Colony Church
This section of the book is extensive. I have more books and papers on this subject than I have hours in the day to read them. The information is vast and profound. So I will try my best to live up to the predecessors.
When the Hutterites formed their Chistian community they reformed the church to suit the needs of the colony. Because this would be an independent colony with and independent church, I chose an American model of reformormation that took place in Kentucky, 1804, The Cane Ridge Revival.
Because the Can Ridge Revival was not a colony and simply a group of spirited Christian who came together to form a church that reflected their values, I also applied some of Hutterite rituals and laws to the New Colony. Such As, church and state separation, the Church as a corporation and adult Baptism.
For the purpose of this section I will only discuss the reformation and discuss the other areas of the church another time.
The Cane Ridge communion of revival began on August 6th, 1801 and ended on August 12. In Kentucky, Tennessee this 6 day event paved the way for an extensive church revival. At the time, an estimated 125 to 148 wagons were on the grounds and 40 ministers participated, where 5 to 7 preached at the sametime.
Throughout the six days, the attendance was from 12,000 to 20,000. This was a social celebration that seemed to erupt organically simply by the spirit and excitement of the group.
The group ranged from professed Baptised Christian to those who reflected a strong evangelical approach to a handful of atheists. The near anarchy of the mix confronted people with an intensity that evoked something very primal and primitive. People with no religious background were as susceptible to the energy as Christians. However the latter appeared ill equipt to make sence of the piety.
On the one hand, the tremendous personal revelation awakened self-daught, on the other it eminented intense joy. The sermons provoked dance and movement. The actions appeared beyond one's control and no one seemed unaffected by the physical effects.
An occasion that inspired people to reenact these precious moments in every area of their lives. The group had a desire to participate fully in all services and experimental piety was encouraged. All that was required from them was that they in some way be conscious of the feeling and moods of the people around them. For the pious, this inertia was the holy spirit.
In 1801 this Kentucky movement marveled at a near Utopia, which had become the long awaited Christian revival.
A revival that replaced the Bible above all Creed's to create a form of religious freedom. A way to separate establishment from God.
The idea of religious freedom was drawn from the Scottish reformed Presbyterian church.
Burton Stone was the driving force of the ministry which was based on the notion that from Christiany a person could achieve unity, freedom and liberty. Ideals that would carry close knit communities.
There was a valuable innocence that motivated Stone's movement.
Several centuries prior to this movement, in 1514, John Knox was born. The Scottish Irish historian was a man of indignation and purpose who led the 16th century Scottish religious reformation. A minister of a context of change that at the time swept through Europe.
A great spiritual warrior of the revolution whose traits produced a mixed legacy. This curiosity created something of a legend.
The Scottish reformer was the founder of a progressive branch of Protestants known as Presbyterians, Knox was deeply involved with the community of reformed churches in England, France, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland and Scotland. With Knox's reformed order of worship, his sermons preached with spiritual conviction. His disciplined study of the Bible ensured an accomplished and brilliant mind.
Although out of his hundreds of sermons only 2 were published. The words exploded in the hearts and minds of those who received them.
In 1560, Knox was the primary author of First Book of Disciple for the Newly Revolutionized Church, in which he discussed his views on reform policy for the church. Among some of the basic principles were commitment to freedom, and Ethos of Cathology, simplicity and original Christianity, the centrality of the Bible, Evangelism and learned ministry.
Knox recognized the need to preach the Bible from its origins with conviction and generosity.
Selections from First book of Disciples:
- Congregational Governance, right to elect its own learned minister.
- Demecratic ministry with elected elders and Deacons.
- Gods word understood through plain reading and interpretation.
- A parish based school system.
- Centrality to the Bible in life and Faith.
John Knox was a Christian minister whose preaching evoked violent revolution. He was considered one of the most powerful preachers of his time. In 1559 Knox preached in Scotland to increased protestant militancy.
The violence inspired a national covenant signed by thousands protesting to establish Scottish Presbyterianism as the natural choice. Many signed in their own blood. This group was known as the Covenanters.
An assembly of clergy, the Synod, delegated Knox to a particular delegation to correct the Scottish revivalist disorder in the Cumberland Presbytery in Tennessee.
Knot ultimately sat in judgement of the so-called Wild Five. John Knox died in 1572.
Two decades later, in 1792, Stone Campbell searched the scriptures to find a congregation that had its right to self appointed ministers. Here he absorbed Knox's standards of Freedom as it related to congregational governance and personal Liberty. Stone searched Knox's scriptures to interpret truth without creed or eccelesial orthodoxy.
