Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126
Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127
My final paper titled: “A Movement for Wholeness in a Fragmented World: The Stone/Campbell movement and its Social religious views” will look at the development of the American restoration movement, more specifically the Stone/Campbell movement and its evolution to a socially progressive religious body. During the Early nineteenth century the Second Great Awakening swept through the United States Frontier. Inspired by this movement, two men, independently of each other, created a new form of Protestantism. Known as the restoration movement or the Stone/Campbell movement, this new form of Protestantism is considered the earliest indigenous United States protestant religion. Begun by Barton Stone and the Campbell family, Thomas and his son Alexander, the Stone/Campbell movement began as two separate religions with similar belief systems. They eventually merged in the mid-nineteenth century to become one religious protestant faith called the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) This amalgam of two religion led to various rifts and changes throughout its history. There is little exploration of this development. One way to look into the historiography is to broaden the view. Looking at the influences of the Second Great Awakening and the Enlightenment, as Thomas Campbell was a student of John Locke’s, on this “thinking man’s” movement will open the researcher to more options.
There are questions that need to be asked within this subject. The first question is how did the religious movement go from a restoration religion to a religion that positions itself as a social justice religion. This can hopefully be determined by regional histories of the development of the churches within the United States. The second question that must be asked is what role did women play within the early development of the Stone/Campbell movement. A recent book on one of the early female leaders will help to answer this question. While secondary documentation will be a little bit of a challenge within the research of the Stone/Campbell movement specifically. The primary documentation is out there. This protestant religion is extremely proud of their beginnings and has created an historical society that has primary documentation from many different areas and churches. Another source is the writings of Barton Stone, Alexander Campbell and another early leader “Racoon” John Smith. With the leads that I am finding, the hope is that this historiography will help to generate more interest in a movement that has developed and changed overtime in the attempt to fit an ever developing society.