How I Became A Humanist: Determinism and Hell

 What religion would you most likely believe if you'd been born in Saudi Arabia? What about if you'd been born in India? Do you believe in the same god your parents do? Have you read the religious texts of other religions? Have you been to centers of worship? Have you spent as much time in them as you have your own? Enough to adequately compare their truth claims to your own?

Like most Americans, I grew up believing in a rather robust and what I now consider to be a Disney-esque view of Free Will. I believed that we freely chose our actions, our beliefs, who we are and where we were going. 

My studies in history, theology and the rest began to challenge these views. Now, obviously, if I had been born on the American continent in the 1300s, I couldn't have been a Christian. This goes without saying, but what we often ignore is that almost all of us believe about God more or less whatever our parents believed, maybe with some slight variations. Are we so sure that we choose our religion? Are we so sure that the Virgin Birth makes sense but Golden Tablets don't? 

Never mind that. Instead, consider this. Did you choose your primary language? Did you choose your parents? Your genetic make-up? Did you choose your innate intellectual or emotional intelligence? Did you choose your first grade teacher? Your first grade classmates? 

Okay. Maybe not. But you still chose WHO YOU ARE, didn't you? You've had free will since... since when? Did you have free will when you were in the womb? What about day one out of the womb? I think most of us would say that we did not have free will in the womb or the first day out of it, but those of us who are parents will acknowledge that babies have personalities on their first day out of the womb. Mothers will say that babies have personalities when they're in the womb. And if this is true, then we have personalities before we have free will. That is to say that we are making choices that cause the interactions that lead to learning that cause us to grow into who we will be at the point of our next decisions... and we're doing this before we have what we might call free will. 

And this leads us to a problem that we don't generally consider when we think about free will. We don't choose the chooser. I didn't choose to be Jon Noble Day 1. But Jon Noble Day 1 lived a life of interactions that led to Jon Noble Day 2. Jon Noble Day one neither chose to be Jon Noble Day 1 nor chose the participants who were present for Day 1, nor the scenes of Day 1, nor even what Jon Noble Day 1 was and wasn't aware of...

And this creates a problem. Because not only do we not choose the religious perspective of our parents, we don't choose whether or not we're likely to be the sort of people who are willing to investigate outside of that perspective should that perspective be the incorrect one. 

But let me come at this from another angle. All of our choices are decisions made at particular points in time. Those decisions derive from who we were in those particular moments and what we were aware of at the specific decision point. That is to say that faced with a similar situation tomorrow as today, I might not be inclined to make the same decision because I might not be the same person in a way that might affect my decision. Change one variable about me, about my awareness, about whatever and the outcome potentially changes in a way that looks more like a billiards table than it does 'freedom.'

And when we look it it like this, the objections people usually raise about our decision not being predictable or us not making the same decisions today as yesterday vanish. Of course, we don't make the same decisions today as yesterday. The situations aren't identical and even if they are, we aren't. And of course, it's not predictable. Neither is the weather, really. I don't suspect anyone is attributing the weather's unpredictability to free will. 

To put it plainly, being determines doing and everything is. It's not that I couldn't choose otherwise, it's that me being me means that I wouldn't. For me to choose something different would mean that something about me or the situation or my awareness of it would have to be different from what it is. Why else would I be inclined to choose other than what I am choosing. And this is as true of frogs as it is of humans. Might it not also be true of Gods? Are Gods not whatever Gods are with whatever goals, awareness, etc. that those Gods have? Who is to say, really? 

And it was these thoughts that led me to Determinism and to question the justice of an idea like hell. 

Communion: We Are What We Eat

An early painting of Jesus shows him as a shepherd

When we share in communion, we share in the Body and Blood of Christ.  We consume the Sacrifice reflects who we are as a community even as our sharing of it shapes the community. 

When we commune together in this way, we are making a declaration to each other.  "We are the Body of Christ."  This is something Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12:12-14.  All of us together, sharing communion are united in this Body.

This symbolism is powerful.  We consume the sacrifice.  At the same time, we are the Sacrifice resurrected. This imagery is pointed to throughout the New Testament, but is often lost on us. When we share the Sacrifice together we are declaring that together we are the Resurrected Body of Christ. Paul sees us as Christ's hands, feet and so on.  We're like Voltron or the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. We're a more powerful force for good when we're united. But the importance of the symbolism goes beyond unity to communal behavior.

In this act we are claiming to be Christ's Body. We must therefore ask whether or not our Body is doing the thing that Christ's Body did? This question leads us back to the original post in this series in which I suggested that Communion is time to reflect on more than just the death and resurrection of Jesus - we should also focus on the his life.

