Campbell's eschatology and his pacifist ethics

Watts, Craig M

Pacifism is not an ethical oddity unconnected with the main themes of Alexander Campbell's thought. Pacifism is instead intimately connected with the abiding concerns that occupied Campbell's theological work throughout the years. This is certainly true in relation to his view of the kingdom of God. "In the systematizing of Mr. Campbell's doctrinal ideas," wrote W. E. Garrison, "the central place must be given to his idea of the Kingdom of God."1

Of course, it was not in Campbell's thinking alone that the kingdom of God played an important role. A lively anticipation of the divine kingdom permeated much of nineteenth-century American religious thought. Francis Wayland, president of Brown University and leading philosopher - and much admired by Campbell - spoke for many when he said:

Perhaps before the youth of this generation be gathered to their fathers, there may burst forth upon these highly-favored States the light Millennial Glory. What is to prevent it? I do believe that the option is put into our hands . . . The church has for two thousand years been praying, "Thy kingdom come." Jesus is saying unto us, "It shall come if you desire it."2

The conviction that the kingdom of God could be ushered in by human efforts spurred reformers to work diligently to rid society of a variety of injustices and sins. This was certainly the case for peace reformers who believed that nonviolence was essential for the kingdom to come.

While peace activists and pacifists of every stripe worked in hope of the millennium, they did not all share the same vision and methods. Still, they all agreed that Christ's reign on earth could not be instituted by force. The renunciation of war and adoption of a life of nonviolent love were seen as essential. But beyond this consensus there was little unity. Those among the American Peace Society - the largest peace organization in nineteenth-century America - believed that the path to the millennium came by way of education and the reform of existing institutions. War could be abolished if nations were taught alternative ways of resolving disputes! They advocated the formation of a World Congress that would mediate conflicts and facilitate understanding and cooperation between nations.

Leftwing peace activists were suspicious of nation-centered efforts. The radical pacifists, or nonresistants such as William Lloyd Garrison and Henry Clark Wright, believed that the social and political institutions were beyond redemption. They called upon men and women to renounce all violence and separate themselves from the corrupt organizations of the world. As Valarie Ziegler put it, "The sectarian nonresistants wanted to turn the world upside down, whereas the cultural Christians of the American Peace Society were content to fine tune it."3 Still, both groups believed that the kingdom would come if they could persuade others to follow the Prince of Peace. Campbell shared their hope, but he looked to the restored church as the key to open the door to the millennium.

FORMS OF KINGDOM

Campbell believed that the kingdom of God had always existed, but was not always in one and the same form. He held that as with earthly kingdoms, so too with God's kingdom, five essential elements must be present: king, constitution, subjects, law, and territory.4 While these five elements were always present, they were so in three distinct forms, corresponding to the three dispensations he identified in his biblical hermeneutics.

The first of the dispensations Campbell called the "Patriarchal age of the world."5 It was a time of the family-worship institution. There were family altars, but no public altars, temples, well-developed order of priests or other large institutions. At the center of this dispensation were two promises made to Abraham: "I will make of you a great nation," and "In your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," Campbell believed that these two promises point toward the two dispensations, which were to come.6

The first promise was a promise of land for the chosen nation, Israel. The second promise, Campbell believed, was the promise of Christ who would bless the entire world through his kingdom, the church. The Patriarchal age lasted from Adam to the time of Moses. During this period, God progressively revealed such matters as the Sabbath law, the practice of circumcision, the distinction between clean and unclean objects and animals, and the idea of animal sacrifice. The Patriarchal age was preparatory for the next expression of the kingdom of God, which was found in the Jewish dispensation.

In the Jewish dispensation, God's kingdom was embodied in a national form. Campbell marked the beginning of the second dispensation with the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.7 God promised to be the Hebrew people's God and to bless the nation with prosperity, protection, health, and national success if they were faithfully obedient. The standards and ordinances of the first dispensation were in effect in the second dispensation only to the extent that God explicitly reinstated them. During this second dispensation, national political life, the priesthood, the festivals, the tabernacle and then the temple, and the highly developed system of laws and rituals were instituted by the revelation of God. Campbell believed that the particulars of the rule of God during the Jewish dispensation were preparatory for the final Christian dispensation.

