02.05. Christian Union

Christian Union In 1824 Elder Alexander Campbell visited Kentucky, preaching "Immersion in Water for the Remission of Sins." This was the first meeting between the two men, and they found that they had much common ground in gospel labor. Elder Stone was pleased with much of Campbell’s teaching, and yet says, "That the doctrines had long been taught by the Christians--his co-laborers and himself."

There are three good reasons for the fellowship of these two great leaders. The first is the one given above, that they found common ground in gospel teaching. The second is that both were scholarly men. Stone had been a student from his early years, and had reached a fine degree of scholarship, but had spent the most of his life with men of the field and forest, to whom educational opportunities had been denied, and he hungered for companionship in intellectuality, and when he found it in Elder Campbell, he welcomed it with great heartiness. Elder Campbell was a teacher of great ability, a man of impressive personality, and Stone was a student, willing and anxious to learn, and he found in Mr. Campbell a teacher worthy of his confidence and respect. The third reason is, they were both reformers--Campbell from choice, Stone from force of circumstances. Each man was leading a movement away from sectarianism, and toward Christian unity. Mr. Campbell had a well-defined plan; a sure system of salvation; he knew a path already beaten hard by oft repeated travel. Mr. Stone was open to conviction; a man seeking a sure way to a definite goal. He wanted a safe path and a solid foundation, and with an open-mindedness that characterized his whole life, he gave attention to Elder Campbell’s doctrine, and undertook to co-operate with him in propagating the truth in the interest of Christian Union. As early as 1827 the question of union was being considered, but nowhere is it shown that the union then in mind meant more than co-operation, and when the union, so called, was consummated, neither party abandoned its position--neither party went over to the other. Stone and his party, and Campbell and his party, were still in existence as distinctly as they were before they met and formed the union. They were undertaking to co-operate for the building up of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Of this union for the purpose of co-operation between the two men and their associates., Morrill, in the History of the Christian Denomination, says:

"The ’union’ itself was consummated on New Year’s day, 1832, in Hill Street Christian Church, at Lexington, Kentucky, where representatives of both parties pledged themselves ’to one another before God, to abandon all speculation, especially on the Trinity, and kindred subjects, and to be content with the plain declaration of Scripture on those subjects on which there had been so much worse than useless controversy.’ The plain meaning is that they found common ground to occupy, threw away their divisive teachings and opinions, and acted as one. The men who at Lexington pledged themselves, there and then gave one another the hand of fellowship, speaking for themselves, and the churches they came from, but not for all the churches or the denominations in Kentucky or the United States. There was no voting, and no attempt at formal union, but merely a ’flowing together’ of those like-minded. In token of that union Elder John Smith, of the Disciples of Christ, and Elder John Rogers, of the Christians, ’were appointed evangelists by the churches’ to promote that simple unsectarian Christian work, which was adhered to by thousands; and Stone took Elder J. T. Johnson, a Disciple, as co-editor of The Christian Messenger."

It is an obvious fact that in this union there was no joining one body to the other, in the sense that one body was lost in the other. The Disciples of Christ joined the Christians as certainly as the Christians joined the Disciples of Christ, and Alexander Campbell became a member of the Christian Church, as certainly as B. W. Stone became a member of the Disciples of Christ. It is evident that it was not Stone’s desire, nor intention, to join the Disciples of Christ as an individual would join a church, but to make effective the union spirit, and reach the ideal so deeply seated and fervently cherished by the signers of the Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery, and their co-laborers, in the gospel. This "union" did not change the status of any name or church or minister or piece of property.

It is very evident that Elder Stone did not regard his union with the Disciples of Christ as leaving the Christian Church, nor was it ever so considered by the church as such. It was Stone’s individual right to believe, and to teach as he believed, a privilege recognized by the Christian Church as belonging to each and every member of God’s family.

Indeed, it is an open question whether or not Mr. Campbell did not oppose the union. There were well-known uncompromisable disagreements between Mr. Campbell and Mr. Stone, on the subject of baptism, and the name that should designate the believers in Jesus Christ. Campbell insisted on immersion in water before believers were received to membership in their churches, to which Stone strenuously objected, saying: "We cannot, with our present views, unite in the opinion that unimmersed persons cannot receive remission of sins." Upon the question of the name, Stone remained unmoved; he would not surrender the name Christian as a denominational title, and did all he could to get Mr. Campbell and his party to accept it. And, in addition to this, Elder Campbell clearly indicated his objection to the union in an editorial in the Millennial Harbinger, as follows: "Or does he (Stone) think that one or two individuals, of and for themselves, should propose and effect a formal union among the hundreds of congregations scattered over this continent, called Christians or Disciples, without calling upon the different congregations to express an opinion or a wish upon the subject? We discover, or think we discover, a squinting at some sort of precedency or priority in the claims of the writer of the above article." It is quite evident that the article referred to had been written by Elder Stone, in the interest of union, and defense of the name. In 1826 Elder Stone began the publication of a monthly periodical, which he named "The Christian Messenger," and which he continued to publish until 1844, though during the last two years of the time he was sorely afflicted, and greatly incapacitated. Part of the time he had for a co-laborer in this work, Rev. J. T. Johnson., but after his removal to Illinois, Elder D. P. Henderson served in the same capacity. In 1834 Elder Stone removed, with his family, to Jacksonville, Illinois. Here he found two congregations, one Christian, the other Disciple, or Reformers, as they were then known. He succeeded in having these unite, when he became their pastor. Immediately following the union of these two churches there was a great wave of Campbellism, which lost to the Christians not fewer than eight thousand members, and increased the membership of the Disciples of Christ as many. Christian Churches in Southern Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee were caught in the current of the oft repeated "Where the Bible speaks we speak, and where the Bible is silent we are silent," and ere they knew it they had become churches of the Disciples of Christ, and many of them remain so until now. The writer personally knows of four churches in the Southern Ohio Christian Conference, of which he is a member, where the above is true. They are the churches at Lawshe, Liberty Chapel, Georgetown and Bethel. As stated elsewhere, Stone was a stickler for the name Christian. His knowledge of the Greek language enabled him to understand that the name was given by divine appointment, and when the union was effected the name Christian was continued. In all probability this was the beginning of the use of the name by the followers of Campbell, for this church, and many others, became Disciples of Christ, that had been organized by Christian ministers.

Morrill, in closing the sketch of Elder Stone’s life in "History of the Christian Denomination," says: "He was first and last a scholar, a successful educator and minister of the gospel; by force of circumstances, a religious reformer, an apologist of ability, and a journalist. Friends testify to the humility of his bearing, his perfect frankness and honesty, his intense piety, his great firmness and perseverance." He died in Missouri, November 9, 1844.

Barton W. Stone was a Christian in faith and character, and honestly believed that he was Christian, denominationally. That he affiliated with the Disciples of Christ, that he was pastor of their churches, that he used their church phraseology, that he believed and taught much of their doctrine, that he was buried by their ministers, is true, but all the while he believed that he was only exercising the right that had been accorded to Christian ministers since the dissolution of the Springfield Presbytery. However, it should be borne in mind that such affiliation did not exist until the beginning of 1832, and, as he died in 1844, could not have been more than about ten years of his active ministry, and that at a time when his strength was well-nigh spent, and his vigor greatly reduced.