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Church of Christ & Eastern Orthodoxy

I've read that within Anglicanism, some traditions see the Anglican Church as the heir of Catholicism, while others see it as Protestantism or something else.

Perhaps in a similar way, I see the Church of Christ as the fledgling heir of Eastern Orthodoxy.

To be sure, the lineage is unusual. We come by it via the Empiricism of Francis Bacon, who was deeply influential to Alexander Campbell and other early Restoration Movement leaders. The first Restoration Movement college was "Bacon College" in Kentucky.

Significantly, Francis Bacon can be credited with many of the ideas that became definitive in the Restoration Movement.

  1. The concept of a Restoration Movement itself shows up in one of Francis Bacon's most significant works—"The Great Instauration" (1620). The title is a reference to the Restoration Movement he believed was predicted in scripture.

  2. Bacon believed this religious movement would be a precursor to the renewal of humanity's dominion—a millennial age of both spiritual and scientific progress. This was a key concept for Alexander Campbell, likely inspiring his "Millennial Harbinger".

  3. Bacon believed that this Restoration would come about through the discovery of right liturgy—the proper patterns of worship and service. In his "New Atlantis" (1627), he pictured a land full of scientific and technological achievement, centered around a renewed and righteous pattern of worship. This was precisely the vision Campbell had for America.

  4. Bacon believed this Restoration could only come about through the chastening of human tradition and leadership.

  5. Intertwined with all of this was a high anthropology. Bacon was an opponent of Calvinism, and drew deeply on the patristics, particularly via the Eastern tradition, to support that rejection. The Fall was not a total corruption, Bacon insisted. Two centuries later, Restoration Movement leaders would repeat a similar refrain.

Francis Bacon didn't derive his theological viewpoint from scratch. His mentor, Lancelot Andrewes, was a prominent bishop in the Church of England, overseeing the translation of the King James Bible. Andrewes was a student of the Eastern tradition, adopting the Eastern theory of atonement and salvation, over and against the Western tradition.

So I think the Eastern tradition significantly shaped a certain segment of the Anglican Church, which formed the theology underlying Francis Bacon's Empirical Science, which in turn was foundational in shaping the Restoration Movement and the Churches of Christ.

And I think that gave us several aspects of our DNA.

From the Eastern tradition:

  • A high anthropology — over and against Calvinism, and the Western tradition in general.
  • A strong emphasis on right liturgy — as source of identity and cohesion.
  • A relatively low emphasis on leadership figures. In the CoC, we typically call our most prominent public figures "preachers" (a liturgical function), not "pastors" (a leadership function).

From Bacon's Anglicanism:

  • A concept of Restoration
  • A concept of the Millennium — now mostly absent, but core to Campbell and others

Much of this influence has faded. But even today, I think some of that shared DNA is discernible. And I think, if we choose, we can fan that flame into life. The Church of Christ has always sat uneasily within Protestantism, just as the Anglican Church often has.

Perhaps we can choose to be something else.

Perhaps the Restoration Movement was always intended to reclaim a theological tradition that had been lost to the Western tradition as a whole.

Perhaps we can become a source of revitalizing that tradition in the world today.