W. E. Garrison observed that "the Jewish dispensation was not intended so much to effect the eternal salvation of those under it, as to preserve the knowledge of God, to exhibit His virtues and to show the advantages of service to Him."8 But for Campbell, this did not lessen the importance of the Jewish dispensation. He held that it was not possible for anyone to genuinely understand "the kingdom of God present in the Christian dispensation who had not studied the dialect of the antecedent administrations of heaven over the patriarchs and the Jews."9

With each succeeding dispensation, the kingdom of God broadened in scope, from family, to nation, to world. Campbell referred to the kingdom of God in the Christian dispensation as "the kingdom of heaven" because it is not a kingdom of this world.10 Yet the kingdom has a presence in the world in the form of churches, or what Campbell called "congregations of the Lord."11 He held that this third dispensation began on the first Pentecost after the ascension of Christ to the right hand of God. It was then, Campbell believed, that God gave the kingdom to Christ to rule.12 Unlike the detailed system of laws that guided the Jews, the law of love - love for God and love for other people - was the spring from which flowed every other Christian obligation.

Campbell saw no evangelistic mandate in earlier expressions of the kingdom of God. However, the kingdom of heaven, the church, was "to enlighten and convert the world."13 Campbell used military imagery in describing the work of the church. He spoke of Christians as soldiers at war against unrighteousness and falsehood. This imagery in no way condoned literal warfare. Je was careful to point out that Christians "have not to wrestle with flesh and blood, but with the rulers of the darkness of this world - with spiritual wickedness in high places."14

Though Campbell called the church the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, he conceded that the two "do not always or exactly represent the same thing."15 Members of the church are citizens of the kingdom of God, but the kingdom of God would finally be displayed in "the universal subjugation of the nations to the scepter of Jesus," which, Campbell believed, would come about when there was "a general restoration of all the institutions of the Kingdom of Heaven in their primitive character."16 In other words, as the church acted to restore primitive Christianity, the way would open for the universal triumph of God over the corrupt powers of the world, bringing about the millennium, the reign of Utopian bliss on earth prior to the return of Christ.

THE MILLENNIUM

Millennial hope flourished in nineteenth-century America. To a great extent, these hopes were pinned on an optimistic assessment of the prospects of the nation. Many of the leading voices in religion held that the fortunes of God's kingdom and the fortunes of America were largely one and the same.17 H. Richard Niebuhr observed:

As the Nineteenth century went on, the notes of divine favoritism were increasingly sounded. Christianity, democracy, Americanism, the English language and culture, the growth of industry and science, American institutions - these are all confounded and confused.18

While Alexander Campbell shared the prevalent millennial hope, he did not - at least in his earlier years - understand the millennium as contingent upon or identical to the success of America. Rather, "only the restored church, he thought, could produce the unity in both church and society that was requisite to the millennial age."19

Campbell held that preparation for the millennial age required the restoration of the church according to the ancient order as presented in the New Testament. Early in his ministry, Campbell wrote that "just in so far as the ancient order of things, or the religion of the New Testament, is restored, just so far has the Millennium commenced . . ."20 The recovery of the pure and innocent past was intimately connected with the inception of the perfect future. As Campbell envisioned this age of peace and plenty called the millennium, it was incompatible with the disharmony of disputing denominations. Peace had to be practiced in the church before the reign of peace could ensue throughout the world.

