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 a student for a time at the University of Glasgow, and before coming to this country, in 1809, he was a licentiate of the Seceder Church, Scotland. His father, a minister in the same church, had been in this country two years when his son joined him at his home in Western Pennsylvania. He continued his studies under his father, and began to preach in 1810. His services met with popular approval, but both father and son fell under the displeasure of the church authorities because of the peculiar views which they held. Those who were in sympathy with them formed a congregation called "The Christian Association." The church was known as the "Brush Run Church," of which Thomas Campbell, the father, became elder, and Alexander Campbell the preacher. They held to the opinion that "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," and "that nothing ought to be received into the faith or worship of the Church, or be made a term of communion among Christians that is not as old as the New Testament; nor ought anything 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." In 1812, having become convinced that immersion is the proper form of baptism, Mr. Campbell, with his congregation, was immersed. He formed several congregations, which united with a Baptist Association, but, still protesting against creeds, and accepting the Bible alone as the rule of faith and practice, they were, in 1827, excluded from the fellowship of the Baptist churches. They then began to organize under the name of Christians, or Disciples of Christ, and have continued to grow until they now number over six hundred thousand communicants. In 1823 Mr. Campbell began the publication of The Christian Baptist, which was afterwards merged in The Millennial Harbinger, of which he was the editor until his death. In 1840 he founded Bethany College, and became its president. In labors he was abundant. As a pulpit orator he held the rapt attention of vast audiences that gathered [144] to hear him as he journeyed through the interior States. He was always ready to contend for the truth as it had unfolded to his view, and he held several famous debates with prominent men, in which he gained wide recognition as a man of remarkable power, and did much to call attention to the denomination which he had founded. He published a summary of theology called the Christian System (often reprinted); a treatise on Remission of Sin (1846); Memoirs of Thomas Campbell (1861). See Richardson: Memoirs of A. Campbell (1868).

[CCRK 144-145]

      The electronic version of Elias Benjamin Sanford's "Alexander Campbell" was first published in A Concise Cyclopedia of Religious Knowledge: Biblical, Biographical, Geographical, Historical, Practical and Theological, ed. Elias Benjamin Sanford (Hartford, CT: S S. Scranton Company, 1902), pp. 144-145.

      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 31 December 1998.
Updated 5 July 2003.