The Causes and Roots of the Restoration

Introduction

1. What history calls the “Restoration Movement” is, in reality, a misnomer because the church needs no restoring—it is perfect. a. When it gets into a condition that needs restoring, it is no longer the church. b. Rather, people who have departed need to return to it. 2. This “return movement” resulted in many people being led out of denominations and in the formation of many congregations patterned after the New Testament order.

I. What Is Restoration?

A. As the 18th century drew to a close and the 19th century began, men appeared on the religious horizon who seriously and zealously sought for a return to “the old paths” (Jer. 6:16), the primitive religion of Jesus Christ.

1. They saw what the reformers had failed to see: that what was needed was not a reformation of the apostate church but a complete and full return to the purity of the church in the first century.
2. They boldly expressed their dissatisfaction with Protestant denominationalism and its multiplicity of divergent creeds, names, doctrines and practices a. They rejected the idea that man’s religious destiny depended on a choice between Protestantism and Catholicism. b. They held to the ideal that man’s salvation depended on the unqualified acceptance of the pattern of New Testament Christianity.
3. Their purpose was to go back to the beginning—before all the synods, councils, creeds, disciplines, sects and parties—and restore the church as it is revealed in the New Testament.

B. “Not until we reach the nineteenth century do we find sweeping movements and efforts to restore the original plan and purpose of God in all its points. There had been many attempts at ‘reformation,’ noble and far reaching in their influence, but there has been only one concerted effort at ‘restoration.’ Christianity had and has suffered more from human leadership and human philosophy than from any other curse. “The attitude of those first century Christians was that God had acted for their salvation and through Christ had spoken the final word for their redemption…but as time passed and innovations crept in, as untaught individuals became nominal Christians, changes began to be made. The pattern was altered, attitudes were no longer as of former years, until gradually the pristine simplicity was marred and covered, until the original simple plan of God could no longer be recognized. Ambitions began to manifest themselves, pagan philosophies became substitutes for the word of God, until darkness descended upon the face of the earth and the light of truth was covered by ignorance and superstition.” (Homer Hailey, Attitudes and Consequences, pp. 12-13) C. The principles of restoration.

1. Recognition of Christ as the supreme authority in religion and the New Testament as the only rule of faith and practice. This would naturally do away with creeds and human authority.
2. A proper distinction between the Old and New Testaments.
3. Recognition of the New Testament pattern of the church.
4. The autonomy of the local church.
5. The unity of all Christians.

II. Causes of the Restoration Movement

A. Failures of the Reformation.

1. Attempts to reform excesses within Catholicism progressed no further.
2. Some realized the need for reform could only be completely satisfied with a complete reestablishment of the New Testament order not with a redressing of denominationalism.
3. “Since the great apostasy, foretold and depicted by the holy apostles, attained prime, or rather reached the awful climasteric, many reformations in religion have been attempted; some on a large and others on a more restricted scale. The page of history and the experience of the present generation concur in evidencing that, if any of those reformations began in the spirit, they have ended in the flesh… “A restoration of the ancient order of things is all that is necessary to the happiness and usefulness of christians. No attempt ‘to reform the doctrine, discipline and government of the church,’ (a phrase too long in use,) can promise a better result than those which have been attempted and languished to death…This is what we contend for…to bring the societies of christians up to the New Testament, is just to bring the disciples individually and collectively, to walk in the faith, and in the commandments of the Lord and Saviour, as presented in that blessed volume; and this is to restore the ancient order of things.” (Alexander Campbell, The Christian Baptist, Feb. 7, 1825)
4. The reformation developed new and rigid systems of religion which became standards of orthodoxy and grounds for division.

B. The division in the religious forces of America.

1. There were five or six larger denominations and numerous smaller ones which included only about 10% of the nation’s population.
2. The division, prompted by rivalry and jealousy, resulted in constant warfare designed to devour one another. a. Partisan and sectarian bitterness, it was discovered, could only be cured by a return to the divine standard. b. This became the original emphasis of the restoration.

C. An arrogant clergy.

1. Through ignorance, they sought to broaden the chasm between themselves and the common people.
2. By making people look up to them and wearing titles such as “Reverend,” etc., they demanded prominence and respectability.
3. They assumed the right of legislation for those in the pews.

D. Unclear theology.

1. Theology, during the reformation, came to be influenced by English deism and French skepticism.
2. “Throughout the eighteenth century believers and unbelievers held practically identical conceptions of the nature of revelation, inspiration and biblical authority; but the unbelievers denied that any such revelation had ever happened.” (Garrison & DeGroot, The Disciples of Christ, p. 57)

E. Blatant unbelief bordering infidelity.

1. Denominationalism became straight-laced and tyrannical, producing skepticism that moved from Europe and took roots in America.
2. By the 19th century, the influence of skepticism and atheism was such that the churches were lifeless and little effort was made to send the gospel into the pagan world.
3. Men such as Thomas Paine, who wrote The Age of Reason, were very influential.

F. Religious liberty in America.

1. The breaking of church ties was the result of immigration and the Westward movement.
2. Men were now free to practice and propagate the religion of their choice.

