Do We Really Need All These Denominations? Stone-Campbell Said No with Dr. John Mark Hicks

Website: https://www.centerforchristianhistory... Instagram: Instagram: centerforchristianhistory Facebook: Facebook: christianhistorytoday Donate: https://www.centerforchristianhistory... The Stone-Campbell Movement emerged from an effort to overcome denominational division in early nineteenth-century American Christianity. One of its defining moments came in Kentucky during the Second Great Awakening. The Cane Ridge Revival of 1801 brought thousands together for preaching, communion, and revival while also exposing disagreements among Presbyterians over revivalism and the work of the Holy Spirit. In 1803, Barton W. Stone and five other Presbyterian ministers separated from the Kentucky Synod and organized the Springfield Presbytery. Their new organization did not last long. By June 1804, its leaders concluded that creating another church body only added to the denominational “partyism” they were trying to overcome. In the Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery, they dissolved their organization so that it could “sink into union with the Body of Christ at large.” Rather than identify themselves primarily as Presbyterians, Baptists, or Methodists, they sought simply to be Christians. Similar impulses toward Christian unity appeared in New England, Virginia, North Carolina, and Great Britain. Stone and his associates emphasized Christian unity, the Bible, congregational independence, and allegiance to the Kingdom of God, and their movement spread across the United States. A second stream emerged through Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander Campbell. By the 1820s, the Campbell movement had become influential in Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. The Stone and Campbell movements eventually united, creating the tradition historians commonly call the Stone-Campbell Movement or Restoration Movement. Its adherents resisted denominational labels and centralized church authority while seeking to unite believers around a common Christian identity and the Bible. That commitment to unity did not prevent later disagreements. Questions about biblical interpretation, congregational autonomy, missionary organizations, church government, and instrumental music in worship gradually produced divisions. The American Christian Missionary Society, organized in 1849, became an important controversy. Supporters believed independent congregations could accomplish more by pooling resources. Critics feared that organizations outside the local congregation threatened congregational autonomy. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Churches of Christ and the Disciples of Christ were developing distinct identities. The 1906 United States religious census listed Churches of Christ separately from the Disciples. Churches of Christ generally retained a strongly congregational and non-denominational identity and became associated with limiting church practice to what could be authorized from the New Testament. Instrumental music and missionary societies became visible markers of separation. During the twentieth century, the Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ also emerged from congregations that resisted the increasingly denominational structure of the Disciples of Christ. This history explains why Church of Christ, Christian Church, and Disciples of Christ congregations can share historical roots while differing in theology, worship, organization, and denominational identity. It also raises a central question: how can Christians pursue unity without creating the institutional structures and doctrinal boundaries they originally sought to escape? Dr. John Mark Hicks is Professor of Theology at Lipscomb University in Nashville and has taught in higher education among Churches of Christ since 1982. His research interests include Restoration Movement history and historical theology. His scholarship includes work on Alexander Campbell, Churches of Christ, Cane Ridge, revivalism, Christian unity, and the Stone-Campbell tradition, making him particularly well qualified to explain both the origins and later development of the movement. The conversation explores the Cane Ridge Revival, Barton W. Stone, the Springfield Presbytery, the Last Will and Testament, the anti-denominational impulse of the early movement, and the Second Great Awakening. It also examines how autonomous congregations function without bishops or denominational governing bodies, how churches choose their leaders, why cooperation between independent congregations became controversial, and how differing approaches to Scripture contributed to later divisions. Nick Walters hosts this Center for Christian History conversation with Dr. John Mark Hicks as part of This Week in Christian History. Dr. John Mark Hicks — Lipscomb University profile