What did Jesus do with his body? He used it to feed the sick. He used it to heal people both physically and emotionally. He loved. He forgave. And he knew how to have a good time! Is that what our Body does? Are these the things that define our Body? And if not, what should be done to correct this? Communion is a good time to ask that question too.

The Problem with Purity, Part 2: How Pressure for Sexual Purity is Abusive (A Male Perspective)

I was probably 8 years old the first time I noticed our minister talking about the problem of sexual desire. He was standing in the pulpit. I, like everyone else, was sitting in the pews. 

I might have budded a little earlier than children. In any case, I remember having my first little crush when I was in preschool. I could have told you by then that I thought girls were super pretty. Awkward as I was, I had my first kiss when I was 6 years old. By 8, I was definitely fantasizing about sex, though I didn't quite understand the process just yet. I KNEW in my inner most being (or something like that) that I wanted to see women naked. I still do.

So, imagine my surprise when my minister informed me that imagining seeing women naked if you weren't already married to them was a terrible sin, that it made God very unhappy and that the most we were allowed to fantasize about before marriage was kissing someone we weren't married to. I WAS DEVASTED. 

To be honest, I don't recall exactly how I felt in that moment, but this sort of message was sent over and over again. Sexual thoughts crimes were punishable by eternal damnation and I was guilty. I wanted so badly to have a sexually pure mind, but those ladies and their sexy butts - I just couldn't get them out of my head. 

I make light of it now, but honestly, up until my mid-twenties and maybe until I became an Atheist, I was absolutely tortured by my competing desires to be a good Christian and my natural desire to mate. I was disgusted with myself. I'd find myself feeling incredibly horny and as soon as the climax came, I'd feel immediate horrified regret. I'd failed and hurt my Savior! How could I be so unfaithful to God. How could I shit on my faith?!? I made resolutions every day. And every day I broke them, usually more than once. If I had been diligent enough to count every 'wicked' thought I'd had... I definitely sinned several times every waking hour. Anyway, more than once, I cried myself to sleep. More than once, I confessed my shame publicly. I just wanted to be pure! And this came with consequences not only for me. 

It took me a long time after marriage to learn to enjoy sex. I feel like, even now, I don't enjoy it as well as I would had I not been traumatized by my desire for moral purity.

Looking back, it's bad enough that I felt so much shame for feelings that are natural for all animals to have, and without which we would not procreate. I shouldn't have spent so much time feeling so much guilt and so much shame for having been born human. What's worse is that it had a negative effect on my marriage and my various romantic partners over the years. I was so ashamed of my desire, that in my early years of marriage it was difficult for me spend time thinking about my partners needs, because even thinking about my own needs was shameful. The truth is, I didn't think about my own needs. Instead, I thought about the guilt I was carrying and the cause of it. 

And while this never happened to me, one can look at societies where this kind of guilt is common. In these societies and communities, men learn to hate women. They hate women because the desire they have for women's bodies make them feel guilty. And then, their attitude often makes women feel guilty for having bodies. The schizophrenic attitude this causes men to have towards women can lead while societies to send women the message both that they must be beautiful and show it and also that they are shameful for doing so. This is an absurd and harmful burden for both women and men to bare - it's antihuman and not the best way to deal with the complexities of sexual desire.

And this is just one example of how purity is corrosive. 

The Problem with Purity, Part 1: It's Inherently Divisive and Distracts from Common Goals

I grew up in the Churches of Christ, where we believed in something called Patternism. What this meant was that God wanted our churches to be patterned off of the Christian churches that existed in the first century. The assumption was that the first century Christians were given specific instructions on how to worship God and organize their churches, that these instructions could be found in the New Testament and that deviating from them would lead a congregation and its members away from being members of God's true church, the Churches of Christ. And it was believed that any group that didn't both worship correctly and organize its church polity correctly was most likely destined to hell. 

What did that mean for us? Well, for starters it meant singing our worship songs without instruments and sharing communion (The Eucharist) every Sunday. We we taught that churches that didn't do this loved entertainment and convenience more than they loved Jesus and that would be condemned. We were taught that believers needed to be fully immersed during baptism and that the baptism wasn't just a sign of faith, but that it was for the remission of sins. If it didn't happen this way, it didn't count. This led to people getting rebaptized because they'd been baptized for the wrong reasons or because, perhaps, an elbow hadn't gone under water - How embarrassing would it be find yourself in heaven when you're right elbow is in hell??? Weird, right?
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But the Patternist obsession got weirder from there. The more conservatively minded among us believed that anything not specifically dictated in scripture should be avoided. So, if the New Testament didn't mention having a fellowship hall, there there shouldn't be a fellowship hall. If it didn't mention using a projector then we weren't supposed to use a projector. Since the first century Christians used one cup during communion, people who used a variety of tiny cups for sanitations sake might be destined to hell, etc. Our churches divided endlessly over this nonsense because...

