Thomas Campbell's Vision

This weekend, we will celebrate several things:

• The first Sunday of October, the Month of the Ministry
• World Communion Sunday, an ecumenical effort for all churches, regardless of how often they celebrate communion, to gather at the Lord's Table this day
• The 200th anniversary of Thomas Campbell's "Declaration and Address," a founding document of the movement that became the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Perhaps the least known of these is Campbell's "Declaration and Address," published near the end of 1809. This document, intended to form a non-sectarian Christian Association of Washington, PA, was an attempt to reform some of the excesses of the denominational churches, particularly their refusal to recognize each other's ministry as legitimate.

You can read Campbell's "Declaration and Address of the Christian Association of Washington" (PA) here.

Campbell was not a disinterested theologian. He was stripped of his standing as a Presbyterian minister because he refused to follow the instructions of his presbytery regarding who could and could not receive communion. Campbell believed that the presbytery's restrictions around the Lord's Supper were wrong, and could not be justified by the description of the sacrament in the New Testament.

As he worked through this, he came to believe that all denominations suffered from the same basic flaw -- they divided the church of Jesus Christ. Campbell believed that Jesus' prayer in John 17, that all his followers might be one, meant that the division among the church was not a divine wish, but a human creation.

The solution of this, which Campbell lays out in the "Declaration and Address," is to move away from denominationalism. Campbell believed that geographic Christian Associations, founded on the Christian practices of the early church described in the New Testament, offered a way toward the unity of believers.

Ultimately, Campbell's efforts were pretty unsuccessful. The Christian Association of Washington lasted only a few years. The movement to end denominations eventually just added to the number of Christian denominations.

On the other hand, some of the key elements remain and shape Christianity. The restrictions surrounding the communion table have been reduced over the past 200 years. And churches work together in ecumenical organizations, from local ministerial associations (like the Greater Fairmont Council of Churches) to larger organizations (the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches) to mission efforts (like Church World Service).

So we will celebrate Campbell's legacy this weekend. Some of us will travel to Bethany to visit the home, college, and town that Thomas Campbell's son Alexander built to further develop and teach this Restorationist theology. It should be a good weekend.