Restoration Movement - Leroy Garrett - Cane Ridge

Restoration Movement - Leroy Garrett - Origin at Cane Ridge? Leroy Garrett claims that Cane Ridge was the Birthplace and Barton W. Stone was the Father of the Restoration Movement. Nostalgia: "Nostalgia is day dreaming about the good old days which never were."

Updated: Leroy Garrett defending the Stone movement which denies that Gentiles are subjects for baptism but are saved by FAITH ONLY.  Of course, we add the true story from Alexander Campbell which refutes all of Leroy's claims.

Also debunking the most damaging lie ever told: that the

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Church of Christ was ever "united" with the Stone movement. Therefore, the term Stone-Campbell Movement is a lie. Just before the handshake of a few whom Stone thought he had captured, Campbell asked him to defend himself against being a heretic.

See Leroy Garrett on Baptism: Saved by Faith Only
See the Stone Campbell Movement as new SECTARIANS.

Mankind is built with both an emotion-based brain and a rational [spiritual] brain. Does a trumpet SOUND and people are not ALARMED? Why do certain sounds trigger an automatic response? Suppose a Saber Toothed tiger makes its peculiar sound behind us. We are instantly triggered for FIGHT or FLIGHT. The body generated various drugs to force us to react a certain way. Our body is put into overdrive as a RUNNER'S HIGH gives them extra power, an HIGH feeling but lots of hurt to the body.

Nimrod at the towers of Babylon and Lucifer understood how to MANIPULATE these natural impulses for FORCE people to react to worship HER and despise the Rational Mind or Word of God.

Lucifer was a TRAFFICKER. It comes as no surprise that the overwhelming majority of traffickers have grasped how to use MUSIC to fleece people of their wealth and sexual favors. Inherent in our modern understanding and in all such Satanic "worship" the other component in addition to FIGHT or FLIGHT is SEXUALITY. The sexual experience during the STROKING with music creates more endorphins which escalates into a HIGH at "worship services" which TRAFFICKERS use to fill the collection plates when they have NOTHING of value to say. That is why the Greek language lumps "scribes, pharisees, hypocrites" as "rhetoricians, sOPHISts (serpents), singers, musicians and craftsmen (theater builders, stage managers) as SORCERERS. This is why "priests on the dole" were always identified as PARASITES. See Revelation 18:22 for their destiny.

What is the universal connection between music AS worship and Serpent Worship?

How does music AS worship connect to the Devil? Jesus said that children of the Devil "speak on their own."

A. Ralph Johnson in Instrumental Music, Sacred or Sinful. 10/23/0411/13/04..11/16/04...11/17/04 new lucifer, Apollyon data

Dwaine E. Dunning: The non-instrumental BRANCH must be cut OFF. God always hides a MARK. God always hides a MARK.

1. Tom Burgess in Documents on Instrumental Music reviewed. Psallo and Instrumental Music: Proofs do not prove anything but the "music-homosexuality" connection. See more on Strabo's definition of the worship of Apollo or Abaddon or Apollyon: his MUSES are the locusts or musical performers in the book of revelation.

2. Tom Burgess More Review of Plutarch: if Psallo authorizes "church music" it authorizes a homosexual gathering.

3. Tom Burgess on Moralia confirms the "Music-Heresy-Perversion" connection which has no historical exception. 10/20/04

4. Tom Burgess on John Chrysostom: are the anti-instrumentalists ignorant rurals? 10/21/04 What about Paul and Martin Luther and John Calvin and Zwingli and--everyone who believed the Bible as authority.

5. M. C. Kurfees and G. C. Brewer on Psallo and Instrumental Music in worship. Thayer and Grimm reviewed by Tom Burgess.

9/25/04 Charles Daily Northwest College of the Bible Part One ..... Part One A .....Part Two ..... THRESKIA or CHARISMATIC

Isaiah 25, Isa 25: Isaiah Chapter 25: The branch of the terrible one is a song to be accompanied with instrumental music. The Abominable Branch also speaks of Satan's use of instrumental music.

Long after Leroy Garrett flipped from the right wing OBVERSE side of the same coin, his legacy has helped spawn a new corp of people who claim to be prophets, apostles, channelers and facilitators of a NEW post-Christendom religion. This is based on the fact that they have seen the Scriptures as authority for faith and practice evaporate before their eyes. That is what Jesus meant in Matthes 13 when He preached in parables to hide the truth from the false teachers. Others who turned away from the Word as it has been taught were sent STRONG DELUSIONS through STRONG DELUDERS to strip their mind of the Word. The strippers are identified in the Greek world as rhetoricians, sophists, musicians and craftsmen or "techne." They are all identified by Greek writers as PARASITES.

In a latter day circle of fire by men who have been STUNG by the scorpion end of the end-time LOCUSTS (musical performers in legend) a SCHOLARLY CULT has rapidly "circled their wagons." One misleader becomes known as the THOUGHT LEADER of the scholars. He writes a book or delivers lectures at UNITY meetings. Thereafter, any Phd who is going to ge his book published or get on the lectureship circuit is going to have to walked LOCKED STEP and goose step to the THOUGHT LEADERS. Thereafter, those who lust for fame CANNOT even remotely hint at disagreement with the rest of the circle. This circle finds itself in control of the mega-churches and "christian" universities.

Martin Luther is the authority for C. Leonard Allen (ACU ) and Richard T. Hughes. However, they cannot ever have read any original Martin Luther who REPUDIATES that which the "scholars" claims to be the truth.

Martin Luther wrote of "faith only" which comes from "scripture only" and repudiates those who repudiate the epistles so they can be the authority.

Reason knows nothing about the wretchedness of depraved nature. It does not recognize the fact that no man is able to keep God's commandments; that all are under sin and condemnation; and that the only way whereby help could be received was for God to give his Son for the world, ordaining another ministration, one through which grace and reconciliation might be proclaimed to us.

Now, he who does not understand the sublime subject of which Paul speaks cannot but miss the true meaning of his words.

How much more did we invite this fate when we threw the Scriptures and Saint Paul's epistles under the bench, and, like swine in husks, wallowed in man's nonsense! Therefore, we must submit to correction and learn to understand the apostle's utterance aright.

True, this is an interpretation not directly suggested by the narrative and the text. Paul himself calls it an allegory; that is, a mystic narrative, or a story with a hidden meaning.

But he does not say that the literal text is necessarily the letter that killeth,
...... and the allegory, or hidden meaning, the spirit.

But the false teachers assert of all Scripture that the text, or record itself, is but a dead "letter," its interpretation being "the spirit."

Yet they have not pushed interpretation farther than the teaching of the Law;
and it is precisely the Law which Paul means when he speaks of "the letter."

Here is some proof that scholars quote scholars who quote scholars and fall into intellectual incest. One wonders how they can publish "scholarly" works which are filled to the brim with error. Here are a few examples:

> C. Leonard Allen (ACU ) and Richard T. Hughes: Discovering our Roots? No. Calvin: "There is no more marked manifestation of God's wrath than the fact that he permits the decline of his spoken and written Word." When God pours out His wrath, He sends BUFFOONS.

