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What Has Alexander Campbell to Do with Christian Nationalism?
Get PDFThis article examines Alexander Campbell’s political theology through the lens of contemporary definitions of Christian nationalism articulated by sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry. Using their framework of survey statements measuring Christian nationalist attitudes, it evaluates Campbell’s responses to issues such as the separation of church and state, the role of Christian values in public life, and the idea of America’s divine purpose. While Campbell consistently denied the existence of any true “Christian nation,” he later endorsed Bible-based moral education and viewed Protestant America as a vehicle for global reform. His evolving convictions reveal both resistance to and accommodation of nationalist religion, illuminating the complex interplay between restorationist theology and American civil religion in the nineteenth century
Review of Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood, Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2024)
Get PDFIn this timely and urgent book, Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood critically examine the historical and contemporary roles of mainline Protestant churches in fostering Christian Nationalism, with the stated end that mainline Christians confess to their sin and change their political praxis in ways that deconstruct the Nationalism they inherited from their forebearers. Bringing together a critical historiography with theological (de-)construction, the authors argue that mainline denominations have not only been complicit in but have actively contributed to the intertwining of Christian and national identity in the United States. They decisively deconstruct the tendency to reduce blame to Christian fundamentalism for the presence of Christian nationalism and convincingly contend “that the cultural and political preeminence mainliners possessed … inadvertently became the seedbed out of which much of today’s Christian Nationalism grew” (11)
Review of Clark M. Williamson, Way of Blessing, Way of Life: A Christian Theology (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 1999)
Get PDFt’s been all of 26 years since the book Way of Blessing, Way of Life: A Christian Theology was first published by Chalice Press in 1999, and some might wonder why it is being reviewed at this time. I’m enthusiastically pursuing this task because of the conviction that this work has not received the kind of attention it deserves, especially in the denominational community to which its author Clark Williamson was connected. As such, the Journal of Discipliana is the appropriate venue to remind persons within this tradition and beyond that this text contains analyses, formulations, and applications that are most valuable in a period when Christians in the US and elsewhere are being required to make critical decisions regarding the death-dealing ways Williamson identifies
Review of Michael Kinnamon, The Nominee: A Novel (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2024)
Get PDFMichael Kinnamon’s second novel, “The Nominee,” is based on his own experience as the nominee for General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). As a work of historical fiction, it is a blend of first-hand experiences of the author and the imagined experiences of Dr. Matthew McAvoy. During eight months, we are carried from the early excitement of Dr. McAvoy’s nomination through the twists and turns of family, seminary, and denomination on a journey that is both personal and cultural. We discover how the answer to a single, simple question catapults this nomination into the national and global spotlights. The story is as much about one person’s nomination to leadership as it is about the then-emerging and now-continuing culture wars
“He Led the Way”: Preston Taylor and African American Leadership in the Stone-Campbell Movement
Get PDFPreston Taylor was a brilliant, powerful, and flawed leader whose influence extended from Nashville to the national stage and continues even today. Taylor\u27s organizational and business skills led to the creation of associations that gave both identity and agency to Black Disciples at a time when repressive laws and horrific prejudices made such action extremely difficult. Taylor’s story is not a perfect one.Yet an examination of his inspiring and dramatic life offers keen insight into the American past and affords us an opportunity to study history more carefully and closely
Review of Richard T. Hughes and James L. Gorman, Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Story of Churches of Christ in America, 3rd edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2024)
Get PDFWith skill and insight James Gorman has brought Richard Hughes’s 1996 classic history of the character of Churches of Christ to the present (2022), incorporating new scholarship since the 1980s, adding original material, and streamlining the narrative. In the first edition Hughes developed his interpretive premises in detail with extensive examples in two sections containing fourteen chapters (“The Making of a Sect” and “The Making of a Denomination”). Gorman has crafted a third section (“The Fragmentation of a Denomination”) from material taken from Hughes’s section two, adding an entirely new chapter on the twenty-first century, and reducing the book’s total number of chapters from fourteen to nine. Despite the significant reduction in overall wordcount, Gorman maintains the fullness of the story and the coherent narrative that made the original edition so engaging and fascinating
Review of Keith Watkins. Eucharist and Unity: A Theological Memoir. St. Louis, MO: Christian Board of Publication, 2023.
Get PDFWatkins’ studied grasp of the eucharist (Lord’s Supper, Communion) shaped his thought of it as a fellowship with the living Christ, bringing renewal to the church—and in his writings, his teaching, and in his pastoral ministry, Watkins deemed the eucharist as the focal point of liturgy. He believed the eucharist to be the key to understanding the catholicity of the church—the center of the one faith—and the core around which unity could occur. The eucharist, determined Watkins in Eucharist and Unity, is the means of recalling the sacrifice of Christ, of recovering a fullness of the meaning of church
Review of Edward J. Robinson. To Pave the Way for His People: A Life of Preston Taylor. St. Louis, MO: Christian Board of Publication, 2024.
Get PDFEdward J. Robinson sums up what motivated him to write To Pave the Way for His People: A Life of Preston Taylor in his prologue. Robinson writes concerning Preston Taylor, “He was arguably one of the most prominent African American leaders in the Progressive Era and was unquestionably the most visible and influential black man in the Stone-Campbell movement from Reconstruction to the Great Depression. Yet regrettably, his story has been buried beneath the sand dunes of history. This work seeks, therefore, to rescue Preston Taylor from historical obscurity and place him on the pedestal of acclaim, with all his successes, faults, and failures.” In the opinion of this reviewer, Dr. Edward J Robinson has more than succeeded in exhuming and rescuing Preston Taylor from historical obscurity
Review of Paul J. Gutacker, The Old Faith in a New Nation: American Protestants and the Christian Past
Get PDFThe starting point for Paul Gutacker’s wide-ranging study is the standard claim that these American reformers—the architects of a proliferating American denominationalism—basically dismissed Christian history, adopting an indifference and often hostility towards it; and furthermore, that this claim has continued to mark the scholarly literature of our time. Gutacker begs to differ. He seeks to demonstrate that, between the Revolution and the Civil War, American Christian leaders “were not ahistorical or functionally antitradition, but deeply interested in both history and tradition. . . . They studied religious historiography, wrote about the Christian past, and argued over its implications for the present.” His focus includes not only scholars and ministers but the “historical imaginations of ordinary educated Protestants.” With this wide focus he attempts to map “American memories of the Christian past.
Alexander Campbell as a Paradox
Get PDFAlexander Campbell was one of the founders of the religious reform movement that bears his name, but he also embodied a paradox. He was an elite who was, at the same time, a populist—somewhat like Thomas Jefferson, only more of a populist than Jefferson. Interrogating this paradox not only helps us better understand Alexander Campbell\u27s mind and mission, but it might also help us think about the values that we hold today