The Authority of Grammar, the Rule of Faith and Practice and the Call to Unity: A Response to Keith D. Stanglin 1 By Russell E. Kuykendall

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless . . . there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter I, Article VI). But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XXI, Article I). All synods or councils, since the apostles' times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred. Therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith, or practice; but to be used as a help in both (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XXXI, Article IV). “The Presbyterian ministers were so little sensible of their own infirmities, that they would not agree to tolerate those who were not only tolerable but worthy instruments and members of the churches, prudent men who were for union in things necessary, for liberty in things unnecessary, and for charity in all; but they could not be heard” (Alexander Campbell’s quoting Richard Baxter and the Peace Saying, 1825). 2

1“The , the Habit of , and a Proposal for Unity.” Christian Studies 28 (2016):7- 20. 2 Alexander Campbell, “A Narrative of the Origin and Formation of the Westminster or Presbyterian Confession of Faith, No. VI.” III 4 (7 Nov 1825):75. The origin of this “Peace Saying” appears not to be Augustine of Hippo nor Peter Meiderlin (aka Rupertus Meldenius) nor Richard Baxter (1679), but the Roman Catholic “apostate” Marco Antonio de Dominis (1560-1624), Archbishop of Split (Spalato), in his De republica ecclesiastica libri X (1617) , as uncovered by H. J. M. Nellen, “De Zinspreuk ‘In necessariis unitas, in non necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas,’” Nederlands archief voor Kerkgeschidenis/ Dutch Review of Church History 79 1 (1999):99-106. Re the earlier argument for Meiderlin as the Pacificator, cf. Hans Rollmann, “In Essentials Unity: The Pre-history of a Restoration Movement Slogan,” Restoration Quarterly 39 2 (1997), and Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. VII, Section 108 (1888). Found at: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc7.ii.vii.viii.html , August, 2016. Richard J. Cherok, “In Faith, Unity; In Opinion, Liberty; In All Things, Love,” argues that the first appearance of the Peace Saying in the Restoration Movement is from C. I. Loos, “Christian Union,” (February 1868). Found at: http://321biblestudy.net/InFaithUnity.html , August, 2016. Campbell’s citation is more than forty years

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I understand Keith Stanglin’s argument as follows. The telos of Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address (1809) was unity. For Campbell, restoration of the New Testament church was an instrumental strategy for the achievement of unity. But the Disciples of Christ abandoned restoration in pursuit of the telos , ergo unity. The a cappella abandoned unity qua telos in favour of restoration. The error of a cappella churches of Christ which has been fatal to unity is a patternistic approach to restoration of the New Testament church, employing the CENI hermeneutic, 3 which gives equal weight and authority to all of the New Testament Scriptures and its subjects. This approach has led to schismatic tendencies. Stanglin argues that what is truly essential to the Christian faith may be found in the ancient, but post-New Testament, Apostles’ or Rule of Faith . Instead of taking the New Testament holus bolus as the rule of faith and practice, Stanglin proposes, therefore, the adoption of the Apostles’ Creed as the conditio sine qua non without which faith ceases to be Christian and upon which the church and all Christians should be united. This is not a proposal to abandon the New Testament. As he points out, much as a profession of faith prior to baptism is asked of those receiving baptism, Stanglin’s is a proposal that a cappella churches of Christ abandon a levelist, blanket approach to making all things found in the New Testament into tests of fellowship. Presumably, then, for Stanglin the Apostles’ Creed should be the test of fellowship for a cappella churches of Christ.

The Restoration Movement’s “Great ” I want to discuss what led to the two major schisms in the Restoration Movement (RM).4 Stanglin places the a cappella churches of Christ in apposition to the Disciples of Christ. He describes the former as adherents primarily to restoration of the New Testament church as an end in itself, and the latter as adherents primarily of unity characterized by “open fellowship.” Stanglin does not appear to reference the Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. In the two major RM divisions that created, first, the a cappella churches of Christ and, then, the Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), we can locate the core reasons and rationales for the two partings of way. This exercise may point us to what a cappella dynamic led to “the habit of schism” and help us understand whether or not Stanglin’s proposed solution would have – could have – mitigated or fomented either of these “Great Schisms.” It may well earlier. Rollmann (as above) points to what he describes as “a passing reference” to the saying by Rice Haggard in 1804, and a reference to “essentials” by Stone in 1841. 3 Command, Example, and Necessary Inference. 4 Although it’s the fashion to use the term, “Stone-Campbell Movement,” I find this unduly truncated as to its failure to include such as et al.

Page 2 of 25 be here, too, that we can test whether or not Stanglin’s proposal could have preserved unity in the RM. In what follows, I also want to bring some precision to our understanding of the problem of authority and the right of private judgment, the “patternistic” RM ethos, “level Scriptures,” the CENI hermeneutic and some comments on how Declaration and Address treats “ and confessions.” I will also take a look at the concept of consensus fidelium as employed to describe the Seven Ecumenical Councils and the creedal statements they issued, and compare it with its RM appropriation. I want to test whether Thomas Campbell’s telos re Declaration and Address was unity or something else. First, taking our cue from Stanglin, some thoughts as to the roots of the characteristics which he argues have given impetus to disunity.

The problem of authority The key problem that was addressed in both RM Great Schisms – as well as in the Protestant-Roman schism – is the problem of authority. 5 By what standard or “rule” can sound doctrine and practice – “orthodoxy” and “orthopraxis” – be determined? Who or what is the “authority principle”?6 Beginning sometime after the first century, perhaps with the Constantinian turn, 7 doctrinal authority was vested in the magisterium of the Roman church. That is, the teaching of the church and the correct interpretation of any Scripture was what the church hierarchy said it was. The authority principle was the hierarchy of the church. Among the early scholastics, William of Ockham argued not only against the paramountcy of the church hierarchy’s authority over the “temporal” – that is, political – authorities. Ockham also argued against the paramountcy of the church hierarchy and, even, church councils in respect of the interpretation of the Scriptures as the source of church doctrine and theology. Ockham contended that this authority more properly belonged with those who were equipped to interpret – the scholars, and with the whole Christian community. With Ockham, we may even have the beginnings of the development of the right of private judgment in respect of the Scriptures. The right of

5 We are mindful of David Harrell’s ground-breaking, two-volume social history of the Disciples of Christ. However, as this is beyond the scope of Keith Stanglin’s treatment, it is also beyond our scope. What follows in our response is yet another re-examination of certain theological and philosophical underpinnings to the RM that might well fall in the category of philosophy of religion. Cf. David Edwin Harrell, Jr., Quest for a Christian America, 1800-1865: A Social History of the Disciples of Christ , Volume 1, 2nd Edition, & Sources of Division in the Disciples of Christ, 1865-1900: A Social History of the Disciples of Christ, Volume 2, 2nd Edition, University Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, Alabama: 2003. 6 Cf. P. T. Forsyth, The Principle of Authority . Independent Press, 1952. 7 That is, after the Emperor Constantine declared Christian faith to be no longer religio illicita with the Edict of Milan (A.D. 313) and, instead, legal. Theodosius’s Edict of Thessalonica (A.D. 380) made Nicene Christianity the Empire’s state religion.