> Royce Money ACU "can't determine the foundation of the church."

> Carrol D. Osburn ACU: Training people to play leading PROPHETIC roles in CHANNELING and FACILITATING change.

> Rubel Shelly : A Prophetic Presence "Burning down the Church" Does refusing to play musical instruments as worship prove that you IMPOSE meanness, guilt, fear and HURT PEOPLE?

> Rubel Shelly at ACU: Number one Church Bashing, Number two Romans 14, Number Three Paul outlaws music.

> What about Romans 15:9? A quick study of Psalm 22 which agrees that the enemy will attack Him MUSICALLY.

Nostalgia causes us to remember what never was because many of our old memories are broken up and rebuilt into new "experiences." Our motives are the fathers and mothers of our new visions. Nowhere is this more obvious than in interviewing two eye-witnesses to the same event at the same time. The Bible and History seems to prove that the mind is disassociated into actual schizophrenia by more than one thing, event or speaker going on at the same time.

For instance, we review Leroy Garrett's understanding of Alexander Campbell believing in "faith only" with baptism just a formal sign. We are listing Campbell's Christian System on The Remission of Sins to prove that looking in the wrong end of the telescope produces strange proof-texts. When it doesn't work to brand Alexander Campbell as a legalist he receives his second incarnation as a faith-only teacher.

Nostalgia causes us to "proof-text" favorite reporters and fail to listen to enemies of the event who may, in fact, be better witnesses than those who projected the event out of their own minds and caused it hoping to "find" God. For instance, the "preacher's count" of new church members in various denominations was primarily caused by the mass movement (including my ancestors and my wife's ancestors) into the area who had not "joined" a church because there were not established enough to meet the bear needs of life (that means wrestling to see who eats whom). Mine became Methodists and her's became Holiness.

Many other revisionists even go to the trouble of trying to reconstruct caneridge in the hope that "Spiritual life" can be brought with blinding light as we musically help "lead the worshipers into the presence of God." By looking to the teacher rather than Scripture we ignore the fact that:

It is a common proverb that "Erasmus laid the egg and Luther hatched it."

The church of Christ was founded in A.D. 33 in Jerusalem when Jesus returned in Spirit as He had promised in John 14:16-18. If a movement was not founded on that birthday it cannot be a true church. Since then every generation has had the task of restoring or re-restoring the first principles. And throughout history churches have identified themselves as the church of Christ. Rather than a restoring, the thin blood line has always flowed down through history and has, by prophecy, been "in the wilderness" and has never been seen in mass meetings with a mass appeal.

However, each year has someone tilting the church off to one side of true center in one way or another. The individual task is to examine our "pattern" by ancient principles. No human can be said to have founded any church which is the true church of Christ. If the task is to define some system of ceremonial legalism then the principles cannot be rrestored.

First, look at the statement of Leroy Garrett which is the "coin of the realm" of those who hate and "bite the hand of them what fed them" in the hugely expansive ambition to fellowship everyone.

Leroy Garrett: The caneridge Revival (in red)

Leroy Garrett: "The caneridge revival took place in the summer of 1801, attracting 25,000 people. For five days and nights as many as seven preachers, representing several denominations, would address the multitudes at the same time at different parts of the camp, without confusion.

Multitudes turned to the Lord. Stone described sinners

responding to the gospel with various exercises known as the jerks, falling, dancing and laughing, and even barking.

One infidel, a friend of Stone, approached him amidst such demonstration and reproached him for deceiving the people with such antics. Stone responded with a few gentle words, pitying the man for his implacability. At which point the man fell immediately as if dead, and rose no more until he had confessed the Lord.

Yes, don't the myths just grow and grow and grow. Stone later repudiated the exercises: did Stone fall down as if dead?

"They (disorders) cannot come from God, for he is not the author of confusion. The apology made in Corinth for the disorders, which Paul condemned, was precisely the same as that urged in defense of these bodily agitations. We ought not to resist the spirit of God, said the Corinthians; and so said all those who encouraged these convulsions. Paul's answer is that no influence comes from God which destroys our self-control. 'The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.'

"The prophets of God were not like the raving Pythoness of heathen temples,
nor are the saints of God converted into whirling dervishes by an influence which is the author.

There can be little doubt that Paul would have severely reprobated such scenes as frequently occurred during the revival of which we are speaking.

"He would have said to the people substantially what he said to the Corinthians. If any unbeliever or ignorant man come to your assemblies and hears one shouting in ecstasy, and another howling in anguish; if he sees some falling, some jumping, some lying in convulsions, others in trances, will he not say ye are mad?" (Hodge, History Presbyterian Church quoted in Barton W. Stones' Biography, p. 368, 369)

"A high form of mystical ecstasy flourished mainly at two periods, in the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, in both cases near the close of great intellectual and spiritual awakenings.

In cruder forms it has had a continuous history among the lower and less cultured strata of the population. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Dancers of Chorizates created much excitement in Germany. These wild enthusiasts numbering thousands of the poor and ignorant of both sexes, danced madly in thee churches and streets for hours at a time, frequently until they fell exhausted.

They saw fantastic visions, leaped high in the air to get out of the flood of blood in which they imagined themselves to be wading, and indulged in many other marvelous exercises, wholly oblivious of the throngs of amazed spectators. Gifts were showered upon them, attracting many rascally imitators and thus offering a breeding ground for shocking immoralities." (Clark, Elmer T., The Small Sects in America, p. 87, Abingdon)

History has examples and they were called witchcraft. The devil or fire worshippers in Iraq did about what happened at Caneridge:

"To some extent they were contrived, both by those who exhorted and by those who listened and responded. Certain techniques, which ministers conscientiously learned, helped push audiences toward an ecstatic frenzy. Certain hymns, certain tunes worked better than others. Certain repeated and familiar verbal images, those with great resonance for an audience, worked better than others. In many of the greatest revivals the spark was a type of confession--the telling of what had happened to oneself there or at an earlier revival.

Some ministers learned the most evocative ways of telling their stories. Several sermonic devices--timing, phrasing, pauses, and above all the display of intense feeling--worked." (Conkin, Paul, Cane Ridge America's Pentecost, p. 106, U of Wis.)

Rhetoricians were always know as parasites.

Is this hyper-text memory? I doubt that there was many objective, not-under-mental-intoxication at the meeting except the peddlers of various wares. The tales of the Myth-Makers followed every movement from the Tower of Babel to yesterday's tel-evangelist. It didn't matter whether they were worshipping God or demons -- someone did something supernatural.

Leroy Garrett: "We give this background so as to point out that it was out of such a Holy Spirit revival that the Restoration Movement in Kentucky was launched. It may appear odd to us now, a people known for our negative reaction to such experiences in the Spirit, that the cane ridge congregation,

which may well be viewed as the first Church of Christ in America, began amidst a Holy Spirit revolution with such attending phenomena as jerks, shouts and faintings. It was in the heart of this revival that Stone stood in the caneridge pulpit and urged Mark 16:16 upon the hearers."

