Christian Connection

Christian Connexion
Classification	Protestant, Restorationist
Orientation	Evangelical, Unitarian
Polity	Congregationalist
Founder	Abner Jones, Elias Smith, James O'Kelly and Barton Stone.
Separated from	Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Methodists.
Merge of	Merged with the Congregationalists, to become the Congregational Christian Church. They then merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Church, and became the United Church of Christ.

The Christian Connection or Christian Connexion was a Christian movement which began in several places during the late 18th and early 19th centuries and were secessions from three different religious denominations. The Christian Connection claimed to have no creed, instead professing to rely strictly on the Bible. In practice, members tended to cluster around various shared theological concepts, such as a Pelagian-like theological anthropology (i.e. doctrine of human nature), a rejection of the doctrine of election and a radically decentralized form of church government. The Connexion's periodical, the Herald of Gospel Liberty (first published on September 1, 1808), is considered by some historians to be the first religious journal ever published in the U.S.

Predecessor groups

In 1792, James O'Kelly, dissatisfied with the role of bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church, separated from this body. O’Kelley’s movement, centering in Virginia and North Carolina, was originally called Republican Methodists. The denominational name was dropped in 1794 in favor of the name Christian and a commitment to use the Bible as the only "rule of faith and practice."

During the first several years of the 19th century, two Baptist ministers in New England espoused similar views to O’Kelley and began exclusively using the name Christian. Working independently at first, Abner Jones of Vermont and Elias Smith of New Hampshire joined together in their efforts.

In 1801, the Cane Ridge Revival in Kentucky would plant the seed for a movement in Kentucky and the Ohio River valley to disassociate from denominationalism. Barton W. Stone and five others published The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery in 1804 giving up denominational ties and preferring to be known simply as Christians. Stone was influenced by his earlier involvement with O'Kelley and knew of the Republican Methodists use of only the name Christian.

Ideologically, the New England movement displayed an extreme form of republicanism. Convinced that the American Revolution demanded a thorough and utter break with European modes of operation, members tended to demand radical reform of politics, the legal system, medicine and religion. Elias Smith's career particularly emphasized medical and spiritual reform. All visible forms of church government were to be rejected, he argued, because they were inherently “British”. The movement’s nativist approach to theology and church polity imparted a unique flavor to the movement, placing them solidly on the fringe of early nineteenth-century North American spirituality.

Formation

By 1808, O’Kelley’s followers and the Smith/Jones movement were cooperating closely, and Stone’s Christians in Kentucky would soon follow suit. This loose fellowship of churches was called by the names Christian Connection/Connexion or Christian Church. Adherents anti-organizational commitments prevents one from referring to “union” ‘’per se’‘, at least before the middle of the century. Stone's concept of unity grew from a belief that Christians could extract the Bible’s truths by reason, they approached it without presuppositions. These truths, in turn would displace human forms of order, leading to the unstoppable result that Christians would start “flowing together” and others would come to faith because of the model of unity (Christian Messenger Vol.I,#1 25 December 1825, pp. 4–5).

The Connexion soon became international, churches created in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec (1811) and Ontario (1821). In each case, the missions were extensions of preaching tours from neighboring American states. Thus all of the Canadian congregations were related to the New England movement. The failed Rebellions of 1837 (led by principally by Louis-Joseph Papineau and William Lyon Mackenzie) massively undercut the Connexion's Canadian wings. Solely in Ontario did churches survive, almost all of those north and east of Toronto, Ontario. Conflict between the Connexion and the Disciples of Christ also disrupted the former's Canadian growth.

Separation of the "Christians"

In 1832, many of the Christian Churches in Kentucky and Tennessee led by Stone united with the churches led by Alexander Campbell. A minority continued to operate within the orbit of the Connexion. Of the majority of churches that aligned with the Stone-Campbell movement, many continued to use the name Christian Church, even though they no longer considered themselves part of the Christian Connection. The confusion over names which this created still continues. Much of the historiography of this period is driven by the current needs and issues of the successor denominations.