One of the problems with purity is that it's completely impossible to be 100% consistent. In our churches, we almost never asked if it was okay to use a church building, even though both the New Testament and church history indicate that the earliest Christians worshipped in homes. Most of our churches had pulpit ministers, even youth ministers, even though these things did not exist in 1st Century. We had hymnals, microphones.... Need I go on? The truth is that each particular local church decided what was central to the 1st Century pattern and what wasn't. 

And that's how it always is with purity. Those groups that are tend to focus on ideological purity necessarily bend towards infighting and self-cannibalization especially during moments when they aren't focused on an outsider, even less pure, adversary. The reason for this isn't because some members of the group are less pure than others, but because ideological standards of purity are necessarily subjective. Take the contemporary fight between some advocates of transgendered rights and some advocates of women in sports. Should a transgendered woman be allowed to participate in women's sports? I'm not here to offer an opinion, just to say that when ideological purity is valued more than conversation and overall progress, you're going to have people who used to be on the same side condemning each other as if the two groups had little to nothing in common. 

I used a rift within the feminist movement, because I expect most of my readers will be sympathetic to the movement as whole and I wanted to demonstrate that groups whose mission we generally agree with can start having problems once purity of ideology becomes a a dominant focus within a group or movement. 

We can see more radical versions of this with groups that probably more obviously come to mind. You'd think that the Taliban and ISIS would get along. They don't. ISIS thinks the Taliban is too liberal.... The Leninists banned a number of socialist groups from operating in Russia during the revolution, because they viewed those groups as not being revolutionary enough - weirdly, the revolution probably would have been a lot more successful in the long-term if they'd brought those people in and made it work (Also, how it often goes). Imagine a world where ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Taliban get along. That wouldn't be great for the world, but it would help them forward their vision. Puritans cut off their nose to spite their face.

To go back to my point on Feminism. I think it's clear to see that the Feminist movement is suffering a somewhat successful onslaught from the right at the moment. How successful, time will tell - I'm hoping that it won't be too successful. To whatever degree the neo-traditionalists (my own term) win out, the current state of ideological puritanism among many Feminists will certainly be a huge contributor. Afterall, it's not as though the US is less Feminist than it was 20 years ago. Quite to the contrary - the neo-traditionalists have an abundance of female leadership. But, the Feminists movement is more fractured than it was 20 years ago and that leaves it vulnerable. It little less ideological purity and a little more cooperation would go a long way in handing the Feminist movement important victories.

If we want to move any relationship, group, cause, or municipality forward towards a shared goal, we should not be so focused on purity that we are unable to work alongside people who mostly agree with us. Obsessing over ideological purity makes such cooperate difficult. And that's our first problem with purity.

RESTORATION ON AMERICAN SOIL: EARLY MORMONISM AND STONE-CAMPBELLISM COMPARED

 It’s always best to start at the beginning. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

This paper is a broad overview of early restorationist tendencies among the Disciples of Christ/ Christian Churches and the Mormons.  It briefly discusses the theological heritage out of which they grew, how their movements interpreted restoration, and how their most important early leaders contributed to the discussion.  Comparisons and contrasts are made along the way.  Concluding remarks will involve a brief summary and editorial comments.  An epilogue discussing some similarities among the leaders follows.

American Primitivism:

Restorationism has been a part of Christianity for centuries.  It gained strength in the Swiss Reformation, especially under Zwingli who changed many of his churches practices on account of their being unbiblical.  The ideology traveled to America by way of the Puritans.   Through their influence, restorationism became embedded in America’s ideological history.  Americans often thought of the New World as a new Garden of Eden where they could start over.  The tumult of Europe was over!  A new day had begun!

This ideological trend was a seemingly perfect solution to the problems Christianity faced in nineteenth century America.  Many of the nineteenth century religious leaders of this period adopted radical forms of primitivism as a way of dealing with the multitude of exclusive and competing Christian confessions.  They were ahistorical as Historian Sidney Mead observed in his work, The Lively Experiment.   They idealized the earliest century of Christianity as the age to which they must return.   From their perspective, the original church no longer existed.  It had been corrupted to the point of non-existence.   Fortunately, there was hope.  God was working through them to re-establishing the pure church on American soil.  This work was often considered to be a prelude to the Millennium.  

The groups that espoused primitivism, Latter Day Saints (Mormons), Disciples of Christ, Landmark Baptists, Mennonites and eventually Pentecostals understood the golden age of the Church in different ways.  Some, like the Christian Churches under Stone, were primarily concerned with ethical reform.  According to them the Church had become too entangled with secular society.  Therefore, Christians were required to return to a radical form of Christian discipleship.