Campbell believed that peaceful unity among Christians and churches would occur only as human creeds and traditions were set aside in favor of the ancient gospel. He wrote:

All religious denominations are shaking . . . But of all the means which can be employed to promote peace on earth and good will among men, which have any influence to destroy sectarianism, or which are at all adapted to introduce the millennium there is none to compare with the simple proclamation of the ancient gospel.21

In introducing his new periodical Millennial Harbinger, Campbell stated that the aim of the journal was to accomplish "the destruction of Sectarianism, Infidelity, and Anti-christian doctrine and practice." Further, he stated that the new journal would seek to foster "the development, and introduction of that political and religious order of society called THE MILLENNIUM, which will be the consummation of that ultimate amelioration of society proposed in the Christian Scriptures."22

This "ancient order" advocated by Campbell required the repudiation - as tests of fellowship - of all divisive elements of belief and theological speculations which are not explicitly a part of the essential biblical faith. The beliefs that distinguish one denomination from another cannot, according to Campbell, foster unity or promote the millennium. "We assume it for a principle, that the union of Christians, and the destruction of sects, are indispensable prerequisites to the subjection of the world to the government of Jesus, and to the triumphant appearance of Christ's religion in the world."23

His early biographer and friend Robert Richardson stated that Campbell believed that there were no other viable means of preparing the world for the reign of Christ than the one Campbell himself proposed. "He felt assured that a reformation such as he advocated, which proposed to go back to the very beginning and restore the gospel in its original purity and fullness, could leave no room for any other religious reformation, and must of necessity, be the very last effort possible to prepare the world for the coming Christ."24 The restoration of the "ancient order" was not merely a conservative flight to the past. Rather, for Campbell, the restoration was an indispensable means to a divinely promised future. Campbell believed that if God's design for the church were regained, this would open the way for Christ's reign on earth in the not so distant future.25

Campbell had no interest in predicting dates or describing specific prophesied "signs of the times" associated with the inception of the millennium.26 He did not anticipate a cataclysmic end of the world brought about by the return of Christ, as did his pre-millennialist contemporary, William Miller. Rather, Campbell was a post-millennialist who held that the influence of the gospel would spread to such an extent that a millennial reign of peace and prosperity would occur, after which Christ would return in glory. In 1841 he wrote on the "Protestant Theory" of the coming of the Lord:

The Millennium . . . will be a state of greatly enlarged and continuous prosperity, in which the Lord will be exalted and his divine spirit enjoyed in an unprecedented measure. All the conditions of society will be vastly improved; wars shall cease, and peace and good will among men will generally abound . . . Genuine Christianity will be diffused through all the nations; crimes and punishments will cease; governments will recognize human rights, and will rest on just and benevolent principles.27

He went on to speak of how even the seasons and climates will become more mild and pleasant, health for all will improve, work will become less burdensome, soil more fertile, and animal life more abundant.28

One year earlier, in his debate with Robert Owen, Campbell proclaimed his confident hope for a state of society like nothing yet experienced on earth:

Fancy to yourselves, my friends, a society in which such [good and faithful] characters shall have the rule, and then you want no poet to describe the millennium to you. Peace, harmony, love, and universal goodness, must be the order of the day. There wants nothing - believe me, my friends, there wants nothing - but the restoration of ancient Christianity, and a cordial reception of it, to fill the world with all the happiness, physical, intellectual, and moral, which begins like us in the state of trial could endure - shall I say? - yes, endure, and enjoy.29

ESCHATOLOGY AND ACTION

David Edwin Harrell, Jr. has observed, "The social implications of post-millennialism are both obvious and profound. Optimism, a belief in progress, and a desire for reform are inherent in such a religious interpretation of history."30 People tend to prepare for the future they anticipate and in their preparations they help bring about that future. This was certainly true for Alexander Campbell and other reformers. In addition to his determination to overcome division within the church and to free the scriptures from creedal encumbrances, Campbell listed other socially significant aims for his journal, the Millennial Harbinger. These include addressing the "inadequacy of all the present systems of education, literary and oral, to develop the powers of the human mind, and to prepare man for rational and social happiness."31

Campbell also declared his intention to call into question American laws and policies that fell short of biblical standards and eschatological visions of justice. He was determined to speak to the "injustice which yet remains in many of the political regulations under the best political governments, when contrasted with the justice which Christianity proposes, and which this millennial order of society promises."32 Further, Campbell placed on his agenda, "Disquisitions upon the treatment of African slaves, as preparatory to their emancipation and exaltation from their present degraded condition."33 Thus he announced he had no intention of passively waiting for the millennium. Instead, his desire was to promote in the present actions that were a reflection of the future reign of Christ that he believed was drawing near.

