In 1988 I was baptized in a little pond in Central Ohio. Shortly after this event I decided to go a Bible College in which I wanted to be trained in the Bible and be able to help young people who were struggling with life. When I entered Bible College I was introduced to a Christian movement that I had never heard of before. It was called the “Restoration Movement.” This movement was a result of 19th century reformers who saw how denominational churches in America had drifted away from God’s word and his teaching. The focus of the movement was returning to the primitive New Testament church. The Restoration Church had two major themes. Biblical authority and the unity of all believers. Men like Thomas and Alexander Campbell, Barton W. Stone, David Lipscomb, Racoon John Smith and others led this movement. By 1860 the movement counted nearly 200,000 members. These reformers emphasized such things as believer’s baptism by immersion, regular communion, and local church autonomy. It was the teachings of these reformers which began to shape my life.
Let’s move ahead to the present time or at least cover the last 10 years. Over the last 10 years or so I have come to the realization that Jesus taught a gospel that was focused on non-violence or peace. When we look to the gospels we see especially in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus taught his disciples to love their enemies and not to do harm to them. For Jesus this was not simply words but this is how he lived his life even to the point of his death. Historically non-violence was how the church in the first 300 years interpreted Jesus teaching. It is only after the church was influenced by Constantine that there was a shift in the thinking concerning peace and violence. In the last 10 years I have been digging into not only early church fathers but have also looked at the works of Anabaptists in my pursuit to understand the peaceful gospel. Yet it has only been recently that I was shocked to find out that the early Restoration Movement leaders also pushed non-violence in their teaching. They believed that non-violence was part of the primitive gospel of the New Testament. The reason I was shocked is that I took classes both in undergrad and graduate school on the Restoration Movement. I don’t remember any talk about their leaders focusing on non-violence being a part of the gospel. Yet leaders like Alexander Campbell, Barton W. Stone and David Lipscomb had a rich theology of non-violence. In this blog I want to look at some of Alexander Campbells arguments for a peaceful gospel. I will be using Campbells “Address on War” as well as the work from historian Craig M. Watts which will show that Campbell had a well-developed theology on non-violence.
When it came to war Campbell believed that Christians could not participate in war because to participate in war meant one would be killing other Christians in other nations. He believed that no nation was Christian except the church. The church was the “one nation composed of all the Christian communities and individuals in the whole earth.” For Campbell this meant that Christians could not take up arms because they would be killing other Christians. Campbell asked the question, “can Christ Kingdom in one nation wage war against his kingdom or church in another nation?” His answer was an emphatic no. War for the Christian was not an option. His problem was not so much nation against nation as much as it was a theological problem of church against church. Campbell had a high view of unity and the church could not have unity if it was killing other Christians.
In understanding Campbells gospel of peace one must understand his millennial view. Campbell believed in post-millennialism. He believed that the best way to usher in God’s reign on Earth was for the church to recover the original gospel. This meant a gospel of peace. Craig Watts would say that Campbell “had no intention of passively waiting for the millennium.” He believed that one had to enact in the present what he believed the future millennium would be like. Campbell would say “the principles of his government” are “to give them a taste of, and a taste for, heavenly things.” This meant that the Christian could not participate in war and violence because the millennium would be a time when the earthly powers would, according to Isaiah, “beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and learn war no more.” This view had an evangelistic appeal to it as well because people could get a picture of what the future would look like as they observed the church in the present. This probably explains why Campbell thought unity was so essential. If the church could not be united why would anyone want to be a part of it in some future state. If the church killed people now why would people desire to be a part of a future death and dying.
Much of evangelical Christianity is a hodge-podge of thoughts which tries to tie together a belief in God which separates itself from the ethics of Jesus. This was not the case for Campbell. Campbell believed that faith and works went together. He believed that the ethics of Jesus were not simply to be admired but to be practiced. Jesus pacifist ways were to be lived out by the early church. Campbell believed that Jesus was at war but his war was not waged like the wars of the World. The World used swords to subdue its enemy. The World used violence to beat people into submission. Campbell, though, rejected this line of thinking. He said, “to conqueror and enemy is to convert him into a friend.” He would spell this out by saying, “all arms and modes of warfare are impotent, save the arms and munitions of everlasting love.” This view was courageously different than many of the Reformers like Luther and Calvin, who believed that violence was a tool to be used by God. Alexander Campbell would have none of this. If one cannot support war by looking at the life of Jesus then the Christian has no business in being a part of or supporting any type of violence or warfare. Christian ethics mattered for Campbell.
Alexander Campbell was a deep thinker and very systematic in his thinking. If Christians could not go to war with Christians of other countries, if Christians were to live in such a way which would promote a heavenly new millennium which was free of violence, and if the very ethics of Jesus did not promote violence then the conclusion for Campbell was that Christians had no business in fighting at all. Campbell might best sum this up in the idea “that a Christian man can never of right be compelled to do that for the state, in defense of state rights, which he cannot of right do for himself in defense of his personal rights.” He would go on to say, “no Christian man is commanded to love or serve his neighbor, his king, or sovereign more than he loves or serves himself.” In other words if a Christian cannot go to war for himself he also is forbidden to go to war for his country. Many Christians have conceded that we are not commanded to go to war as individuals but have made the argument that we could go to war for our country for a good cause. Campbell rejects this dualistic approach. If one cannot personally kill then one cannot kill for the state, no matter how noble the cause. For Campbell this is a matter of witness for the Kingdom of Heaven. The church must refrain from any violence.
When Jesus was being arrested in the garden he told Peter to put his sword away, when Peter used it to cut the ear of one of those seeking to arrest Jesus. Jesus famous line, “he who lives by the sword will die by the sword,” was the very line upon which the early church based its commitment to non-violence. Campbell also saw this as an important part of his own stand against using violence. He would say, “Have not all nations created by the sword finally fallen by it.” Although Campbell would probably say that pacifism was not necessarily pragmatic but that it was a witness of the Kingdom of Heaven, it is at this point that Campbell could point to being pragmatic. Campbell’s observation was that in the moment non -violence will not necessarily work but over the long haul of history violence has arrived at the same point: failure. Violence has never proven effective. It certainly has momentary victories but all nations have failed or will fail at some point. Jesus teaches us, according to Campbell, that ultimately victory will come by laying down the sword. It will be the slain lamb that will win the day. This is critical to understanding Campbell.
This is a brief overview of some of Campbells views on non-violence and the ways of peace. Hopefully the reader recognizes that within the 19th century Restoration Movement, the belief that restoring the ancient church of the New Testament could not be done without a commitment to non-violence. For those who have sought to look outside of the Restoration Movement for examples of peace theology the good news is that we no longer need to look outside of our movement. Certainly we can learn a lot from other tribes of Christians but we can also know that these reformers took the gospel of peace seriously. It is now up to the spiritual descendants of Campbell to once again raise the banner of peace. Non-violence is not simply a secondary issue for the church but it is at the heart of the very gospel of Jesus. It is time to make the Restoration Movement great again by lifting high the name of Jesus. We do this by living out the peaceful ways of Jesus.
Another Kingdom 