Organizational development

Through the 1830s and 1840s, practical difficulties associated with the movement’s attempt at radical reform led to an erosion of the anti-organizational principles developed by Jones, Smith and others. David Millard and Joseph Badger provided leadership towards a more stable form of inter-congregational relationship. Both, at differing times, were editors of the Christian Palladium, a New York State-based religious newspaper that vied with the Herald of Gospel Liberty as the movement’s leading periodical.

A disproportionate number of Christian Connexion preachers in New England were involved in the eschatological stir fueled by speculations of William Miller. No fewer than seven of the 16 signatories to the 1840 call for an Adventist general conference were Connexion preachers. Many members left the Connexion in the mid-1840s, populating emerging denominations such as the Seventh-day Adventists and the Advent Christians.

In 1850, the General Convention of the Christian Church passed a resolution calling for the establishment of Antioch College. The college opened in 1852. Notable for its time, the Christian Connection decided that the college "shall afford equal privileges to students of both sexes." The Christian Connection sect wanted the new college to be sectarian, but the planning committee decided otherwise. Antioch College was one of the nation's first colleges to offer the same curriculum to men and women as well as to admit blacks and operate on a non-sectarian basis.

Mainstream and merger

For the second half of the nineteenth-century, leaders of the Connexion pursued a policy of alignment with the mainstream. What had been birthed as a strident protest against staid religiosity was drifting back in that direction. The temperance movement, the Sunday School movement and the Bible societies all served as avenues of service through which Connexion members could demonstrate to other denominations the many similarities this cluster of once fringe bodies now shared with the major religious organizations.

The Christian Church merged with the Congregational Churches in 1931 to form the Congregational Christian Churches. In 1957 after twenty years of discussion and work, the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church, itself the product of the merger of two German-American denominations, forged the United Church of Christ. In 1989, the UCC and Disciples of Christ agreed to participate in full communion with each other, while remaining separate denominations.

See also

• Restoration Movement

References

• Centennial of Religious Journalism Dayton, Ohio: Christian Publishing Association, 1908
• Fulop, Timothy Earl “Elias Smith and the Quest for Gospel Liberty: Popular Religion and Democratic Radicalism in Early Nineteenth-Century New England.” Unpublished Doctor of Philosophy thesis, Department of Religion, Princeton University, 1992
• Hammond, Gilbert Romine Album of Christian Ministers, churches and lay workers and colleges Marshalltown, Iowa: Arme Printing Co., 1915
• Hatch, Nathan O. The Democratization of American Christianity New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989
• Humphreys, E.W. Memoirs of Deceased Christian Ministers; or, Brief Sketches of the Lives and Labors of 975 Ministers, Who Died Between 1793 and 1880 Dayton, Ohio: Christian Publishing Association, 1880
• Jennings, Walter Wilson Origin and Early History of the Disciples of Christ Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 1919.
• Kenny, Michael G. The Passion of Ansel Bourne: Multiple Personality in American Culture Washington, District of Columbia: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1986
• Kenny, Michael, G. The Perfect Law of Liberty: Elias Smith and the Providential History of America Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994
• Kilgore, Charles Francis The James O'Kelly Schism in the Methodist Episcopal Church D.F. [Federal District], Mexico: Casa Unida De Publicationes, 1963
• Morrill, Milo True History of the Christian Denomination in America. Dayton: The Christian Publishing Association, 1912.
• Murch, James DeForest Christians Only. Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 1962.
• A Short Course in UCC History: The Christian Churches
• Steinacher, C. Mark An Aleatory Folk: An Historical-Theological Approach to the Transition of the Christian Church in Canada from Fringe to Mainstream 1792-1898 Unpublished Doctor of Theology thesis, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, 1999
• UCC-Disciples Ecumenical Partnership
• A Short Course in UCC History: The Congregational Christian Churches
• A Short Course in UCC History: The Evangelical and Reformed Church