Of course, we all know better: it was a joint meeting of Presbyterians (not officially), Baptists and Methodists. All were there to get their share of the sheep and history proves it. It was quite identical to the other Awakenings or revivals which were more like witchcraft than the "church of Christ."

They believed in the direct operation of the Holy Spirit, FAITH ONLY of the Baptists, a special CALL to both salvation and the ministry, ordination of their ministers, the altar call and a whole host of things never believed in the CHURCH OF CHRIST. The Christian church as Stoneites went on to become quite charismatic and then musical: both pagan. The Shouting Methodists had their input and the Stoneites adopted shouting as AN ACT OF WORSHIP.

First, nothing which came out of the revival was ever identified as the church of Christ. Furthermore, before Alexander Campbell arrived in America he had been exposed to the need for BAPTISM for the remission of sins, the Lord's Suppr ever Sunday, a plurality of elders and , of course, no student of the Bible would suggest that the church needed to ADD instrumental music to RESTORE the church.

The meeting was not launced by the Holy Spirit but by Barton Stone who did a survey of the Methodist McGreedy's success further south. He returned home and used the same methods of mind control and the result was more like modern Devil Worship in Iraq.

Describing music at Cane Ridge, Conkin notes that: (For the Book)

"Sinners dropping down on every hand, shrieking, groaning, crying for mercy, convoluted; professors of religion praying, agonizing, fainting, falling down in distress, for sinners, or in raptures of joy!

Some singing, some shouting, clapping their hands, hugging and even kissing, laughing; others talking to the distressed, to one another, or to opposers of the work, and all this at once--no spectacle can recite a stronger sensation.

And with what is doing, the darkness of the night, the solemnity of the place, and of the occasion, and conscious guilt, all conspire to make terror thrill through every power of the soul, and rouse it to awful attention." (Letter quoted by Conkin, Cane Ridge, p. 93-94).

"Soon the sheer confusion practically subverted the outdoor preaching. Small groups joined in prayer or in loud hymn singing, with singing the most enjoyable group activity and the one that often most affected an audience... More conventional shouts and groans joined with a near babble of speech, some incoherent, some later distinguished as holy laughter or singing." (Conkin, p. 94).

The meeting was not a "church of Christ." Surely Garret knows that the Methodists and Baptists were out to manufacture supernatural signs. These would be MARKS by which even Presbyterians would have to acknowledge that the person had barked like a dog or fought others over garbage meant that they were PREDESTINATED by God to be among the few. However, the Presbyterians repudiated the movement. The CHURCH OF CHRIST which had been identified long ago by Thomas Campbell's DECLARATION AND ADDRESS WAS NOT PRESENT. Faithful people for 2,000 years had identified themselves as THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, had practiced Christian baptism and had repudiated instrumental music.

The result was the establishment of a new presbyterian group and the Methodists and Baptists as in all ecumenical meetings took home the stolen lambs from the other groups.

Stone may have urged baptism because the exercises proved them already saved. The exercises have never been the fruit of the Holy Spirit and did not happen even at Pentecost. We still agree with all of the Restoration movements, such as Walter Scott, the the Holy Spirit is, first, God and secondly, the spirit of a believer made holy by Christ. They did not believe in the Holy Spirit as a separated "person" who came into people and made them do what earlier observers saw as Satanic possession.

Long after the meeting, Stone and his Society of Ministers still observed such things as the "mourner's bench," the ordination of "ministers" and other things which made most of them blush in later years.

Leroy Garrett: "The Stone wing of the Movement was, therefore, some 20 years older than Campbell's. When Stone and his fellow Presbyterian ministers were working their way out of the morass of sectarianism in Kentucky,

Alexander Campbell was still a teenager back in Ireland. By 1809, the year Campbell arrived in this country, the Stone movement was well underway, and another 15 years were to pass before Campbell and Stone were to meet.

These facts should help to correct a common misunderstanding, which is that the Restoration Movement began with Alexander Campbell. Restoration Review, Vol. 14, No. 10; Jan. 1972

Thomas Campbell was John Calvin-Literate and understood that his part was not a Reformation Movement but a Restoration Movement. All of the SCRIPTURE ONLY and rejecting the DIRECT revelation and visions and casting of DOZENS of things which made further restoration possible. Barton W. Stone never restored the major components. His was still the Christian church relying heavily on the antics of the Shouting Methodists as proof of Spirit presence. There are several parts of our review of John Calvin's movement which is most often called RESTORATION. Click here for the first part. John Calvin knew that the "name" of the church was the Church of Christ.

We might assume that men like Glas, Haldane, Thomas Campbell and Alexander Campbell were moribund until Alex met Barton? No. Change was taking place even among those not yet visionary enough to start new churches. Stone still did not agree with Campbell, and Campbell certainly did not accept the charismatic breakdowns even when the movements merged. The movement merged fin the sense that Stone preachers subscribed to Campbell's views and left the Stoneite churches weak and few.

"it is misleading to refer to these New Light churches as predecessoors of the later Christian-Disciples movement, for in so many ways, beginning with the explosive conversions and the physical exercises and the spiritual gifts,

the first New Light churches were closer to later Pentecostals than to contemporary Disciples or the Churches of Christ." (Conkin, Caneridge, p. 132)

Any form of the MUSIC heresy is still charismatic and charismatic always meant perverted: a sexual attractant.

The Stone movement, repudiated by Campbell and most, was not a RESTORATION MOVEMENT. Rather, it is called the SECOND GREAT AMERICAN AWAKENING. It was a continuation of the FIRST GREAT AMERICAN AWAKENING which was fuel by theatrical performance among those who earlier were part of the WITCHCRAFT CRAZE.

This AWAKENING which was not part of the Restoration Movement can be found at the foot of the old towers of Babylon and in every age:

"Oh men without understanding! Judge ye rightly of what is said. For if it were necessary to give one's self to some pleasure for the refreshment of the body, whether were it better to do so among the rivers and woods and groves,

where there are entertainments and convivialities and shady places,

or where there is the maddness of demons, and cuttings of hands, and emasculations, and fury and mania, and dishevelling of hair,

and shoutings and enthusiasms and howlings, and all those thing which are done with hyprocrisy for the counfounding of the unthinking, when you offer your prescribed prayers, and thanksgivings even to those who are deader than the dead?"

For the exhalation of blood, and the libation of wine, satisfies even these unclean spirits, which lurk within you and cause you to take pleasure in the things that are transacted there, and in dreams surround you with false phantasies, and punish you with myriads of diseases.

For under the show of the so-called sacred victims you are filled with dire demons, which, cunningly concealing themselves, destroy you, so that you should not understand the plot that is laid for you. For, under the guise of some injury, or love, or anger, or grief, or strangling you with a rope, or drowning you, or throwing you from a precipice, or by suicide, or apoplexy, or some other disease, they deprive you of life. (The Clemetine Homilies, Homily XI, Chapt XIV, Ante Nicene Fathers, Vol 8, p. 287)

It is a fact that SUICIDE was a very common outcome of those who had been seduced into making a fool of themselves only to discover that they had been RIDEN in the classical "bowing to Baal" where the manipulator USES you for his own sexual gratification. Hitler knew that the AUDIENCE would be his only lover..

