CHAPTER XXXIII
Campbellism
Next to Daniel Parker, the most adverse personalty along denominational lines with which our Baptist fathers had to contend was Alexander Campbell. He was born in Ireland about the time that Parker was born in Georgia. His father, Thomas Campbell, was a United Presbyterian preacher and teacher, but dissatisfied with his faith, so that when in 1807 he emigrated to Pennsylvania and obtained some followers he formed them into a "Christian Association" instead of a church. His son meanwhile was attending the University of Glasgow, where he imbibed Sandemanian views from Greville Ewing, one of the leaders of that sect. These views he brought with him to America in 1809, and incorporated them in his "Reformation." The Sandemanians were a Scotch sect, first called Glassites after their founder, John Glass, and then Sandemanians after Robert Sandeman, Glass son-in-law. The tenet most developed by Sandeman was that saving faith is "nothing more than the bare belief of the bare truth; that is, a mere intellectual assent to historical facts. The work of the Holy Spirit was excluded. This is the fatal error, for only the Spirit in his new office shall "convict the world of sin." Furthermore, under him Bible believing means trusting; mere intellectual belief here is of no value whatever.In 1811 the Campbell's Association voted to become a church; in 1812 by the baptism of the membership it became a Baptist church; and in 1813 it was received into a Baptist Association, thus becoming a recognized part of the denomination. It was this that was responsible for the subsequent mischief. It was understood that the church was not truly Baptist, but that was overlooked because they had come so recently from the Presbyterians. They were regarded as a growing people, and it was supposed they would continue to grow until they became Baptists. Even so they were received only by a majority vote; their reception was but "the bare belief in the bare fact."
In 1823 Alexander Campbell and a part of his church were dismissed by the association and received into an Association in Ohio. Here he published a little monthly, the "Christian Baptist," which in 1830 became the "Millennial Harbinger." It was antimission; denouncing missionary, temperance and Bible societies and Sunday schools as evil. Mr. Campbell was at that time merely an eccentric hardshell
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Baptist preacher. In accordance with his Sandemanian views he baptized persons who professed a historical faith in Christ, requiring from them no evidence of regeneration or repentance. He taught that salvation was in baptism:"God has opened a fountain for sin; he has given it an extension as far and as wide as water flows. Wherever water, faith, and the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit are, there will be found the efficacy of the blood of Jesus."He joined hands with the Romanists in making repentance an outward act. "Do penance and be baptized," says one. "Reform and be immersed," echoes the other. It harmonizes with the intellectual theory of saving faith. This teaching is welcome to the unsaved man, who will do anything if he is not required to submit to God. His anti-mission teachings commended Campbell in some quarters. The name "Reformation" misled others, who supposed it to mean a reformation of the spiritual life. For a few years, from 1827 onward, this teaching spread among Baptists like a forest fire, on a line west and south of west from Pennsylvania. In the northern, southern and eastern states it never made much headway. In 1827 the Pennsylvania Baptists Association that fellowshipped Mr. Campbell's church, announced a disfellowship. The example was followed by other surrounding Baptist Associations. From that time the movement was a separate sect, They were known as, Reformers, then as Christians, then as Disciples, etc., all unobjectionable; only they cannot be distinctive names for there are other disciples and other christians.Many Baptist churches were divided, and some went entirely over. But this generally happened through the manipulation of the pastor. In 1830 the Sycamore Street Baptist church, Cincinnati, under the personal influence of Mr. Campbell accepted his teachings and changed their name to the "First Christian Baptist Church" of Cincinnati. After a time the "Baptist" was dropped and all that was left was the plain christian; and yet one might question whether it was christian or not. In 1832 the pastor of the Shelbyville Baptist church became "Campbellite," and succeeded in having "Baptist" stricken from the name of the church, and "christian" substituted. It was many years before there was another Baptist church in Shelbyville. Decatur, two years afterwards, had a similar experience. The church was organized as the "Christian Baptist church," and when the suitable time had come
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the "Baptist" was stricken off. The Friendship Baptist church, Perry county, three miles from Tamaroa, as late as 1869 went the same road. Missouri Baptists suffered most, Indiana next, Illinois came third. Butler University, Ind., was the gift of one of the Baptist families that lapsed to Campbell in those days. Silver Creek church, the oldest Baptist church in Indiana, passing this resolution in 1830:"This church deems it disorder to invite any preacher to preach, or administer in the church among us, who is of the pretended reformation, or who vindicates or circulates Alexander Campbell's pamphlets or his new translation of the New Testament."The translation, that is, in which reformation is substituted for repentance, and thereby change of behavior is accepted instead of change of mind. Even the antimission churches, pleased as they were at first, discovered their mistake and withdrew their favor. In 1830 the Circular Letter of the old Illinois Association, antimission at that time, was written by Thomas Ray, pastor of the Second Cantine Creek church. His choice of Campbellism as his topic shows that the Campbellites were pressing them hard. He made three points against the system, referring especially to the denial of the Holy Spirit: (1) If the Spirit is in the word, and there only, why was Paul not converted by the word of God rather than by a miraculous appearance of Jesus? (2) What is the use of praying, if God has no means outside of his word of communicating to us the answer? (3) Was the Reformation under Luther and the subsequent revivals, brought about by the word of God or by the Spirit?Much has been done since Campbell's day to restate his teachings and chip off the corners, but not so as to make any essential change.
========= [Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists -- A History, 1930, pp. 111-113. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall]
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