Many who eagerly anticipated the millennium failed to see the relationship of pacifism to that age of divine blessing. Writing in 1836 in his very popular The Manual of Peace, Thomas Upham, professor of moral philosophy in Bowdoin College, declared that one view of the subject of peace that "almost entirely escaped notice was this: War in all its forms is obviously inconsistent with the millennial state."34 He went on to say that the principles that will guide life in the millennium are to be practiced in the present. All contention and disunity will end and the hearts of people everywhere will be bound together by the power of the gospel if people will obey Christ.

There is, according to Upham, no justification for waiting until a later time before adopting a mode of life suitable for God's kingdom. There is not one set of moral standards prior to the millennium and a different set of standards to be put into effect after the beginning of the millennium. Upham maintained, "If it will not be right to take life and carry on war in the millennium, it is not right to take life and carry on war now." He emphasized, "The very principles, which will be acknowledged as authoritative in the millennium, are the very principles which are prescribed and are binding upon us at the present moment."35 While this point may have "almost entirely escaped the notice" of many, as Upham claimed, it certainly was not lost on Alexander Campbell. In this matter, Campbell and Upham thought very much alike.

Campbell recognized nonviolence as among the behaviors necessary for those who were preparing for the coming reign of Christ. "The fullness of time is come. Messiah appears," he wrote.36 Contrasting the victories of military leaders with their armies who came devastating nations and humiliating their enemies, Campbell spoke of the triumph of Christ as being "the conquest of all temptations, of death, and of him that had the power of death."37 As Campbell envisioned it, the victory of Christ over evil was not wrought by brute force and physical violence, but by spiritual power and truth exhibited in the lives of Christ's followers.

The light of the coming reign of Christ, he believed, should impel disciples to repudiate war and the passions from which war arises. Campbell wrote:

The precepts of his institution correspond with his appearance and deportment among men. He inculcates a morality pure as himself, and such as must render his disciples superior to all the world besides. He gives no scope to any malignant passions, and checks every principle that would lead to war, oppression, or cruelty. His precepts respect not merely the overt act, but the principles from which all overt acts of wickedness proceed.38

But even before Christ's universal reign of peace, "the principles of his government" would be active in the lives of his subjects "to give them a taste of, and a taste for, heavenly things."39 Campbell believed that for Christians the future is already present, forming a people suitable for the millennial age.

In "An Oration in Honor of the Fourth of July, 1830," Campbell sketched his understanding of the history of the world leading up to "the Reign of Heaven" when Christ comes to establish a government of a new order. Ultimately, Christ will "subvert all political government, the very best as well as the very worst . . ." and he will then "govern the world by religion only." The earthly powers will "literally 'beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks, and learn war no more.'"40

The ethically formative power of the God-promised future was discussed by Campbell in his debate with Robert Owen. Campbell distinguished two possible ways eschatology could be related to ethics. With the first, threats of punishment and promise of reward serve as a basis for compelling desirable behavior. In the second, people are presented with a vision of the good and perfect future intended by God and they are thereby inspired to live in the present in a manner that will prepare them to enjoy the perfection to come. The first approach is characterized by censure and restrictive laws. The second, according to Campbell, "aims not at reforming or happifying the world by a system of legal restraints, however excellent, but its immediate object is to implant in the human heart, through the discovery of divine philanthropy, a principle of love, which fulfills every moral precept ever promulgated on earth." Stressing the peace-inspiring power of Christianity, Campbell declared, "Here is the grand secret: the religion of Jesus Christ melts the hearts of men into pure philanthropy. It converts a lion into a lamb."41

Legalistic means of controlling behavior, Campbell contended, leads to little happiness. Law is not capable of producing happiness since law restrains rather than liberates and "to restrain a person is to diminish his enjoyment." Consequently, "the only happiness good men derive from law is protection."42 Campbell held that the reason why the world is not a much more happy place is because people have corrupted Christianity by codifying it into a rigid system of laws and ceremonies. Under the reign of Christ, peace-making love is the dominant principle. "The genius of Christianity is love," wrote Campbell. "Its tendency is peace on earth and good-will among men - and it will eventuate in glory to God and man in the highest heaven. It contemplates the reformation of the world upon a new principle. It aims at conquering men by love."43

