The
Christian Connection or
Christian Connexion was a
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
movement which began in several places during the late 18th and early 19th centuries and were secessions from three different religious denominations.
History
In 1792,
James O'KellyJames O'Kelly was an American clergyman during the Second Great Awakening and an important figure in the early history of Methodism in America...
, dissatisfied with the role of bishops in the
Methodist Episcopal ChurchThe Methodist Episcopal Church, sometimes referred to as the M.E. Church, was a development of the first expression of Methodism in the United States. It officially began at the Baltimore Christmas Conference in 1784, with Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke as the first bishops. Through a series of...
, separated from this body. O’Kelley’s movement, centering in
VirginiaThe Commonwealth of Virginia is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" because it is the birthplace of eight U.S. presidents. The geography and climate of the state are shaped by the Blue...
and
North CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state located on the Atlantic Seaboard in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties...
, was originally called Republican Methodists. The denominational name was dropped in 1794 in favor of the name
Christian and a commitment to use the
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
as the only "rule of faith and practice."
During the first several years of the 19th century, two
BaptistA Baptist is a Christian who subscribes to a theology and may belong to a church that, among other things, is committed to believer's baptism and, with respect to church polity, favors the congregational model...
ministers in
New EnglandNew England is a region of the United States. It is located at the northeastern corner of the US, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Canada and the state of New York, consisting of the modern U.S...
espoused similar views to O’Kelley and began exclusively using the name
Christian. Working independently at first,
Abner JonesAbner Jones , also known as Elder Abner Jones, was a minister and early church reformer in the United States.-Early life:...
of
VermontThe State of Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd by land area, , and 45th by total area. It has a population of 621,270, making it the second least-populated state...
and
Elias SmithElias Smith was a preacher, physician, journalist and clergyman. Smith, along with the preacher Abner Jones, founded a group of Christian Churches in New England that eventually merged with other like-minded, regional groups to become the denomination known as the Christian Connexion...
of
New HampshireNew Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian province of...
joined together in their efforts.
In 1801, the Cane Ridge Revival in
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
would plant the seed for a movement in
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
and the
Ohio RiverThe Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. It is approximately 981 miles long and is located in the eastern United States....
valley to disassociate from denominationalism.
Barton W. StoneBarton Warren Stone was an important preacher during the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. He became first a Presbyterian minister, then was expelled for his beliefs in faith as the sole prerequisite for salvation, after the Cane Ridge, Kentucky revival. He became allied with...
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.
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, with 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 BrunswickNew Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only constitutionally bilingual province in the confederation. The provincial capital is Fredericton...
,
Nova ScotiaNova Scotia is a Canadian province located on Canada's southeastern coast. It is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. Its capital, Halifax, is a major economic centre of the region. Nova Scotia is the second-smallest province in Canada with an area of...
,
QuebecQuebec is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking identity and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
(1811) and
OntarioOntario is a province located in east-central Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area. Ontario is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba to the west and Quebec to the east, and 5 U.S...
(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 1837The Rebellions of 1837 were a pair of Canadian armed uprisings that occurred in 1837 and 1838 in response to frustrations in political reform. A key shared goal was the allowance of responsible government.-Rebellions:...
(led by principally by
Louis-Joseph PapineauLouis-Joseph Papineau , born in Montreal, Quebec, was a politician, lawyer, and the landlord of the seigneurie de la Petite-Nation. He was the leader of the reformist Patriot movement before the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–1838...
and
William Lyon MackenzieWilliam Lyon Mackenzie was a Scottish-Canadian journalist, politician, and rebellion leader. He served as the first mayor of the city of Toronto and was an important leader during the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion.-Background and early years in Scotland, 1795-1820:Mackenzie was born in Dundee,...
) massively undercut the Connexion's Canadian wings. Solely in Ontario did churches survive, almost all of those north and east of
TorontoToronto is the most populous city in Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. With over 2.5 million residents, it is the fifth most populous municipality in North America...
,
OntarioOntario is a province located in east-central Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area. Ontario is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba to the west and Quebec to the east, and 5 U.S...
. Conflict between the Connexion and the Disciples of Christ also disrupted the former's Canadian growth.
In 1832, many of the Christian Churches in Kentucky and Tennessee led by Stone united with the churches led by
Alexander CampbellAlexander Campbell was an early leader in the Second Great Awakening of the religious movement that has been referred to as the Restoration, or Stone-Campbell Movement...
. 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.
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 (preacher)William Miller was an American Baptist preacher whose followers have been termed Millerites. He is credited with the beginning of the Advent movement of the 1830s and 1840s in North America. Among his direct spiritual heirs are several major religious denominations including Seventh-day Adventists...
. 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 AdventistsThe Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ. It is the eighth largest international body of...
and the Advent Christians.
In 1850, the General Convention of the Christian Church passed a resolution calling for the establishment of
Antioch CollegeAntioch College is a private, independent liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, United States. It was the founder and flagship institution of the six campus Antioch University system. Founded in 1852 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1853 with Horace Mann as its...
. 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.
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 ChurchesThe Congregational Christian Churches were a Protestant Christian denomination that operated in the U.S. from 1931 through 1957. On the latter date, most of its churches joined the Evangelical and Reformed Church in a merger to become the United Church of Christ. Others created the National...
. In 1957 after twenty years of discussion and work, the Congregational Christian Churches and the
Evangelical and Reformed ChurchThe Evangelical and Reformed Church was a Protestant Christian denomination in the United States. It was formed in 1934 by the merger of the Reformed Church in the United States with the Evangelical Synod of North America . After the 1934 merger, a minority within the RCUS retained the name...
, itself the product of the merger of two German-American denominations, forged the
United Church of ChristThe United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination principally in the United States, generally considered within the Reformed tradition. The UCC formed in 1957 with the union of the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches...
. In 1989, the UCC and Disciples of Christ agreed to participate in full communion with each other, while remaining separate denominations.
The Christian Connection claimed to have no
creedA creed is a statement of belief—usually religious belief—or faith often recited as part of a religious service. The word derives from the for I believe...
, instead professing to rely strictly on the
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
. In practice, members tended to cluster around various shared theological concepts, such as anti-trinitarianism, 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.
Theology
Several leaders of the movement questioned whether the concept of the Trinity was Biblical and came to believe that it was not.