Other groups like the Mormons and the Pentecostals were more concerned with the early experience of being a Christian.  God’s interaction through speech, feeling and miracle were necessary for the church to be perfect.  Stone’s movement was not completely exempt from these leanings.   Other groups still were patternists.  They looked to the biblical way of doing church.  Campbell’s Disciples are a good example of this. Returning to the New Testament, they cleared away all of the theological junk that had piled up over the centuries.  These groups believed that they could unify the church by exorcizing unnecessary dogmas, and returning to the apostolic patterns of the church.

As a result these churches separated themselves from both the older ‘fallen’ churches of Europe and America, (sometimes under the pretense of uniting with them), and ‘returned’ to their understanding of ancient Christianity.  For Mormons this meant regaining the authority of the original apostles.  For those in the Stone-Campbell Movement, it ultimately meant recreating the apostolic pattern.  It is time to turn to the Mormons.

Primitivism and the Mormonism

As the Mormon’s tell it, the Mormon restoration began in the spring of 1820 in upstate New York with Joseph Smith’s First Vision.  His vision inaugurated The Dispensation of the Fulness of Time; the final dispensation of this earth.  Like many during his time, Joseph Smith was confused by the competing Christian confessions.   When he prayed for guidance, God told him not to join any church.  The Church had been completely disintegrated.  Mormons often call this concept the Great Apostasy.  They teach that the beginnings of it are recorded in the New Testament.  Gnosticism had infiltrated the Church; Augustine’s infant baptism was an example.  They did not and do not deny individual faithfulness of ancient or modern believers.  John Wesley was considered to be a righteous man.  Righteous faithfulness was not enough.  The church itself has lost its apostolic authority.  The apostasy that caused this occurred before the councils; therefore the councils are not authoritative.  Neither the Reformation nor the Restoration Movement could restore the church, because human will does not solve the problem of apostolic authority.  In order to solve this problem, God told Smith that he would restore the church through Smith.

God did this in three ways.  First he made Joseph the final Prophet in the long line of Prophets from Adam to Jesus.  Second, He renewed the Ancient religious texts through Smith, the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price.  Finally, God re-established the necessary church ordinances and governing structures.

The Mormon myth was and is outstandingly American.  According to Smith, much of the primal history of the Judeo-Christian religion had occurred upon American soil. Smith taught that Independence, Missouri was the biblical Garden of Eden.  Christ would return there.  Independence was going to be the site where God fulfilled God’s millennial promises.  Smith’s Book of Mormon records the story of the Jews in America.  According to this history, the Jaredites came over about 2200 BC, during the time of the Tower of Babel.  Again they traveled to America just before the Babylonian Exile in about 600.  Even Jesus had been here.  Shortly after his resurrection in Jerusalem, Jesus walked on American soil.  During his visit he established the same church order he did in Jerusalem.  This involved ordaining 12 apostles to priest status, 70 disciples whom he made preachers and established ordinances including baptism.  

The Mormon myth is one of restoration after restoration.  The gospel began in the Garden of Eden.  After the Fall Adam received the priesthood and the news that he could be saved through the “Only Begotten.”  Adam and Eve taught their children the gospel of Jesus Christ. The generations after them rebelled, and the church fell.  Then a Prophet was chosen to restore the Church.  Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses were actually prophets in the same way that Joseph was a prophet.  They were chosen by God to restore the true gospel.   God also revealed the gospel to Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.    Each time a prophet came, the gospel would be restored.  Each time it was restored, degradation would take place and eventually God would send a new prophet to restore the gospel.  Jesus himself had to restore the gospel with its priesthood, covenant and ordinances both in America and Jerusalem during his ministries.  Even his restoration did not last.  Jesus teachings were eventually rejected both by the Jews of Jerusalem and the Jews of America.  In Europe the church lost its priesthood, and was perverted, in America, it was completely destroyed.  Joseph was the final restoring prophet to come before Christ’s return.

Not long after God ordained Smith as prophet, He restored the 12 Apostles. On June 1829, in Fayette, NY, Smith proclaimed a revelation in which he declared to Oliver Cowdery that he and eleven others were to become an apostle of the Church.  Like the early apostles, Cowdery would be ordained by God to ordain the teachers and priests of the church by the Power of the Holy Spirit.

So, in one sense, Mormonism drank deeply both from American nationalism, and from restorationism.  However, the more divisive aspects of restorationism were curtailed.  Most restorationist movements are fraught with doctrinal divisions that make it difficult for the movements to last through the centuries.  This problem is not likely to become serious among the Mormons.  If one accepts Mormon doctrine, then one should accept that no other reforming prophet is to arise.  Of course, logic only has so much power over people’s beliefs and actions.  Institutionalized divisions are bound to arise in any successful movement.