In fact Cain Ridge was a source Source of Division and the growth curve took an upward surge, it settled back to its NORMAL rate of church membership. Those who had been made fools of by the exercises, woke up and never entered a church door again.

Catholicism existed long before Barton W. Stone. If Catholics joined with the Campbells would this make Catholicism the founder of churches of Christ? The church which began at Pentecost by the Spirit Christ had existed in the minds and hearts of many "even in the wilderness of Kentucky." Does this mean that Christ was the founder of the ancient "Restoration of All Things" movement when believers joined Campbell? Yes. But then Campbell began as anti-located evangelist and seemed to be a one-cuper.

The only cause of division is trying to pin Founder labels and latter-day apostle labels on men just being good students and honest evangelists.

We should note that most Restoration leaders, especially Calvinists, understood the ABC's of Scripture and did not, therefore, believe that the Holy Spirit "person" was at work at the meeting or elsewhere:

"It is commonly stated, that there are three persons in one God, of one substance, power and eternity. To me it is evident that they, who maintain this proposition, do not--cannot believe, that these three persons are three distinct spirits, beings or Gods, each possessed of the personal properties of intelligence, will and power; for this would not only contradict the scriptures, but also those sections of their creeds just quoted, which declare that there is but one only living and true God, without parts. In An Address to the Christian Churches, Second Edition (1821), Barton W. Stone

Walter Stott, in Christian Baptist, Feb 1827 wrote:

"Again--Some will say, What does the expression Holy Spirit mean? Well, in scripture it stands first for God the Holy Spirit, and secondly for the holy mind or spirit of a believer

"I shall now answer, from scripture, the following questions.--When do we know that we are born of the Spirit? I answer, when we know that our spirits are holy. But it will be asked again, when do we know this? I reply, when we behold our minds producing the fruits of a holy spirit. But what are the fruits of a holy spirit? Paul says they are joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, temperance, against such there is no (written) law.

The Holy Spirit never causes these destructive events when the gospel is preached. The Holy Spirit is not a fool. The Incarnate God of the universe is not a fool. Christ, as Full Deity to us, is not a fool and He only makes fools of fools. Paul told Corinth, in effect, that fools love to be fooled. Most will "wander to and fro" looking to be fooled.

The Holy Spirit is the Mind of God is the Mind of Christ (2 Cor 2). The Spirit of Christ would not--was prophesied that He would not--get involved in "lifting up" rituals or "calling assembly events." The Mind of Christ, the Spirit of the prophets (1 Peter 1:11) does not try to destroy the body. However, when we reach up and reach out in pagan-like rituals to "find" God you never know what evil spirit will be reaching down.

One outrageous statement appears in Restoration History by M. M. Davis, p. 150:

"In light of all this, it would seem that the distinguished honor of organizing the first churches since the great apostasy, with the Bible as their only rule of faith and practice, and with 'Christian' as the family name, belongs to these brave men, and that it occurred in Kentucky, in 1804, and that caneridge was the first."

In fact, assemblies called "Christian churches" existed long before the meeting. It was, therefore, a borrowed name which described their devotion to the Author and Finisher rather than "later-day-founders." Nothing could be more harshly judgmental than to call restoration churches "Campbellite" or "Stoneite."

James O'Kelly and others withdrew from the Methodist church in 1792 and became known as Republican Methodists. In 1794 Rice Haggard suggested that they call the "followers of Christ Christians." This specificially denounced the term Christian as a denominational name. Elias Smith and others in New England were calling themselves Christians while Barton Stone was still calling himself a Presbyterian. They did not dream of calling themselves "Christian church Christians" or "church of Christ Christians." They simply meant an assembly called in honor of Christ made up of Christians. Most early New England churches might have been Puritan but they called themselves the "church of Christ."

An assembly or church of Christ includes the good, the bad and the ugly all meeting together to permit Christ to lift us up. Terms such as "The Family of God" implies that everyone is a Christian. Increasingly such movements have to demand a "wide variety of conformity" because the music-commerce promoted worship rituals simply cannot tolerate any diversity of opinion.

Davis made one important point: the work of the meeting was not the work of a restoration church. However, he consideres the church to have begun when Stone left the Presbyterians and began a new movement. This was not any further away from Calvinism than many of the Baptist groups. In fact, Stone became a Baptist and not a "Campbellite."

In fact, the United Pentecostal movement fits Stone's better-late-than-never actual teaching of baptism and the denial of a trinity of "members of the god family standing side by side and face to face debating about who will save the world."

For instance, Weslyan churches such as the Pilgrim Holiness Church were greatly influenced by the meeting. In fact, the exercises were going on in Fleming County, Kentucy before the meeting.

"Until 1820 the small Christian movement grew slowly, with its greatest strength in Ohio and Kentucky, but with a scattering of small congregations in Tennessee and Indiana....

He (Stone) early became a baptist but would not make proper baptism a condition of membership.

But by 1820 the movement was clearly baptist, and Stone was able to persuade several small Baptist associations to affiliate with Christian, no major doctrines, but only the issue of names, separated many freewill Baptists from Stone.

By 1820, as Stone indulged in more doctrinal controversies with Presbyterian critics, he elaborated a rather consistent free-will, or complete atonement, profile of beliefs, with a unique conception of faith.

He used the word faith for simple belief in the gospel message." (Conkin, p. 146);

FAITH ONLY: Doctors of the law are found false witnesses;

But as our would-be wise, new spirits assert that faith alone saves, and that works and external things avail nothing, we answer:

It is true, indeed, that nothing in us is of any avail but faith, as we shall hear still further. But these blind guides are unwilling to see this, namely,

that faith must have something which it believes, that is, of which it takes hold, and upon which it stands and rests.

Thus faith clings to the water, and believes that it is Baptism, in which there is pure salvation and life;

not through the water (as we have sufficiently stated), but through the fact that it is embodied in the Word and institution of God, and the name of God inheres in it.

BAPTISM for the PURPOSE of remission of sins: Bearing false witness. Read Martin Luther to protect yourself against false teachers.

The Campbell family had worked their way out of Calvinistic doctrine and closed communion long before Stone. In fact, there is little that Stone understood about the Restoration doctrines before the Campbells and many others of various denominations.

I find that nostalgia reconstructs my memory bits in my own image. Garrett speaks of Alexander Campbell tutoring a group of girls and:

Leroy Garrett: "He had the women all to himself, the men having to be away in Glasgow. It was a highly cultivated and refined society. He later complained of having to walk the girls in the woods as well as tutor them. He insisted that he had rather be reading and meditating! But we may question that, for he likely relished every minute of it, just as he did all of life.

The families including older men and entire city did not go to Glasgow.

"And surely I have missed it. That must be where the Restoration Movement really began There in Dumbartonshire, on the shore of the Clyde, in the shady groves around Helensburgh, amidst all those pretty girls. How could I ever have figured it otherwise!

"While he was frolicking with those lovely lasses, his father was having a peck of trouble in the New World. He, like John Hancock, had put his name to a Declaration, and it too meant war. We'll look in on it in our next issue.

