Tag Archives: Restoration Movement

This Has Nothing to Do with the Instrumental Music Controversy at All. Really.

It’s amazing how we delight in creativity. It’s because, I believe, the creative side of humans is very much in the image of God. When we delight in the arts, we delight in a spark of God that remains in … Continue reading

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Replanting a Denomination: The Original Restoration Plea

A reader posted a comment, suggesting that the original Restoration Plea was not as I characterized it in the last post of this series, asserting — In actuallity, the concept of teaching “the correct doctrines of baptism, worship, and church … 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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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Landmarkism

Many of the second generation of the Restoration Movement misunderstood the Campbells. In particular, Moses Lard and Benjamin Franklin (great nephew of the Revolutionary War Benjamin Franklin) taught a much narrower doctrine of salvation (soterology), sometimes insisting on near-perfect doctrine … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: The Missionary Society

Late in his career, Alexander Campbell argued strenuously for a national missionary society. In many states, Restoration Movement churches had already organized societies (a 19th Century term for a nonprofit organization) to send out missionaries and to do other good … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Baptism, Primitivism, and Heresy, Part 2

This brings us to the famous Lunenburg letter correspondence. Some of Campbell’s early writing often seems to suggest that he considered baptism essential to salvation. And this was conventional wisdom within much of the Movement. However, Stone had never considered … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Baptism, Primitivism, and Heresy, Part 1

The Restoration Movement was not begun with baptism in mind. Indeed, Barton W. Stone, Thomas Campbell, and Alexander Campbell had all begun their ministries and had written some of their most famous documents long before baptism became an issue. You … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: “Raccoon” John Smith and the 1832 Unity Meeting

“Raccoon” John Smith Smith’s story is well told by June Baldwin Bork, In 1814, after much thought, John took his wife and four children to Alabama with dreams of settling and farming a large farm and eventually becoming a prosperous … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Barton W. Stone and Richard McNemar

We in the Churches of Christ often claim to be part of or heirs of the Restoration Movement, founded by Barton W. Stone and Thomas and Alexander Campbell. We like to recite various Restoration Movement slogans and give them very … Continue reading

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