Category Archives: Restoration Movement

Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Heresy, Part 3 (French religious wars, Thomas Campbell)

Fifth Story The Catholic Church and Reformation churches felt obliged to kill heretics. The Reformers were more tolerant of heresy, as the earlier Reformers had been branded heretics themselves. But neither side allowed much in the way of dissent. Both … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Heresy, Part 2 (The Filioque, Luther, and Zwingli)

Third story In 1001 AD the Western church divided between the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church. There were many reasons for the split, but one cause was the filioque. According to the Wikipedia — Filioque, Latin for “and … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Heresy, Part 1 (Phinehas, the Nestorians)

First story We all know about God’s covenant with Abraham. (Gen 15:6)  Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. The Old Testament has a surprising parallel — (Psa 106:19-22, 30-31)  At Horeb they made a … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Gnosticism, Part 4 (Two Stories, Creation, Story)

“Dualism” is the notion that the world is divided into good and bad — and that the two do not touch. Francis Schaeffer liked to speak of the first story and second story. In his terms, we’d describe Platonic dualism … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Gnosticism, Part 3

Another area where Platonic thought crept into the church is in our understanding of the “soul” and the afterlife. In Biblical usage, our bodies will be resurrected. Indeed, “resurrection” specifically refers to the reanimation of the body. However, in Greek … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Gnosticism, Part 2

The essential idea was that to become pleasing to God, the Christian had to master certain secret knowledge (hence, the name). The truly holy were separated from the lower-level Christians by their superior knowledge. (1 Tim 6:20-21)  Timothy, guard what … Continue reading

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Backgrounds of the Restoration Movement: Gnosticism, Part 1

This summer, my church is taking a break from its usual approach to adult Bible classes and going back to a more traditional approach — each class has a different subject. I thought I’d teach some new material on the … Continue reading

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Churches of Christ in Decline: Boundary Markers and The Christian Baptist

Alexander Campbell first published his teachings in a periodical called The Christian Baptist, begining in 1823. The following are some excerpts that remain instructive today. First, regarding the “bond of union among Christians.” Passing by, for the present, the various … Continue reading

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One Church

Thomas Campbell’s “Declaration and Address” was written in 1809. This is one of the founding documents of the Restoration Movement, written for the purpose of calling people away from division and sectarianism to join in a common communion, a single … Continue reading

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Amazing Grace: Our Heritage of Wonderful Slogans

We don’t teach Restoration Movement history as much or as well as we should. For purposes of this series of lessons, I thought it might be helpful to cover a small but very important part of our heritage — one … Continue reading

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