G. Increased circulation of the Bible.

1. This led to increased knowledge of the word of God. As men learned more of God’s word, they thought less of human creeds.
2. The more men studied the New Testament, the more they recognized the sin of religious division. a. They saw denominationalism was preventing the answer to Christ’s prayer for unity among his followers. (John 17:20-21) b. They saw religious division was contrary to the pleadings of the apostle Paul. (1 Cor. 1:10; Eph. 4:4) H. The Calvinistic doctrine of total hereditary depravity. 1. The idea that all people were born totally depraved and that if a baby died it would be punished in an eternal hell was repulsive to logical minds. 2. Some reacted to this doctrine by losing all interest in religion, others became infidels but many were filled with a greater desire for pure Bible doctrine.

III. The Restoration “B.C.” (Before Campbell): The Roots of Restoration

A. The roots of restoration began in Europe even as early as the 13th century.

1. Balthazar Hubmeyer (1480-1528). a. An Anabaptist, he was a contemporary of Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531), but he was not willing to stop where Zwingli did. 1) Zwingli, who was winning the Great Council of Zurich to his Protestant views, which included the control of religion by secular authorities, pleaded with Hubmeyer and his “Brethren” to relax their antipathy to the state and to practice infant baptism but they refused. 2) Anabaptists believed that if baptism is “given in infancy, it should be repeated in maturity, and that still better it should be deferred,…till the mature recipient could knowingly and voluntarily make his pro- fession of the Christian faith.” (Will Durant, The Reformation, p. 395) b. He rejected sprinkling and infant baptism. c. He is quoted as saying, “I believe and know that Christianity shall not receive its arising aright unless baptism and the Lord’s supper were brought to their original purity.” (Garrison & DeGroot, 38) d. He and his entire family were burned at the stake by the order of Zurich on March 10, 1528
2. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645). He was a Dutch Armenian who sought religious harmony. a. He was a Dutch jurist and statesman whose legal writings laid much of the foundation for modern international law. b. In 1598 he served on a mission to Henry IV of France and stayed on to study law at Orleans. c. In 1607 he was appointed attorney general of the province of Holland. d. His efforts to moderate a bitter doctrinal dispute among Dutch Calvinists had embroiled him in a political clash between his province of Holland and the rest of the Dutch Republic and its orthodox majority. e. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1619 but escaped to Paris in 1621. f. In Paris “he finished De veritate religionis Christianae (On the Truth of the Christian Religion, 1627), a non-sectarian statement of basic Christian beliefs that was widely translated and won Grotius great acclaim.” (Funk and Wagnall’s New Encyclopedia, Vol. 12, p. 45)
3. John Drury (1595-1680). He spent fifty years traveling stressing the oneness of the Lord’s church.
4. “The common tendency to recognize a religious sect as having been founded by a certain personage has customarily identified churches of Christ as owing their beginnings to Alexander Campbell in 1813. Thus, in some circles, we have held the dubious distinction of being referred to as ‘Campbellites.’ In a recent article taken from a bulletin in Duncan, Oklahoma, this interesting quotation appeared as a documentary research of a Dr. Robinson, principal of Overdale College, Birmingham, England. “‘In the Furness District of Lancashire, in Northwest England, there existed in 1669, during the reign of Charles II, a group of eight churches of Christ. Most of them are not now in existence. An old minute-book has been found of the year 1669, and it shows that they called themselves by the name church of Christ, practiced baptism by immersion, celebrated the Lord’s Supper each Lord’s Day, and had elders and deacons. There was also a church of Christ in Dungannon, Ireland in 1804, and in Allington, Dengigshire. In 1735, John Davis, a young preacher in the Fife District of Scotland, was preaching New Testament Christianity twenty-five years before Thomas Campbell (Alexander Campbell’s father) was born.’ “Churches of Christ have always traced their origin to the first century, approximately 33 A.D. The Restoration Movement, historically indigenous to America, does indeed owe much credit to the fervor and leadership of men like Alexander Campbell, Barton W. Stone and others, but the principle of New Testament Christianity, Biblically and historically roots within the soil of Old Testament prophecy and apostolic authority.” (William E. Young, The Edifier, Vol. V, No. 3, March 1979)

B. Evidence of the Restoration Movement in America before Campbell.

1. “In the records of the Burkesville courthouse is an interesting item which seems to indicate that there was an independent church in that place, in 1800, called the Christian Church. This is the item copied by the writer from a photostat: ‘Minister Licensed to S.M. Aug. Term—1800. The Reverend David Haggard produced satisfactory proof of his being in regular communion with the Society called the Christian Church of which he is a member, who thereupon took the oath prescribed by law and entered into bonds with Lucy Haggard his security conditioned as the law directs. Ordered that license be granted him to solemnize the rites of marriage.’” (Alonzo Willard Fortune, The Disciples in Kentucky, p. 67)
2. Evidence from a grave yard. On the grave marker of William Rogers, it states: “Born in Campbell Co., Va., July 7, 1784. Removed with his father to Caine Ridge, Bourbon Co., April 1799. United with the church of Christ at Cane Ridge in 1807. Died Feb. 15, 1852 in the 78th year of his age.”
3. Men such as James O’Kelley, Abner Jones, Elias Smith and Barton W. Stone all were involved in separate movements to restore the New Testament order.