The Immutable Kingdom – Part 44

By Scott A. Klaft

Barton W. Stone – The Cane Ridge Revival

In the late August summer heat of 1801, the roads leading to Cane Ridge, Kentucky were filled with carriages and people enthusiastically hurrying to attend the meeting. Over thirty thousand people came to the revival where there were eighteen Presbyterian preachers as well as some Methodist and Baptist preachers who had been invited to speak. There were several gatherings to choose from, as five or six preachers were holding meetings simultaneously.

In retrospect, the manner with which emotional excitement ran through the crowd could be viewed with some humor, but in those days, it was taken quite seriously. “Conversion” literally became “convulsion.” There were about five different bodily agitations that were common during these meetings. (1) The falling out exercise was most common where the subject would cry out in a piercing scream, fall flat to the ground, and then lay there for several minutes as though dead. (2) The jerks were also regular occurrences where various body parts would tremble and jerk violently from side to side. (3) Beginning with the jerks, spontaneous and fitful dancing would break out until those thus affected would fall to the ground in exhaustion. (4) Another episode of the jerks would result in barking where the whole body would violently jerk exerting a tremendous grunt, which to the observer would seem an imitation of a dog barking. (5) Occasionally, people would break out in spontaneous and sometimes hysterical laughing and singing.

Stone Leaves the Presbyterians

Having adopted the doctrine of salvation by faith at the time, the preaching of Barton Stone made him very unpopular with the orthodox Presbyterians. It was not long before the Presbyterian Church began to condemn the teachings at the Cane Ridge revival. There were five other men who stood with Stone, also emphasizing the sinner’s power to come to Christ. After a newly formed “Washington Synod” charged one of them with heresy for what they called his “Armenian views” in 1803, all six knew the same awaited them, but they beat the Synod to the punch. Stone and the other five sent letters of withdrawal, adding that the Confession of Faith was an impediment to revival. The six decided to send letters all over to announce that the newly formed “Springfield Presbytery” was giving up all human creeds and confessions but that of the Bible.

Several congregations joined in with this new Presbytery – seven in Ohio and eight in Kentucky – but it would take less than a year before they realized their Presbytery “savored of a party spirit,” which hindered the intended aim of their efforts. On June 28, 1804, the same six men wrote and issued “The Last Will and Testament of The Springfield Presbytery,” which would come to be one of the classic documents of the Restoration Movement. [Anyone wanting a photocopy of the entirety of this document may contact me. It truly is an interesting read. - SAK]

Naturally, struggles would occur as they began to grow. Two preachers returned to Presbyterianism. Three missionaries took some members away to become Shakers. Nevertheless, these problems did not discourage continual growth among them, both spiritually and numerically, toward undenominationalism.

The subject of baptism became an issue that unsettled Stone. He became convinced that child-baptism was wrong, that baptism itself is an immersion, that it is intended for the remission of sin, and that it should only be administered to the penitent believer. Another prominent preacher among them, B.F. Hall, was also perplexed by the subject until he finished a printed copy of the Campbell-McCalla debate; after which, he declared, “Eureka! I have found it, I have found it!”

On the first occasion that Alexander Campbell met with Barton Stone, both were tremendously impressed by the other. John T. Johnson, John Rogers, and “Raccoon” John Smith would all be interested in unity with the movement Stone now led. Two days before Stone’s death, Jacob Creath made a visit, asking about fear of death. He replied, “O no, Brother Creath. I know in whom I have believed and in whom I have trusted, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him. I know that my Redeemer lives.”

(Next week: John Wright & The Campbells)

The Immutable Kingdom – Part 43

By Scott A. Klaft

Barton W. Stone – Presbyterian

Having witnessed the Revolutionary War occurring just outside his house in Guilford, North Carolina, a young man had a hate for war, and the fires of liberty kindled within his soul. As he grew older and came to the questions of religion, and what to do about it, he observed all the controversies between the denominations. He walked away in disgust and religious indifference. When his father passed away in 1790, his estate was divided and Barton Warren Stone decided to invest in an education with hopes of becoming a statesman in the spirit of Patrick Henry.

Arriving at the school begun by a Princeton graduate and Presbyterian minister, David Caldwell, it would not take Stone long to discover the dominant religious influence of the school. While most of the students were succumbing to the popular preaching of James McGready and joining the Presbyterian Church, Stone was making his plans to move out of North Carolina to Virginia. On the date set for departure, however, it stormed, preventing him from leaving, and there is no telling what life-differences might have occurred if not for that storm. His roommate asked Stone to accompany him to hear McGready that night; and, plans thwarted, he went.

Highly impressed with the enthusiastic presentation of the message, Stone became greatly interested in his soul, never leaving the school. When his mother heard of this new interest, she pleaded for him to come home to join the Methodist Church, but despite this added anxiety, in the spring of 1791, he joined the Presbyterian Church. His fellows were all becoming preachers, and eventually Stone cast his lot with them. According to the program, the students would be tested for the “license to preach” in one semester, and given the license in the next. During the six months between, Stone began to doubt the theology he had studied was in harmony with the scriptures.