Page 3 of 25 private judgment later migrated to all dimensions of human life and culture by way of the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment. 8 For Ockham, paramount authority belonged with God and His Scriptures. As such, for Ockham, the Scriptures were vested with authority. Any confessions of church councils derived their authority from the Scriptures. The authority of scholars derived from their ability to handle and interpret the grammar of the Scriptures. Hence, we could say that Ockham advocated the authority of the grammar of the Scriptures. As Stanglin suggests, the Protestant authority principle – “Scripture only” (sola Scriptura ) – opened up something of a Pandora’s Box.9 In the earliest stages and in certain streams of the Reformation, this principle was combined with the right of private judgment so that any Christian who could read the Scriptures could decide for himself how they should be interpreted. The teaching that Christians should read the Bible for themselves drove mass literacy. Luther pulled back, advocating that a resulting peasants’ revolt should be put down and civil order restored and maintained. Luther and Melanchthon, et al. produced the draft that became the Augsburg Confession (1530), framing Lutheranism. Calvin wrote his Institutes (1536-1559) as a systematic guide to Scriptural doctrine, and his heirs the Belgic Confession (1561) , Heidelberg Catechism (1563), Canons of Dort (1619), Westminster Confession (1646) et al. Even the radical Protestant Anabaptists had their Schleitheim Confession (1527). Each of these moves represents recognition of a problem and an attempt to shore up a preferred doctrine and civil order, irrespective of what might be found in the New Testament. These responded to the dangers of applying the right of private judgment to the Scriptures, including in light of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount and the earliest

8 See William of Ockham (1285-1347), Eight Questions on Papal Power (Octo quæstiones de potestate papæ ) and A Short Discourse on the Tyrannical Ascendancy of the Pope (Breviloquium de principatu tyrannico ). Whether Ockham was a conservative, a radical precursor to the Reformation and Enlightenment or a synthesizer of competing traditions has been debated, as summarized in Takashi Shogimen , Ockham and Political Discourse in the Late Middle Ages , New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. The very structure of Ockham’s arguments – dialogues – can make it difficult to determine definitively his true views. 9 The Pandora’s Box of division and controversy had already opened in respect of the Greek, eastern orthodox and the Latin, western catholic traditions culminating in the Great (Eastern) Schism begun in the 11 th century. Various divisions were present in the eastern orthodox and Byzantine orbits and within the Latin church, including the late medieval Western Schism. These opened up not as a result of sola Scriptura , but as a result of competing hierarchical and political authorities and creedal divergences. This continued in the West post-Reformation with the formation of the Union of Utrecht, then schisms resulting from Rome’s assertion of papal infallibility culminating in the formation of the Old Catholic Churches in the aftermath of the First Vatican Council (1870). Contemporary schism continued leading up to and following the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) with the formation of “Pius X” Lefebvre catholic churches and Anglo-Catholicism. See The Catholic Encyclopedia articles re these schisms. Further, Vatican II caused wide upheaval across the Roman , within dioceses, in seminaries and, even, inside parishes.

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Jerusalem church’s having all things in common. Once one social, world view consensus, grounded in the medieval deference to the competing authorities of prince and pope was called into question, it was necessary to forge a modified consensus. This modified social, world view consensus increased accessibility to the Scriptures as the fount of authority. But interpretation and teaching of the Scriptures were circumscribed by consensual statements of how the Scriptures should be understood. Even in respect of creeds or confessions produced by councils and synods, the right of private judgment and its appeal to the authority of grammar does not recede. The acceptance of a creed or confession may circumvent certain problems which arise from the exercise of the right of private judgment and its appeal to the authority of grammar in the New Testament Scriptures. But the right of private judgment and its appeal to the authority of grammar vested in a creed or confession can be no less contentious, as with the filioque and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381), a version of the Apostles’ Creed .10 Its grammar was contested. Schism can result even when the parties both subscribe to the Apostles’ Creed .

The origins of originalism Another precursor to the Reformation and Enlightenment was John of Salisbury and his appeal to “nature” in his development of a political theory in Policraticus (1159). 11 The early Enlightenment philosophers Hobbes ( Leviathan , 1651) and Locke ( Second Treatise on Government , 1689) both appealed to “the state of nature” with their enquiries as to how political arrangements and authority came to be. 12 These speculative thought experiments appealing to “the state of nature” were attempts to uncover the original, human state of being that led people to first organize themselves to be governed and to institute authority. How do we determine the origins of our political arrangements? We go to the point at which these arrangements are first formulated in pre-history. Further, the most desirable political arrangements are those that were put in place at the time of the original state of human beings in “the state of nature.” It was an appeal to natural law. This appeal lies at the heart of Locke’s political theory.

10 See Joseph Wilhelm, “The Nicene Creed.” In The Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. Found at: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11049a.htm , July 30, 2016. 11 Policraticus 4.1, for one. Found at: http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salisbury-poli4.html , July 2016. 12 Cf. Leviathan , chapters 10 through 14, with Second Treatise on Government , chapters 2 through 5. The 18 th- c. Enlightenment philosophers Hume ( A Treatise of Human Nature , 1738-1740), Montesquieu ( The Spirit of the Laws – L’esprit des lois , 1748) and Rousseau ( The Social Contract – Du contrat social , 1762) made similar appeals.

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It also lies at the heart of Locke’s and his appeals to original, New Testament Christianity ( The Reasonableness of Christianity , 1695). How do we determine the origins of ecclesiastical arrangements, doctrine, theology and practice? We go to the point at which these are first set forth, in the New Testament. Further, the most desirable ecclesiastical arrangements are those of the earliest, original, New Testament church. For Locke, the appeals to natural law (reason) and biblical revelation were of a piece. 13 Appeals to the state of nature and to the New Testament were both originalist – “primitivist” – attempts at uncovering the divine intentions re the state, the church and Christian faith. As children of the moderate, (Presbyterian) Scottish Enlightenment, schooled in Locke et al., both Campbells made a similar appeal, beginning with Declaration and Address and throughout their formulations and writings. 14 The “primitive church” was not “stone age,” but the “original.” It was ‘original church’ – New Testament church. 15 In this primitivism – originalism – is the beginnings of what others, including Stanglin identify pejoratively as “patternism.” But it was born of a desire to take the New Testament as the rule of both faith and practice, including restoring the New Testament church and ‘calling Bible things by Bible names.’ One could take away the impression that Stanglin believes that sectarian spirit only really takes root in American soil. But prior to the genesis of the RM, the differences between the Church of England and the Methodists, the varieties of Methodism, the

13 Cf. R. S. Clark, “Calvin on the Lex Naturalis.” Stulos Theological Journal 6 1-2 (May-Nov 1998):1-22. Clark argues that for Calvin natural law was explicitly “revealed in the Garden and at Sinai and in the Sermon on the Mount” (18). Found at: http://rscottclark.org/wp-content/documents/1998rsclexnat.pdf , July 2016. As Locke’s thought develops in a milieu where Puritan Calvinism figured so prominently and led to the English Revolution and Republic, we could conclude that Locke came by his equation of natural law and Scriptural revelation quite honestly, mediated from Calvin. 14 Nicholas Philipson, “The Scottish Enlightenment.” In The Enlightenment in National Context . Ed. by Roy S. Porter & Mikuláš Teich. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 19-40, and Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988, Chapter 19. Both describe the characteristics of the Scottish Enlightenment. MacIntyre in particular discusses the integration of 18 th -c. and the Scottish Enlightenment. A more recent discussion of continuities and discontinuities between the British, French and American Enlightenments Dr. Carisse Berryhill brought to my attention is offered by Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Roads to Modernism: The British, French, and American Enlightenments . New York: Knopf, 2004. Two classics that are instructive on the importance and the themes of the Enlightenment are Ernst Cassirer’s The Philosophy of the Enlightenment . First published in German in 1932 and in English in Boston: Beacon Press, 1951, and Carl L. Becker’s The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers . New York: Yale University Press, 1965. 15 A relatively recent restatement of originalist Christianity is C. Norman Kraus’s The Authentic Witness: Credibility and Authority . Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1979. For Kraus, “the authentic witness” is that which lines up with the original church of Scripture focused on following Jesus’ way, “an authoritative exemplar.”

