[iii] emerging then, emerging now: Barton Stone and the post-restorationists

22Jul08

this guy belongs on the 50 dollar bill

I just got back from Gulf Shores—amazing time with students there. Among other things, we talked about crafting and implementing a rule of life kyngdm rhythm that keeps us in sync with the reign of God. This leads me to wonder what Barton Stone’s rhythm looked like. I know it involved farm work, early hours, and intense study mingled with impassioned prayer. By the way, I’ll soon respond to Jomato’s recent comment on the previous post. In the meantime, here’s installment 3 of the series.

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Going back to Stone’s formative years, he found himself drawn into the Presbyterian tradition through a school of the New Light tradition in rural North Carolina. After much toil, depression, and deliberation, Stone converted to the Christian faith and was later ordained as a Presbyterian minister after “adopting” the Westminster Confession of Faith. However, in the course of ministry as a Presbyterian, Nathan Hatch writes,

Stone confessed that he was ‘embarrassed with many abstruse doctrines’: ‘Scores of objections would continually roll across my mind.’ What he called the ‘labyrinth of Calvinism’ left his mind ‘distressed,’ ‘perplexed,’ and ‘bewildered.’ He found relief from this dissonance of values only when he came to attack Calvinism as falsehood.[ 12]

It is clear that Stone had tension with his initial heritage. This tension was exacerbated by the famed Cane Ridge Revival, and Stone, along with the five other members, would go on to write “The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery” in June 1804. This document declared in part, “We will, that this body die, be dissolved, and sink into union with the Body of Christ at large.”[13] In the days before drawing up this document, Stone recalls the success of founding churches under the Springfield Presbytery, for with this group Stone notes “we went forward preaching, and constituting churches; but we had not worn our name more than one year, before we saw it savored of a party spirit.” So Stone, with five others, “threw it overboard, and took the name Christian” and experienced more success as “we advanced, and churches and preachers multiplied.”[14] This was a significant turning point for Stone—a break from the tension of his inceptive tradition, and a newfound freedom to explore life in the “Body of Christ at large.” Further, being known simply as “Christians” was a mark of unity and simplicity for Stone and his followers, as well as a departure from a perceived spirit of partyism.

Stone’s lifestyle could be described as holistic—a life which embodied the love and justice of God. In contrast to Campbell’s reform, which was “primarily rational and cognitive,” Stone’s reform was “primarily ethical and spiritual, focusing on inner piety and outward holiness.”[15] His biographer Rogers said of him, “He was deeply imbued with that humility that disposes us to esteem others better than ourselves.”[16] Stone strove for an embodied gospel, and he integrated faith, justice and holiness in an impacting way. For Stone, the gospel meant that one’s spiritual journey was never static but required movement and change. The implications of the gospel called for continual, dynamic reform of the Christian life among Stone and his followers.

Closely connected to an embodied gospel is Stone’s “apocalyptic worldview” which Hughes defines as a life “premised on obedience to the direct rule of God” that calls believers to live out their lives “in the shadow of the second coming.”[17] Stone and his company viewed themselves as sojourners whose first allegiance was to the kingdom of God over and against the values of mainstream culture.[18] This “kingdom-of-God theology” (although Stone was ambivalent toward the descriptor of “theology”) appeared in his writings as “God’s rule,” “God’s reign,” and “God’s government.”[19] While Campbell’s view of the kingdom of God was in simple terms equated with the church, Stone held to a transcendent understanding of the kingdom that extends beyond the limited reach of the church. Hughes notes, “Stone’s understanding of God’s kingdom was thus a far cry from Campbell’s legal understanding of the same reality.”[20] This led Stone not to perfect the ritual of church, but to seek first the coming kingdom of God that could not be contained within walls and fixed hours of worship.

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[12] Hatch, 173.

[13]“The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery,” in Stone, Voices, 81.

[14] Ibid, 80.

[15] Hughes, 92.

[16] D. Newell Williams, “Barton Warren Stone” in The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, edited by Douglas A. Foster, Paul M. Blowers, Anthony L. Dunnavant, and D. Newell Williams (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) 701.

[17] Hughes, 92.

[18] Ibid, 92-93.

[19] Ibid, 93.

[20] Ibid, 94.

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Tags: barton stone, church planting, emerging church, kingdom of God, missional, post-restorationist, restoration movement, stone-campbell movement