Did the American Restoration Movement (Stone-Campbell Movement) Have a Position on Original Sin?
Upvote:1
I am not an expert on this subject but I've recently asked a more general question about the Restoration Movement and have done some research. Since no one has attempted an answer yet I will offer one.
The article Theological Anthropology in the Restoration Movement: Past and Present by Ron Highfield states:
In the Campbell-Rice debate, Alexander Campbell had occasion to reflect on his childhood struggle with, and rejection of, the" Calvinist" doctrine of the damnation of non-elect infants who die in infancy.' According to the mature Campbell... all infants are of the elect.' Campbell rejected the Augustinian-Calvinist view of original sin and election. Calvinism, according to Campbell, is "crazy at this point."
This implies that Campbell's mature writings affirmed that children are not born with Original Sin. But he was not naive about human nature either.
Man has strayed away from God and nature, and has become a preternatural being... his soul is harassed with the tumult of a thousand passions, lusts, appetites, and elements that war against his soul. If there were no sin in human nature, there could be none in obeying all its passions."
The second generation Restoration preacher Robert Milligan warned against "the extremes of Augustinianism on the one hand, which detracts too much from the powers of man, and Pelagianism on the other hand."
Another early view was represented by David Walk who was baptized in 1862:
The certainty of physical death to all his descendants is the one necessary consequence of Adam's transgression... As for the rest, Adam could sin, and we can sin; nor can I see any difference between his condition and ours... Till man sins, he is just such a being, morally, as Adam was before he sinned.
So while the early Restoration Movement may have believed in Original Sin in a general since, meaning that Adam's sin had real consequences for human nature, its founder and early teachers did not endorse the idea that Original Sin resulted in the total depravity of humankind as taught by Augustine and reiterated by Calvin and Luther. Especially they taught that children who have not sinned personally are not liable to punishment in the afterlife. I offer this conclusion tentatively hoping for either confirmation or expansion from experts.
More post
- 📝 Is there any reference regarding the use of these extra-biblical sources in Mennonite congregations?
- 📝 Which manuscript was the LDS Book of Moses translated from?
- 📝 Are there any churches that claim to be Sola Sciptura that also are pro gay-marriage?
- 📝 Why did Jesus say "you will be put to death" and yet "not a hair of your head will perish"?
- 📝 Were humans worshipped as gods in Biblical times?
- 📝 What is the Catholic view of what it meant for Jesus to be "called" Immanuel?
- 📝 Why do we use the order "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit"?
- 📝 Apostle John lived in Ephesus - what sources claim that?
- 📝 What is meant by the expression "living in darkness"?
- 📝 Have Christian Scholars been forced to use BCE and CE instead of AD and BC?
- 📝 Is the Eternal imperative?
- 📝 Violence and Iconography
- 📝 How did Luther view relics, like the 'preserved head of John the Baptist'?
- 📝 Why is archangel Michael portrayed with a sword in art?
- 📝 What is the earliest recorded instance where Mary is called "Blessed Virgin?"
- 📝 Where did the nomenclature “godfather” originate from?
- 📝 Aside from St. Vincent Ferrer, are there any other saints said to have had the "gift of tongues"?
- 📝 What is the Biblical basis for the concept that demons have an odor?
- 📝 When was the Old Testament Canon defined?
- 📝 What do annihilationalists make of Matthew 26:24 (and Mark 14:21)?
- 📝 Is there a Church Father or Doctor of the Church who wrote that Judas Iscariot was saved?
- 📝 What are the Church fathers' arguments that Peter is the rock?
- 📝 Has the Catholic Church attempted a reconciliation of the attributes of the Universal Church in the Creeds?
- 📝 What is the significance of the phrase "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi"?
- 📝 Do Jehovah's witnesses believe that Jesus appeared in the Old Testament?
- 📝 Is this statuette supposed to be St. Nicholas of Myra, or Father Christmas, or somebody else?
- 📝 Why is the word ‘concupiscence’ so important in understanding the difference between a Catholic view and a Protestant view of ‘Original Sin’?
- 📝 How do those who believe man is tripartite respond to Gen. 2:7, "the man became a living soul"?
- 📝 Difference between Augustinianism and Calvinism
- 📝 How does the Catholic Church narrate the seal which was put on the tomb of Jesus?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Did the American Restoration Movement (Stone-Campbell Movement) Have a Position on Original Sin?
- 📝 Did the early Church Fathers have a complete agreement on how to interpret 1 Peter 3:18-20?
- 📝 Why did Jesus have to leave for the Holy Spirit to come?
- 📝 Did the pool of Bethesda have healing powers?
- 📝 What effect did the Reformation have inside the Catholic Church?
- 📝 What effect did the 1897 decree regarding the Johannine Comma have on Catholic scholarship?
- 📝 What did Jonathan Edwards have to say about the fact that he owned slaves?
- 📝 How did John the Baptist have the "spirit and power of Elijah"?
- 📝 Where does the Catholic tradition that Mary did not have pain giving birth to Jesus come from?
- 📝 Did this phrase "love the sinner but hate the sin" in this form originate in Christianity and who is credited to have first used it?
- 📝 What is the Catholic Church's historical position on capital punishment: how did we get here?
- 📝 What role did the Donation of Constantine have on the development of the doctrine of Papal supremacy?
- 📝 Did Luther have any disagreements with the teachings of Augustine of Hippo?
- 📝 Did Christ have the freedom to choose to avoid crucifixion?
- 📝 What did the Dominicans have against the immaculate conception?
- 📝 Why did the Catholic Church decide to have a Bible?
- 📝 Why did God not want man to have the knowledge of good and evil?
- 📝 Did the Herodian Temple have virgins?
- 📝 What influence did Greco-Roman philosophy have on the doctrine of "creatio ex nihilo"?
- 📝 What did the early church fathers have to say about “eternal security” or “assurance of salvation”
- 📝 If we will have free will and be sinless in Heaven at the same time, then why did God not create a world with sinless free creatures to begin with?
- 📝 Did any other philosophical systems have as much influence on the early Church as Platonism and Stoicism?
- 📝 Why did Stephen have authority to ask God to forgive the sins of his nonbelieving executioners?
- 📝 Did the congregation have input into leader selection in the early church?
- 📝 Why did John the Baptist exist? Did he have any purpose besides Baptizing Jesus?
- 📝 Did the modern LDS idea of fast offerings have extra-Mormon roots?
- 📝 Why did Moses have the sons of Levi run about with swords slaying family and friends?
- 📝 Did King James really have his name put into the Bible?
- 📝 Did the Jews think it was immoral to have leprosy?
- 📝 Did Luther say he "might well have entrusted the whole affair of this [Eucharist] controversy to [Calvin] from the beginning"?