CAMPBELL, Alexander, founder of the DISCIPLES OF CHRIST; b. near Ballymena, in county Antrim, Ireland, Sept. 12, 1788; d. at Bethany, West Va., March 4, 1866. He was educated at the University of Glasgow, and came to America as a licentiate of the Seceder Church, Scotland. His father, a minister of the same denomination, had been for two years settled in Western Pennsylvania. Young Campbell had expected opposition to his changed views in theology, but found his father altered and liberalized; confirmed, probably, in the new direction, because of an ecclesiastical trial he had stood for inviting to the communion-table members of other Presbyterian churches. Under him he continued his studies, and preached his first sermon July 15, 1810. He rapidly became widely popular. Many regarded the views of father and son as both novel and objectionable: hence they and the few who at first sided with them formed an isolated congregation, called "The Christian Association," organized as the "Brush Run Church," with Thomas Campbell (1763-1854) the father, as its elder, several deacons, and Alexander Campbell as its licensed preacher. The main points of this teaching in the early stages of the movement were: "Christian union can result from nothing short of the destruction of creeds and confessions of faith, inasmuch as human creeds and confessions have destroyed Christian union;" "Nothing ought to be received into the faith and worship of the church, or be made a term of communion among Christians, that is not as old as the New Testament, nor ought any thing to be admitted as of divine obligation in the church constitution or management, save what is enjoined by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles upon the New Testament church, either in express terms or by approved precedent." The Bible and nothing else was their confession of faith or creed. Mr. Campbell's marriage in 1812 with the daughter of a Presbyterian turned his attention to an examination of the Scripture mode of baptism, which was determined, after careful, earnest discussion, to be that of immersion. Consequently, he and his father, and the majority of the members of his church, with their families, were immersed on June 12, 1812, by Elder Loos, a Baptist minister, to whom he said, "I have set out to follow the apostles of Christ, and their Master, and I will be baptized only into the primitive Christian faith." Next the congregation, acting, as they believed, in accordance with the New Testament, ordained him to the ministry. He organized several churches, which joined, though openly acknowledging their peculiar view of the Bible, the Baptist denomination. But in 1827 they were formally excluded; and from that date the Disciples of Christ, or the Campbellites as they are popularly called, spread very rapidly as an independent, simple, and earnest body of Christians. In 1823 Mr. Campbell extended his labors from the limited region round about his home in West Virginia into Tennessee and Kentucky, and on July 4 of the same year started a monthly entitled The Christian Baptist, printed on his private press at home. The periodical was successful far beyond expectation; but in 1830 it was merged in The Millennial Harbinger, which was continued until his death. In 1840 he founded at Bethany, W. Va., Bethany College, in which the Bible was made a textbook. Mr. Campbell was a famous debater: indeed, by his first public debate be may be said to have called public attention to the existence of his denomination. This was at Mount Pleasant, O., in 1820, with the Rev. John Walker of Ohio, a Presbyterian, on the subject of baptism. Again, upon the same subject, he debated in 1823 at Washington, Ky., with the Rev. William McCalla, another Presbyterian; in 1828, at Cincinnati, with Robert Owen, on the Truth of Christianity; in 1836 with Archbishop Purcell of Ohio, in the same city, on the Infallibility of the Church of Rome; and in 1843, with the Rev. Dr. N. L. Rice, at Lexington, Ky., on the distinctive points of his communion. Mr. Campbell was gifted with a fine presence, great ease and skill of utterance, and possessed considerable information. His private life was stainless, and full of Christian grace. He was the author of The Christian System (often reprinted); Remission of Sin, 3d ed., 1846, Cincinnati, Memoirs of Thomas Campbell, Cincinnati, 1861. See RICHARDSON: Memoir of A. Campbell, Philadelphia, 1868. See DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.

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      "Alexander Campbell" was first published in A Religious Encyclopædia, ed. Philip Schaff. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1894), p. 377, from which the electronic text has been produced.

      Pagination in the electronic version has been represented by placing the page number in brackets following the last complete word on the printed page.

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
Derry, PA

Created 21 November 1998.
Updated 7 July 2003.