Stone, like Knox, cared deeply about religious freedom, which clearly emerged as a great importance in his understanding of the text. From the heart of John Knox to the mind Burton Stone the formation of the Cane Ridge revival was rooted.
On June 28, 1804 Stone published his first book The Last Will and Testament of The Springfield Presbytery.
These are three of the nine reasons of freedom:
- We will that our power of making laws for the government of the church and executing them by delegated authority, forever cease, that the people may have free course into the Bible...
- We will that the church of Christ resume her native right of internal government...
- We will that each particular church, as a body chooses her own preacher...
It was Stone's belief that when a person came to Christ, he or she recieved the spirit of God, the spirit of Christ and the Spirit of Promise. Spirit meant to Stone, Christ's dwelling in us, encouraging people to believe that if the church could achieve Freedom and Unity this would renew the congregation into new creatures of Christ.
Although the men lived centuries apart, The New Light Presbyterians were formed by the infusion of both the thoughts of Knox and Stone. A time of religious history in America where the dynamics of change and reformation swept across the nation.
Stone's intellect and spirituality found it's pathway from the mind and heart of John Knox, with this he established a ministry to preserve both their convictions. Stone's spiritual path of two ideals, created a community from academics to a founded point of action in Kentucky, Tennessee, Cane Ridge revival.
The Chirstian Disciples of Christ continued to proclaim autonomous, self sufficient congregations, democratically governed with the right to private judgement. There was never a greater Christian revival than Cane Ridge. The genius of the Cane Ridge revival experience became the guiding light for a future ministry.
A ministry with an independent Christian congregation meant a reformed church where several forms of eccisiastical policies would be exercised. They drastically expanded roles of the lay people and in many cases allowed new leadership roles for women, who made up the majority of their congregation. While at the sametime emphasizing the respect for established traditions of an existing masculine authority system in the church.
Richard McNemar was a Scottish Prespytarian and briefly a Chrsitian New Light minister in the 1800’s, who published The Kentucky Revival. Then later became a Shaker. McNemar was on his way to become an influential Shaker in Western society when in September of 1803 the Synod charged him with heresy.
As the church assembly was in the midst of preparing a resolution to formally charge McNemar. Five ministers Robert Marshall, John Dunlavy, Richard McNemar, Burton Stone and John Thompson entered the meeting with a signed document protesting that the Synod withdrawal the charge of heresy.
The document proclaimed the right to interpret the scriptures without threat of reprimand and the statement closed with, 'Through the providence of God it seems good to your body to adapt a more liberal plan respecting Human Creeds and confessions.' This was the first signed declaration of Freedom.
Immediately following the signing on September 12, the five created the Springfield Presbytery. They claimed alone the Bible would be the guide and denounced the rule of Creeds.
In January 1804, the five ministers did two more things. They issued a hundred page justification for their actions entitled: An Abstract of an Apology for Renouncing the jurisdiction of the Synod of Kentucky, Being a Compendious View of the Gospel and a Few Remarks on the Confession of Faith.
Part one was written by Robert Marshall, Part two was written by Burton Stone.
Part one stated the importance of Theology, opposition to all confessions and Creeds, Christ died for all, faith is belief of testimony and the Gospel is the rule of Faith.
Part two was an action to dissolve The Scottish Springfield Presbytery. The book was entitled The Last Will In Testament of Springfield Presbytery, published by Stone. The group of five approved and signed the document. This was considered the founding document of the Disciples history.
From dissolving the Scottish New Light Presbyteriam, Stone received support in his New Light ministry. With Stone's ideals of Freedom and Unity he created an experimental and evangelistic religion. From which Stone received a licence, ordination along with his first selection of pastors of the Presbyterian congregation of Cane Ridge.
From this signing, Stone alone remained faithful to what became the Christian Movement. The document allowed Stone his Religious Reformation. This was the foundation for what would become Stone's Christian movement.
The origins of some type of Utopian Kingdom.
Bibliography
D. Duane Cummins Barton Stone: Pathway to the ideal of Religious Freedom 2016
D. Duane Cummins Barton Stone: Pathway to the ideal of Spiritual Unity 2016
Paul Keith Conkin Cane Ridge: America's Pentecost 1990
James W. Hooper The Shaker Communities of Kentucky: Pleasant Hill and South Union
2006
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