Early Leaders of the Restoration in America

I. James O’Kelley (1735-1826) A. He was a Methodist preacher who labored in Virginia and North Carolina. B. He protested against the new and autocratic episcopal policy inaugurated by Francis Asbury, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church at the “Christmas Conference” in 1784.

1. He urged a more democratic government for Methodism.
2. The struggle between Asbury and O’Kelley came to a climax at the General Conference held in Baltimore in 1792. a. O’Kelley proposed that the Conference should have veto power over Asbury’s appointment of preachers. b. After long and bitter debate, the Conference voted to support Asbury. c. The very next day O’Kelley sent a letter to it announcing his withdrawal from the church.

C. O’Kelley and his supporters met at Piney Grove, Virginia, in August 1793.

1. They drafted a resolution which called upon Asbury to call a meeting which would “form a permanent plan for peace and union, taking the Holy Scriptures for our guide.”
2. Asbury refused and so O’Kelley and his group had no alternative but to organize a new church.

D. On December 25, 1793, a new church was formed which was named the “Republican Methodist Church.”

1. Several former Methodist preachers helped in organizing it.
2. In 1794 they agreed that the scriptural plan of church government was to ordain elders over each church and also agreed to drop the name “Republican Methodist.”
3. A man by the name of Rice Haggard suggested they be called “Christians.”

E. The new “Christian Church” spread throughout the southern and western states.

1. By 1809 it had a membership of 20,000.
2. Its basic beliefs included the lordship of Christ as the only head of the church, the name Christian to the exclusion of all others, and the Bible as their only creed or rule of faith and practice.

F. O’Kelley refused to be convinced that immersion was the only scriptural baptism and division resulted since those favoring immersion refused to remain in the Christian Church.

II. Elias Smith (1769-1846) and Abner Jones (1772-1841)

A. They were leaders in a movement in New England. B. The main issue in their movement was their dissatisfaction with Calvinism.

1. Smith was a Baptist preacher who, dissatisfied with Calvinism, came to believe that all theological systems were wrong and that Christians should be guided only by Scripture.
2. Jones, also a Baptist preacher, influenced by Smith’s teachings, organized an independent “Christian Church” at Lyndon, Vermont in 1801. By 1807, there were 14 churches and 12 ministers in this church.

C. In 1808 Smith began publishing the Herald of Gospel Liberty, one of America’s first religious periodicals. It advocated the following principles:

1. No head over the church but Christ.
2. No confession of faith, articles of religion, rubric, canons, creeds, etc., but the New Testament.
3. No religious name but Christian.

III. Barton W. Stone (1772-1844)

A. He was born in Port Tobacco, Maryland as the son of a well-to-do land planter. B. After his father died, the family moved to the Virginia frontier in 1779. C. His used his portion of his father’s estate, which he received in 1790, to secure an education at David Caldwell’s academy in Guildford, North Carolina.

1. Caldwell was a Presbyterian minister so religious influences dominated Stone’s life while at the academy.
2. He determined to be ordained a Presbyterian minister.

D. He went to Washington, Georgia where he was a teacher in a new school operated by Hope Hull, a Methodist minister. E. He returned to North Carolina in 1796 and received his license to preach. F. He began preaching for two small Presbyterian churches at Cane Ridge and Concord, Kentucky. In 1798 he received a formal call to be ordained.

1. He had serious misgivings about certain points of Presbyterian theology.
2. “Knowing that at my ordination I should be required to adopt the Confession of Faith, as the system of doctrines taught in the Bible, I determined to give it a careful examination once more. This was to me almost the beginning of sorrows. I stumbled at the doctrine of the Trinity as taught in the Confession; I labored to believe it, but could not conscientiously subscribe to it. Doubts, too, arose in my mind on the doctrines of election, reprobation and predestination, as there taught… The Presbytery came together, and a large congregation attended…They labored, but in vain to remove my difficulties and objections.” (Biography of Eld. Barton Warren Stone, pp. 29,30)
3. At his ordination, in response to the ceremonial question of whether or not he accepted the Confession of Faith, he said, “I do, as far as I see it consistent with the word of God.” (Ibid.)