Page 6 of 25 kinds of Baptists, the diversity of Puritan congregationalism both conforming and separatist, and the sectarian spirit among Presbyterians (that gave impetus to the RM) were mostly if not exclusively imported to the American colonies from the mother countries. RM primitivism was born of a desire to cut through the negative effects perpetrated and perpetuated by supra-congregational structures and hierarchies imported from Ulster and Scotland, reconstituted on the American frontier, in order to put an end on the frontier to sectarian ‘wars of religion’ holding the churches hostage, and to free them to fulfill the purpose of the church.

“Level Scriptures” As with Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address , Alexander Campbell’s “Sermon on the Law” (1816) 16 argued against level Scriptures, insisting that the Law (particularly the Decalogue) and the Old Testament are superseded by the New Testament. He went so far as to insist that no preaching from the Old Testament Law was “preparatory” to hearing and responding to the Gospel. Further, as Eugene Boring points out: Campbell distinguished between supernatural truths and historical facts, and considered only the first to be a matter of revelation, while the latter were a matter of the biblical author’s own observation, memory, and experience, expressed in the writer’s own style and ideas. (Campbell, CB 1827:344-45; cf. Humbert, 1961:63-64). 17 Boring goes on to argue that Campbell adopted a “dispensational” approach in determining to what extent Scripture was authoritative for Christians: “only texts which originate under the Christian dispensation are to be applied normatively to questions of faith and order in the church.” 18 In consequence, as Boring describes it, “the canon-within-the canon” of Campbell excluded the Gospels and Acts 1 and included only the rest of Acts and the Epistles, representing “a refinement of Thomas Campbell’s assertion in the Declaration and Address that the New Testament (and not only a part of it) is the authority for the church.” 19

16 First published in the Millennial Harbinger (3 Sept 1846):493-521. 17 M. Eugene Boring, Disciples and the Bible: A History of Disciples Biblical Interpretation in North America . St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1997, 63. Earlier in this book, Boring’s construal of “” in respect of the Campbells and its significance leaves much to be desired. Boring takes “common sense” as ‘horse sense’ or the ‘plain sense.’ The common sense realism of the Campbells, mediated to them from Thomas Reid, that so pervaded not just the Scottish Enlightenment but the early 19 th -c. American world view, was far more sophisticated than Boring allows. Reid’s common sense realism addressed the problems with Locke’s epistemology highlighted by Hume. Reid’s theory was such that Kant could find no fault with his answer to the problematics surfaced by Hume. 18 Ibid ., 64. 19 Ibid .

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In practice, even this was surely applied somewhat selectively. It was applied positively in distinguishing the baptism of repentance, administered by John the Baptizer, from Christian baptism. The baptism of repentance was not normative, but the Christian baptism of Acts 2:38 et al. was normative. The canon-within-the-canon was also applied in the negative or “abstention” in respect of the earliest RM’s adherence to and application of the Great Commission, given in the Gospels 20 and restated at Acts 1:8. Disciples pursued the Great Commission with enthusiasm despite its appearance only in the Gospels and Acts 1 prior to the dispensation begun on the Day of Pentecost. Boring himself further argues that for Alexander Campbell the Epistle to the Hebrews was “the canon-within-the-canon-within-the-canon.” 21 There were other parts of even the canon-within-the-canon that were (and are?) not considered authoritative for today’s New Testament churches. This applies to the treatments of ‘the miraculous gifts’ of the Spirit in the Pauline epistles, including perhaps most notably in 1 Corinthians 13 and the Apostle Paul’s use of the term, “the perfect.” 22 The judgment as to certain offices and whether or not they persist in today’s New Testament church inheres the question of church leadership and government and questions about which polity more closely matches or fulfills apostolic intentionality. Is it a congregational, presbyterian church polity constructed on the basis of the Pastoral Epistles, as with the Reformed tradition? Or is it a polity configured on the basis of a “four-fold ministry” or “five-fold ministry” interpretation of Paul’s “constitution of the church” as found in Epistle to the Ephesians, as with the holiness and Pentecostal traditions? Which ‘restoration’ is correct or more in line with the apostolic teaching and the original, New Testament church? In respect of both the miraculous gifts and church polity, the RM adopted and adapted the Reformed judgment on these matters. 23 For its first few generations, the RM gave clear priority to the New Testament, almost to the exclusion of the Old Testament, as the rule of faith and practice for churches and all Christians. But it did so by way of a canon-within-the-canon of the New Testament.

The CENI hermeneutic Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum Scientiarum (1620) was a direct confrontation of the Organon of Aristotle (384–322 B.C.). Aristotle’s approach to the growth of knowledge,

20 Matthew 28:16-20, Mark 16:14-18, Luke 24:44-49, and John 20:19-23. 21 Op. cit ., 75-77. 22 τὸ τέλειον, 1 Cor 13:10. 23 For a mid-20 th century example, see the late Lincoln Christian Seminary church history professor Charles E. Mills, "Christ's Church in Our Time: It's Leadership." Reprinted from the . Christasian VI 6 (Nov-Dec 1960):3-6&13. Found at: https://www.scribd.com/document/263257810/Harter- Ralph-1960-India , August 2016. Mills gives a classic exposition and defense of the RM’s Pastoral Epistles polity. It is reprinted by the late Christasian editor and missionary Frank Rempel in Kanpur, U.P., India.

Page 8 of 25 his cosmology, and Ptolemy’s astronomy held sway in the West and in the magisterium of the western, Roman church. Copernicus and Galileo, et al. had already presented direct challenges to the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic hegemony. Later in the 17 th century, the Newtonian revolution would sweep it away. 24 Bacon’s contribution was to insist on a rigor in the connection between observation and conclusion, a connection assumed but not, in his view, adequately demonstrated in the Aristotelian cosmology. Aristotle’s syllogistic approach that employed the accepted observations and pronouncements of ancient authorities was the old method. Bacon’s was a new, far more rigorous method. Bacon proposed a thorough and wide-ranging collection of facts, then an inductive winnowing out, the deductive drawing of certain conclusions, and a rigorous testing of these conclusions. A devout Christian, Bacon believed the results of his new method of knowledge would lead to a better understanding of God’s creation, and advance human knowledge. The earliest Reformers, including Luther and Calvin, too, were Aristotelian in their cosmology. But Calvinists especially adopted the new approach and rigor of Bacon in respect of the exploration and exegesis of the Scriptures. Reformed, Calvinist hermeneutics for the next 200 years or more was profoundly influenced by Bacon’s new method of knowledge. John Mark Hicks very helpfully describes the form in which Bacon’s approach was shaped into a Reformed hermeneutical method which he identifies as CEI (command, example and inference) and which I narrow slightly to CENI – command, example and necessary inference. 25 By the turn of the 19 th to the 20 th century and when the first RM Great Schism was officially acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1906, among Disciples outside the a cappella churches of Christ, the CENI hermeneutic was increasingly abandoned. 26 Hicks takes the development of the CENI and its problematics into the 1970s as it continued to hold sway among the a cappella churches of Christ. Per Stanglin’s arguments, did what he considers to be an unduly ‘levelist,’ pre- Campbellite approach (as above) to the authority of the Scriptures and the persistence of the Reformed CENI hermeneutic lead to division and partyism among a cappella churches of Christ? If so, how?

