What would Thomas Campbell say to us today?

Presented by Craig Brown, Federal Coordinator, at both Days for Dreaming Day:2

Craig’s talk is also available on YouTube here but be aware there is a few seconds delay in the audio for an unknown reason. We are working on the problem but currently this is what we are able to publish. It doesn’t jump, there is just a few seconds lag.

Thomas Campbell was born in 1763. 

 In 1763, Australia was yet to be colonised by Captain Cook.

• The US was still a collection of colonies of the United Kingdom.  As was India.
• The French even had an Empire (Canada).
• There was no Facebook.
• Uranus, Neptune and Pluto hadn’t been discovered.

 So, there were differences, but there were similarities too…

 The Enlightenment had been predicting the downfall of the church’s role in society…

• The conduct of so called believers and the clergy was often ridiculed by the leading critics of the church…       
• “Priests and conjurors are of the same trade.” (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason)
• “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of.  My own mind is my own Church.” (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason)

 The rise of neo-atheists in our time is also reminiscent of the tide sweeping Campbell’s Europe, where it became almost fashionable (in an increasingly free society) to attack the church and those in it…”Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of ‘the flock’.” Christopher Hitchens (Hitch-22: A Memoir)

 Science, too, was emerging as a public force and was asking questions of faith and, in so doing, was appearing to threaten the authority of the church…We, too, live in an age where Science and Faith are often perceived as being at odds.

• “The patient typically finds himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn’t seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as ‘faith’.” (Richard Dawkins)

 Emerging leaders like the Wesleys and Whitfield had been taking church out of buildings, to places like taverns, coal fields and the market place…and by so doing were making the established church very uncomfortable…in our own time, the McLaren’s, the Hirsch’s, the Frosts and the Claibornes are having the same impact.

• What is church? Was it a building? Was it a certain style? A certain ethos? Certain words or certain emphases of Jesus? An official & recognised denomination? Or was it the people of God inspired by the Spirit of God explaining the Word of God in common language?

With each new answer, there is a danger that we move further away from each other.

Into this context steps Thomas Campbell.  Campbell was born in what is now Northern Ireland, and in 1798 accepted the call to be a minister of the Presbyterian church in Ahorey, County Atrim. In the same year, over 10,000 people are killed in an Irish rebellion against the English. This rebellion had overtones of sectarian violence, with the predominantly Catholic Irish rising up against their predominantly Protestant English overlords.  People were banned from certain positions because they were Catholic. People died for their beliefs.

Campbell lived at a time where it was what religious division could do to people. (“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.” David Hume)

Campbell himself tried to get the various Presbyterian groups in Ireland to work together, but ultimately he failed – not only were there divisions between major denominations, but in actual  denominations themselves. 

So he did what so many others would do…when the old world seems unchangeable, we abandon it for a new world, for a new frontier.  For the wide open spaces of the new world.

Only hoping that when we arrive in the new world, that the old hasn’t got there 1st.

Which is what Thomas Campbell found.

In the new frontier world of western Pennsylvania in the early 1800s, Campbell found himself in trouble for offering an open table – meaning that all Christians could join his church at the Lord’s Supper, regardless of creed. 

So, by 1809, Campbell’s had enough. He decides that new world needs a new language, a new way of expressing what he thinks is the heart of God, the mind of Christ, the movement of the Spirit.  That’s where the Declaration and Address (1809), which inspires the Movement we know as the Stone/Campbell Movement, and from which Churches of Christ emerged.

What is the Declaration and Address (D & A)? 

It was a call to unity.
It was a call to restoration of New Testament principles. 
It was a call to the primacy of Christ over theology, opinions, Movements and human speculation.

But Campbell didn’t plan on a Movement…he was simply speaking out the desires of his heart. He didn’t envision, 200 years later, a group called the ‘Churches of Christ’ emanating from some of his writings. Yet here we are.

What would he say to us? In the D & A, he had 13 Propositions…today, being the minimalist that I am, I’d like to frame it in 6 questions:

1. What frontier are we on the edge of?
2. What old world are we trying to escape? What parts of the old world have followed us?
3. Are we formed by Christ and His Word, or are we being formed by opinions, theology and Movements?
4. If we are trying to restore “New Testament Christianity”, are we aware of the biases, the experiences and the prejudices we bring to our reading and restoration? What do we think we’re restoring?
5. Have we settled for being an introspective Movement instead of being extroverted pioneers of Christ and his characteristics?
6. Are we seeking unity around the person of Christ?