The Trinity in the Stone-Campbell Movement

Recovering the Heart of Christian Faith

Kelly D. Carter

• Publisher: Abilene Christian University Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780891126812
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología cristiana

An assessment of Trinitarian thought in the two-hundred-year-old Stone-Campbell Movement, including suggestions for ways in which the renewal of Trinitarian doctrine can revitalize the church's life and mission.Throughout its history the Stone-Campbell Movement has noticeably neglected Trinitarian doctrine, prohibiting a biblical understanding of God as Trinity from significantly impacting the movement's churches. This book attempts to rectify this weakness in three ways. First, a focus on the Trinitarian positions of Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell, and Barton W. Stone sheds new light on the early shapers of the movement.Second, the book lays out specific ways in which the movement would benefit by a biblically grounded Trinitarianism and the contributions of contemporary trinitarian theologians. And third, it presents a plan for the advancement of biblical Trinitarian doctrine among Stone-Campbell churches.Significant contributions of this study include the most thorough examination to date of Trinitarian doctrine in Stone-Campbell thought, an original presentation of the historical theology that stands behind the Trinitarian positions of Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell, and Barton W. Stone, and a fresh proposal regarding the roots of Barton Stone's quasi-Arianism.

1

Introduction

A book examining both what the individual, earliest SC leaders thought about the Trinity and the subsequent general theological orientation with respect to the Trinity of the Stone-Campbell Movement (hereafter abbreviated SCM) will not amount to a re-exploration of issues adequately addressed by others. In fact, no published full-length scholarly monographs give an adequate account of the early Restorationists’ Trinitarian tendencies or more generally assess Trinitarianism within the SCM. Although some circumscribed accounts address the Trinity from a Restorationist perspective, key issues and questions largely remain unexplored.¹ It is the goal of this book to provide both a comprehensive examination of early Restorationist Trinitarian thought and an assessment of the place of the doctrine of the Trinity in the SCM in general. For a sizable group of Christian thinkers—namely, those who write, teach, preach, pastor, and otherwise lead by doing theology within the SC tradition—a study of the Movement’s Trinitarianism will help to fill gaps which currently exist within both historical studies of Restorationist theology and Restorationist theology.²

The fact that there are relatively few published materials written by either early or later Restorationists that directly address the subject of the Trinity is not happenstance. This absence fits with a pervasive hesitancy to “speculate on the incomprehensible Jehovah,”³ so that philosophical and systematic theology have been, by far, the most neglected of the standard theological disciplines among Restorationists. Alexander Campbell’s attitude regarding speculation on the Trinity is discernible in his seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theological/historical predecessors and contemporaries, pervading not only his attitude but those of his father (despite Thomas Campbell’s willingness to use language concerning the Trinity that his son considered “speculative”) and of Barton Stone.⁴ Nonetheless, the Campbells and Stone did on occasion address Trinitarianism, so an understanding of their positions may be delineated even while their hesitancy to formulate Trinitarian theology and doctrine is examined.

My hope is that this study will significantly contribute to an understanding of the history and theology of the SCM by assessing Restorationist Trinitarian thought and offer significant suggestions concerning the role an overtly delineated Trinitarianism could play wherever it is lacking in SC churches and their theologies. The intention is to correct a foundational theological error, including its practical ramifications. An avoidance of Trinitarian doctrine left SC theology incomplete and inappropriately centered, negatively impacting its ecclesiology and praxis. Thus, this book will be historically descriptive and both theologically and ecclesiologically constructive.

In addition to the historical, theological, and ecclesiastical significance of the subject, at least four factors indicate the timeliness of an in-depth examination of SC Trinitarianism. First, this project is being undertaken on the heels of, in response to, and as part of the ongoing, unprecedented work of a number of historians and historical theologians at the close of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first. Leonard Allen, Michael Casey, James Duke, Douglas Foster, David Edwin Harrell, Richard Hughes, John Mark Hicks, Hiram Lester, Thomas Olbricht, Richard Phillips, Hans Rollmann, Ernie Stefanik, Mark Toulouse, D. Newell Williams, and numerous others have since the early 1980s offered illuminating insights into the intellectual, ecclesiastical, and theological history of the SCM and American biblical primitivism. Those efforts are significantly shaping the preaching, teaching, and ministries of those who conduct their spiritual lives in a SC ecclesiastical context. Such efforts apply and build upon the earlier work of W. E. Garrison, W. H. Hanna, Lester McAllister, and others who performed the same function for previous generations.