24 See I. Bernard Cohen’s The Newtonian Revolution . New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980. 25 Stone-Campbell Hermeneutics III – Baconian Hermeneutics and Churches of Christ. Found at: http://johnmarkhicks.com/2008/05/29/stone-campbell-hermeneutics-iii-baconian-hermeneutics-and- churches-of-christ/ , July 2016. Cf. Thomas H. Olbricht’s use of “CENI” in his “Hermeneutics in the Churches of Christ.” Restoration Quarterly 37 1 (1995). 26 The chronology and rationales of this abandonment are worthy of further study, but beyond our scope.

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Declaration and Address and creeds and confessions Boring reminds us that the Disciples of Christ 1963 Panel of Scholars advocated “a cautious re-appropriation of the historical ecumenical creeds.” 27 He goes even further, suggesting that Thomas Campbell and Declaration and Address did not mount opposition to these creeds and saw a place for them: It is important to note that the positive view of ecumenical creeds taken by the Panel of Scholars was actually a return to the position of Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address . . . William Robinson’s summary of the Appendix to the Declaration and Address was directed primarily against the denominational creeds, not the ecumenical creeds. He provides a good Disciples defense for the proper use of creeds, citing documentation from the Campbells . . . Robinson had contended that Thomas Campbell “recognized the need for theology to safeguard the integrity of the gospel and to express it in the current thought forms of the day; but he denied that such theological formulation should be made binding upon the sinner seeking salvation and seeking to enter the church. Salvation depended, rather, upon personal faith and commitment to a personal Lord and savior.” Here at the font of Disciples’ tradition is the double affirmation of saving faith as personal commitment to Christ (not the acceptance of creedal formulations) and the value of creedal formulations and safeguard the meaning of the faith. 28 So, in this accounting, the ecumenical creeds – including the Apostles’ Creed – are useful as a “safeguard” to the Gospel and as an idiomatic expression of the Gospel. But they should not be binding re conversion nor for acceptance by the church. Finally, creeds are no substitute for personal faith and commitment. Here is Thomas Campbell’s comment on “creeds and confessions” from the Appendix to Declaration and Address : As to creeds and confessions, although we may appear to our brethren to oppose them, yet this is to be understood only in so far as they oppose the unity of the church, by containing sentiments not expressly revealed in the word of God; or, by the way of using them, become the instruments of a human or implicit faith: or, oppress the weak of God’s heritage: where they are liable to none of those objections, we have nothing against them. It is the abuse and not the lawful use of such compilations that we oppose. See PROP. 7, page 17. 29 Here is an excerpt of Proposition 7, referenced above:

27 Op. cit. , 367. The ecumenical creeds include the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed, and either or both the Chalcedonian Creed and the Athanasian Creed. 28 Op. cit. , 367-368. 29 Declaration and Address . In The Quest for Christian Unity, Peace and Purity in Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address: Text and Studies . Edited by Thomas H. Olbricht & Hans Rollmann. ATLA Monograph Series, No. 46, edited by Don Haymes. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2000, 26-27.

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7. That although doctrinal exhibitions of the great system of divine truths, and defensive testimonies in opposition to prevailing errors, be highly expedient . . . these must be in a great measure the effect of human reasoning, and of course must contain many inferential truths, they ought not to be made terms of christian communion: unless we suppose, what is contrary to fact, that none have (sic) a right to the communion of the church, but such as possess a very clear and decisive judgment; or are come to a very high degree of doctrinal information; whereas the church from the beginning did, and ever will, consist of little children and young men, as well as fathers. 30 Campbell points to creeds and confessions as useful in highlighting great, doctrinal truths and in opposing doctrinal error, but he also circumscribes creeds and confessions as follows: 1. Creeds and confessions should not be employed if and when they undermine the unity of the church; 2. Creeds and confessions should be “expressly” grounded in the Scriptures; 3. Creeds should not promote a “human” or “implicit” faith; 4. Creeds should not “oppress the weak” in the faith; and 5. Where creeds and confessions include “inferential truths” they should not be made terms of fellowship. This is remarkably consistent with the judgment of the Westminster Confession that creeds and confessions produced by synods and councils should not be made a rule of faith and practice: IV. All synods or councils, since the apostles' times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred. Therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith, or practice; but to be used as a help in both (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XXXI).

I also observe that Campbell does not appear to distinguish what Boring describes as “the denominational creeds,” such as those I have enumerated above, from “the ecumenical creeds.” 31 Presumably, then, his limits would likewise apply to ecumenical

30 Ibid. , 19. 31 In his proposal of the Apostles’ Creed as a sine qua non and means of unity, Stanglin is not the first in the broader RM nor in the a cappella churches of Christ to make a contemporary proposal along these lines. In his Reed Lectures, Paul Blowers points to Boring’s discussion of the Apostles’ Creed and ecumenical creeds, to Thomas Olbricht’s Hearing God’s Voice: My Life with Scripture in the Churches of Christ (Abilene: ACU Press, 1996, 274ff) and his proposal of a Christological rule of faith, and to Blowers’s and Frederick Norris’s efforts in respect of appealing to the ecumenical creeds (more on this, farther down, re consensus fidelium ). See Anthony L. Dunnavant, Richard T. Hughes, and Paul M. Blowers, Founding Vocation & Future Vision: The Self-Understanding of the Disciples of Christ and the Churches of Christ . St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1999, 92.

Page 11 of 25 creeds. Would not his concern about making “inferential truths” also apply to making “tests of fellowship” propositions which are the fruit of necessary inference ? In his “Reply to Barnabas,” Alexander Campbell affirms a version of the Apostles’ Creed from the Episcopalian (Anglican) Book of Common Prayer : If this be a correct version of it, taken from the common prayer book published in Hartford, 1826, I can say, ex amino , that I believe every word of it. Because it is not, like all modern creeds, a synopsis of opinions, but a brief narrative of facts, and of all the great gospel facts .32 Even here, however, Alexander Campbell assiduously upholds the New Testament as the rule of faith and practice, including as to the reliability of the Apostles’ Creed as received by the Church of England.

Thomas Campbell’s telos re Declaration and Address : Unity? Or something else? For Campbell, to pursue reformation towards the New Testament church was to make the New Testament church the rule of faith and practice. Restoration was also an instrumentality for the achievement of unity or “union” 33 and putting an end to sectarian, party spirit. But was unity or union Campbell’s ultimate objective and purpose? Article II of the Declaration specifies a “half yearly” subscription “for the purpose of raising a fund to support a pure Gospel Ministry” according to “the word of God.” Article IX indicates the society would be engaged in “promoting a pure evangelical reformation, by the simple preaching of the everlasting gospel.” The term “gospel” is used twelve times in the Address and twice more in the Post Script . Near the end of the Address , Campbell includes an extended quotation that highlights how differences among those who share common adherence to the core doctrines of the faith and to one book are obstacles to evangelization of those outside the faith. Campbell’s conclusion to his Address that follows very compellingly suggests that Campbell’s telos was not union or unity, but evangelization and conversion: Alas! poor (sic) people! how (sic) do our divisions and corruptions stand in your way? What a pity that you find us not upon original ground, such as the Apostles left the primitive churches! Had we but exhibited to you their unity and charity; their humble, honest, and affectionate deportment towards each other, and towards all men; you would not

32 Millennial Harbinger 3 (1832):602-604. 33 As C. J. Dull has pointed out to me, although both terms are used, the more common term was “union,” as in: “Union in truth, amongst all the manifest subjects of grace and truth, is what we advocate.” Appendix to Declaration and Address . Found at: https://webfiles.acu.edu/departments/Library/HR/restmov_nov11/www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/tcamp bell/da/DA-CE.HTM , July 2016). “Union in Truth” was the title chosen by James North for his Independent-focused RM history. See footnote ’47.’

