The myth of the Stone-Campbell movement

The Stone-Campbell Movement was created in 1832 when Barton Stone's "Christ-ians" from the West merged with Alexander Campbell's "Reforming Baptists." By the beginning of the Civil War it was the sixth largest religious movement in the United States. In the twentieth century the movement split into three main branches that exist today. In recent years, scholars from these branches have worked to better understand their nineteenth-century roots. A historical sub-field often called "restoration history" has emerged, in which historians and other scholars debate the influence of Stone and Campbell on certain characteristics of the existing branches.

This dissertation uses the writings of both Stone and Campbell to show that Stone was never a viable leader of the movement after 1832, and his ideas were never part of what influenced the various men and ideas that led to the development of the twentieth-century branches of the movement. The debates going on between "restoration historians" are thus predicated on the false assumption that Stone influenced people within the movement. The evidence presented in this dissertation proves that Stone was an outsider in the movement that bears his name. This dissertation furthermore provides evidence that Stone's broad and inclusive view of Christianity was an influence on another group called the Christian Connexion which partly grew out of Stoneite churches that openly rejected the 1832 union with Campbell. The history of the Christian Connexion and its development into the twentieth-century ecumenical movement called the United Church of Christ represents Barton Stone's true legacy.