Studies in the History and Culture of World Christianities

Restoring the Firstcentury Church in the Twentyfirst Century: Essays on the StoneCampbell Restoration Movement in Honor of Don Haymes is a snapshot of a major American religious movement just after the turn of the millennium. When the “Disciples” of Alexander Campbell and the “Christians” of Barton Warren Stone joined forces early in the 19th century, the first indigenous ecumenical movement in the United States came into being. Two hundred years later, this American experiment in biblical primitivism has resulted in three, possibly four, large segments. Best known is the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), active wherever ecumenical Christians gather. The denomination is typically theologically open, having been reshaped by theological Liberalism and the Social Gospel in the twentieth century, and has been reorganized on the model of other Protestant bodies. The largest group, the Churches of Christ, easily distinguished by their insistence on a cappella music (singing only), is theologically conservative, now tending towards the evangelical, and congregationally autonomous, though with a denominational sense of brotherhood. The Christian Churches/Churches of Christ (Independent) are a via media between the two other bodies: theologically conservative and evangelical, congregationally autonomous, pastorally oriented, and comfortable with instrumental music. The fourth numerically significant group, the churches of Christ (AntiInstitutional), is a conservative reaction to the a cappella churches, much in the way that the Southern a cappella churches reacted against the emerging intellectual culture and social location, instrumental music and institutional centrism of the Northern Disciples following the Civil War. Besides these four, numerous smaller fragments, typically onearticle splinter groups, decorate the history of the Restoration Movement: OneCup brethren, Premillennialists, NoSundaySchool congregations, NoLocatedPreacher churches, and others. This movement to unite Christians on the basis of faith and immersion in Jesus Christ, and to restore NewTestament Christianity, is too little recognized on the American religious landscape, and it has been too little studied by the academic community. This volume is focused primarily on the a cappella churches and their interests, but implications for the entire StoneCampbell Restoration Movement abound. The voices that speak freely within were unimpeded in authoring these essays by standards of orthodoxy imposed from without. All of the contributors are acquainted with Don Haymes, the honoree of the volume, and have been inspired by this friend and colleague, a man with a rigorous and earthy intellect and a heavenly spirit.

David Bundy, series editor