In the Shield of Hercales

(ll. 270-285) Next, there was a city of men with goodly towers; and seven gates of gold, fitted to the lintels, guarded it.

The men were making merry with festivities and dances; some were bringing home a bride to her husband on a well-wheeled car (chariot), while the bridal-song swelled high, and the glow of blazing torches held by handmaidens rolled in waves afar.

And these maidens went before, delighting in the festival;

and after them came frolicsome choirs,

the youths singing soft-mouthed to the sound of shrill pipes,

while the echo was shivered around them,

and the girls led on the lovely dance to the sound of lyres.

Then again on the other side was a rout of young men revelling,

with flutes playing; some frolicking with dance and song, and
others were going forward in time with a flute player and laughing.
The whole town was filled with mirth and dance and festivity.

"Six nude male figures are disposed in pairs on the three leg panels. The first set is engaged in a heated dance. These frolicking acrobats are komasts, comic dancers whose activities incline toward mischief-making at every opportunity. The two bearded dancers here confront each other in their jubilation. Each dancer has an incised line across the left bicep, creating the impression of a short-sleeved garment. This is a sure indication that members of this tribe of revelers were once clad, as indeed they were in earlier scenes on Attic and Corinthian komos vases from which the Boeotian komasts derive. The heavier komast gingerly raises an inviting hand to the chin of his companion in hopes of obtaining even a more intimate response. Homosexual activity is frequently depicted in scenes on Greek vases (Mississippi 1977.3.72, Jacksonville AP.66.28) and especially among the ranks of komasts. Perseus

The Campbell family had been influenced by restorationism even before leaving Scotland--Ireland by the teachings of various men who wanted to return to the Bible as the only source of religion. To the extent that they were influenced by Locke it was in a violent reaction to Calvinistic religion of the day. While Locke might not believe in inspiration as we do, he understood the principle of Romans ten: "faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of God." In discussing inspiration, Locke would say that "you have nothing in your mind which did not come through the human senses." That is, you were not born with knowledge and you do not get it directly from God. This is why John Locke is hated by revisionists and claimed to be the "God" of Alexander Campbell.

How is it possible to so hate a movement that it could be seen as the product of FROLICKING? How did Alexander Campbell begin the restoratiom movement while FROLICKING WITH LASSES and yet Stone began the Restoration movement in America?

There is nothing in the writings, reputation or character of Alexander Campbell which cause Him to frolick in an evil sense. Perhaps Thomas didn't consider Alexander a SLUG because he had the care of the family in his hands:

"At the close of the University session in the month of May, as there was no prospect of obtaining for some time a suitable vessel to transport the family to America, he was urged by some of his Glasgow friends to go to Helensburgh as tutor for their families, who were to spend the summer at this agreeable watering-place. He accordingly went thither in the beginning of June, and having obtained pleasant lodgings, taught a number of families, among which were those of Mr. [190] Monteith, Mr. R. Burns, Mr. Wardlaw, Mr. Buchannon and others. Helensburgh seemed to him a very beautiful, healthful place, and a fine seaport.

"Here, freed from the routine and confinement of the college course, he spent some time very delightfully in the midst of a highly cultivated and refined society, and in instructing the young ladies and others who were his pupils. His only regret was, that, from the demands made upon his time in teaching, as well as by necessary social calls and the evening walks of parties of ladies, for whom the escort of the youthful tutor was constantly in requisition in order to visit the shady groves and to enjoy the fine prospects from various points in the neighborhood of the village, he had but little time for the reading he desired to accomplish.

"He by no means, however, neglected his religious improvement, as various pious reflections and annotations upon passages of Scripture, written down during this period, evince. His naturally lively temperament, tempered by religious sobriety, his fine powers of conversation, and his agreeable manners rendered him a pleasant companion to all; and the happy associations which he enjoyed at Helensburgh, for a brief period, seem to have thrown over this portion of his life a charm which he felt quite reluctant to dissolve,

when, after a five weeks' residence, a favorable opportunity of emigrating, in a ship from [191] Greenock, presented itself, and he had to return to Glasgow in order to make preparations for the voyage.

Before leaving Helensburgh, however, being requested by one of his friends, a Mr. K------g, to write something for him as a memento, he endeavored to express his feelings in the following lines: Resource

Perhaps the slander is just flat wrong: maybe you couldn't just go to the airport and go to the new world.

Charismatics reject the "rational" by calling it "rationalism" but they do not give people an "antenna" to receive supernatural knowledge. Rather, our studies show that they use and abuse the human senses totally to surface the irrational, right--brained part of society.

Campbell is defined as a sectarian but his Christian System shows that he put more stock in how people live than by their perfect grasp of Scripture. He does say----along with Jesus----that one cannot love Jesus and ignore His Words.

It is important that before union with the Stone churches in 1832, Campbell had led the Restoration in Kentucky since about 1823 by preaching and writing which led the people back to the Bible and prepared them to merge with the Disciples. He put his misgivings aside and permitted union perhaps because he already knew that his views (widely held) were already accepted among Stone churches.

Why Stone's Influence Did not Dominate the Restoration

We noted above that Calvinism (most at the meeting were Calvinists) denounced any effort to find truth in the Bible (Calvin could but you could not). If God wanted you He would come and get you and "yank" you into the church and give you an "experience" which might get you past Christ but not past the gate-keepers of the church.

However, it is impossible to understand the early church in this country without understanding that many people loved their Bible and gained great comfort and training from it. However, as a paradox, many preachers were ignorant of it and were chosen because of some rhetorical skill which could charismatically intoxicate a crowd. However, their natural ability often rose higher than professional education could ever carry them.

Therefore, Stone's disciples never believed that the unimmersed were lost because men like Stone had only a vague understanding of the power of Biblical conversion which any child could have gained from reading.

Through emotional appeals one was frightened to death or "convinced of sin" and mourned and suffered the ravages on their human body which Christ had already taken on Himself.

If they came out of it with "a light, a whisper, a dream, or joy as a release from mourning" they were saved but by faith only.

If they wished, they might then be baptized. This was not Biblical and it did not survive among those who believed that the Bible is the evidence for faith and practice.

Was Stone a hinderance?

We have noted that Stone, like many others, had trouble finding his way out of the briar patch which had enslaved people by denying them the Bible. Because he was an "honest seeker" he did not have the guile to hide his search for the truth. This led to many statements which still appear to show him believing that Christ did not preexist in the form of God. And of course, he would have sprinkled little babies in his early years. Therefore, his views were a stumbling block to the restoration of some groups such as the Baptists--

"W. T. Moore calls attention to an important result of the union which should not be overlooked: 'From the Campbellian point of view this union had its drawbacks.

At the time it was consummated the 'Reformers' were practically sweeping everything before them in the Baptist churches of Kentucky, Ohio, and other places where the 'Christians' had attained considerable influence.

"But the union seriously affected the trend of the Baptist churches toward the Reformatory movement. Many of those who had sympathy with the Reformation utterly refused to become associated with a movement which had coalesced with Unitarians and Pedobaptists.' This charge was false, but it had the semblance of truth, and, for a time, it did much injury." (Davis, M. M., Restoration Movement in the 19th Century, p. 157).