G. He continued to have concerns with certain tenets of Presbyterianism.

1. He was especially troubled with total hereditary depravity.
2.  “From this state of perplexity I was relieved by the precious word of God. From reading and meditating upon it, I became convinced that God did love the whole world, and that the reason why he did not save all, was because of their unbelief; and that the reason why they believed not, was not because God did not exert his physical, almighty power in them to make them believe, but because they neglected and received not his testimony given in the Word concerning his Son.” (Barton W. Stone, quoted by John Rogers, The Biography of Elder Barton Warren Stone, p. 50) H. Having visited Logan County, Kentucky, in 1801 where James McGready was conducting a great camp meeting in which, contrary to Old-School Presbyterianism, sinners were called upon to repent, he conducted the Cane Ridge revival, August 7-12, 1801. 1. Estimates of the crowd ran from 10,000 to 30,000.  2. The preaching consisted of “free salvation urged upon all by faith and repentance.”
3. At times, five men were preaching at once on the grounds.
4. Stone, in his autobiography, said, “Methodist and Baptist preachers aided in this work…and the salvation of sinners seemed to be the great object of all.”

J. In September 1803, he and four associates withdrew from the Presbyterian synod and formed the Springfield Presbytery. K. June 28, 1804, Stone and his four associates dropped their denominational name and became known simply as Christians. They announced this in The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery.

1. It was a serious document in spirit, yet it was written in a satirical style.
2. Among other things it emphasized the one Body of Christ, that no men were to make laws for the church, and that the Bible was the only sure guide to heaven.
3. Rice Haggard, who had proposed the name “Christian” to the O’Kelley movement a decade before, was visiting at Cane Ridge when Stone and his associates agreed to call themselves “Christians.”

L. After this, Stone began to sign his name “Barton W. Stone, E.C.C.,” i.e., Elder in the Church of Christ.”

IV. John Mulkey (b. 1773)

A. Born in South Carolina, he started preaching in East Tennessee at the age of 20. B. In 1797 he and his brother Philip moved from Tennessee and settled on Mill Creek, two miles S.E. of Tompkinsville, Kentucky. C. In 1809, while preaching for the Mill Creek Baptist Church, he came to believe the major tenets of Calvinism were unscriptural.

1. He announced to his congregation that he was going to take his stand upon the Bible alone and invited them to join him. a. “Five years after the new log church was built, Mulkey was preaching in the home of William Sims on the Cumberland River. He had taken his text from the 10th Chapter of John, and was making a strong plea for predestination, when suddenly he became convinced by his own arguments that the doctrine was false. Of course, this caused great confusion in the Mill Creek Church and led to several heresy trials in the Mero Association. Failing to gain a majority vote against him, the Church decided to ‘choose sides’ which led to the division on that chilly Saturday morning, November 18, 1809…” (Clayton Gooden, The Old Mulkey Meeting House) b. “‘Now all of you who believe as I do, follow me out the west door.’ The words reverberated through the rough-hewn beams of the Mill Creek Baptist Church. It was Saturday morning, November 18, 1809. The congregation of some two hundred had gathered for the last time; and the words of John Mulkey were like a broad axe splitting the timbers of the Baptist traditions from top to bottom. All across Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and South Carolina, there were rumblings of discontent. Congregations were declaring themselves ‘Separate’ or simply ‘Christian Churches.’ The restoration plea was being heard throughout the Western Reserve. And fervent revivals brought thousands to a great awakening of religion on the American frontier. “John walked slowly to the right of the long pulpit that stood on the north side of the building. Approaching the low door at the west end of the church, he bent slightly to clear a lintel and stepped out into the crisp air of the autumn morning. A snow had fallen leaving the ground a deep rust sprinkled over with a fine covering of white that resembled sugar. Gusts of wind were now blowing the frozen granules across the wooded cemetary where several Revolutionary War veterans lay resting from their struggle to win their country’s independence. John looked out across the rough hewn stones. He was trying to win some independence too…He wondered if the price would be as dear… “…one-hundred-fifty of the two hundred present stood with their preacher in the grey light of a cold November morning in the county of Barren, the new state of Kentucky.” (Ibid.)
2. Mulkey’s church soon became associated with the Christians and became an influence for the restoration plea in that part of Kentucky.