Disciples of Christ (Campbell Movement)

The Campbell wing of the American Restoration Movement was launched when Thomas Campbell published the Declaration and Address of the Christian Association of Washington in 1809. The Presbyterian Synod had suspended his ministerial credentials. In The Declaration and Address he set forth some of his convictions about the church of Jesus Christ, as he organized the Christian Association of Washington, in Washington County, Pennsylvania, not as a church but as an association of persons seeking to grow in faith. On May 4, 1811, the Christian Association constituted itself as a congregationally governed church. With the building it constructed at Brush Run, Pennsylvania, it became known as Brush Run Church. Thomas' son Alexander immigrated to the US to join him in 1809, and before long assumed the leading role in the movement. The Campbells worked within the Redstone Baptist Association during the period 1815 through 1824. While both the Campbells and the Baptists shared practices of baptism by immersion and congregational polity, it was soon clear that he and his associates were not traditional Baptists. Within the Redstone Association, some of the Baptist leaders considered the differences intolerable when Alexander Campbell began publishing a journal, The Christian Baptist, which promoted reform. Campbell anticipated the conflict and moved his membership to a congregation of the Mahoning Baptist Association in 1824. The Mahoning Association came under attack. In 1830, The Mahoning Baptist Association disbanded. The younger Campbell ceased publication of the Christian Baptist. In January 1831, he began publication of the Millennial Harbinger. ==Influence of the Enlightenment==

The Age of Enlightenment had a significant influence on the Campbell movement. Alexander Campbell was also deeply influenced by Enlightenment thinking, in particular the Scottish School of Common Sense of Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart. This group saw the Bible as providing concrete facts rather than abstract truths, and advocated a scientific or Baconian approach to interpreting the Bible that would begin with those facts, arrange the ones applicable to a given topic, and then use them to draw conclusions. Alexander Campbell reflected this approach, when arguing that "the Bible is a book of facts, not of opinions, theories, abstract generalities, nor of verbal definitions." He believed that if Christians would limit themselves to the facts found in the Bible, they would necessarily come to agreement. He saw those facts as providing a blueprint or constitution for the church. ==Characteristics of the movement==

Thomas Campbell combined the Enlightenment approach to unity with the Reformed and Puritan traditions of restoration. He had more confidence in the potential for human progress and believed that Christians could unite to transform the world and initiate a millennial age. "Disciples" was the name Alexander Campbell preferred. Opponents of the movement nicknamed them "Campbellites." ==Merger with the Christians (Stone Movement)==

The Campbell movement was characterized by a "systematic and rational reconstruction" of the early church, in contrast to the Stone movement which was characterized by radical freedom and lack of dogma. This was formalized at the High Street Meeting House in Lexington, Kentucky with a handshake between Barton W. Stone and "Raccoon" John Smith. The confusion over names has been present ever since. ==See also==