Introduction
1. IT BEGAN IN SCOTLAND
   
2. THOMAS CAMPBELL WRITES HIS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
   
3. THE SPIRIT OF THE "DECLARATION AND ADDRESS"
   
4. PRINCIPLES OF THE DOCUMENT
   
5. HISTORIC NOTES ON OUR FIRST CHURCH
   
6. "LET CHRISTIAN UNITY BE OUR POLAR STAR"
   
7. THE NOBLEST ACT IN BARTON STONE'S LIFE
   
8. LEARNING FROM A BACKWOODS PREACHER
   
9. CHRISTIANS IN BABYLON
   
10. WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?
    
11. THE ESSENCE OF THE CAMPBELL PLEA
    
12. THE DEATH OF A DREAM
    
13. THE SAND CREEK ADDRESS
    
14. A MUDDLED MOVEMENT
    
15. THE AUTHORITY TOTEM
    
16. THE PARTY SPIRIT
    
17. THE BED OF PROCRUSTES
    
18. OUR COSTLIEST SIN: EXCLUSIVISM
    
19. RESTORATION OR REFORMATION
    
20. A BOY LEARNS THE MEANING OF BROTHERHOOD
    
21. THE BUTTING BRETHREN
    
22. ANALYSIS OF LEGALISM
    
23. THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
    
24. THOUGHTS ON FELLOWSHIP
    
25. ON THE ROCKS
    
26. WITHDRAWING FROM THE DISORDERLY
    
27. CAUSING DIVISIONS
    
28. TWO GREAT ERRORS
    
29. UNION IN TRUTH
    
30. ONE BODY IN CHRIST
    
31. UNITY AND IDENTITY
    
32. UNITY IN DIVERSITY
    
33. IS DOCTRINE IMPORTANT?
    
34. THE WEIGHTIER MATTERS
    
35. MUST WE GIVE UP OUR OPINIONS?
    
36. WHAT DIFFERENCES DO DIFFERENCES MAKE?
    
37. THE "ONE BAPTISM" AND FELLOWSHIP
    
38. ARE WE TO FELLOWSHIP THE UNIMMERSED?
    
39. OUR FATHERS ON "WHO IS A CHRISTIAN?"
    
40. "OUR BROTHERS IN THE DENOMINATIONS"
    
41. WHAT IS "OUR FELLOWSHIP"?
    
42. ARE WE TO FELLOWSHIP THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH?
    
43. I WOULD ABDICATE
    
44. A BASIC FALLACY TO OVERCOME
    
45. CAN WE BE UNITED AND NOT KNOW IT?
    
46. SEPARATED BUT NOT DIVIDED
    
47. THE ONE CHURCH INDIVISIBLE
    
48. UNITY WILL COME, BUT
    
49. IF NOT BROTHERHOOD, THEN CO-EXISTENCE
    
50. THIS IS OUR GLORY!
    
51. THE UNIFYING POWER OF THE CROSS
    

The old Brush Run church, just across into Pennsylvania from Bethany, VA (now West Virginia), was not really our very first Church of Christ, even though it is often referred to as such. Barton Stone's Cane Ridge congregation down in Kentucky, and others of its kind, were a few years earlier. Then there were some Glasite or Sandemanian congregations in New England that came over from the Old World that took the name "Church of Christ," and these were earlier still. But insofar as the Campbell movement is concerned, Brush Run was the very first congregation, and it is in order for us to trace our thousands of congregations today back to that one. For this reason, a few historical notes about that first congregation might prove to be both interesting and provocative.

1. Those who started it did not really intend to start a church. Thomas Campbell, the guiding light of the fledgling movement, only intended that the Christian Association of Washington (PA) be a society that would work for peace and unity among all the churches, with its adherents remaining members of their own denominations. But it did not work out that way, and so the Brush Run church was organized on May 4, 1811.
2. It wore no name at all except the Brush Run church. It existed until about 1828, at which time it moved into Bethany. When a brick structure was erected, which still stands, the name engraved in stone above the door read "Church of Christ." In 1823 a second church was started, with 32 members from Brush Run being dismissed "to start a church of Christ," in nearby Wellsburg. These included Alexander Campbell and his wife Margaret, as well as youthful Selina Bakewell, who in just five more years was to be the second Mrs. Campbell. Campbell had immersed Selina and her mother in 1820.
3. From the very first Sunday it observed the Lord's Supper each first day. This was due to the influence of the Haldane churches in Scotland. Campbell believed that a church was not a true church if it did not break bread each first day.
4. At Brush Run's first service three members refused to break bread because they were unbaptized (the others had all been sprinkled), and so they asked Thomas Campbell to baptize them, which was by immersion. This is the famous "root baptism," as it came to be called, since Campbell did not himself get into the water, but knelt on a root while immersing. Their critics later were to poke fun at this. At this time Brush Run accepted "sprinkled" people as baptized, and the Campbells would not then rebaptize such ones. But it was understood that anyone not baptized at all would be baptized by immersion. The Campbells themselves were not immersed at this time.
5. From May 4, 1811, until June 12, 1812 there were only these three members of Brush Run that were immersed. On the June date both of the Campbells and their wives, along with three others at Brush Run, were immersed by a Baptist minister. At the next meeting of the church 13 more requested immersion, and others still later. Those not immersed soon dropped out. So, for the first 13 months our very first congregation was made up almost altogether of unimmersed members.
6. When the church was first formed Thomas Campbell required each member to respond to a creedal statement relative to the efficacy of Christ's death, which some did not pass and were refused membership. But the practice was dropped immediately after this.
7. The church ordained at least one man to the ministry, and that was Alexander Campbell, on New Year's Day, 1812.
8. The congregation had but one elder, and that was Thomas Campbell, and there were four deacons. Plurality of elders came later.
9. The congregation did not or would not pay for its building! The builder that prepared it for them, a structure 18 by 36, had to file suit in order to get his money, which was two cents shy of 100.00, three years later. Once deserted, it was sold for a blacksmith shop; still later it served as a post office and then as a stable. Seventy-five years after it was built some Disciples with a sense of history recovered its remains, and they are now stored in Bethany, with the idea that one day the old structure might be restored. The site of the church is now fenced off and preserved as a picnic area, and it is often visited by pilgrims to "Campbell country."
10. Brush Run was a member of the Redstone Baptist Association, but their acceptance into the organization was unusual since they resolved to accept no creed except the Bible. They gradually came to be tagged as "Reformers" and were viewed with suspicion. When Thomas Campbell, now moved to Pittsburgh (He was always moving!), tried to enter a second church into the association, he was refused. They figured one was enough! When the Wellsburg church started, which was in part a device to deliver Alexander from the wrath of his Redstone brethren, it joined still another Baptist Association, known as Mahoning, which proved to be friendly to his cause.

But Brush Run remained in the Redstone Baptist Association all its life and was always considered a Baptist church, even if somewhat different, and Alexander Campbell for all those years was considered a Baptist minister. And it is noteworthy that both the Campbells went out of their way to work with and be a part of some denominational structure.

So, was the first Church of Christ also a Baptist church? In these days of our radical exclusivism these questions growing out of our early history can be embarrassing. There are a few places here and there, in Texas at least, that could not "fellowship" Brush Run, and of course they could not even allow either of the Campbells to speak for them or to lead a prayer.

(Restoration Review, Vol. 19, No. 1; Jan. 1977)