What is the “Restoration Movement?”
Back in the 1950s-1970s, I grew up in the Central Christian Church of Lancaster, California. Presently my wife and I attend Central Christian Church of Arizona, with campuses in Gilbert, Glendale, Mesa, Queen Creek, and Tempe. Both churches have a history of being welcoming to those outside the Christian faith and those within it who come from various denominations.
These churches are known as “Restoration Movement” churches. In the United States and around the world, churches that hail from the Restoration Movement are known as, among other names, Christian churches. I’d like to explain some of the things that the Restoration Movement, a 19th century, American Christian movement. historically believes.
Probably the quickest way to understand the movement is to look at slogans popular in the movement from the 19th century until today:
In matters of faith, unity; in matters of opinion, liberty; in all things, charity. This slogan is very old, perhaps originating in the Medieval period.
No creed but Christ, no book but the Bible. A variety of creeds, such as the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed, have been used to divide Christians. However, all Christians believe that our basic creed is summed up in the person of Jesus, as recorded in the Bible.
Christians only, not the only Christians. This slogan expresses the movement's goal of following the New Testament, emphasizing what all Christians have in common, and recognizing Christians across a variety of movements and denominations.
Where the scriptures speak, we speak; where the scriptures are silent, we are silent. The goal is for churches only to require doctrines and beliefs expressly taught in the scripture.
Let us speak of Bible things in Bible words. Using Bible words to address issues is helpful, only if the words are used in the sense they were originally intended.
The New Testament is the sole authority for faith and practice is an application of the Protestant idea of sola scriptura.
Both ecumenical and normative. The church has a long history of ecumenicism, that is, promoting unity among the world’s churches, although the history of ecumenicism often is one of “lowest common denominator.” There’s also a long history of normative movements, that is movements that insist on standards or norms of behavior for Christians. All too often, this approach seemed designed to exclude people who did not conform to the minutiae of a denomination’s beliefs. The genius of the American Restoration Movement is that it is both ecumenical and normative, and that adhering to the norm of the Bible as the sole authority for the church’s faith and practice can be an ecumenical and unifying force among believers of all denominations, a belief that has proven largely to be true.
A history of the Restoration movement can be found here. In the formative years of the movement, churches were deeply divided. Today, two hundred years later, many churches adhere to the basic principles articulated by the slogans. I observe a profound sense of unity among many churches, including denominational and evangelical churches, as well as loyalty to the Bible and to Jesus.
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