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Early Relation and Separation of Baptists and Disciples
How did Alexander Campbell go from being the Baptists' hand-selected champion for debates, to being viewed as a divider by the same group that loved him and begged him to represent them? Why did the Baptist Church basically excommunicate him over teachings that they themselves adopted a couple decades later?
Learn the history that brought the Baptists and Campbell together; see the explosive growth that came as a result; and understand the issues that ended up driving them apart.
133 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 24, 2019
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January 29, 2024
There are always some aspects to a group’s history which said group has incentives to neglect or diminish. And then there are those aspects to two groups’ shared histories which both have incentives to neglect or diminish.
So tends to be the 1820s experience of what would become the participants in the Restoration Movement and the Baptists, particularly in the “American West” as it was known at this time. In Early Relation and Separation of Baptists and Disciples, Errett Gates sets forth the history of this time.
The association was logical: the Campbells and those influenced by them were trending away from Presbyterian understandings of baptism and a kind of baptism more like the expression and experience of the Baptists. Alexander Campbell was a dynamic speaker, and his association and influence brought many into the overall Baptist fold in the 1820s. His Christian Baptist publication likewise proved fairly influential.
Yet, in the end, Campbell was no Baptist. His “Reforming brethren” understood baptism to be of even greater significance than the Baptists themselves did. It was not really their desire to be part of any sect, anyway, and there were many Baptists who were very much into being Baptist. And Campbell and the “Reforming brethren” were not aligned with Calvinist ideologies or creeds.
And so the stronger relations of the earlier 1820s led to almost complete separation a decade later, perhaps best exemplified by Campbell’s decision to cease publishing the Christian Baptist and to begin publishing the Millennial Harbinger (and perhaps also expressing other adaptations in theological emphasis in the process).
It’s an interesting history recounted, and all the more so on account of some of the points of dissension then which would no longer be points of dissension now. The Baptists could not stomach the Reformers’ insistence of no need to examine anyone for some experience of faith before baptizing them, but baptizing them simply upon making request and confessing Jesus in faith; likewise, the Baptists were very much more attached to upholding certain creeds, and the Reformers were not about that. Thus the “Reformers” have been vindicated by later adaptations in theology and practice, although many of the most significant domains of the Baptists remain quite Calvinist in theology.
Bradley Cobb reissued this work in a highly readable and well formatted Kindle version. Recommended for understanding the divergence between the Restorationists and the Baptists, and the “bad blood” which can often be found between them.
So tends to be the 1820s experience of what would become the participants in the Restoration Movement and the Baptists, particularly in the “American West” as it was known at this time. In Early Relation and Separation of Baptists and Disciples, Errett Gates sets forth the history of this time.
The association was logical: the Campbells and those influenced by them were trending away from Presbyterian understandings of baptism and a kind of baptism more like the expression and experience of the Baptists. Alexander Campbell was a dynamic speaker, and his association and influence brought many into the overall Baptist fold in the 1820s. His Christian Baptist publication likewise proved fairly influential.
Yet, in the end, Campbell was no Baptist. His “Reforming brethren” understood baptism to be of even greater significance than the Baptists themselves did. It was not really their desire to be part of any sect, anyway, and there were many Baptists who were very much into being Baptist. And Campbell and the “Reforming brethren” were not aligned with Calvinist ideologies or creeds.
And so the stronger relations of the earlier 1820s led to almost complete separation a decade later, perhaps best exemplified by Campbell’s decision to cease publishing the Christian Baptist and to begin publishing the Millennial Harbinger (and perhaps also expressing other adaptations in theological emphasis in the process).
It’s an interesting history recounted, and all the more so on account of some of the points of dissension then which would no longer be points of dissension now. The Baptists could not stomach the Reformers’ insistence of no need to examine anyone for some experience of faith before baptizing them, but baptizing them simply upon making request and confessing Jesus in faith; likewise, the Baptists were very much more attached to upholding certain creeds, and the Reformers were not about that. Thus the “Reformers” have been vindicated by later adaptations in theology and practice, although many of the most significant domains of the Baptists remain quite Calvinist in theology.
Bradley Cobb reissued this work in a highly readable and well formatted Kindle version. Recommended for understanding the divergence between the Restorationists and the Baptists, and the “bad blood” which can often be found between them.
Displaying 1 of 1 review