Likenesses and Differences

Studying Campbell’s Christian Baptist and Millennial Harbinger and Stone’s Christian Messenger for the period shortly before the union of the two movements, one finds the evidence of some important likenesses and of certain differences, which were soon adjusted without much trouble. The likenesses were these:

1. Both groups consciously and explicitly aimed to promote the union of Christians.

2. Both rejected creeds and theologies as tests of fellowship, insisted on liberty of opinion on all matters of doctrine that were not considered as unmistakably revealed, and held that simple faith in Christ was sufficient.

3. They agreed that Christ died for all and that all could believe on him and be saved.

4. They agreed that saving faith, at least in its minimum essentials, was nothing else than an act of the mind in accepting rational evidence of the truth, and that even fallen and sinful man was capable of 95 that act without special assistance from the Holy Spirit. This idea was prominent in Campbell’s thought, and it was fundamental in Scott’s method, which gave the Reformers their evangelistic drive. Stone had expressed the same idea earlier but he did not make much use of it, and the evangelism of the Christians does not seem to have been greatly affected by it.

5. The practice of believers’ baptism by immersion and the conception of baptism for the remission of sins were common to both, subject to some limitations to be mentioned presently.

6. Both opposed the use of unscriptural names as sectarian and divisive. On Stone’s side there was much argument that Acts 11:26 (“The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch”) meant that they were so called by divine appointment, so that this name must be used. But this extreme opinion was not insisted upon, and Campbell’s preference for “Disciples” was no obstacle. The use of the two names—and of “Churches of Christ” as well—confused the public but was no barrier to union.

Replying to a correspondent who asked why the Christians should not unite with the “New Testament Baptists” (meaning Campbell’s Reformers), Stone wrote in 1828: “If there is a difference between us, we know it not. We have nothing in us to prevent a union; and if they have nothing in them in opposition to it, we are in spirit one. May God strengthen the cords of Christian union.”

But there were some differences of emphasis and practice. The chief differences were these:

1. The Christians did not make immersion a condition of membership. Most of them had been immersed, 96 but they considered baptism as lying in the field of opinion, in which there should be liberty. Stone repeatedly defended this position. In 1830 he wrote: “These reforming Baptists are engaged in a good work. They proclaim union with all who believe the simple facts of revelation and manifest their faith by their works of holiness and love, without any regard to the opinions they may have formed of truth. Should they make their own peculiar views of immersion a term of fellowship, it will be impossible for them to repel successfully the imputation of being sectarians and of having an authoritative creed (though not written) of one article at least, which is formed of their own opinion of truth; and this short creed would exclude more Christians from union than any creed with which I am acquainted.” Yet only a few months later he admitted feeling some inconsistency between preaching immersion for remission of sins and admitting to church membership without it. “When asked for our divine authority from the New Testament, we have none that can fully satisfy our own minds. In this state our minds have labored, and are still laboring.” (Christian Messenger, Vol. IV, pp. 200, 275.)

2. The Christians had at least the beginnings of a method of obtaining a responsible ministry. Stone criticized those who thought that a church could “induct into the ministerial office”; that function belongs to the “bishops and elders.” If a minister is charged with “preaching doctrine contrary to the gospel,” he should be examined by a “conference of bishops and elders.” The idea was that the ministry as a whole, or by conference groups, should have power to protect the churches against erratic or unworthy ministers. There is no evidence that such control was actually exercised, but even the idea of such control was 97 alien to the Disciples until much later, and still is with most of them. But at the time of the union, the Christians seem to have had a somewhat “higher” conception of the office of the ministry.

3. The Christians were much more zealous in evangelism than the Reformers had been before the outburst of evangelistic fervor with John Smith and a few other “New Testament Baptists” in Kentucky and the campaign of Walter Scott in Ohio in 1827. But their method of evangelism had been of the Methodist type. There is clear evidence that theirs was, in practice, a “mourners’ bench” revivalism, in spite of Stone’s theory of faith as a rational act. Christian evangelists, sending to Stone’s paper the reports of their meetings, write that “crowds of mourners came forward weeping and crying for mercy”; or, “the preachers had a good measure of the Holy Ghost and ... several [hearers] appeared to be cut to the heart and were crying for mercy”; or, “crowds of weeping mourners came forward to unite with us in prayer”; or, more specifically, that the summer camp meetings (in Georgia) are “conducted in the main in the manner of Methodist camp meetings.” Scott’s new method of presenting the “Gospel restored” in clear steps created some surprise and questioning. A Christian preacher writes: “His method and manner are somewhat novel to me.... He seems to suppose the apostolical gospel to consist of the use of the following particulars: faith, repentance, baptism for remission of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life. Thus, you see, he baptizes the subject previous to the remission of his sins or the receiving of the Holy Spirit.” Stone replies: “We have for some time practiced in this way throughout our country.” Evidently 98 Stone had already come to a position identical with that of Campbell and Scott as to the nature of faith, the purpose of baptism, and the technique of evangelism. But just as evidently, the Christian preachers and churches generally had not. They had zeal for evangelism, but they still had much to learn about its method. Scott was their teacher.

4. Whereas the Reformers early adopted the practice of observing the Lord’s Supper every Sunday, the Christians did not. By 1830, Stone had decided that this was the practice of the early church, and he wrote: “Whenever the church shall be restored to her former glory, she will again receive the Lord’s Supper every first day of the week.” But he was less ardent than Campbell about “restoring the ancient order of things,” and he was disposed to be patient about this as he was about immersion.