History

David Rubio spoke at Otter yesterday. He had just taken the youth group to a theme park in Ohio, stopping for a while at the Cane Ridge Presbyterian Church where six reform-minded ministers including Barton W. Stone "killed" the Springfield Presbytery with the document "The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery" in 1804. The document willed that the body "die, be dissolved, and sink into union with the body of Christ at large." The resulting body began calling themselves Christian. Later in the 1800's they united with a like-minded evangelical body led by Alexander Campbell. This uniting fed the roots of what is now known as the Church of Christ.

David spoke about his excitement in learning the history of our movement in a church history class, and then being able to fulfil his dream of seeing Cane Ridge where it all began.I was an adult when I first began to hear about the Stone-Campbell Movement and its significance to my church. Unfortunately there are thousands of believers now who know nothing about it. In fact, those who grew up believing that our church dated back to A. D. 33 who are not comforable with this history.

I am so thankful to Bill Humble, Doug Foster, Richard Hughes, Jerry Rushford, Leonard Allen and others who are lecturing, writing books, and informing our little
group about its history.

Maybe we need to incorporate it into some Sunday School Classes and special presentations so that light may begin to dawn and the next generation can truly see our movement "sink into the body of Christ at large." Someone once said that if you don't know your history, you are like a leaf who doesn't know it is part of a tree.