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have had those evil and shameful things to object to our holy religion, and to prejudice your minds against it. But your conversion, it seems, awaits our reformation—awaits our return to primitive unity and love. To this may the God of mercy speedily restore us, both for your sakes and our own; that his way may be known upon the earth, and his saving health among all nations. Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee. Amen and amen. 34 For Campbell, “divisions and corruption” stand in the way of conversion of the lost. Reformation leads to “primitive unity and love” – the unity and love of the original, New Testament churches. New Testament unity and love remove the obstacles to conversion of the lost, and to God’s way being known “upon the earth” and “among all the nations.” This is Campbell’s telos .

Locating the first split: the emergence of the a cappella churches of Christ The Campbells’ appeal to the original church of the New Testament was also consistent with their Presbyterian roots, 35 including the Westminster Confession . Salient excerpts are cited above in the epigraph. Although it may not have been identified as “the regulative principle” till the 19 th century, the principle and practice are nonetheless spelled out clearly in Chapter XXI, Article I of the Confession : “the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will.” 36 As Thomas Campbell was educated and ordained to be a Presbyterian minister, and Alexander was raised in a Presbyterian manse, this, too, surely figures in both Campbells’ preaching, teaching, writing and publishing in promotion of the New Testament church. 37 One can locate the possibility of different understandings of the application of the regulative principle in the Confession , also cited above: (T)here are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of

34 Op.cit. , 56. 35 Cf. MacIntyre, op cit. 36 Cf. C. Matthew McMahon, “The Regulative Principle in Worship: A brief article.” Found at: http://www.apuritansmind.com/puritan-worship/the-regulative-principle-in-worship-a-brief-article- by-dr-c-matthew-mcmahon/, July 2016; Derek Thomas, “The Regulative Principle of Worship.” Found at: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/regulative-principle-worship , July 2016; and John M. Frame, “A Fresh Look at the Regulative Principle: A Broader View” (2012). Found at: http://frame-poythress.org/a-fresh-look-at-the-regulative-principle-a-broader-view/ , July 2016. 37 See John Mark Hicks’s blog post about the regulative principle and the RM, here: http://johnmarkhicks.com/2008/05/30/stone-campbell-hermeneutics-iv-regulative-principle-and-churches- of-christ/ .

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nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word (Chapter I, Article VI). Hicks suggests (see footnote ‘37’) the roots of the differing interpretations and applications of the regulative principle can be traced right back to Calvin (“broader”) and Zwingli (“narrower”). But differences are explicit in these two articles of the Confession . Chapter XXI, Article I, suggests a stricter application. Chapter I, Article VI, suggests a more expansive, looser application. Today, Reformed application of the regulative principle ranges from Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church’s use of a pipe organ or the “Grace” Presbyterian church-planting movement’s use of “worship bands” to the Free Reformed and the Reformed Presbyterians’ insistence on Psalms-only, a cappella congregational singing (“exclusive psalmody”). Differing applications of the regulative principle in large part led to the first RM Great Schism late in the 19 th century which produced the a cappella churches of Christ as a constellation of congregations separate from the Disciples of Christ. One could describe the Sand Creek, Illinois, Address and Declaration (1889) as a restatement of the regulative principle narrowly construed, extending to all manner of things. Although the congregations who promoted Address and Declaration represented a fraction of the congregations who in 1906 declared themselves alienated from other Disciples of Christ, 38 the statement points to the locus of the divergence. The a cappella churches of Christ across the board adopted the “narrower” application of the regulative principle especially in respect of a cappella congregational singing, to only slightly less extent with regard to missionary societies and to certain other matters including a paid, located leadership ministry versus “mutual ministry.” Other Disciples of Christ adopted the “broader” application of the regulative principle and thus featured mechanical accompaniment of congregational singing and missionary societies especially for cross-cultural evangelism. At least up until fairly recently, the “narrower” versus “broader” application of the regulative principle has been a readily identifiable, tangible difference in the RM between a cappella churches of Christ on one side and Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) on the other.

38 In his contribution to the Michael W. Casey memoriam anthology, “The Struggle for the Soul of Churches of Christ (1897-1907): Hoosiers, Volunteers and Longhorns ,” John Mark Hicks describes “the Nashville tradition,” “the Texas tradition” and “the Hoosier tradition,” describing the influence of the Regulative Principle in the first, great RM schism and how its influence led to more division among a cappella churches. In And the Word Became Flesh: Studies in History, Communication, and Scripture in Memory of Michael W. Casey . E dited by Thomas H. Olbricht, David Fleer . Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick, 2009, 54-70. Cf. John Mark Hicks and Bobby Valentine, Kingdom Come: Embracing the Spiritual Legacy of and James Harding . Abilene, Texas: Leafwood, 2006.

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So, was it the application of the right of private judgment to the interpretation of the New Testament that led to this first big split? Or, was it differing applications of the regulative principle the founders brought with them from the Presbyterian, Reformed and Puritan Westminster Confession into the earliest RM? That is, are the origins of the division found in taking the New Testament as the sole rule of faith and practice, or in a creedal statement?

The ‘levelist’ application of the regulative principle As suggested above, the first big RM schism resulted from a divergence among Disciples as to the application of the regulative principle. Those who withdrew insisted on an application of the principle that proscribed mechanical accompaniment of congregational singing as well as missionary societies, among others: a narrower application. Other Disciples took the silence of the New Testament as allowing for these: a broader application. As John Mark Hicks et al. have argued, this was not the exclusive reason for differences among a cappella churches of Christ, as with certain differences between “the Nashville tradition,” “the Texas tradition” and “the Hoosier tradition.” But extension of the regulative principle also led to proscriptions among some a cappella churches in respect of extra-congregational institutions, Sunday school classes, the use of many cups for the Lord’s Supper and others. 39 The extension of the regulative principle amounted to a ‘levelist’ application of the regulative principle to more and more matters touched upon – or not explicitly addressed – by the New Testament. More and more matters were made tests of fellowship. The persistent CENI hermeneutic became the instrument for promotion of the regulative principle potentially to any and all matters that could be construed as Command, Example or Necessary Inference. Could it be that this is what led to the first RM schism and to partyism among a cappella churches of Christ? Instead of imposing the Apostles’ Creed on a cappella churches of Christ (if, indeed, such a thing were possible), could it be that as the CENI hermeneutic’s influence diminishes, the impetus to partyism will likewise diminish?

Locating the second split: the emergence of Independents versus Disciples What catalyzed the second major division in the RM that produced Independents and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) was the promotion of “open membership.” Both Independents and today’s Disciples practice open communion. 40 But with very few exceptions, Independents require believer’s baptism by immersion for membership

39 Cf. Ibid. , 56-60. 40 Some Independent congregations will publicly suggest that only immersed believers should partake, but even there it would unlikely be enforced.