A second factor indicating the timeliness of this book is the ecclesiastical ferment present within the traditionally most conservative branch of the SCM—the CCa—where my own spiritual heritage lies. In the past four decades, the CCa has been in great flux, as churches that previously clearly understood who they were and what they believed began to question the validity of some of their key beliefs and practices, leading in some cases to significant alterations in doctrinal understanding, ecclesiastical character, and liturgical patterns. Changes in the intellectual landscape of North America, including what is generally referred to as post-modernism, have given rise in CCa to questions concerning the character of Scripture, the ways in which Scripture’s authority should influence belief and practice, its interpretation, its central theological themes and their importance, and its application both in churches and in the lives of individual Christians. The growth of evangelicalism in North America—including the dissolving of denominational rigidity between conservative Christians, the ascendancy and influence of megachurches, the amazing multiplication of conservative, unaffiliated community churches with whom CCa have increasing contact, and the tremendous expansion of evangelical publishing—has created a climate in which denominational isolation is virtually impossible, and contact with others has led many in CCa to entertain changes in perspectives and practices.

The result of the above ecclesiastical ferment in CCa is routinely termed an “identity crisis.” It is not just that there now exists a broad spectrum of beliefs and practices among CCa in the world, so that one cannot know exactly what will occur when visiting any particular congregation on a Sunday morning. It is that many individual congregations have lost the practical and theological moorings which previously created for them a self-identity and justification for their existence. Among the vast array of religious and theological options available, what comprises the foundational system of beliefs that sustains the existence and particularity of the fellowship of CCa? What, now, is the rationale for their existence in distinction from other groups of conservative Christians; are the differences between themselves and others sufficient to justify continued separation? What purposes derive from what central theological values, so that churches can identify not only who they are but what purposes they serve? It is partially in light of such questions that the current book finds its justification.

Third, exploring Trinitarianism within the SCM is required by some relatively recent overtures made by thinkers in the movement toward the actual doing of Trinitarian theology. Of note first are the publications of Roy Lanier, Ed Myers and J. J. Turner, and Lonzo Pribble, all of which attempt to address the subject of the Trinity in an ecclesiastical context historically reticent to do so. They are in this sense welcome aberrations. These writers and their publications demonstrate great variance in intention, scope, theological acuity, and theological orientation, but they share treatments of a common theme, published within a few years of each other, after decades of relative silence on the subject of the Trinity. Mention should also be made of Leonard Allen and Danny Swick’s Participating in God’s Life: Two Crossroads for Churches of Christ. While not written as systematic theology or as a monograph on the Trinity (as are the previously mentioned works), Allen and Swick’s assessment of and contribution to practical ecclesiology gives an account of the significance of Trinitiarian theology for CCa.

In fact, it is Allen and Swick’s work which points toward a fourth factor indicating the appropriateness of this study. Theologians may have overstated both the scarcity of Trinitarian thinking prior to the publication of Volume 1, Part 1 of Barth’s Church Dogmatics and the apparent renewal of Trinitarian studies since that point, but it is difficult to miss how much more frequently systematic theologians have directed their attention toward Trinitarian theology since 1967, when Karl Rahner’s The Trinity was published. Works by Boris Bobrinsky, David Cunningham, Robert Jenson, Catherine LaCugna, Jürgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Ted Peters, Kathryn Tanner, T. F. Torrance, Miroslav Wolf, John Zizioulas, and numerous others have explicated Trinitarian perspectives that not only make central the doctrine of the Trinity but also bear ramifications for SC adherents willing to test contemporary theological waters. Allen and Swick explored these waters by applying the Trinitarian views of Catherine LaCugna in their work. This project seeks to encourage Restorationists to undertake other similar investigations and applications of contemporary Trinitarian theology at a time when many have reasserted the importance of Trinitarian doctrine within Christian theology.

Some SCM adherents still commonly profess the historical/doctrinal position which asserts that the progenitors of the RM relied on few precedents aside from Scripture and no predecessors for their “no creed but the Bible” foundation. For them, it is as if early Restorationists’ primitivistic approaches to theology and ecclesiastical practice had no parallels or roots prior to the efforts that began early in the nineteenth century. In this view, Restorationists developed wholly new hermeneutical practices, new views of the character and authority of Scripture, new concerns for individual religious liberty and for establishing and restoring the primitive beliefs and practices of the biblical church, a devotion to Christian unity unprecedented among English-speaking Protestants, and a unique aversion to denominational Christianity and the statements of faith, confessions, and creeds that identified distinct fellowships.