This problem was abated in another way also.  Mormons claim that while forms and structures were restored, the lost forms and structures were the primary issue.  The central problem was the lost of a Prophet through whom God communed with humanity.   If one could prove that the Mormons were not embracing a doctrine or practice of the early church, it would be a secondary issue.  Ultimately, the authority is in the church leadership that communes with God, not in how it practices liturgy and such.  This differs substantially from developments in the Stone-Campbell Movement.

The restoration of a prophet and the other apostolic offices of the church solved the problem of competing Christian confessions in another way.  Even the restoration messages, whether they were confessions or not, were competing ideas about the restoration.  The different opinions concerning what restoration might mean could be said to have muddied the waters as much as cleared them.  Campbell and others could preach their opinions about the early church.  They could even quote scripture.  If others quoted other scriptures, what were they to do?  Smith did not have this problem.  He had received the truth from God.  

In this way the Mormons have side-stepped another problem that has or is killing the restoration movements of the 1800’s.  The Stone-Campbell movement and others like it typically struggle with a crisis of authority.  Whose interpretation of scripture is authoritative.  To this day, there is no end to the multitude of theologically competing publications in the Stone-Campbell movement.  The Mormon’s do not have that problem, at least not to the same degree.

The prophet did more than just interpret scripture through God’s guidance.  The prophet was given the authority to reveal new truths from God.  Mormon writer Truman Masden says that Smith’s teachings were such that it was assumed that more would be revealed by God at a latter time.  Hugh Nibley reports that Brigham young spoke ex cathedra frequently.   In one sense, this is primitivism at its best.  Moses, Jesus, the 8th century prophets, and Paul all declared “thus saith the Lord.”  If one believes that God is the kind of God that acts in those ways, then it is not unreasonable to believe that God always desires to do so.  The claim is simply that God works with God’s people just as God always has—directly, through the mouth of a prophet.  On the other hand, the doctrine is extremely progressive.  It allows for doctrine to change at the drop of a hat.  Pope Innocent III never had it so good.

Another part of the Mormon primitivism was its non-committal biblicism.  Smith and the Mormons took biblical literalism to new heights.  Jesus became the biological son of God the Father.  Stone made a similar move, though not identical.  He denied the doctrine of the Trinity because of its unbiblical nature.  Anthropomorphic passages concerning the God were interpreted to mean the Father, and were taken literally.  Just as priesthood was received in the Old Testament and the Holy Spirit in Acts, Smith preached that one received ordination through the laying on of hands.  Unlike Catholics, the Mormons followed Old Testament president in dealing with unrighteous priests.  They could be removed.   Believing in freewill, he denied infant baptism.  Campbell made the same theological move on account of it not occurring in the New Testament.  (Ironically, both movements posited an “unbiblical” age of accountability to justify the practice).  The modern church had abandoned these very “clear” biblical doctrines.

The literalism may not end there, but literalism is not the only side of the Mormon hermeneutic.  Smith did not believe in biblical inerrancy.  He was working on his own ‘revised’ translation of the Bible.  So his literalism was inconsistent.  This is difficult for rationalists to swallow, but then Mormons did not consider rationalism to be primary.

Mormonism spread slowly at first, but it found wide support among restorationists.  Many of the Disciples became influential members of the early Mormon movement.  Among them were Oliver Cowdery, Parley Pratt and Sidney Rigdon.  The example of Rigdon is a good explanation of why this happened.

Rigdon was a Baptist minister with a primitivist mindset.  He had read some of Campbell’s work, and was so impressed that he traveled 85 miles to see the man.  It was not long after this that he began working under Campbell’s influence as a minister in Pittsburgh.

Rigdon became a powerful speaker for the movement, attracting thousands.  Unfortunatley for the Disciples, Rigdon came to believe that Christians ought to live communally.  He believed spiritual gifts would accompany restoration, and He wondered how Campbell had received the authority to bring about restoration.  For these, and perhaps other reasons, he left Campbell’s movement for Smith’s in1830.

Brigham Young, the Mormons second president after Smith, also demonstrates Mormon primitivism.  In his sermon on “True and False Riches” he demonstrates an understanding of the people and the land reflects Deuteronomistic History, but his understanding of true wealth shares similarities with Sermon on the Mount.  He says that God will bless the Mormons in Salt Lake if they are obedient.  They have already made much progress.  However, they must remember that God is God, and attaining the first resurrection is primary.  Attaining the Spiritual good is what really mattered  He had a primitive understanding of prosperity, on one hand, and a primitive understanding of Christian morality on the other.  Both primitivisms are common in American history.  Right wing Fundamentalists exhibit the prior to this day, just as Mennonites do the latter.  In addition to this, Young was the first person in the movement known to have spoken in tongues.  So he also exhibited experiential primitivism as well.

