Church History
Teachers
Lesson Summary
Art Clark taught a class on Church History focusing on the origins of the Restoration Movement through the Brush Run Church and the Campbell family. The class examined how this small congregation of approximately 30-40 members, founded in 1811, sought to restore New Testament Christianity by implementing weekly communion based on what they called an "approved precedent"—the apostolic practice of meeting on the first day of the week. The teacher explained that while Jesus and the apostles did not explicitly command weekly communion, the Brush Run Church saw biblical evidence that early Christians gathered weekly and partook of the Lord's Supper, leading them to adopt this practice in contrast to Presbyterian quarterly observance or Baptist monthly practice. A critical turning point came when Joseph Bryant refused to participate in communion because he had not been immersed, having only received infant baptism by sprinkling as a Presbyterian. This raised fundamental questions about valid baptism that would occupy Alexander Campbell's attention. The situation became more pressing when Alexander married Margaret Brown in March 1811, and they faced the question of how to baptize their coming child. Alexander undertook extensive study of baptism in English, French, and Greek sources, becoming convinced that only immersion of believers constituted scriptural baptism. This conviction, shared by his wife and increasingly by the congregation, marked a decisive shift toward emphasizing believer's baptism as central to New Testament Christianity, even as it brought social ostracism from surrounding Presbyterian communities.