In the study of Restoration Movement history (falsely called the "Stone-Campbell Movement" by so-called "scholars"), the Christian Connexion is a part most ignore-as though it is a part of our movement that we would like to forget. (Much like how we ignore that a Restoration Movement preacher helped start the Mormon Church, or how another one founded the Christadelphians). The Christian Connexion, like almost every religious group, had good and bad, conservative and liberal within its ranks.
In 1879, E.W. Humphreys sent out a request via the Herald of Gospel Liberty for information about any preacher associated with the Christian Connexion (by that point, going by the name "Christian Church) who had passed away-from 1793 to the then-present day. He included a list of names that he had, but re-quested additional names that others might have. He ended up with 973 names. And it was certainly not a complete list.
By the time this book was originally compiled, the Christian Church/Connexion had fully embraced denominationalism, and had more or less coalesced around some specific doctrines: Uni-tarianism (Jesus is not God, but is the Son of God), baptism is immersion, but not a requirement for salvation, recognition of all denominations as containing Christians, and Christian character being the only evidence required for church membership.
But just because these were the views of the 1880 version of the Christian Church/Connexion, it doesn't mean it was the views of many of their early preachers.
Mark Fernald, for example, flat-out condemned instrumental music in worship, as well as women preachers (you'll notice a handful of women preachers are listed in this book). Abner Jones and James O'Kelly both asked people to leave denominationalism behind and just follow the Bible. Barton W. Stone insisted that baptism was in order to receive the forgiveness of sins.
All that to say, just because someone is described in this book, doesn't mean they were right, because some of them certainly weren't. But it also doesn't mean someone's inclusion in this book means they were wrong either, because some of them were truly teaching and following the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We present this book to you in a corrected edition (several dates in the book were wrong, and when possible, corrected). An appendix from the original edition, giving names and information about several preachers, has been integrated into the main book, alphabetically. And we have annotated where we felt more information could be supplied from other sources.
Enjoy Volume 9 of The Christian Connexion Library.