Such a perspective is being challenged today by the unprecedented work of a number of historians and historical theologians who have identified intellectual, theological, and ecclesiastical parallels between Restorationists and others and delineated the common roots arising out of this milieu. Foundational SC documents have been carefully and critically examined, so that Restorationist thought can be viewed in context, complete with an understanding of the origins of key Restorationist ideas. The simplistic, unhistorical, somewhat naïve perspective that depicted Restorationist thought as uniquely revolutionary has been superseded by critical understanding and careful research, leading not to a depreciation of the value of the ideas of SC progenitors, but to a deeper appreciation of their ability to reflect on contemporary theology, their awareness of intellectual trends, and their willingness to apply new ideas to their own theological and ecclesiastical contexts. They were children of their age, but not naively so. To think of them as uneducated, ignorant, backwater, anti-intellectual preachers unaware of theological trends of their day is to misperceive and underestimate their abilities, experiences, and contributions.

Many now acknowledge the impact of the Reformation on Restorationists, and the philosophical, historical, and denominational roots of early Restorationists have been carefully traced—specifically with reference to the Irish/Scottish/American Presbyterian background of Thomas and Alexander Campbell, Walter Scott, and Barton Stone and to the influence of the Baconian, Lockean, Newtonian intellectual world of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. However, I contend that the debt early Restorationists owed to both their contemporary Protestant theological climate and to specific theologians and their writings needs further explication, especially with reference to the Trinity. Restorationists’ perceptions about the Trinity were neither unique nor formulated in a theological vacuum, justifying a careful look at the theological impulses that led them to their conclusions. This study is historical and descriptive in that it will include (1) a description of Trinitarianism among early Restorationists, and (2) the intellectual and, especially, the theological background that serves as the catalyst for what develops from Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell, and Barton Stone concerning the Trinity.⁵

Understanding what the Campbells and Stone did with Trinitarian doctrine and the Trinitarian ethos of the SCM in general will be enhanced by an understanding of some of the basic issues concerning classical Trinitarian discussion. These include questions related to:

• Monarchianism; monarchian alternatives offered in Sabellianism
• Modalism; the views of Novatian; the views of Arius of Antioch, who described the Son as “created”
• Arius’s Alexandrian counterparts Alexander and Athanasius who thought of the Son as being completely God
• The foundational Trinitarian statements from Nicea in AD 325 and Constantinople in AD 381, including the creedal usage of homoousios; the delineations of the Cappadocian fathers concerning ousia and hypostasis
• The eternality of the Son, his pre-existence, and his status as begotten from the Father
• The definition of and rise of Socinianism around the time of the Reformation
• The impact of non-Trinitarian views on eighteenth-century English Presbyterians, including the Independents and English dissenters.

This book will not offer an introduction to such matters here, so it is suggested that readers unacquainted with this theological history consult the many works that do. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia in both its early and revised editions offers such material, and numerous introductory works and overviews, including various websites, provide both this information and bibliography for studying these matters.⁶

The closest connection between these classical Trinitarian issues and the founders of the SCM concerns the question of the relationship between the Father and Son. There may be a relatively insignificant disagreement between the positions of the Campbells and that of classical NiceanConstantinoplean Trinitarianism; with Thomas Campbell one sees a mild subordination of the Son and with Alexander Campbell questions arise concerning the eternality of the Son and the incorrectness of referring to the λόγος by using Father-Son terminology. With Barton Stone there is a definite move in the direction of Arianism, whereby the Son finds his origin in the Father at a specific time prior to natural history, meaning that the Son cannot be identical with the one and only true God, who alone is eternal.

Chapters Two and Three will provide an examination into the Trinitarian thinking of three of the SCM patriarchs—Alexander Campbell (1788–1866), Thomas Campbell (1763–1854), and Barton Stone (1772–1844). Reference will also be made to Robert Richardson (1806–1876) and a few other early Restorationists. These two chapters and an examination in Chapter Four of the historical and theological roots from which these leaders derived their positions will for...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Trinity among the Early Disciples—Thomas and Alexander Campbell
• 3 The Trinity in the Writings of Barton Stone: Stone’s Quasi-Arianism
• 4 The Historical/Theological Roots of Early Restorationist Trinitarianism
• 5 The Impact of Prior Trinitarian Perspectives on Trinitarian Theology in the Later Stone-Campbell Movement
• 6 The Need For Reassessing Stone-Campbell Trinitarian Perspectives
• 7 Toward A Stone-Campbell Trinitarian Theology: A Summary Proposal
• Bibliography