Laws for the present and threats of future punishment could never touch the deepest levels of human nature. Actions may be altered, but hidden intentions remain the same. Only superficial changes are made by laws, claimed Campbell. "Letters only reach the eyes, but favor can touch the heart. Laws expressed in words assail the ears and aim at restraining actions; but love pierces to the heart, and disarms the rising thought of mischievous intent."44 Laws and the threat of punishment keep people in bondage. They have no power to elevate people as children of God, suitable for the kingdom of heaven.

Campbell recognized that governing authorities at times sought to manipulate Christian eschatological beliefs for their own ends. In his debate with Owen, Campbell quoted with approval a passage from English pacifist Soame Jenyns on this issue. Jenyns maintained that authorities had sometimes employed the belief in a future life of rewards and punishments in order to sanction laws and motivate the sort of behavior desirable for an orderly society. The goodness sought, however, was not in order to serve God's purpose but to be useful in meeting the needs of the state. This approach may "help develop good citizens: but is not likely to produce genuine Christians."45 True Christian ethics, Campbell recognized, was neither defined by social utility nor motivated by fear of the future.

Campbell taught that the ethical standards of the future realm are in effect in the present. Already in the present, the reign of Christ has the power "to render us fit members of a celestial society hereafter."46 Only an ethics rooted in heaven could bring about a transformation of heart, mind, and life which reflects the reality of heaven, believed Campbell. The role of law might help remedy a corrupt present, but Christ's rule of love heralds a perfect future. Campbell wrote of Christ's reign:

It is called the reign of Heaven, because down into the heart it draws the heavenly feelings, desires and aim. From heaven it came, and to heaven it leads. I will shake the heavens and the earth, says the Lord. I will revolutionize the world; and how, my friends, but by introducing new principles of human action?47

Christ made clear that these new principles are guided by a love that leaves no room for any old "principle that would lead to war, oppression or cruelty."48

The meaning of Christian ethics for Campbell could not be exhausted in any mis-worldly usefulness. Christians were not simply to cope effectively with the problems of the present but to ready themselves for the divine realm yet to come. Campbell wrote, "That the tendency of this religion is to produce purity of heart as essential to present and future happiness; not to obtain it as a reward, but to prepare ourselves for the enjoyment of it."49 Christian life could not at any time be determined by the hostilities of the present but must always be lived in view of the coming reign of peace.

Campbell depicted Christ as a conqueror at war, intent on increasing his realm. But this war that he wages with the support of his subjects is unlike any earthly conflict because the "cardinal principle in his government is love." Campbell continued:

He subdues by no other sword than that of the Spirit. Other kings subdue men's persons and hold a sovereignty over their enemies, but he seizes the hearts of men. To conquer enemies is his grand enterprise. Philosophy as well as religion teaches us that to conquer enemies is not the work of swords, or lances, or bows of steel. It is not to bind men's persons to a triumphal car, to incarcerate them in strong holds, or to make them surrender to superior bravery, prowess and strength. To conquer an enemy is to convert him into a friend. This is the noble, benevolent and heaven-conceived enterprise of God's only-begotten Son. To do this all arms and modes of warfare are impotent, save the arms and munitions of everlasting love. By vivid displays of God's philanthropy he approaches his enemies, and by the arguments with which this eloquence is fraught he addresses a rebel world. Such is the mode of warfare; a system devised in heaven, and like all of God's means, perfectly adapted to the high ends proposed.50

Campbell reminded his listeners that "this world is to be revolutionized" by followers of Christ through the use of no other weapon than the "true gospel," which is "the sword of the Eternal Spirit."51 He was convinced that only nonviolent love, guided by the gospel was "God's means, perfectly adapted to the high ends proposed," those ends being social transformation in light of the coming universal reign of Christ. Worldly weapons were impotent to accomplish such an end. Only the gospel of God's love was adequate.