Page 15 of 25 while Disciples will accept as members those coming from other churches with believer’s baptism by modes other than immersion and those who bring a pædobaptism. 41 In respect of versions of “the Rule of Faith” or the Apostles’ Creed , there are many from which to choose, with various iterations in Greek and Latin from the first five or six centuries A.D., let alone later versions produced by the Protestant Reformation. 42 This does lead us to question which version of the Apostles’ Creed Stanglin proposes to adopt. Writing at the time of the Council of Nicæa (A.D. 325), Eusebius of Cæsarea mentions this version of the Apostles’ Creed that he identified as handed down through the church he served: We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible; And in ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST , the Word of God, God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the only-begotten Son, the first-born of every creature, begotten of God the Father before all ages, by whom also all things were made; who for our salvation was made flesh and made his home among men; and suffered; and rose on the third day; and ascended to the Father; and will come again in glory, to judge the quick and the dead. [We believe] also in ONE HOLY GHOST . We believe that each of these is and exists, the Father truly Father, and the Son truly Son, and the Holy Ghost truly Holy Ghost; even as our Lord, when sending forth his disciples to preach, said: 'Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' We note the inclusion of the Great Commission from Matthew’s Gospel in this version of the Apostles’ Creed . Among the conservative Disciples who became Independents, we might well argue that their Apostles’ Creed equivalent was a later version of Walter Scott’s five-finger exercise. Later versions of the five-finger exercise prescribed that a Christian is one who hears the Gospel, believes in Jesus, repents of sin, confesses Jesus as Lord, and submits to water baptism by immersion, OR one who believes in Jesus, repents of sin, confesses Jesus as Lord, submits to water baptism by immersion, and claims the forgiveness of sins and

41 However, most Disciples of Christ congregations will only practice believer’s baptism by immersion. 42 See Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical notes. Volume II. The History of Creeds, found here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds1.html , July 2016. The earliest version Schaff brings us is one dated A.D. 107 from Ignatius of Antioch in his Epistle to the Trallians , in Greek: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds2.iii.i.i.html .

Page 16 of 25 the gift of the Holy Spirit. 43 As with the version of the Apostles’ Creed above, we could add a strong adherence to and effort to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18- 20). There we can locate what gave impetus to the division between mainly conservative Disciples who became the Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, and liberals or loyalists who formed the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Disciples missionaries, including Leslie Wolfe of the Philippines, Stirling and Dr. Zoena Rothermel of India, W. C. Cunningham of Japan, Russell Morse of China, et al. resisted the imposition of “comity agreements” on the congregations and Disciples among whom they served. Comity agreements were negotiated and agreed by Disciples, Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian denominational missionary agencies that effectively carved up these and other countries with multi-denominational, American missionary activity. In the name of unity, the agreements assigned one part of, for example, the Philippines to the Methodists, others to the Baptists and Presbyterians, and another to the Disciples. All congregations in the Methodist part of the Philippines would be under the administration of the Methodist missionary agency, and so on. Further, whatever baptism had been received, whether “pædo” or “believer’s” by sprinkling, pouring or immersion, would be recognized by all parties to the agreement. Their members would be accepted as members irrespective of whether they were in the Disciples, Methodist, Presbyterian or Baptism region of the mission country. Hence, “open membership” became the rule. The Wolfes, Morses, Cunninghams, Rothermels et al. refused to accede to the comity agreements and resigned or were summarily “fired” or recalled by their Disciples sending missionary agencies, be it the Christian Women’s Board of Mission, the Foreign Christian Missionary Society, or the United Christian Missionary Society. When inquiries were made of the societies by supporters of these missionaries, the societies denied that open membership was being practiced. The policy of open membership and comity was rejected by the 1925 International Convention in Oklahoma City. When the issue again was forced to the floor of the International Convention of 1926 in Memphis and a majority of delegates supported the termination of the comity agreements and the practice of open membership, the societies and those running the convention simply ignored the will of the convention.44

43 Cf. Kent Ellett, “The Gospel Restored.” Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement . Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005, 363-364. 44 For a “blow by blow" account, see Henry Webb’s “What Could We Have Done Differently? 1926-1946.” A paper presented to a Stone-Campbell Dialogue Meeting, Indianapolis, Indiana, November 29-30, 1999. Found at: http://councilonchristianunity.org/what-could-we-have-done-differently-1926-1946/ , July 2016.

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The rift opened at the 1926 International Convention widened with proto- Independents’ first North American Christian Convention in 1927 45 and, twenty years later, with Burris Butler’s call to action to Independents before and after his becoming editor of the Christian Standard .46 Independents responded to the lack of accountability to the churches shown by the convention, the missionary societies and the endowed colleges. They initiated a Bible college movement wherein endowments were verboten . They spearheaded a direct-support missions movement whereby the missionaries themselves raised money from and were directly accountable to congregations and individual donors. They organized the North American Christian Convention (NACC) as a regularly occurring, non-delegated, preaching, teaching and “fellowship” convention open to all. Concerns as to what was being taught at Disciples colleges and seminaries in respect of miracle, the nature of Scripture and the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis et al. had already been surfaced by J. W. McGarvey’s columns on biblical criticism (1893-1911) in the Christian Standard before the rift. As a result, conservative Disciples seeking seminary education generally attended the still-conservative Butler School of Religion, till the early 1950s. The moves described in the preceding paragraph were driven by a desire to prevent unaccountable agencies and schools from going down paths similar to those followed on missions, the seminaries and open membership. 47 That is, the rift was conditioned by institutional, minority repudiation of the doctrines of miracle, canon and inspiration. The rift was opened up by a similar institutional elite repudiation of biblical, RM teaching in respect of conversion and the Great Commission represented by the comity agreements and open membership – the conservative Disciples’ Apostles’ Creed equivalent. Here, again, one would be hard-pressed to argue

45 A “proto-NACC,” Restoration Rally met in St. Louis in 1922. 46 For the details, see Webb’s account, op. cit. 47 Cf. two anti-Independent, Disciples’ accounts – polemics – from A. T. DeGroot, Church of Christ Number Two . N.p.: Self-published via The Birmingham Printers, 1956, and Stephen J. Corey, Fifty Years of Attack and Controversy . St. Louis: Special Committee, 1953, with an Independent, polemic response to Corey from Edwin V. Hayden, 50 Years of Digression and Disturbance. Joplin: Self-published via Hunter Printing, 1955. In 1969, DeGroot self-published “ Extra ecclesiam nulla salus ,” his 70-page attack on the Disciples Restructure and launch of “The Design” in 1968. James B. North’s Union in Truth: An Interpretive History of the Restoration Movement . Cincinnati: Standard, 1994, 323-352, brings the benefits of time and distance to his analysis of this schism from an Independent perspective, as does David Filbeck’s The First Fifty Years: A History of the Direct-Support Missionary Movement. Joplin, Missouri: College Press, 1980. For an Independent-focused overview of the RM up to 2007 for an a cappella churches of Christ audience, see Victor Knowles’s “Still Christians Only – A Candid Look at the Conservative Christian Churches/Churches of Christ (1927–2007).” Malibu, California: Pepperdine University Bible Lectures, 2007 (Found at: http://www.poeministries.org/pages/Lectures/Pepperdine-07_Vic.pdf , July 2016).

Page 18 of 25 that this second RM division was caused except in the broadest terms by taking the Scriptures and, especially, the New Testament as the rule of faith and practice.

Consensus fidelium ? Or, consensus of common mind? Among the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, et al., the term consensus fidelium has been used to describe the results of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, including statements of the Apostles’ Creed . The degree to which one considers the statements of the Ecumenical Councils to be descriptive of an already existing consensus or prescriptive of what the consensus should be may well depend on one’s tradition. The term and its underlying concept have been appealed to throughout the centuries, and have seen more recent appeals in the Roman Catholic tradition. Among Independents, Paul Blowers has become a recent promoter of the conception of consensus fidelium as a rule of faith and practice. 48 Blowers suggests that Garrison, DeGroot, Robinson and Kershner adopted and adapted the term and idea from the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions. According to Blowers, they construed consensus fidelium as “a quasi-democratic principle of free and critical inquiry.” Blowers contrasts this with Alexander Campbell’s affinity for the term vox populi, vox Dei , as suggestive of “sheer populism.” But this is a misrepresentation of how the term and concept were understood from Calvin, through the Calvinist resistance theorists of the late 16th century, by Locke himself, and as the term likely was used by Campbell himself. Calvinist political and resistance theory opposed anything close to a thoroughgoing populism. Even as Calvinist lives were under threat and in the aftermath of the St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1572, slaughter of 10,000 or more French Calvinists (Huguenots), Calvinist resistance theorists required that a chief magistrate – ruler – could only be removed by a general consensus, for cause (“tyranny”), by lesser magistrates already holding office or by the chief magistrate of another jurisdiction.49 The vox populi, vox Dei referenced by Campbell was a consensus resulting from something more akin to deliberation in the Roman Republic with Consuls and Senate as well as Tribune and Plebeians, than to the Athenian Demos. More res publica than res populi – more “public rule” than rule by taking a vote.