If you discount Thomas Campbell's early association with "restorationists" and his attempt to unify the bodies of Presbyterians, and place his restoration at the time of his rejection of the Presbyterian church, then you can say that Stone had begun before Campbell. However, Davis notes that a stream can be longer but still be a tributary--

"And so the Stone movement, though several years older in its organic form than that of the Campbell's,

is generally regarded as a tributary,
and not the main stream, in this onflowing and world-blessing spiritual current.
This is because most of the vital and permanent in the teachings of Stone, and much more, were found in the teachings of Campbell." (Davis, p. 158).

From this and other evidence, Stone had theological problems which prevented him from being the father of the Restoration. Baptists who made up a major body of the growing Restoration would have never agreed with him. In addition, Stone did not have a "rounded out" view of the Bible which found acceptance among people who already knew what the church should look like, if and when it appeared.

"In a sense, there was nothing to unite, because neither Stone's Christians nor Campbell's Disciples of Christ had any denominational organization. Tensions were inevitable, even over the proper name of the united movement.

Many Stonites cherished their revivalist origins, continued to affirm Stone's Arianism (Note: not true), and resented Campbell's doctrinal rigidity and few of his less than flattering remarks about Stone.

In most regions the competing congregations eventually merged,

but a remnant of Stoneite congregations in the Midwest, joind by a small Christian movement in New England and independent Christian congregations in North Carolina and Virginia rejected union." (Conkin, p. 140)

Samuel and John Rogers fill in many blanks and show that the Stone methods of church membership did not find a "fit" in the Bible trained minds of many in Tennessee and Alabama and had to be replaced with the Biblical method defined in the Great Commission and already taught by Campbell. However, the change was more the effect of the "audience" than the quite-ignorant preachers.

For instance, Samuel Rogers' mother had dared to violate the law to carry her Bible into Catholic controlled cities at great risk and trained little Samuel with it. He later "married into" the Stone movement by marrying a lady who had lived in the area area. He slowly felt that he was to preach and met many of the early preachers who were out founding churches. He was "recruited" by the Preacher's conference which decided who was to be a Stone preacher. He was also "recruited" by Stone's leaders who had defected to Shakerism. In his wisdom he denounced both.

After discussing one of his sermons, Rogers shows that charismatic religion is truly legalistic religion in which one must, in the words of another, "struggle up to God because God does not come down to man." He also confirms why many sign-seeking people finally need to hold the office of an apostle--

"Views were entertained in those days, not only by those of us who were derisively called New Lights, but by almost every all denominations, both in regard to conversion and the call to the ministry,

which were very absurd, and would now be rejected by almost every one. The evidences of pardon looked for then were a light, a whisper, a dream, or exhilarating feeling after great depression of spirit, etc." (Rogers, John I., Autobiography of Samuel Rogers, p. 22, Restoration Reprint."

Contrary to the false accusations it is the Baptist baptism which is identical to ancient pagan baptisms. This BAPTIST baptism believed by many in the NEW LIGHTS meant that you had to go through the LAW and be convicted and saved by some NEW LIGHT before you could be accepted by the congregation and baptized Because you were baptised based on faith only. However, this Baptist faith only was invented and owned by Zwingli as late as 1525.

Many of the revisionists using area and Stone for their "Jerusalem" and "Messiah" lust to restore these practices and break down the walls. Many "evangelists-turned-pastors" are claiming equal or superiority with the apostles and their pronouncements used by God to point the sinner to the truth:

"The evidence of a call to the ministry was, ordinarily, an impression, either waking or dreaming, that continued to rest upon the mind with such weight that the subject could not get rid of it. We made no distinction between the ordinary and the extraordinary ministers of Christ,

but claimed to be in the shoes of the Apostles;
and, hence, we expected the Lord to work with us in the same way that he did with the Apostles;
and we were praying and looking for some sign, or wonder, or demonstration of the power of the Holy Ghost."

Stone held a perfectionist view of salvation. If one sinned it was proof that something was wrong with the conversion. This is why he refused to give up charismatic preaching. This perfectionist-legalism still plagues charismatic people like the Stoneites:

"We believed, as Kincaid and others had taught, that miracles would be restored to the Church, if we could only attain to the proper degree of holiness. We were, therefore, looking continually for the beginning of more wonderful signs than any yet apparent. Meanwhile, we had to content ourselves with such mental impressions as could be reasonably constructed into the extraordinary workings and unutterable calls of the Spirit. We never thought of finding our call in the New Testament." (Rogers, p. 22--23)

This helps explain Stone's demand for almost perfect holiness because even "minor" sins would prove that the conversion was false. This view fed the various Holiness groups which grew up in the area of area (as in Fleming County, etc.)

Later, Rogers wrote--

"We had mourner's benches in those days, and they were things unauthorized by the Word of God. We long since abolished them, and we did right in so doing." (Roger's Autobiography, p. 30)

Another fallacy of the Stone movement which continued denominational error was that one needed to hold this "apostolic office" as "an ordained preacher" to have the credentials to administer the "ordinance" of baptism. Biblical knowledge was not vital.

Therefore, when Rogers made converts he did not want to baptize them because he had not been ordained. He went in search of some brothers with whom he could consult. On his way, he met Stone's faithful friend, David Purviance, who informed him that they had organized a Conference of preachers and they couldn't ordain him until they met in about six months. However, Rogers confirmed the "apostolic view" when he expressed the belief that no body of men had the power to "impart any spiritual gift by the imposition of hands." Maybe he could be ordained by some direct experience but not by a new "budding" denominational structure which stood between God and man.

But Garrett remembers that sectarianism was invented by recent churches of Christ!

Because he refused this form of ordination, Purviance sent Reuben Dooley to do the baptizing. Rogers finally did accept ordination at the hands his friends----male and female. This was a major defection from the effort of Stone preachers to organize and control.

The original charismatic outbreak during camp meetings had burned out but camp meetings continued--and continue in groups such as The Pilgrim Holiness or Wesleyan churches where people still try to "get religion" which can be witnessed and accepted by the leaders to admit you into fellowship. We have witnessed this by people "praying through" and it is a perfect model of the mourning of the Stone movement.

Observers at many Camp Meetings note that the social gathering (most of those at area) element continued and grew. This included drunks, booze sellers and prostitutes. For instance, Rogers noted that Camp Meetings continued for a while but were disbanded because--

"These meetings we looked forward to as great occasions. Our preachers were in the habit of coming hundreds of miles to attend them. And the people, good, bad and indifferent, for many miles around, made their arrangements to attend; until, finally, the multitude of people completely broke down the meetings, the camp-ground having become a place of fun and mischief for every abominable character in the land." (Rogers, p. 42)

It was 1821 before Stone saw the Old Light on Baptism:

In about 1821 Stone held a meeting at Millersburg, Missouri. Rogers attended and found that-

"Many had professed religion, and many more, who were at the mourner's bench, refused to be comforted. After laboring with the mourners until a late hour of the night, without being able to comfort them, Brother Stone arose and addressed the audience: 'Brethren, something must be wrong..." (Rogers, p. 56-57).