The Stone-Campbell Movement or (The Disciples)

The Stone-Campbell Movement’s had leadership influences from both English-speaking sides of the Atlantic.  This paper will focus on Alexander Campbell, Barton Stone, and Walter Scott.  These men are probably the most influential early influences.  Of the three, only Stone was born American.

Like Mormonism, the Stone-Campbell Movement set out to address the problem of competing confessions within Christianity.  Like the Mormons, they believed that the church had fallen from its original New Testament state.  Unlike Smith and his followers, their original solution was not to anathematize every other group.  Rather, they abolished the creeds and their own confessions as unbiblical tests of fellowship, and proposed that scripture be the only unifying text.

  The Disciples did not begin under the leadership of one person.  Stone, Campbell and Scott were three of its prominent leaders and editors.  Stone was a Presbyterian minister and a revival preacher.  He wrestled both with Christian disunity, and with seemingly unbiblical doctrinal confessions, especially since they were tests of fellowship.  He disagreed with Calvinism, believed in adult immersion, and ironically enough, open-communion.  After wrestling with many of these issues, and having trouble with his denomination over some of them, Stone and the ministers under his influence decided to dissolve their Springfield Presbytery.  They recorded this act in The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery. The stated reason for doing so was to dissolve itself into the larger body of Christ.   The principle Stone embraced was one of declaring unity without the promise of reciprocity so as to create unity. 

Stone was a perfect example of ethical primitivism.  Rather than defining his movement in terms of forms and structures, he was wholly concerned with radical discipleship.  Sacrificial love was very important to him.  He gave up his personal belongings to benefit the poor.  He freed his slaves.  Not only did he free them, he educated them first so that they would suffer from their emancipation.  

Along the same lines, he fought for social justice.  Even though he considered himself apolitical, he wrestled for a while with what to do about slavery.  Owning people seemed counter-gospel, but freeing them seemed to hurt them as much as help them.  For a time he supported recolonization, but when this effort did not seem to be working, he became a full-blown abolitionist.

His personal demeanor reflected the same attitude.  John Rogers, who made additions to Stone’s autobiography claims that he never saw Stone angry or say a cross word.  Even Stone’s opponents knew of his piety.  However, he was still a controversial figure.  His views concerning freewill and the Trinity have already been mentioned.  Apparently, even concerning his demeanor was peaceful, but he was not afraid to articulate his views when challenged, even if it caused division.  He let his yes be yes, and his no be no.  

One of the odd similarities between Stone’s restoration and Smith’s was their experiential nature.  At several of his meetings he records people falling and groaning for hours.  His meetings attracted people numbering into the thousands.  

Alexander Campbell’s primitivism was more concerned with the liturgical and organization patterns of the early church than Stone, and less concerned, though not unconcerned, with early Christian ethics.  He did hold some views about personal piety.  He believed in strong self-discipline, communion with God, self-denial, and so on.  While he never became an abolitionist, he did free his own slaves.  However, unlike Stone, he was accused, even by some of his supporters, as being to harsh and sarcastic.   Self-disciple and honesty were clearly virtues he held on to, but self-sacrifice and humility were disregarded if they cost too much. 

During his early years, he was highly optimistic.  He believed that restoration was possible in during his lifetime.  Scripture and rational thought were the keys to success.  

Campbell called his movement a restoration of “The Ancient Order of Things.”  He encouraged all Christians to rid their churches of whatever was not part of the apostolic church.  Creeds, missionary societies, even Sunday schools and “unscriptural words” were on their way out.  Since ordination was not a scriptural idea, he took hold of a radical idea about the priesthood of all believers.  Every Christian was encouraged to practice rigorous study of the New Testament until they understood it well. The Mormons shared a similar notion.  According to them, all Mormon’s were considered missionaries.

His almost scholastic biblicist patternism is demonstrated in a Q&A on Baptism he published.  The article has 134 questions and answers.  Here is a brief selection: 

46.  Did you ever read of the baptism of any infants in the scriptures? A. No.  47.  Did you ever read of the sprinkling of any infants in the scriptures? A. No.  48.  Whose commandment, then, do we obey in having our infants baptized?  A. The commandment of the clergy.  Do we transgress any divine command in neglecting to have our infants baptized?  A. No: I never read of any one being accused of this sin in the Bible, nor of any commandment that was thereby transgressed.

