why, then, should it be surprising ‘‘if a few of the meanest specimens of them should occasionally be found temporarily in the most respectable and pious religious denominations of this desperate and God-forsaken country?’’⁷

When the Cincinnati-based Christian Standard affirmed that the church of Christ was larger than ‘‘the current Reformation,’’ Srygley reported that the statement created ‘‘a great commotion’’ among his more sectarian brothers and sisters, and again he entered the fray, affirming that ‘‘there are many who have been scripturally baptized and are living godly lives who are not counted with us.’’ Further, he said, ‘‘No church is at any time wholly free from apostasy. . . . From this point of view, therefore, it would be impossible to say ‘we as a people’ compose the church of Christ.’’⁸

Syrgley's alliance on this point with the Christian Standard was all the more remarkable because, in the late nineteenth century, the Standard and Srygley's own Gospel Advocate stood opposed on most issues. Further, these two papers represented the two factions that would, by 1906, be formally recognized by the federal government as two separate denominations: the Disciples of Christ (the Standard) and the Churches of Christ (the Advocate). While people continued to advocate Srygley's views throughout the twentieth century, as we shall see, they constituted a diminishing minority within the larger Churches of Christ, which more and more confused the nondenominational ideal with their own particular tradition.

The difficulty in defining the notion of nondenominational Christianity can be seen most clearly in the thought of Alexander Campbell, who time and again sought to define what the movement he led was all about without ever succeeding in fully clarifying the issue. The concept remained a two-edged sword.

On the one hand, the notion of nondenominational Christianity pointed to the ideal I just described. In this connection, Campbell wrote that

the true Christian church . . . is composed of all those in every place that do publicly acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth as the true Messiah, and the only Saviour of men; and, building themselves upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, associ...