There was nothing like doing Bible Things in Bible Ways to separate the sheep from the goats.

Stone concluded that they must not be preaching what the Apostle's preached. There, he said, they had been told to repent and be baptized. The group was still confounded about baptism and "the speech was a perfect damper upon the meeting." Stone repeated this sermon several times and it usually destroyed the enthusiasm.

Note: The gospel is supposed to damper the enthusiasm. If it attracts and appeals to the mass crowds it cannot be the gospel.

Stone measured the power of the spirit by how effective it was in creating a "sign" which he held in his own mind which was uninstructed by a clear reading of the Bible. When the Bible is preached in its fullness it has always reached a tiny "remnant" and when it has "mass appeal" we can be sure that "Brethren, something must be wrong."

In discussing another case, when the person could not "mourn his way into relief" Stone and others decided that "Jamison was a proper subject of Baptism-that he had doubtless received pardon, but was not conscious of it. They baptized him, and he went on his way rejoicing."

That is, the believer had been saved and if he could not get through the "mourning stage" then perhaps he might still be baptized if someone decides that he is good enough. Baptism, to Stone, was not connected to salvation even though he was driven to try preaching it at times. His "brush" with baptism, however, did not really convince him. He, like so many early preachers, could not get through the "denominational" teachings to open their eyes to the Biblical text.

Furthermore, if he went out preaching the gospel, even at area, he would get very little response.

Therefore, it was left to other preachers to try to find the way to truth which the congregations would validate by their reaction. This led in various paths which are not clearly documented. However, Rogers shows how the Stone churches in the south were led to the truth. In our own Alabama history it was common to steal out to the edge of the forest to see and hear the "brush arbor meetings" which usually deteriorated until the Sheriff came, and apparently had little effect on the lives of the community. This was what the early preachers saw and decided that something was wrong with their preaching.

The Stone Movement in Tennessee and Alabama

Many churches already existed in Alabama and Tennessee including Baptists and Methodists. These would provide the seed bed for restoration churches as surely as men taught by Stone would make people aware that the Bible was not considered by many theologians as the ground or basis for establishing faith and practice. Strange as it seems, mothers saw it as the "text book" to teach basic reading and moral principles.

Perhaps it is to the South's credit that "arousal revivalism" did not work among the masses as it might have with a few early converts. Rogers says of B. F. Hall--

"On the 15th of May, A. D. 1825, I was, by prayer and imposition of hands, ordained by the venerated B. W. Stone and others".. in Missouri

Then Hall reports on a preaching trip into Middle Tennessee undoubtedly preaching Stone doctrine with the same failures which Stone noted from trying to get people to have an experience without all of the mental-dissassociation elements of revivalism--

"Early in the summer of that same year (1825), I returned and preached through Middle Tennessee and Northern Alabama. We had many camp meetings that fall. It was a season of much religious interest. It was no uncommon thing, at a camp-meeting, to see from ten to fifty weeping sinners at the anxious seat, crying out for mercy. Being naturally sympathetic, I thought they were the most affecting, touching scenes I had ever witnessed. At many of those meetings I spent nearly the whole night singing, praying for, and trying to instruct weeping mourners how to obtain pardon. I would weep with those that wept, and rejoice with those that rejoiced.

"At one of those meetings, in the fall of 1825, an unusually large number were constantly at the anxious seat, weeping, and praying, and begging us to pray that God would have mercy upon them. Some found relief during the meeting; but the greater number remained uncomforted. At the close of the meeting, when about to leave for another meeting, a brother proposed that we sing a parting hymn, and the Christians first, and then the mourners, who had not found peace, should come forward and give the minister the parting hand. When the broken hearted mourners came in a long line, weeping as if their hearts would break, I could sing no longer, but burst forth in a wail of anguish of soul. My pent-up grief found vent in a gush of tears. On the way to the next meeting, I said to a brother preacher:

"There is a wrong somewhere. Surely, we do not preach as the Apostles and first evangelists preached." (Rogers, p. 57-58).

The Stone method which had created the excitement worked for a short season. The less erratic method of weeping and mourning worked with certain people but did not work as a universal principle because it had no Biblical foundation. While he held a series of meetings during the fall "this idea haunted me" that there was a difference between the message and results of his preaching and Biblical examples.

Therefore, Hall seemed totally frustrated and went visiting his family. He tells how he was led to the truth by Campbell through reading a book. He came across a copy of the Campbell-MacCalla debate and said:

"I knew it would exactly fit and fill the vacant space. I was converted over; and was one of the happiest young converts you ever saw; happier than when I was converted the first time." Hall no longer held his Stone influenced conversion to be good enough and he, in effect, rejected Stone as an authority by rejecting his primary method of revival.

Hall then met with Stone but Stone rejected the teaching because it chilled the mourning which he saw as the work of the Holy Spirit. His preconception stood between his mind and the Bible. Or perhaps the universal principle that truth does not attract the masses was something he was not ready to accept.

Bypassing Stone, Hall baptized Samuel Rogers as the only preacher who did not oppose the idea. At this time, Hall moved a bit closer to the Biblical pattern and with Rogers was the only Stone preachers who were prepared to advance the Restoration cause.

Therefore, if we were looking for the "trail to the Old Paths" we should see that the Restoration branched totally away from Stone's early views at this moment. In 1827 Hall preached in a meeting and if he baptized no one else, one convert went on to fan the flame. His new move toward restorationism led him to preach (note his spelling)--

"baptism for the remission of sins on Cyprus Creek, in Lauderdale county, Ala., on the Lord's--day night. Talbert Fanning was present and heard the discourse, was convinced of the truth, and, when the invitation was given came forward and made the good confession, and was immersed the next morning for the remission of sins." (Rogers, p. 60)

This is the same man who had to be escorted from East Main Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee to escape those who would have done him harm for preaching against slavery!

A Movement of the People

We noted that many, especially the mothers, knew the Bible better than the preachers in the business only because of a "call."

Rogers admits to the general ignorance of the people but M. M. Davis and others show that the demands of the people served to sort out the direction of the movement. That is, there were many men who threw opinions around the country, but those which "caught on" and were permanent became so because it was the truth which everyone could verify . It was not because of the love (pronounced by my kids as luuuvee') of Stone or the heavy doctrinal hand of Campbell.

"As a people, though we were somewhat superstitious, and were advancing slowly towards the full day of gospel light, yet we were certainly preparing the way for this Reformation as no other people." (Rogers, p. 60).

He shows that baptism generally did not flow from the preachers to the converts. Rather, it was the converts who demanded of the clergy that they administer baptism. And so Rogers and others were led by the Bible students in most congregations and by their refusal to respond to their emotional methods. If life does not occur then perhaps we should say with him "surely we are doing something wrong."

Rogers later came in contact with the O'Kelleyites in Charlotte and states that Rice Haggard had suggested the name Christian to Stone. On this trip he met Campbell whom he had not heard on his earlier visits to Kentucky. He recognized that Campbell had a view of the church which he had been seeking but never found in the Stone movement. His acceptance was not based on any heavy-handed force from Campbell but the teaching of truth.

