Evangelicalism and the Stone-Campbell Movement

Evangelicalism and the Stone-Campbell Movement. Edited by William R. Baker. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002. 256 pages.

Growing up in an independent Christian Church firmly rooted in the Stone-Campbell movement, I never understood the uproar over the rise of evangelicalism that began in the seventies. We seemed to hold most of the same beliefs as evangelical churches, yet I instinctively understood that we were not one of them. We defined ourselves not in terms of wider trends in American religion but in terms of our place in the restoration movement. Quite simply, we were not as exclusive as Churches of Christ and not as liberal as Disciples of Christ. Nevertheless, we shared a language and a tradition with those two groups that set us apart from the evangelical churches that we otherwise resembled in so many ways.

Why didn't we just call ourselves evangelical? That question has long puzzled me, and this wonderful book goes a long way toward providing an answer. It accomplishes more than that, however. It is evidence of a lively and sophisticated intellectual community of theologians and historians who have emerged from the Stone-Campbell movement. The book is full of the theological vigor that made restorationism so important in the nineteenth century. The irony is that the independent churches and Churches of Christ might be producing their very best theology ever right when the Stone-Campbell movement is losing its distinctive voice.

This book emerged from the Stone-Campbell Study Group of the Evangelical Theological Society, which was convened by William R. Baker, professor of New Testament at Cincinnati Bible Seminary. Given the shared conservativism of the independents and the Churches of Christ, it makes sense that the Disciples of Christ were not included in this conversation, but that is a shame since Disciples theologians would in some ways be the ones to benefit from it the most. Indeed, the level of theological conversation here is better than any comparable discussion that I can imagine being produced by a group of Disciples scholars.

The key issue dividing evangelicals from restorationists is, it seems to me, the Campbellite practice of baptism for the remission of sins. In the church of my youth, we avoided the anxious rhetoric of being born again because we put our trust in the act of immersion. In a brilliant essay, James Baird, professor of biblical studies at Oklahoma Christian University, makes the case that many of the problems that plague evangelicalism could be solved with a greater understanding of the role of baptism as the rite of initiation for the believer.

Other articles analyze the differences between reformation and restoration, Lockean rationalism and revivalism, and the importance of the church as opposed to the use of parachurch organizations. The consensus of these scholars is that restorationists are evangelicals, but if that is the case, what is to keep evangelicalism from swamping the Stone-Campbell movement? Perhaps that is not such a bad fate for a church that never wanted to be separated from other Christians to begin with.

How realistic is the hope expressed here for a closer relationship between the independents and the Churches of Christ? That is an important question, because if these two groups have such trouble getting along, how can they be witnesses for Christian unity to the rest of the world? I am a member of a new Disciples of Christ church that meets in an elementary school, and when we had a baptism recently, we called the local Church of Christ to see if we could use their baptistery at a time convenient for them. In no uncertain terms, our request was promptly denied. Evidently, our version of Christianity would have polluted their holy water. On a more hopeful note, my father recently told me about a phone call from one of his former colleagues who was a Church of Christ member. This man showed nothing but disdain for my dad's Christian faith, simply because my dad was an independent. After years of rudeness, and after both were retired, this colleague called my dad out of the blue to apologize for his bad behavior. Meanwhile, the independent church in our town, which was Disciples of Christ until the late sixties, has built a new, huge facility and is on the way toward becoming an evangelical mega-church. If my small town is any indication, the Stone-Campbell movement has become so fragmented on the one hand and so absorbed by broader religious trends on the other that it is not clear to me what is left of the ideas of our founders. Perhaps if we all had the courage of my dad's colleague, revival would not be too far away.

Stephen H. Webb

Wabash College

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