Attitudes Toward Ministry Education Among the Founders of the Restoration Movement

Attitudes Toward Ministry Education Among the Founders of the Restoration Movement By Kerry Williams Any examination into the present-day methods of ministerial education employed among Churches of Christ should include a thorough analysis of the figures who conceived of and shaped the Restoration Movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century, from which the Churches of Christ came. What did the founders feel were necessary skills and knowledge for successful ministry? How effective did they consider clergy training in their time to be? What methods of ministry training did they endorse, and which approaches did they reject? The answers to these and other questions are vital in order to understand why Churches of Christ have employed the philosophies of education that are presently used, and how those pedagogical models came to be. The American Restoration Movement represents a unique American religious heritage. Three present religious groups find their origins in the movement: Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and Christian Churches. Each of the three sects are distinctive in doctrine and practice, having taken different evolutionary courses from their commonly shared heritage.1 Yet, all three still retain specific markers unique to their restoration heritage and find commonality in their shared origins. Together, these three religious groups constitute the largest religious communion originating on American soil. In his article concerning the identity of “Campbellites” (Restoration followers of Alexander Campbell), James Cook asserts that Restoration followers 1 Henry E. Webb, In Search of Christian Unity: A History of the Restoration Movement (Abilene: ACU Press, 2003), 5. 1 were most distinctly American in that their core spiritual identity was interwoven with their “blatant Americanism.”2 As a result, one would expect that recognized religious historians, particularly those who focus upon religious development in the United States, would devote significant attention to the Movement and the men who formed it. However, this has not proved to be true, with most research concerning the early history of the Restoration Movement and its founders originating from within one of the three groups. Information on the movement and its founders must therefore be obtained through research into the works of restoration historians, the limited references available in broad works of religious history, and the primary writings of the restoration fathers themselves. While the seed ground of Restorationism is planted with the influence of hundreds of eighteenth and nineteenth century thinkers, the principle founders of the Restoration Movement were Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone. In the decades immediately following American independence, these men experienced a cultural environment of fertile soil for their message of returning to primitive Christianity, their philosophy of abandoning the religious innovations developed through time, and returning to the example of the early church as recorded in the New Testament for a standard of Christian practice. In the early years of the nineteenth century, both men adopted similar theological ideas independent of the other, until they learned of one another’s work and ultimately united their efforts into one fellowship. Any understanding of minister training and educational norms among restoration churches must 2 James Maverick Cook, “Identity and Nostalgia Among the Campbellites,” Restoration Quarterly, 48:3 (2006), 133. 2 therefore include an examination of both Campbell and Stone, particularly in regard to their views concerning education and the essential characteristics of effective preachers. Barton Stone was born in 1772 in Port Tobacco, Maryland, to a prosperous land-owning family. His father died when he was only three years old, leaving Barton’s mother with four children. Fortunes turned for the Stones, and poverty drove them to rural Pittsylvania County, Virginia, where Barton would spend most of his young life.3 The religious climate in Pittsylvania County was contentious, with denominational leaders zealously attacking the motives and practices of other groups to solidify their own standing and glean members. As a result, “Stone’s early exposure to denominational infighting shaped a lifelong distaste for sectarianism.”4 When he came of age, limited educational opportunities led him to Guilford County, North Carolina, where he attended a simple institution named, “Log College,” operated by a Presbyterian pastor named David Caldwell.5 Stone accepted the ordination candidacy bestowed upon him by the Presbyterian Church in 1793.6 After his departure from the Log College, he struggled to determine if ministry was truly his calling, working two years in Washington, Georgia as a Professor of Language in the Methodist Academy.7 It was during this period that he became confident of his destiny and he 3 Matthew D. Smith, “Barton Warren Stone: Revisiting Revival in the Early Republic,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 111:2 (2013), 169-170. 4 Ibid., 170. 5 Ibid., 171. 6 James M. Mathes, “Biographical Sketch,” in Works of Elder B.W. Stone, (Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstatch, Keys, and Co., 1859), 16. 7 Ibid., 17. 3 “heard the call” to preach. The Orange Presbytery in North Carolina licensed him as a fully ordained minister in 1796. Stone made his way to Kentucky and began preaching in 1797 for two struggling churches near Cane Ridge and Concord.8 His dissatisfaction with sectarian denominationalism continued to grow, until he ultimately denounced his title as a Presbyterian minister and disconnected himself from all denominational ties. His departure, along with several like-minded preachers, is chronicled in his “Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery,” to which he was connected in Kentucky, penned by Stone in 1804. Stone’s message could be characterized as reactionary to prevailing influences of the times, as he sought to reject the Calvinistic theology and creedal devotion prevalent in the reformed tradition. He drew upon Baconian logic and its adherence to application of the scientific method to all areas of thought, to construct his system of primitive Christianity that underpinned his movement. His passionate pleas for undenominational Christianity and piety of faith in expectation of a coming apocalypse resulted in mass appeal, with Stone’s disciples numbering over ten- thousand soon after his movement began. Frontier citizens were converted in such numbers over such a short span of time, that Stone himself opined that the message “spread like fire in dry stubble.”9 The spirit of the frontier provided the perfect kindling for his fire of restoration, as rural frontiersmen were fiercely independent-minded and prided themselves on their ability to think for themselves. Stone’s Baconian logic appealed to them, and many rejected the denominational creeds developed in the urban centers and universities of the old world and the 8 Smith, 176. 9 Ibid., 177. 4 East. Stone’s preaching was so persuasive and the growth of his ministry so negatively impactful for surrounding denominations, that Stone reported that there were even threats to his life.10 Stone focused his ministry on evangelistic preaching and the growth of his movement, writing less prolifically than his restoration contemporaries, particularly Alexander Campbell. He would ultimately publish one journal, The Christian Messenger, which operated from 1826 to 1845. He wrote a serial history of churches in Kentucky and an autobiography, but little else. Stone had received his education largely through a mentoring model employed by Caldwell at the Log College, and his own efforts to train ministers would largely follow that same pattern. He taught classes in both Lexington and Georgetown Kentucky from 1815 to 1834, and had a particular love of training young men who desired to preach and spread the vision of “restored Christianity,” Stone’s concept of the primitive original nature of the Church wherein Christians only follow the precepts set forth in the New Testament apart from human opinion or preference. Aspiring preachers would often be invited along as he went into the countryside preaching, and as he evangelized in churches he would encourage young converts to take on the life of ministry. The potential preachers would receive tireless attention, as Stone would return to their locations over and over, continuing to prod them toward making a decision to preach.11 10 R.L. Roberts and J.W. Roberts, “Like Fire in Dry Stubble – The Stone Movement, Part 1,” Restoration Quarterly, 7:3 (1965), 1. 11 Ibid., 2. 5 Stone’s legacy can be summarized through the lens of his tremendous zeal for evangelism in the American frontier. He loved the sincere, hardworking, and pious people of rural Kentucky, and was invigorated by their zealous acceptance of his preaching. Stone and his followers spread their Restoration message with passion, converting thousands to the cause. R.L. and J.W. Roberts speak to the power of his appeal: The fervid spirit of evangelism characteristic of Stone and his followers was the key to their success. Stone had the true genius of a religious leader. He fired his companions with the conviction that the church had gone into apostasy in the Middle Ages and that religious people must come out of Babylon and go back to the Bible and the Lord’s Church or be lost.12 Alexander Campbell immigrated to the new world from Scotland in 1809, following his father, Thomas Campbell, who had arrived

Load more