After getting his license, he went into the barren Wilderness of eastern North Carolina to do his mission work where he became very discouraged, and thoughts of quitting preaching lingered in his mind. After moving near Wytheville, Virginia, and speaking at a local assembly, his attitude changed; the response from the enthusiastic congregation was tremendously encouraging. They persuaded him to stay, but he had a hunger to go west later in that same year.

He traveled to central Tennessee and made several trips between what is now known as Knoxville, and a place he called “a poor little village hardly worth notice” named Nashville. Ten miles north of Cane Ridge, Kentucky was the place Stone would eventually settle for a time, preaching as a “licentiate” while he awaited “ordination.” During his two years there, he re-examined the “Westminster Confession of Faith.” When the time came in 1798 and he was asked to receive and adopt the Confession as this system of faith, he replied, “I do, as far as I see it consistent with the Word of God.” Stone was already on the right path for the Restoration movement.

At the turn of the century, Stone could see the tide of revival rising within Kentucky. This was greatly due to the evangelistic efforts of James McGready who had left North Carolina to pursue missionary work. He was a powerful preacher, and it was said that he could “dangle people over the fires of hell, causing great anxiety.” But this type of preaching troubled Stone in connection with the Presbyterian doctrine that man was totally depraved and had no ability to believe, much less repent and avoid the damnation of hell. Stone found himself in a great dilemma. How could this doctrine be reconciled with the preaching of belief and repentance? After some travel, and assiduous study, Stone was given the motivation to preach on the universality of the Gospel, and salvation conditioned upon faith. Stone continued further in the right direction toward restoration. He hurriedly traveled to Virginia to marry his wife in 1801, and then quickly returned to Cane Ridge to prepare for a great revival meeting.

(To be continued next week: The Cane Ridge Revival)

The Immutable Kingdom – Part 42

By Scott A. Klaft

Early Beginnings of the Restoration

While undenominational Christianity has been the goal of sincere seekers through the ages, the fact remains that we have no historical record of complete success since the apostasy occurred following the first century. The early leaders of the Reformation movement never intended to form denominations, but their followers tended to institutionalize their fellowship groups, referring to, and defending their former leader’s interpretations and conclusions. Until the late 1700’s, religious groups sprouted up in all places, particularly in America where “freedom of religion” had been achieved through the Revolutionary War. The Bible was available to any one who would study it; the scholarship and academic capability had grown to new heights. With the new “freedom,” conditions were ripe for those men who were not content with the status quo within denominational bodies. Men of great stature, staggering intellectual power, honesty, integrity, and independence began to emerge, often working toward the same end and coming to the same conclusions, while completely unaware of one another.

James O’Kelley – Methodist

Influenced by the zeal of his youngest son, James O’Kelley was a lay-preacher for the Episcopal Church in 1775, but he soon became interested in the Methodists after reading the writings of John Wesley. He was struck by the profound honor Wesley gave to the scriptures, calling them “all-sufficient,” exalting the Bible as the only authority for faith and practice. This appealed to O’Kelley, and near the middle of the Revolutionary War, he began to preach in the Methodist-circuit of southern Virginia and North Carolina, the area in which Francis Asbury’s fist of tyranny was being felt everywhere.

O’Kelley’s leadership skills were certainly not second to Asbury’s, and the two had conflicts at several of the Methodist conferences. Thomas Coke had ordained O’Kelley an elder, but O’Kelley debated the form of government of the Methodist Church at the 1792 conference. When he failed to prevent the unscriptural form of church-government, he withdrew from the general conferences in 1793. Several other preachers stood with him in the opposition. They would take the name, “Republican Methodists.”

The following year, this offshoot group met in Virginia where Rice Haggard stood with Bible in hand and said, “Brethren, this is a sufficient rule of faith and practice. By it we are told that the disciples were called Christians, and I move that henceforth and forever the followers of Christ be known as Christians simply.” Following this suggestion, a “Brother” Hafferty of North Carolina moved they accept the Bible as their only creed. From O’Kelley’s movement, there developed what they called the “Five Cardinal Principles of the Christian Church”: (1) Christ is the only Head of the church; (2) the name “Christian” to the exclusion of all sectarian names; (3) the Bible is the only rule of faith; (4) Christian character is the only test of church fellowship; (5) the right of private judgment is the privilege of all. The first congregation calling itself “the Christian Church” was thus begun at Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1794. It should be noted that their difference with the Methodists was not over doctrine, but of organization. It was, however, their desire to expel the human elements still lingering in religion that was so crucial to beginning down the path toward true “restoration.”

Abner Jones – Baptist

While O’Kelley worked in Virginia, Abner Jones, a Doctor in Vermont and a member of the Free Will Baptist Church, was coming to many of the same conclusions in the New England area. Jones was convinced that “sectarian names and human creeds should be abandoned, and that true piety alone… should be made the test of Christian fellowship and communion.” In 1801, he left the Baptist Church and went to Lyndon, Vermont to establish a congregation, which he called the “Christian Church.” Elias Smith, a Baptist preacher would soon join Jones, as did many other preachers, to help launch undenominational churches throughout New England.

(Next Week: Barton W. Stone)