Restoration Movement Principles

Prove it!” To this day, those words echo in my mind. I was a junior Chemical Engineering student at Clemson University and interviewing for the Navy’s Nuclear Power Program. The interviewer had asked me a very simple question: What is the area of a triangle? I’m not suspicious by nature, but I instinctively knew that there was more here than the area of a triangle. I calmly answered: one half the base times the height. At which point he responded, you guessed it, “Prove it.” 

He didn’t care that I knew the formula for this simple geometric exercise. Rather, he wanted to know if I understood the fundamental principle that a definite integral computes the area of a region under a curve. To “prove it” I drew a line on the page and integrated the area underneath the line. I was a little nervous, but I did prove that the area of a triangle is indeed one half the base times the height. 

I’m sure that not a single reader of the Restoration Herald cares about my experiences with calculus. Instead, you are concerned about the churches in general and the Restoration Movement in particular. In my travels the past few years, a theme that has emerged is a deep concern about the health and viability our movement. 

Just as calculus is built upon quantifiable principles, so too is our beloved Restoration Movement. The obvious question, of course, is are the principles that launched and built the movement still relevant? 

I love the way James North in his outstanding historical volume Union in Truth characterizes our movement: “The Restoration Movement is built upon two key concerns: the concern for the unity of all Christians in the one body of Christ, and the concern for the Bible as the only authority for the faith and practice of Christians.” For our movement to continue to be a viable and powerful force, the challenge for us today is to recommit to these core principles. 

The Situation. The men who launched the Restoration Movement were distraught when they surveyed the religious landscape of their time. They observed not only seemingly endless fracture, but downright hostility among the various denominational groups. They took Jesus’s words in John 17:20-21 at face value realizing that if the world is to be won to Christ, the church must be united. Their heartfelt desire for unity was in many ways the catalyst for their efforts. We need to recapture their zeal for unity, as we are similarly surrounded by division. I am one of many who was personally challenged to come out of denominationalism. To this day, I’m eternally grateful for that challenge. 

The Solution. The early restoration leaders quickly realized the solution to division was to rally around Christ’s Lordship and His Word. In their minds, of utmost importance was restoring the authority of God’s Word. If Christ is head of the church, then His Word must reign supreme. They acknowledged that Jesus would use the apostles, as His direct spokesmen, to deliver all truth for the church through their Holy Spirit inspired pens. 

This being the case, they realized that all denominational creeds must be discarded. Rather than follow the creeds, they would search the Scriptures to find out what was true and proper for the church, taking the Bible alone as the only rule of faith and practice. 

I doubt seriously that much exhortation is needed relative to the authority of God’s Word. This remains a strength among our churches. However, there are a couple of aspects of the Word that need renewed emphasis. 

First is the clarity of the Word. While it’s true that some verses are hard to understand (see, for example, Paul Ponchot’s article in the August Restoration Herald), the Scriptural teaching related to salvation is crystal clear. If we are intellectually honest, verses such as Acts 2:38, Galatians 3:27, and Acts 22:16 are elementary to understand. 

In addition, we need to renew our challenge to others to conform to the plain teaching of Scripture. If baptism is for the remission of sins, we need to double down on our efforts to get others to be immersed into Christ for the forgiveness of sins. As you know, a study of the conversion accounts in Acts consistently shows that those responding to the gospel message were immersed into Christ. We need to challenge our denominational friends to make their salvation experience match the salvation experience of those in the book of Acts. 

As we survey the religious landscape of our day two truths standout: we are still immersed in a culture of division and people are still lost. If the foundational principles of the Restoration Movement were sufficient to take the message of Christ to a divided and sin filled world two hundred years ago, those principles are certainly sufficient today.