Declaration and Address & Last Will and Testament

Declaration and Address & Last Will and Testament

It is generally agreed that the restoration movement led by Alexander Campbell began with the presentation of the Declaration and Address to the members of the Christian Association of Washington, Pennsylvania, in September, 1809, by its author, Thomas Campbell. A few years prior, Barton W. Stone and a group of Presbyterian ministers, filled with fervor resulting from the Cane Ridge Revival (Kentucky, 1801) sparked by the Great Awakening, penned the Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery (1804) in which they affirmed their resolve to lay to rest the entity they had created, lest it be conceived as sectarian. In 1831 the forces of Alexander Campbell ("Disciples") and Barton W. Stone ("Christians") became the first major merger of churches in the American ecumenical movement. It is in the Stone-Campbell unity movement that Disciples of Christ, Independent Christian Churches, and Churches of Christ find their common historical origin.