HISTORY - continued

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) - continued

Walter Scott was the evangelist of the group of four, but not the stereotyped wild-eyed, frenzied, revivalist evangelist of the frontier. He related the faith more to the mind than emotions and sought intellectual integrity. He, like his colleagues Barton Stone and Thomas and Alexander Campbell, called for “restoration” of New Testament practices and belief.

It was this call to return to the “plain teaching” of the New Testament that led to problems. Alexander Campbell discovered that when, at a meeting he proposed as a permanent rule of faith and practice: “Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent.” At that point a local postmaster, Andrew Munro, rose solemnly and said: “Mr. Campbell, if we adopt this as a rule of faith, then there is an end of infant baptism.”

Campbell answered, “Of course, if infant baptism be not found in Scripture, we can have nothing to do with it.” At this, another believer present, Thomas Acheson, burst into tears saying, “I hope I may never see the day when my heart will renounce that blessed saying of the Scriptures, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven.’”

Campbell believed that anyone can read and understand the words of Scripture as any other book, but the “truth” of Scripture requires intentional study and the “light of the Holy Spirit.” That understanding has led most clearly in The United Church to the phrase in our Covenant where we say we “heartily believe in the province of private judgment in the interpretation of the Scriptures.”