48 Paul M. Blowers, “Consensus Fidelium.” Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement . Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005, 234-235. Cf. Frederick W. Norris, “Apostolic, Catholic, and Sensible: The Consensus Fidelium. ” In Essays on New Testament Christianity: A Festschrift in Honor of Dean E. Walker . Edited by C. Robert Wetzel. Cincinnati: Standard, 1978, 15-29. 49 Cf. Theodore Beza’s Of the Rights of Magistrates (1574) and the Vindiciæ contra tyrannos (1579) of uncertain authorship. It was on these grounds that the 17 th -c. English Revolution began as Parliament sought, first, to remove and, then, executed Charles I as a tyrant.

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Further, Blowers’s article (see footnote ‘48’) references Kershner’s commentary on Declaration and Address , The Christian Union Overture. Kershner, however, does not use the term, consensus fidelium , in this work. While he does refer to “consensus,” it is not quite in the sense Blowers describes. In his “Comment upon the Declaration and Address” as part of his “Introduction” to his work, the consensus Kershner describes is conceptually more akin to Thomas Reid’s common sense realism. Kershner argues that while the Campbells asserted the right of private judgment, they did not trust the judgment of one person, alone. They did trust “the common mind,” however. Kershner argues that this is what Alexander Campbell referenced when he frequently used the expression, vox populi, vox Dei . The Campbells understood the problem of the right of private judgement when combined with the Protestant principle, sola Scriptura. They rejected the Protestant solution of creeds and confessions to circumscribe the right of private judgment. They also rejected placing trust in a hierarchical magisterium or dogma, as with the Roman Catholic Church. As adherents to Reid’s common sense realism, they believed that the common faculty of reason of humankind – “common mind” – could be trusted when a consensus of reason emerged in respect of interpretation of the New Testament. 50 That the consensus would develop from careful scholarship and from its representing the judgment of many. Again, more res publica than res populi . Where does the concept, consensus fidelium , come from, as now used in wider Christianity? John Henry Newman is credited with developing “the theology of sensus and consensus fidelium ” in his article, “On Consulting the Faithful on Matters of Doctrine” (1859). Ormond Rush argues that “(t)he consensus of the faithful is the agreement which arises among believers as a result of the sense of faith with regard to particular items of faith.” For Rush, the sense of faith and sensitivity to the “faith’s basic themes” is available to “ everyone who believes in God’s revelation.” 51 A recent publication by the Vatican produced by its International Theological Commission describes this consensus along similar lines and traces it back to the Patristic period. It suggests that this consensus should be treated as something of a litmus test as to whether or not “a particular doctrine or practice belongs to the apostolic faith,” also referencing Newman. 52 Although the Commission credits him with emphasizing the

50 Frederick D. Kershner, The Christian Union Overture: An Interpretation of the Declaration and Address of Thomas Campbell . St. Louis: The Bethany Press, 1923, 35-48. Cf. Carisse Mickey Berryhill, “Common Sense Philosophy.” Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement . Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005, 230-231. 51 See Ormond Rush, The Reception of Doctrine: An Appropriation of Hans Robert Jauss’ Reception Aesthetics and Literary Hermeneutics. A doctoral dissertation submitted to the Gregorian Pontifical University. Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1997, 171-174. See footnote ‘184.’ 52 Msgr. Paul McPartlan, et al., International Theological Commission, Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church. Rome: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 2014. Found at:

Page 20 of 25 role of the laity as keepers of the apostolic faith along with the councils and teaching authority of the church, Newman believed in the need for a doctrine of papal infallibility in order to “maintain the church in the truth.” They also point out that the concept of sensus fidelium was appealed to by Perrone as grounds for pressing for “a papal definition of Mary’s Immaculate Conception” that Pius IX issued in Ineffabilis Deus (1854). The doctrine of papal infallibility ex cathedra was issued by the First Vatican Council (1870), as Newman desired. Very recently, it seems that consensus fidelium may have been employed by those seeking a theological departure from the theological conservatism of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, under Francis. 53 In a certain way, the Campbells anticipate Newman’s argument for including “the faithful” in the consensus, but on rather different grounds. First, their “common mind” does not appear to be limited to followers of Jesus, but would presumably be available to all humankind. Secondly, the Campbells are looking for ways to overcome the error promulgated by a hierarchy’s claiming teaching authority in opposition to the New Testament as a rule of faith and practice. Here, we are mainly focusing on the RM’s Great Schisms and the potential for schismatic tendencies. However, the RM has enjoyed considerable consensus and unity of mind and purpose, faith and practice, throughout its history, prior to the first schism and among each of the three streams after the schisms. As leaders and others from a cappella churches of Christ and Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ have interacted, they have found much on which they agree as well as things on which they may disagree. As many of us of RM adherence who are not Disciples of Christ have interacted with Disciples we, too, have found many things in common as well as difference.54 Across the RM, consensus holds on believer’s baptism by immersion. Although Disciples of Christ congregations will generally accept other baptisms performed in other denominations as qualifying for membership, most congregations will only administer believer’s baptism by immersion. Virtually all Independents will only accept for members those who have received believer’s baptism by immersion. It is my very strong impression that the same is true of a cappella churches of Christ. Likewise, with the Lord’s Supper. Disciples, Independent and a cappella churches celebrate the Lord’s http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20140610_sensus- fidei_en.html , July 2016. 53 Francis X. Rocca, “Sensus fidelium doesn’t mean ‘majority opinion’, Francis says.” Catholic Herald (9 Dec 2013). Found at: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/12/09/sensus-fidelium-doesnt-mean- majority-opinion-francis-tells-theologians/ , July 2016. 54 The same assessment could be extended in varying degrees to interactions with those of the Anabaptist, Reformed, Latin-Roman and Eastern traditions of Christian faith, and all without the interference of an imposed or managed consensus.

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Supper weekly. 55 Most Disciples congregations jealously guard their autonomous governance, as with Independent and a cappella churches. 56 Disciples and a cappella churches’ educational institutions generally emphasize the liberal arts for undergraduates. Some a cappella churches and Independents’ educational institutions emphasize vocation-specific education to produce teachers, nurses, business administrators, et al. Disciples tend to pursue an focused on the historical, mainline, Protestant denominations. Some Independents work with other evangelicals in respect of church planting networks, and many are not averse to participating in evangelical associations. These are commonalities across wings of the RM, and there are others. Within each of the wings, there are surely points of wide consensus. Points of difference, too, have arisen in each wing. Among Independents, a growing minority prefers an “egalitarian” view of the role of women in the church to either a “complementarian” or “hierarchical” view. Clear fault lines exist among the Disciples of Christ, and can be expressed by region. Disciples congregations in certain Regions holding to a high view of Scriptural authority are generally more conservative, theologically and socially, than in other Disciples regions. An increasing number of historically a cappella congregations are no longer a cappella or not exclusively a cappella in their congregational singing. 57

55 Some newly planted Independent congregations resulting from the Independents’ church-planting movement do not feature the Lord’s Supper in the main service but make it available before or after the main, Sunday service. 56 Thomas H. Olbricht describes the reaction of peace churches to the polity of congregational independence of churches of Christ: In 1996 I was invited to present a paper at a Notre Dame conference, organized by John Howard Yoder (now deceased) on pacifist strains in major groups other than the traditional peace churches . . . My paper was on “The Peace Heritage of the Churches of Christ.” In order to speak to the topic of fragmentation, I proposed that it was first necessary to describe the polity of independent congregations in Churches of Christ. When I finished and the chair asked for questions, I didn’t receive a single query regarding pacifism. The questions all had to do with polity. The conferees could not envision how complete congregational independence was possible. An agitated Armenian bishop declared it would never work. I responded, “Perhaps not, but there are above a million of us in the United States, and more in the world.” (In Reflections on My Life in the Kingdom and the Academy. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2012, 220). In view of the congregational independence practiced widely across the RM, Olbricht could have enlarged his number for North America to nearly 3 million in some 17,000 or more congregations. 57 Staff Reports, “Churches with instrumental services return to directory.” The Christian Chronicle (Feb ’12). Found at: http://www.christianchronicle.org/article/churches-with-instrumental-services-return-to- directory , July 2016.

