Category Archives: Restoration Movement

Songs Without Notes: A Meandering History of Hymnals and Vocal Music, with Rant — Part 6

From the comments: Bob wrote, Put another way, edification is sacramental as well. Exactly. In fact, I’d add “… and especially.” The common definition of a sacrament accepted by the Reformed and Roman Churches is that of an outward and … Continue reading

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Songs Without Notes: A Meandering History of Hymnals and Vocal Music, with Rant — Part 5

Rant In many Churches of Christ, the kinds with “worship leaders” rather than “song leaders,” we’ve rejected hymnals altogether, replacing them with projection of the lyrics on a screen (actually, a very good idea) backed by a waterfall scene. For a … Continue reading

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Songs Without Notes: A Meandering History of Hymnals and Vocal Music, with Rant — Part 4

Restoration Movement The Restoration Movement is the product the merger of two earlier movements, one founded by (among others) Barton W. Stone in Illinois and one founded by Thomas Campbell in western Pennsylvania. Both men were defrocked Presbyterian ministers, expelled … Continue reading

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Songs Without Notes: A Meandering History of Hymnals and Vocal Music, with Rant — Part 3

Isaac Watts In the early 18th Century, Isaac Watts began writing hymns by either arranging Psalms to have meter and rhyme or, in a revolution of doctrine and practice, composing entirely original hymns. Although the Lutherans had been composing hymns … Continue reading

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Songs Without Notes: A Meandering History of Hymnals and Vocal Music, with Rant — Part 2

The Calvinist Regulative Principle of Worship In Switzerland, unlike Luther’s Germany, the Reformation went an entirely different direction. In Zurich, Ulrich Zwingli adopted the Regulative Principle of Worship, arguing that we may only do that which has been authorized by express … Continue reading

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Songs Without Notes: A Meandering History of Hymnals and Vocal Music, with Rant — Part 1

The early church sang hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs. Commentators don’t even know for sure whether these were words for different things or essentially synonyms. We don’t know much about how the early church sang. We have an entire book … Continue reading

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Common Cause: B. C. Goodpasture, The Gospel Advocate, and Churches of Christ in the Twentieth Century

A friend of mine pointed me to a doctoral dissertion, available in full text online, by John C. Hardin, titled Common Cause: B. C. Goodpasture, The Gospel Advocate, and Churches of Christ in the Twentieth Century. It’s an excellent read … Continue reading

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Baptism: Thomas Campbell on Baptism

“Prospectus of a Religious Reformation” I stumbled across an 1829 tract by Thomas Campbell called “Prospectus of a Religious Reformation” buried in The Memoirs of Thomas Campbell. It was evidently  published only as a tract until The Memoirs of Thomas … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Where Do We Go From Here?

The books on how to teach adult Bible classes all say you need to end with an application: how do we apply these lessons to our lives? It’s good to gain a perspective from history because it helps us separate … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Positive Law

In hindsight, it’s easy to see that the doctrine taught by Stone, the Campbells, and Scott differed radically from much that was taught in the years following the Civil War. What changed? Surely they didn’t realize at the time that … Continue reading

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