The Disciples at the Lord's Table

Prayers Over Bread and Cup across 150 Years of Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Worship

Moore

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781498201124
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Disciples at Table! The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is about to enter its third century of worship, evangelism and Christian worship. This book is a snapshot of their Table practice: its origins, forms, prayers, and ecumenical development. Single-minded pioneers and advocates of Eucharistic Table fellowship each Sunday, the Disciples forged a unique experience of worship within the restorationist paradigm.What did this worship look like? A free tradition, explicitly "non-liturgical," these Christian communities were open to the directives of the Scriptures and the inspiration of the Spirit. There were no official texts. Yet there was a plethora of worship books and aids, in effect unofficial texts, operating to guide, inform and develop the Disciples' understanding of the Lord's Table and their worship. For the first time these devotional books have been uncovered and studied, revealing something of the deeper influences behind Disciples practice, the common lines of thought and ritual that unknowingly bind the communities, and the difficulties that have emerged in light of ongoing ecumenical worship and research.

chapter 1

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Origins and Background

The origins and background to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) are well-ploughed fields, fertile and interesting.1 I will review these as a necessary prelude to our closer study of the practices enunciated by Thomas Campbell, the principles underpinning those practices, and the subsequent developments in eucharistic practice across the communities that formed the church. The earliest writings offer a glimpse of the foundations of a new style of Protestantism, marked by the experience of the newly free citizens of the freshly formed United States of America.

The Origins of the Disciples of Christ

A number of movements and approaches lie at the base of the various events that eventually culminated in the formation of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Underlying this development was the general pattern of religious and civil liberty that had become part of the fabric of the new colonies.

Religion in the American Colonies

The colonies, some with an establishment church, became more and more tolerant of dissenting Christian groups, and received from Europe members of different denominations and sects eager to escape the strictures and persecutions there. Despite this tolerance the colonies did not contain a large, actively Christian population, sectarianism did not disappear, nor did denominations reunite.

Attempts were made to evangelize the settlers. The mid-1700s was the period of the (first) “Great Awakening,” an evangelistic revival movement. It was Calvinistic, but had appeal across sectarian lines, involving Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and eventually Methodists. It was stronger and more lasting in the southern colonies than in those in the north. By the time of the American Revolution, however, the revival had been spent. The revolutionary fervor brought with it an openness to French philosophy, but not to the exclusion of English thought. In this way the post-revival religious indifference was given impetus with deism and tendencies toward secularization. By the end of the revolution any remaining state churches were disestablished. All denominations were considered equal before the law, and individuals entitled to religious liberty.

A second revival began to take shape at the turn of the nineteenth century, one that would have implications for the beginnings of the Disciples. The main denominations at that time in the United States were the Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists. Also present were Dutch and German Reformed, French Huguenots, German and Swedish Lutherans, Quakers, and Roman Catholics. Pennsylvania was home to such smaller groups as Moravians, Mennonites, Dunkers, Schwenkfelders, and the Ephrata Society. However on the frontier the main churches were the Presbyterians and Baptists, both strongly Calvinistic, and the Methodists, who were Arminian and revivalistic, and stressed the part emotion played in conversion. An increasing number of believers, in separate groups across the frontier, and, to an extent in the more established areas, were forsaking the restrictions, credal orthodoxies, organizational structures, and clericalism of the denominations and seeking to live and worship simply as “Christians,” with the Bible as their guide. Often these groups were unaware of the existence of one another. Often they remained within their denomination until forced out. They were drawn for the most part from the Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists; though, dissenting from a number of church practices and teachings, they retained many of the theological concepts of their former denominations. Central to their break with the denominations was their insistence on a right to substitute their individual interpretations of Scripture for those held by the church.

The Christians: Barton Warren Stone (1772–1844)

Among those who became a part of this movement was Barton Warren Stone. Born in America, he was converted to Presbyterianism while studying law at the Greensboro, North Carolina, academy of David Caldwell, himself a Presbyterian minister. Stone had been driven to a despairing search for “saving faith” by a sermon from an evangelistic Presbyterian minister, but found faith only when he heard a much gentler sermon on the love and grace of God delivered by a New Light Presbyterian minister. On conversion he studied for the ministry, and received his license to preach at the age of twenty-four. In 1798 he was ordained.

Stone came into contact with both a number of preachers and ministers who were sympathetic to the ideas of the “Christians,” and the revivalism that was sweeping Kentucky at the time with its teaching that salvation was offered for all and not just for the few. He became involved with a group of ministers who together renounced the jurisdiction of the Synod of Kentucky because they held that they were not bound to the Presbyterian Confession of Faith as they had a right to rely on their own individual interpretations of Scripture as the final authority. Against Calvin they held that salvation was open to all. They organized themselves into the independent Springfield (Ohio) Presbytery.

Within months the group issued the “Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery” (1804), in which they dissolved the presbytery, effectively cutting their links with the Presbyterian Church, and formed a group of “Christians.” By the end of the year they had formed at least eight Christian churches in Kentucky and seven in southwest Ohio, mainly from Presbyterian congregations. Each church was independent, but linked through traveling evangelists, and pamphlets and magazines. Any centralization was avoided. From Kentucky the Christian movement spread across the frontier throughout the Middle West. Stone was neither the initiator nor the leader of the fast growing movement. But he was a successful evangelist, teacher, writer, and publisher, and, so gifted, he became the most prominent and influential of the Christians on the frontier.

The Disciples

Thomas Campbell (1763–1854)

Meanwhile, in 1807, Thomas Campbell had arrived in the United States from Ireland. His father, originally a Roman Catholic, had become an Anglican. Thomas, however, became a minister in the Anti-Burgher Seceder branch of the Presbyterian Church.2 He was interested in church unity and had attempted in 1805 to unite the Anti-Burgher and Burgher Seceders in Ireland. This attempt failed, though union was achieved in 1820. In the United States he was appointed to the Presbytery of Chartiers in southwest Pennsylvania.

Difficulties soon arose, however. Two of the most important were his rejection of the use of creeds as terms of communion, and his objection to denying the validity of any coming to faith that was not “saving faith,” with its intense experience of emotion. In May 1809, Campbell withdrew from the presbytery and from the Associate Synod of North America. Some months later, in August, he had formed the “Christian Association of Washington” (Pennsylvania), whose aim was for members to work for reform in and through their own churches rather than to form a new church. He wrote its objectives in a short paper, “The Declaration and Address,” which the association approved and had printed.

Alexander Campbell (1788–1866)

Thomas Campbell had left his family in Ireland awaiting his summons to meet him when things were settled. On their journey in 1808 they were shipwrecked off the coast of Scotland and forced to spend the year in Glasgow. Alexander Campbell, Thomas’ oldest son, spent the year at the University of Glasgow.

In Glasgow, Alexander became involved with the New Scottish Independents, especially Greville Ewing. They were advocating a restoral of primitive Christianity. Independently of his father, Alexander grew away from the Seceder Presbyterian Church, breaking from it before reembarking for the United States. Once there, he joined his father in the Christian Association.

The Brush Run Church

In 1811 the association constituted itself as a church, the Brush Run Church. Thomas Campbe...