Although he was highly patternistic, he taught that some early practices were no longer necessary.  These include, foot-washing, the holy kiss, communal living, charismatic gifts and the female deaconate.  Rather than these primitivist practices that other primitivist groups did consider necessary, Stone focused on strict congregationalism, believers baptism as a sacrament (though he probably would not have used that “unscriptural” word), and multiple elders leading local congregations.  When one compares Campbell’s concerns with Rigdon’s, it becomes clear why their alliance did not last for long.

The Church of Christ wing of the movement reflects Campbell’s early biblicism to this day.  The Churches of Christ grew out of a split in 1906 that followed the 1889 Sand Creek Declaration by less than two decades.  The declaration said that practices not based on a clear “thus saith the Lord” were to be banned from Christian worship.  So instruments were out.  Missionary societies suffered from the same logic.  After the split the rigorists taking the name Churches of Christ, often with a lower-case “c” in the word church to defy “denominationalism.”

Of course, these propositions could only be so popular.  Many people disagreed with Campbell.  He did not hesitate to debate them, but that was not a sign of division for Campbell.  He usually did not anathematize his opponents.  Instead, he was quick to declare unity in spite of disagreement.  He hated sectarianism, calling it “the Offspring of Hell.” 

Stone and Campbell differed on several doctrines, but they agreed closely in this.  They were anti-creed, anti-sectarian, and pro-unity.  They believed that scripture should be the only test of fellowship, and the only organizing document for the church.  Their movements encountered each other with ever increasing frequency in the 1820’s and in 1832 they merged.

The Stone-Campbell movement grew, and was subsequently formed through the evangelist Walter Scott, who borrowed from Campbell rather than Stone.  Scott was a humanist scholar and a Scottish Common Sense rationalist, like Campbell.  Like the others he taught immersion, however, his view was stricter.  He believed it to be the only valid form of Baptism.  His view became the dominant one.  

That Scott was working from the same primitivist assumptions as Campbell is clear from his Gospel Restored. In it Scott asserts that Christians had strayed from “true Christianity,” by clinging to unbiblical creeds.  Fortunately he believed, Campbell’s “Ancient Order” has ushered in a new and exiting era for restoration in the church.  

Scott is probably best known for his “five-fingered exercise.”  He developed it during a sermon on Acts 2:38.  His message was that those who repent, confess and are baptized, will receive forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, and eternal life.  This exercise was done with the acts and rewards counted upon the fingers of one hand.  The Holy Spirit and eternal life were counted on one finger.  Scott was so impressed with his own explanation of salvation that he said the Gospel was restored the day he preached that sermon.  Others must have agreed.  The message has been repeated for nearly two hundred years.

When one reads the early leaders of the Stone-Campbell Movement it becomes obvious that restoration and thoughts about the millennium were closely linked.  This is true even if one forgets that one of Campbell’s publications was called The Millennial Harbinger.  

Campbell taught that only a movement that could create unity between Christianity and society could bring about the millennium.  He believed that his “Ancient Order” movement would bring about the millennial church.

These quotes from Stone are particularly telling.  

 Some indulge the idea that in the millennium, all the wicked world will be converted; but the truth is, that not one of the wicked will live to see that day.

Some have thought that Christ would not come and reign in person on the earth; that his coming and present reign? His first coming was in person; so shall reign on earth are entirely spiritual. How then differs his reign in the millennium from his his second be. Some indulge the idea that in the millennium, all the wicked world will be converted; but the truth is, that not one of the wicked will live to see that day.

Some have thought that Christ would not come and reign in person on the earth; that his coming and reign on earth are entirely spiritual. How then differs his reign in the millennium from his present reign? His first coming was in person; so shall his second be.”

What is odd about their concern with the millennium is that it is almost a non-concern for many in their movement today.  From my experience in the Churches of Christ, the movement is neither premillennialist, nor post-millennialist.  I cannot recall a single conversation or sermon about the millennium one-way or the other.

The movement that was influenced by Stone, Campbell, Scott and others like them reflected what they most agreed upon; scripture, congregationalism, and adult immersion.  Among the subsequent divisions of these movements, the Churches of Christ most closely resemble Campbell’s original ideals.  They have no denominational structure.  No official conferences, and no official authorities outside of the local congregation.  They are organized around simple liturgical and organizational practices rather than theology.  The conversion experience tends to have little importance.  The group tends to have orthodox Trinitarian beliefs, but usually refuses to acknowledge creeds associated with them as a requirement for orthodox Christianity, since it is an extra-biblical doctrine. Often enough, they also claim not to practice anything unbiblical, although this is an absolutely ridiculous claim.