Similar themes are present in Campbell's writings nearly two decades later. In summing up the points he made in his "An Address on War," Campbell again called attention to the eschatological dimension of his pacifism. "The prophecies clearly indicate that the Messiah himself would be 'the Prince of Peace,' and that under his reign 'wars should cease,' and 'nations study it no more.'"52 But while wars had not yet ceased, Campbell held that the future of Christ's peaceful reign over the world must be prefigured or foreshadowed in the present by the people who had by faith seen the future in Christ, and had begun living peaceful and loving lives. Passive waiting was unacceptable to him. And so Campbell concluded:

Let everyone then, who fears God and loves man, put his

hand to the work; and the time is not far distant when

'No longer hosts encountering hosts

Shall crowds of slain deplore;

They'll hang the trumpet in the hall

And study war no more!'"53

1Winfred Ernest Garrison, Alexander Campbell's Theology: Its Sources and Historical Setting (St. Louis: Christian Publishing Company, 1900), 161.

2Francis Wayland, "Encouragements to Religious Efforts," American National Preacher 5, no. 3 (1830): 39-46, cited in James F. Maclear, "The Republic and the Millennium," in Religion in American History: Interpretive Essays, ed. John M. Mulder and John F. Wilson (Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978), 188-189.

3Valarie Ziegler, The Advocates of Peace in Antebellum America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 15.

4Alexander Campbell, The Christian System (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1964), 125.

5Ibid., 108.

6Ibid., 113.

7Campbell, The Christian System, 121.

8Garrison, 173f.

9Campbell, The Christian System, 119.

10Ibid., 127.

11Ibid., 133.

12Campbell, The Christian System, 137ff.

13Ibid., 134.

14Ibid., 135.

15Ibid., 147.

16Ibid., 153.

17See J. F. Maclear, "The Republic and the Millennium," in The Religion of the Republic, ed. Elwyn A. Smith (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 183-216.

18H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1937), 179.

19Richard T. Hughes, "From Primitive Church to Civil Religion: The Millennial Odyssey of Alexander Campbell," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 44, no. 1 (March 1976): 88.

20The Christian Baptist (1825): 136.

21The Christian Baptist (1827): 251ff.

22Millennial Harbinger (1830): 1f.

23Ibid., 55.

24Robert Richardson, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippencott and Company, 1896), 302f.

25Robert T. Hughes, "The Apocalyptic Origins of the Churches of Christ and the Triumph of Modernism," Religion and American Culture 2, no. 2 (Summer 1992).

26Winfred Ernest Garrison and Alfred T. DeGroot, The Disciples of Christ: A History (St. Louis: Christian Board of Publication, 1948), 206.

27Millennial Harbinger (1841): 9.

28Millennial Harbinger (1841): 9.

29Alexander Campbell and Robert Owen, The Evidence of Christianity: A Debate (St. Louis: Christian Board of Publication, n.d.), 395.

30David Edwin Harrell, Jr., Quest for a Christian American: The Disciples of Christ and American Society to 1866 (Nashville: The Disciples of Christ Historical Society, 1966), 40.

31Millennial Harbinger (1830): 1.

32Ibid.

33Ibid.

34Thomas C. Upham, The Manual of Peace (New York: Leavill, Lord and Company, 1836), 141.

35Upham, 144.

36The Christian Baptist (1823): 13.

37Ibid.

38Ibid.

39Alexander Campbell, Popular Lectures and Addresses (Philadelphia: James Challen and Son, 1864), 371.

40Ibid., 374.

41Campbell and Owen, 396.

42Campbell and Owen, 395.

43Ibid., 403.

44Ibid., 397.

45Ibid., 405.

46Campbell and Owen, 405.

47Ibid., 397.

48The Christian Baptist (1823): 12.

49Campbell and Owen, 406.

50Campbell and Owen, 406.

51Ibid., 377.

52Ibid., 362.

53Campbell and Owen, 366.

Craig M. Watts

Royal Palm Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Coral Springs, Florida

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