The Apocalyptic Origins of Churches of Christ and the Triumph of Modernism

Abstract

The origins of the American-born Churches of Christ are exceedingly complex. While most historians have argued that Churches of Christ separated from Alexander Campbell's Disciples of Christ late in the nineteenth Century, this essay will suggest that the genesis of Churches of Christ was not a matter of Separation from the Disciples at all. Rather, Churches of Christ grew from two early nineteenth-century worldviews that coalesced and intertwined with one another in ways that often defy disentanglement. The first was the apocalyptic perspective of Barton W. Stone; the second was the radically sectarian mentality of the young and brash Alexander Campbell of the Christian Baptist period (1823-1830). As early as the 1830's, these two perspectives wed, brought together in part by the matchmaking power of poverty, marginality, and social estrangement. Together, they clearly shaped a portion of the Stone-Campbell movement that, in due time, would come to be known as a denomination separate from the Disciples; namely, the Churches of Christ.