Posts by Bryant Perkins (Page 12)
It Will Be Alright By and By
All of us at some time or another get depressed and discouraged. Sometimes we just want to give up and quit. In the heat of a moment, we’ll say, “That’s it, I’m quitting this job.” Or, “I’m going to leave this town and never look back.” Or even, “I’m done with the church – they’ll never miss me.” How often have we felt that life was seemingly stacked against us? That the harder we try, the worse things get? That…
Restored and Always Restoring
For several weeks, we have been telling the history of the Restoration Movement in this space. If you missed any of the articles in this series, you can find them on our website. Throughout its course, we have covered a lot of ground: we noted the impulse toward recovering the New Testament church in several movements from the Middle Ages; saw the principle of restoration applied in different ways by groups like the Anabaptists and the Puritans; explored the simultaneous…
Stone and Campbell Unite
The two Restoration Movements led respectively by Barton W. Stone and Thomas and Alexander Campbell came into increasing contact with each other in Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky throughout the 1820s. Their interactions brought the realization that they had a great deal in common, with their commitment to Scripture as their only guide and common call to unify Christians around the primitive NT church. Despite some differences that existed, members of both movements began to question why they did not unite…
Stone and Campbell Intersect
A Restoration Movement, led primarily by Barton W. Stone, emerged in Kentucky; another Restoration movement, led by Thomas and Alexander Campbell, emerged in southwest Pennsylvania. As these two groups spread, they began to intersect in Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. By 1823, Stone’s Christian numbered between 15 and 20 thousand, and few had heard of Alexander Campbell. But that year, he traveled to Kentucky to debate the Presbyterian W. L. McCalla on baptism, taking along several copies of his new journal,…
Alexander Campbell and the Baptists
While Thomas Campbell was separated from his family, establishing himself—and a burgeoning reform movement—in America, they had an eventful 30 months themselves. Their first attempt at a voyage was shipwrecked off the coast of Scotland. That night, while awaiting rescue, Thomas’s 20 year old son Alexander Campbell (1788-1866) made a decision he had often contemplated: he would devote his live to ministry. It was too late in the year to attempt to cross the Atlantic again, so the Campbells settled…
Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address
While the various men we have written about in the past few weeks – O’Kelly, Smith, Jones, and Stone – were aspiring to be simply New Testament Christians in the United States, the principal figures of the fourth and final movement to examine were still in the British Isles. Thomas Campbell (1763-1854) was a Presbyterian minister in Ireland who became increasingly dissatisfied with the divisiveness of his denomination: he was not just a Presbyterian, but an Old Light, Anti-Burgher, Seceder…
Early-American Restoration Movements
For the last few weeks, we have had a series of articles covering the roots of the Restoration Movement. We looked at its spiritual predecessors in the Middle Ages; we saw more direct influences in the Reformed tradition, especially as delivered through the Puritans, as well as the Anabaptists. All of these factors were present in Europe, of course. But certain features peculiar to the American experience, particularly in the aftermath of the Revolution, made it ripe for the Restoration…
Renaissance, Reformation, and Restoration
The Renaissance When we divide world history into discrete periods – realizing, of course, that nothing, in reality, is ever as neat and tidy as it appears in a textbook – the ebb of learning that characterized much of the Middle Ages is followed by the Renaissance (c. 1300-1517). The dependence on institutional authority that defined much of medieval life for common people – not least in the church – was rejected for an individualism manifested primarily as faith in…
The Danger of Anger
We all know the type of pithy little sayings that you find on church signs sometimes. Perhaps you have seen this one: “Anger is just one letter short of being danger.” It’s true; anger can be dangerous. And I imagine most of us experience times when we lose our tempers, because anger is one of the most difficult emotions to control. It’s like the comic book character, the Incredible Hulk. Normally he is a mild-mannered scientist, Dr. Bruce Banner –…
James Harding on (Re)Baptism
We celebrate Independence Day this week, a time to reflect on the beliefs and actions of our Founding Fathers. In a similar way, I think it is profitable to occasionally consider the views of our fathers in the faith. James Harding was a preacher, writer, and educator in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; Harding University is named for him. This is from the July, 1900 edition of his publication “The Way” in response to a letter from a…
You Never Mentioned Him to Me
So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. (Ezekiel 33:7-8) James Rowe is one…
A Father’s Choice
On a Sunday in 1910 in Spokane, Washington, a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd was listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in church and decided that fathers needed a day of their own. Eventually, this day was set aside nationally to honor fathers in the same manner that Mother’s Day is set aside for mothers – at least theoretically, anyway. Fathers often seem to be an afterthought compared to mothers in terms of the respect they get for their role…