Ironically, Campbell would be disappointed about their rigorousness concerning his “Ancient Order of Things.”  As Campbell was aging he began to notice problems within his movement.  It was not producing what he had expected.  His movement was scattered and disorganized.  It was radically Congregationalist.  It claimed scripture as its only creed.  That was what he had wanted, but it was not creating the unity necessary to bring about the millennium.  Eventually he asserted that a book is not enough to organize a fellowship.  Toward the latter side of his career, he was calling his movement a denomination.  He even changed his opinion of missionary societies, and allowed the church to have one.  One wonders what other changes he might have made had he lived another century.

Conclusion

The restoration movements of the nineteenth century fed off American Christians’ desire to solve the problem of competing confessions.  The Mormon religion addressed the issue by claiming that all other churches fallen.  They lacked apostolic authority.  God would restore it in the form of the prophet, and subsequent presidents.   The Disciples addressed the issue by clearing away the accumulated grime of the centuries, creeds, confessions and everything unbiblical.  

The Stone-Campbell movement looks like it could be on its last legs.  It failed because of an inability to agree on the essentials of Christianity.   This is almost inevitably the case with primitivism.  The Mormons have been spared some of this trouble through the lead of a Spirit inspired teaching office.

It is difficult not to speculate as to how things might have been different if these movements had taken slightly different approaches.  For example, what would have happened if the Smith had not revealed plural marriage, and some of the other more offensive doctrines?  Would the Mormons be an even larger group today?  It stands to reason.  

How would the Stone-Campbell Movement have looked if Stone had been the dominant influence rather than Campbell?  There is little doubt that it would have been a less divisive movement, if less popular.  It was almost inevitable that Stone’s influence would wear off in comparison with Campbell’s.  Rigorism is typically easier for people than radical self-sacrifice and compassion.  It is easier to think oneself better than another than to serve him or her.  Nevertheless, one cannot help but wish that Stone’s influence had won the day in most respects.

Much more study on this topic is in order.  Richard Hughes makes apt assertions while commenting on the small number of works on this subject, Hatch’s in particular.  He says that while populist influences cannot be extracted from the restorationist movements of the 1800’s, the philosophical and theological influences were more influential.  Otherwise, the fierce separation of the movements into different camps over distinct theologies would make little sense.  Different readings of scripture shaped their ideas of primitivism.  This is true even of the Mormons.  Hughes suggests that the misplacement of socio-economic factors ahead of theological ones by recent historical writers comes from an anachronistic dismissal of the period’s theological concerns.  Just because Hatch does not care about them, does not mean that Campbell and Stone did not.

Epilogue:  Similarities Among the Movers and Shakers

Of the many other things that could be gathered from the information in this paper, the similarities among the restorationist demagogues are worth noticing.  All of the movers and shakers of these restoration movements were ‘self-made’ men.  They were brilliant thinkers and more or less prolific writers.  Smith wrote the BOM, much of the D&C, the Pearl of Great Price, and innumerable other documents from books to newspaper articles.  During the Mormon’s time in Ohio, a seven-year period, Smith organized the first stakes, set up a priesthood, established a newspaper, a bank, a printing office, and supervised the building of the LDS’s first temple.  He also prepared a school system for the future leaders of his movement.  While in Hancock, Missouri, Smith delegated a successful mission through the brilliant leadership of Brigham Young.  There have always been questions about Smith’s character.  A letter from Jesse Townsend of Palmyra NY to Phineas Stiles claims that Smith was a fortune-teller and a thief long before he was a religious leader.  Promiscuity was certainly not a problem for him.  He was married to nearly thirty women during his lifetime and martyred.  He received all the benefits of a religious life, with all the pleasures of a pagan one.  

Stone published and preached before thousands.  He lived a life worthy of canonization in nearly every regard, minus being Catholic. Perhaps most surprising of all, he allowed his unity movement to be swallowed up into a larger one.  He was a self-made man who was not in it for himself.  

Scott published a journal and wrote books.  Like Stone, he spoke before large crowds.  He simplified the gospel down to a “five-fingered exercise.”  Without canonization his formalized creed has been passed down from generation to generation.  Often the carrier is completely unfamiliar with the original host.  

Campbell published the Christian Baptist, the Millennial Harbinger and more. Unlike Stone, he did not have a problem being active in politics. He served as an elected delegate to Virginia’s Constitutional Convention.  He was an educator who ran a boy’s school and started a university.  He was also a businessman who made himself wealthy raising sheep.  He even translated his own Bible.

Young and Rigdon published less, but both influenced thousands regardless.  Smith, Campbell and Young all started schools and were involved in business in a multitude of ways.  Young was a brilliant organizer who led a band of religious fanatics to a strange promised land, and laid the infrastructure for the survival of a religion and the beginning of a state.  These men were not simply preaching religion, they hand their hands deep in the spirit of their time, grabbing bricks to build their empires.

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