He does acknowledge on p. 115 that the Stone churches had been the "seed-bed" of the Reformation produced by Brother Campbell. However, he notes that while union occurred in 1832 most of the Stone preachers---

"received the teachings of Brother Campbell almost from the beginning of his writings in the Christian Baptist, which commenced July 4, 1823."

The End of the Stone Movement in The South

A Baptist congregation "comes to its end" if and when it as a body denounces their old theology and begins to practice something quite different. In the same way, Stone congregations came to an end when they quit believing and practicing certain things and began to believe and worship in a different way. Even in the lifetime of existing church members, some churches of Christ were called Christian churches. And as we noted abov,e much of the change occurred slowly as men moved closer and closer to the views which Campbell taught. Perhaps some "Campbellism" also died as people moved away from some of his views and got its doctrine from the same source as Campbell: the Bible.

Many people believed that Stone thought that unity was more important than doctrine. Therefore, his critics believed that he sought union among groups even when he never united with them in his mind--

Jennings, p. 74, quotes J. F. Burnett to show that "only Stone was lost to us in his affliction with the Disciples, with which people he never united except in cooperation."

This may be supported by the statement above that long before Stone agreed to union, the Campbell movement was "sweeping" up Stone and other churches because Campbell taught what they often already believed.

If there were really 2,000 "experiences" at Cane Ridge they were not "harvested" by Stone. After he left the Presbyterians there were only five leaders in general agreement about the next move. After the defection of the others, Stone was left alone to build from "scratch" by his new teaching. He preached where he could, "stalked" the Shakers to enjoin debate, but did much of his work "from house to house."

Three years later there were only 15 congregations in Kentucky and Ohio who followed his brand of restorationism which most of us would not accept. By 1823 Campbell was already working and publishing in Kentucky and by 1826 there were about 10 to 15 thousand members in 300 Stone--influenced congregations who were not in agreement with the denominations but were certainly not churches of Christ. When the Stone and Campbell influenced churches merged not all of these remained as "restoration" churches.

By the time of the union Samuel Rogers' seems to support the number--

"Then followed a wave of 'Campbellism' that swept the Christians off their feet, and aggregated about eight thousand accessions to the Disciples. No Christian churches long survived in Tennessee, their cause was ruined in Kentucky and never has regained its former strength or prestige. Of the southern Ohio Christians a majority of the preachers embraced Campbellism prior to 1837, and only about one thousand church members remained." (Jenning, Walter W., Origin and Early History of the Disciples of Christ, p. 197, Standard).

Whatever was brought to Tennessee as doctrine or organization did not survive but was replaced.

If it is true that "their cause was ruined" then it is also true that the churches felt themselves to be going in the wrong direction and changed. If the Christians united with the Disciples because they held a common view then there could be no "sweeping"-all they had to do was to change their name.

To have preached in Tennessee and helped others move churches away from denominationalism did not mean that Stone was the father of churches in the South. When men repudiated the "mourner's bench" and had the courage to preach the Bible with much less enthusiastic results, they built on "father Stone" but had moved beyond him and most of his influence. They planted on the "seed bed" which Stone preachers and others had prepared but they did not plant Stone "seed."

In the image of Rogers as he argued against Calvinism: "To have been born in a potato patch does not make one a potato." In the same way, to have been started by Stone's preachers did not make the churches "Stone" churches for very long.

In fact, at Stone's instigation, the Conferences of the Christians were dissolved, churches disbanded, and the people became amalgamated with the Disciples (Jennings, p. 197). Because they were still somewhat sectarian or denominational in their views, it was necessary to "disband" or effectively denounce their old allegiance before they could be "amalgamated" with the Disciples.

People had generally agreed that they were not Presbyterians, Methodists, or Baptists but they were just on the way to true restoration. Of Stone it clear that he changed his mind on some things after Campbell came to Kentucky--

"Nor did he hesitate to acknowledge that from A. Campbell and others, he had derived important, practical religious knowledge." (Stone Biography, p. 301).

Those of the Stone movement understood that neither man was the "savior" and wrote Campbell and said--

"It was not your joining brother Stone as a leader, nor his joining you as such; but all rallying in the spirit of gospel truth, liberty and love, around the one glorious centre of attraction--Christ Jesus." (Biography, p. 345)

John Rogers concludes that he might agree with the critics if Stone really produced the Cane Ridge "fanaticism." Rather, he notes that they happened periodically and not as a result of Stone's character or method. In the same breath he ridicules anyone who claims that the churches of Christ were a product of father Stone--both claims are outrageous nonsense--

"He would disparage Mr. Stone's reformation, by representing it, as a system of the grossest error associated with the wildest fanaticism.

"He would degrade Mr. Campbell, by representing him as building on Mr. Stone's foundation." (p. 403).

It must be possible to honor all of the thousands of honest seekers without demanding that any of them did anything more than "unlock the Bible" and read it for themselves.

"Soon the Shaker priests came along, and off went M'Namar, Dunlevy, and Huston, into that foolish error. Marshall and others retraced their steps. B. W. Stone stuck to his New Lightism, and fought many bloodless battles, till he grew old and feeble, and the mighty Alexander Campbell, the great, arose and poured such floods of regenerating water about the old man's cranium, that he formed a union with this giant errorist, and finally died, not much lamented out of the circle of a few friends. And this is the [33] way with all the New Lights, in the government, morals, and discipline of the Church.

"This Christian, or New Light Church, is a feeble and scattered people, though there are some good Christians among them. I suppose since the day of Pentecost, there was hardly ever a greater revival of religion than at Cane Ridge; and if there had been steady, Christian ministers, settled in Gospel doctrine and Church discipline, thousands might have been saved to the Church that wandered off in the mazes of vain, speculative divinity, and finally made shipwreck of the faith, fell back, turned infidel, and lost their religion and their souls forever. But evidently a new impetus was given to the work of God, and many, very many, will have cause to bless God forever for this revival of religion throughout the length and breadth of our Zion. (Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, The Backwoods Preacher, edited by W. P. Strickland (New York: Carlton & Porter, 1856), 30-33.

Restoration - Leroy Garrett - Origin at this charismatic gathering? Not if recorded "nostalgia" has any meaning.

Standing at the site is a moving experience. Looking at the grave of Barton W. Stone is an honor. However, this event "has been here and gone." You cannot run fast enough to catch up with the never-weres of myth. We cannot comprehend the mind of our own ancestors who had just struggled accross Cumberland gap, bought land which now belonged to Tom which belonged to Dick which belonged to Harry. Unchinked logs to watch for indians now displaced. Yet, the "evil spirits of the forest" still lurked.

Many converts were not "unchurched" but were displaced and looking for a frontier religion. The New Lights were stopping places for frontier people who gladly dropped it when something rational came along.

There is no way to restore Cane Ridgism. If we stop at the site we will not get back to the pure gospel. Nevertheless, the subjectivism of the site still blinds the objective, rational (spiritual-mental) mind of those trying to revive with self-praise.

Kenneth Sublett

Leroy Garrett Misunderstands Campbell on Baptism

Restoration Movement Index

Alexander Campbell Page

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