A Plan for Christian Unity
Thirteen Propositions Toward Achieving Christian Unity
Adapted from Thomas Campbell, Declaration and Address, 1809
Adaptation by C. Ermal Allen
1. Christ’s community on earth is one, in its essence, by God’s intention, and in its constitution. This community consists of all those in every place who profess their faith in Christ and have surrendered to his Lordship, and who show this surrender by their attitude and conduct. It consists of such persons, and of none else, as none else can be truly and properly called Christians.
2. Although Christ’s community on earth must necessarily exist in particular and distinct congregations, locally separate from one another, yet there ought to be no schisms, no divisions in heart and mind. They ought to receive each other as Christ Jesus has also received them, to the glory of God. For this purpose they all ought to walk by the same standard, which would also determine what they think and say.
3. In order to accomplish this, nothing ought to be required of Christians as articles of faith or as terms of communion but what is expressly taught and commanded in the word of God. Nor should anything be admitted as of divine obligation in their congregational constitution and affairs but what was expressly required by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles for the first century community of Christians, either in express terms or by approved precedent.
4. The Old and New Covenant Scriptures are inseparably connected, being one perfect and entire revelation of the Divine will. For this reason they are necessary for the salvation and maturing of God’s people. However, the Old Covenant Scriptures were written for the specific needs of the physical nation of Israel until the appearance of the Messiah. Now that the Messiah has come, the New Covenant Scriptures are the perfect constitution for the worship, discipline, and government of the New Covenant community.
5. With respect to the commands and ordinances of our Lord Jesus Christ concerning which the Scriptures are silent as to the express time or manner of performance, no human authority has the right to interfere in order to supply the supposed deficiency by making laws for Christ’s community. Nor can anything more be required of Christians in such cases but only that they observe these commands and ordinances in such a way as will evidently answer the declared and obvious purpose of their institution. Much less has any human authority power to impose new commands or ordinances upon the congregation, which our Lord Jesus Christ has not imposed. Nothing should be received into the faith or worship of the congregations or be made a term of communion among Christians that is not as old as Scripture.
6. When fairly inferred, inferences and deductions from Scripture premises may be truly called the teaching of God’s holy word. Nevertheless, they are not formally binding upon any disciple who does not see the connection between the premise and the inference, for his faith must not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power and veracity of God. Therefore no such deductions can be made terms of communion, but do properly belong to the maturing of the disciples.
7. Doctrinal statements of the great system of Divine truths and defensive testimonies in opposition to prevailing errors are highly useful, and the more full and explicit they are for those purposes, the better; yet, as these must be in a great measure the effect of human reasoning and of course must contain many inferential truths, they should not be made terms of Christian communion; unless it is supposed, contrary to fact, that none have a right to the communion of Christ’s community except those who possess a very clear and decisive judgment or have come to a very high degree of doctrinal information; whereas Christ’s community from the beginning did, and ever will, consist of little children and young men, as well as fathers.
8. As it is not necessary that persons should have a particular knowledge or distinct apprehension of all Divinely revealed truths in order to entitle them to a place in Christ’s community, neither should they ever be required to make a profession more extensive than their knowledge. On the contrary, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, that he died for our sins, was buried, and arose from the dead on the third day, being seen by witnesses, is all the knowledge that is absolutely necessary to qualify them for admission into his community, providing they are willing to surrender to his Lordship on the basis of that knowledge.
9. All who on the basis of such faith have surrendered to Christ and who manifest the reality of their profession in their attitude and conduct, should consider each other as the precious saints of God and should love each other as brothers, children of the same family and Father, temples of the same Spirit, members of the same body, bought with the same price, and joint-heirs of the same inheritance. Whom God has thus joined together, no man should dare to separate.
10. Division among the disciples of Christ is a horrid evil, loaded with many evils. It is anti-Christ since it destroys the visible unity of the body of Christ, as if he were divided against himself, excluding and excommunicating a part of himself. It is antiscriptural since it has been strictly prohibited by his sovereign authority and is a direct violation of his express command. It is anti-natural since it excites Christians to ridicule, hate, and oppose one another, who are bound by the highest and most endearing obligations to love each other as brothers, even as Christ has loved them. In a word, division is productive of confusion and every evil work.
11. The immediate, obvious, and universally acknowledged causes of all the corruptions and divisions that have ever taken place in God’s community have been in some instances, a partial neglect of the expressly revealed will of God; and, in other instances, an assumed authority for making the acceptance of human opinions and human inventions a term of communion by introducing them into the constitution, faith, or worship of the body of Christ.
12. Only four things are necessary for the highest state of perfection and purity of Christ’s community on earth: (1) That none be received as members except those who meet the express Scriptural requirements for salvation. (2) That none be retained as members longer than they continue to manifest the reality of their profession by their attitudes and conduct. (3) That the leaders, properly and Scripturally qualified, require nothing except those very articles of faith and holiness expressly revealed and commanded in the word of God. (4) That they observe all Divine ordinances after the example of the original community of saints as set forth in the Scriptures, without any additions of human opinions or inventions of men.
13. If any circumstantials necessary to the observance of Divine ordinances are not found upon the page of express revelation, such and such only as are absolutely necessary for this purpose should be adopted under the title of human expedients, without any pretense to a more sacred origin, so that any subsequent alteration or difference in the observation of these things might produce no contention or division in the community.
