By Victor Knowles
About This Article: Christians around the world celebrated the 200th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Campbell”s Declaration and Address October 4, 2009. One of those gatherings was the “Celebration of Restoration” in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that evening.
According to Victor Knowles, “About 1,000 people attended, most of them from 75 churches in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. Speakers included Marshall Leggett of Fort Worth, Texas (doing his famous Thomas Campbell impersonation), Bob Russell of Louisville, Kentucky, and Marvin Phillips of Tulsa, Oklahoma.” Knowles also spoke at the event, and we”ve adapted his speech to share with you here.
Two hundred years ago a man came to America in search of Christian unity. He was weary of the denominational division he had experienced in Ireland, and had high hopes for better days in this new country. The year was 1807, and America was only 31 years old. But Thomas Campbell discovered the same seeds of separation in the sectarian soil of America. Division is always the devil”s harvest.
Undeterred, the 46-year-old minister sat down one day and transferred the longings of his heart to paper. The result was the Declaration and Address of the Christian Association of Washington, Pennsylvania, published on September 7, 1809. Its grand design was to “reconcile and unite men to God, and to each other, in truth and love, to the glory of God.”
Campbell”s clarion call for the unity of all believers was a 19th-century echo of Christ”s first-century prayer in John 17:20, 21: “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”*
On this 200th anniversary of the Declaration and Address we would do well to remember what Campbell wrote toward the end of that remarkable document. He said, “Union in truth has been, and ever must be, the desire and prayer of all such””Union in Truth is our motto.”
The late Reuel Lemmons wisely observed, “Unity at the expense of doctrine is unacceptable, and doctrine at the expense of unity is obnoxious.” I reject any “unity” that jettisons truth, and I renounce any “truth” that will not embrace the biblical doctrine of unity.
State of the Union
Two years ago I was asked by the committee that planned this gathering to give a “State of the Union” address on the unity movement started by Thomas Campbell, which eventually became known as the Restoration Movement, sometimes called the Stone-Campbell Movement.
The unity Campbell sought and labored for was a unity built upon the Word of God. He wrote: “Our desire, therefore, for ourselves and our brethren would be, that . . . taking the divine word alone for our rule; The Holy Spirit for our teacher and guide, to lead us into all truth; and Christ alone as exhibited in the word for our salvation””that, by so doing, we may be at peace among ourselves, follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.”
By the end of the 19th century, 1.12 million people had joined this “union in truth” movement. They called themselves Christians or Disciples. Congregations were known as Christian churches, churches of Christ, or Disciples of Christ. Dean Walker called the growth of this movement between 1832 and 1900 “the most rapid growth of any religious movement in the whole history of the church since the apostolic age.”
But the rigors of the Civil War, the formation of the American Christian Missionary Society, and the introduction of instrumental music took their toll. Churches of Christ were listed as “distinct and separate” from the Disciples in the 1906 Census of Religious Bodies. Twenty years later the independent, conservative Christian churches/churches of Christ, because they opposed modernism, ecumenism, and open membership, began their emergence from the Disciples of Christ. And so by the middle of the 20th century the one rolling river of the Restoration Movement had become three separated streams.
So, what is the “state of the union” of this movement that once had as its motto “union in truth”? Numerically, the three groups total nearly 3.2 million members meeting in 22,000 congregations in the United States and Canada.
“¢ Churches of Christ: 1,265,829 members in 13,113 congregations
“¢ Christian churches/churches of Christ: 1,248,273 members in 5,388 congregations
“¢ The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ): 691,160 members in 3,754 congregations
A Tenuous Union
And what is the spiritual “state of the union” of these three fellowships that once were one? As a participant in the Restoration Forum (1984″“2006) and an “invited observer” of the Stone-Campbell Dialogue (1999″“2007) I would say, in a word, tenuous (having little substance or strength).
Churches of Christ (a cappella) and the independent, conservative Christian churches/churches of Christ have more in common because of their nondenominational status. Some good things have happened and are occurring between these two fellowships, especially within the last two decades.
The Christian church (Disciples of Christ), because of its liberal theology and ecumenism, has little in common with either churches of Christ or conservative Christian churches. However, the Nashville-based Disciples of Christ Historical Society and the quadrennial World Convention of Churches of Christ are two places where believers can find something in common.
Tonight we are in Pittsburgh, where a great gathering was held 100 years ago. The weeklong gathering began on Monday, October 11, and ran morning, afternoon, and evening until Tuesday, October 19. On Sunday afternoon the Lord”s Supper was observed at Forbes Field with nearly 30,000 people in attendance.
The centennial celebration was designed, in part, (according to the 1909 program) to create in the hearts of the younger generation “the same zeal for the great fundamental principles of this movement which characterized our fathers, who were willing to forsake all for the defense of the Reformation which they had espoused.” The book listed “ten chief things for which this movement stands [and] whose cause we are celebrating” (see the list on this page.)
I was struck by the singular summation. “In this Centennial year we shall best honor these illustrious men [such as Thomas Campbell and others] by contending earnestly for the very thing for which they contended. The unity of all believers . . . on a basis of Holy Scripture . . . to the end that the world may be evangelized.”
I cannot improve upon that. I can only say in this bicentennial year of the Declaration and Address that we shall best honor our heritage by returning to those same principles and with equal passion proclaim them: the unity of all believers, based on the Word of God, that the world might be won. In so doing we will be honoring that poignant prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ who, 2,000 years ago, lifted up his eyes to Heaven and prayed to his Father. “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word . . . that they may all be one . . . that the world may believe” (John 17:20, 21).
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*Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible.
Ten Things for Which This Movement Stands
An excerpt from the program of the 1909 Centennial Celebration of Campbell”s Declaration and Address:
“¢ “It stands for the unity which existed in the New Testament Church, and which Christ prayed might continue to exist among all those who should believe on him through the testimony of his apostles.
“¢ “. . . for the rejection of all human creeds as authoritative, or as the bases of union and fellowship among Christians, and for the restoration of the Bible, and the Bible alone, as the only authoritative rule of faith and of practice.
“¢ “. . . for the rejection of all party names in religion, and for the use of those common names which suitably describe all the followers of Christ””as Christians, or Disciples of Christ, or churches of Christ””thus giving preeminence to Christ in all things.
“¢ “. . . for the restoration of the New Testament creed or confession of faith . . . “˜Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
“¢ “. . . for the restoration of the two ordinances of Christianity, baptism and the Lord”s Supper, to their original place and meaning . . .
“¢ “. . . for the restoration of the New Testament method of evangelization through the simple preaching of the Gospel of Christ, and the baptizing of penitent believers who signify their willingness to confess the Lord Jesus and to walk in obedience to his commandments . . .
“¢ “. . . for the organization of baptized believers into local congregations or churches, which have the right of self-government in all matters that pertain to their local welfare . . .
“¢ “. . . for the manifestation of the spirit of unity by cooperating with other followers of Christ . . .
“¢ “. . . for the world-wide prevalence of the gospel, to which Christian union looks at its end . . .
“¢ “. . . for that continuous growth in grace, and in the knowledge of the truth, which has for its only limit the complete transformation of all who believe on Christ into the perfect likeness of their divine Lord . . .”
Victor Knowles is founder and president of POEM (Peace on Earth Ministries; www.poeministries.org), Joplin, Missouri.
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