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Lessons and a modus vivendi Keith Stanglin has very helpfully brought forward key questions for RM adherents to confront and over which to deliberate. Was the telos of Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address (1809) unity? No. Unity or “union” was directed towards removing the obstacles to conversion of the lost. Was the error of a cappella churches of Christ which has been fatal to unity a patternistic approach to restoration of the New Testament church, employing the CENI hermeneutic, that gave equal weight and authority to all of the New Testament Scriptures and its subjects? As argued above, I believe the problematic was a “levelist” application of the regulative principle in respect of conclusions drawn by the employment of the CENI hermeneutic. In this way, all manner of things mentioned – or not mentioned – in the New Testament were made into tests of fellowship among a cappella churches of Christ. Did this lead to schismatic tendencies? Yes, but it also saw a high level of unity and common purpose. Should we set to one side the New Testament holus bolus as the rule of faith and practice, and focus, instead, on the Apostles’ Creed as the sine qua non without which faith ceases to be Christian and upon which the church and all Christians should be united? As argued above, creeds and confessions can be the locus of division every bit as much as versions of a New Testament-only rule of faith and practice may be when combined with the right of private judgment, if not more so. In respect of the Apostles’ Creed or any other creed and confession, whether “ecumenical” or “denominational,” we are well advised to emulate Barton W. Stone’s response at his ordination examination when he was asked to affirm the Westminster Confession of Faith : “I do, as far as I see it consistent with the Word of God.” 58 Lessons can be drawn. A wide consensus of understanding of the New Testament as the rule of faith and practice can be developed, but real consensus cannot be managed. The right of private judgment can be tempered by, and its conclusions refined by, the judgment of the Body of Christ, including leaders and teachers, and by others who may or may not claim to be members of the Body of Christ. Consensus can give way to dissensus and division. As with the regulative principle inherited from the Westminster Confession , adherence to a creedal position can cause dissensus and division. A consensus on New Testament essentials re Christian conversion and the Great Commission can be undermined by a minority, top-down, as with the 1926

58 Works of Elder B. W. Stone, Volume 1. Edited by James M. Mathes. Second edition. Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach, Keys & Co., Printers, 1859, 17. Found at: http://www.moellerhaus.com/restor- hist/bwstone/WEBWS00A.HTM , July 2016.

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International Convention and what followed. Those appealing to the authority of grammar by exegetical exposition of and theological reflection on the Scriptures should assist and instruct the faithful. Theological speculation and sophisticated exegetical conclusions should not stand in the way of the faithful and would-be converts to the faith nor be made tests of fellowship, especially if the conclusions are the fruit of inference, necessary or otherwise. As Stanglin observes, a “level” Scriptures can be a source of division, as can a levelling hermeneutic, making all manner of things discussed in the New Testament into tests of fellowship. Could we take our cue from Thomas Campbell’s telos in respect of removing the obstacles to conversion of the lost – ergo, to fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission? Is there any clearer or more succinct statement of God’s purpose in Christ for humankind? What must be tests of fellowship, that is, the bases of union? What are the grounds for communion in the Lord’s Supper? Is the New Testament church a worthy pursuit? If so, what are the minimums, “the markers,” for legitimately claiming to be a New Testament church? It may well be that the RM would benefit from a re-examination of its epistemological roots in Thomas Reid’s common sense realism. The most obvious benefit would go to a better understanding of the historical RM. But a re-examination could entail other benefit, too. The past several years have seen a renewal of interest in Reid’s epistemology. 59 Even with what is now known in respect of the influence of culture with regard to “a common mind,” knowing and interpretation, Reid can help us ask with greater precision where culture ends and common human experience begins. Such a re-examination could prompt us to ask whether or not the Campbells “were on to something.” More generally, a very strong case could be made that the RM is to a large extent a product of moderate, 18 th -c. Presbyterian, Scottish Enlightenment/Modernism. The philosophical underpinnings the RM has been seized with are suggestive. In addressing the problem of authority, the RM was a vigorous proponent of the right of private judgment and the authority of grammar, and opposed hierarchical and creedal authority. On the question of ecclesiology, the RM project was significantly focused on

59 See Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Gifford Lectures published as Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology (Modern European Philosophy). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000, and The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy). Edited by Terence Cuneo and René van Woudenberg. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Wolterstorff outlines the problems with Lockean empiricism, et al. that Reid was addressing, especially the problems raised by Hume. He also situates the issues Reid discusses in recent, contemporary, epistemological discussion. Although it appears now not to be active, The Reid Society (http://legacy.lclark.edu/~reidsoc/ ) was formed about the same time, based at Princeton Theological Seminary’s Centre for the Study of Scottish Philosophy: http://www.ptsem.edu/cssp/ .

Page 24 of 25 primitivism/originalism. As to its informing epistemology, the RM adopted Thomas Reid’s correction of John Locke’s empiricism. In respect of hermeneutics, the RM adopted Francis Bacon’s scientific method in its approach to exposition of the Scriptures. Although we have not addressed it above, we could also ask to what extent was the RM’s enthusiasm for restoration and the Great Commission symptomatic of Enlightenment/Modernism’s perfectionism and post-millennialist optimism? The Restoration Movement could qualify as the world’s first Enlightenment/ Modernist Christian tradition. To what degree was post-bellum reformist, utilitarian, Progressivist liberalism responsible for the fault lines that led to both RM “Great Schisms”? Several lines of enquiry are worth pursuing at another time. As a concluding, sermonically asserted comment, let me suggest that a party stance or an irenic spirit 60 encouraged by intentional leadership, empowered by personality and hubris, should not be underestimated.61 Any systemic approach is surely not sufficient to achieve unity, nor is an agreed upon rule of faith and practice, since human personalities are involved in Christ’s church. Conversion, redemption and reformation of oneself surely must precede or, at least, accompany reformation and restoration of Christ’s church. To “make disciples” is surely predicated on one’s becoming a disciple of Jesus, first. Finally, learning to be at peace with others insofar as it depends on us, as the Apostle Paul urged, is surely a necessary condition of unity or union in Christ’s church: Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. – Romans 12:9-21, ESV.

60 In his Restoration Review , his RM history et al., the late Leroy Garrett made frequent mention of “irenic spirit” to describe various leaders in the RM, historical and contemporary. Garrett referenced the adjective, “irenic” on at least thirteen occasions in The Stone-Campbell Movement: The Story of the American Restoration Movement . Revised edition, 1994. Fifth printing. Joplin, Missouri: College Press, 2006, 76, 100 (twice), 217, 296, 396, 422, 426, 437, 444, 452, 533 & 538. 61 This comment could be directed toward all three major wings of the Restoration Movement.

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