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Date of birth: February 1, 1763
Date of death: January 4, 1854 (91 years old)
Education: University of Glasgow
Organization(s): Stone-Campbell Movement
Known for:

Founder in 1809 with his son Alexander of a movement for the union of Christians by a restoration of the New Testament church. The union of this movement in 1832 with followers of Barton W. Stone formed the Stone-Campbell Movement. 

Thomas Campbell was born February 1, 1763, near Newry in County Down, Ireland, and died in Bethany, West Virginia, January 4, 1854, a month short of his ninety-first birthday. 

From the late 1790s to 1807 he labored unsuccessfully in Northern Ireland and Scotland to bring about unity among disparate Presbyterian groups. Settling on the American frontier on his arrival from Ireland, Campbell became aware of the sectarian spirit brought by the settlers to their new home, yet at the same time was sensitive to the possibilities for a fresh start that a new and free country offered. He devoted himself to advocating the primacy of Scripture in the church, believing this could become a means of Christian unity. 

Thomas Campbell’s son Alexander, who became the leader of the movement and gave it his own interpretation, built on ideas and foundations initiated by his father. Thomas passionately believed that there ought to be no sectarian divisions in the church and that such divisions stemmed from the imposition of “human opinions” on pure apostolic Christianity as revealed in the New Testament. Therefore, by eliminating all doctrines and practices that were not as old as the New Testament, unity would prevail. In most writings concerning the Stone-Campbell Movement, Thomas all but disappears historically after the publication in 1809 of his important statement on Christian unity, the Declaration and Address. Through the succeeding years, however, he remained a wise counselor and guide for his son and others in the movement. The father and son complemented each other in personality and intellect. 

Thomas Campbell’s ancestral family was not Presbyterian. His father Archibald was born Roman Catholic but at the time of his marriage became an Anglican, worshiping God, he was fond of saying, “according to act of Parliament.” Thomas was the oldest of eight children. He was educated in a military regimental school where the students received an English classical education. This consisted of studies in English grammar and reading, Latin and Greek, writing and arithmetic. 

Campbell was of a deeply religious nature. Finding the formality of the Anglican tradition forbidding, he sought fellowship with the Seceder Presbyterians, those who had insisted on the right to select their own ministers when the Church of Scotland sought to limit selection. Thomas found the life and order of the Seceders more congenial to his nature. After attending their meetings a short while, he put himself under their religious guidance and, ultimately, took membership in the Seceder congregation at Newry. Shortly thereafter he determined to devote his life to the preaching of the gospel. 

Thomas’s first vocation was teaching school. Through the influence of a fellow Seceder, a full-time position was obtained for him at a school at Sheepbridge, a village about two miles from Newry. John Kinley, a man of means, was so impressed with his ability and promise that Kinley offered to finance Thomas’s further education if he would carry out his original intention of entering the ministry. In 1783, shortly after his twentieth birthday, he entered the University of Glasgow. 

Young Campbell was probably enrolled in the regular course in the Faculty of Arts. There he came under the influence of the empiricism of John Locke and the rationalistic philosophy of David Hume. The “common sense” philosophy of Thomas Reid, which gave full support to orthodox Christian faith, undoubtedly had a great influence on the development of his deepest convictions. 

Thomas Campbell completed his course with honors about 1786, and in 1787 he entered the theological school maintained by the Anti-Burgher branch of the Seceder church. Anti-Burghers were those Seceders who differed over the question as to whether the mayors of Scottish cities should swear to support the established church. The school was under the direction of Rev. Archibald Bruce, a leading minister of the Anti-Burghers. The course of study, leading to licensing and ultimately to ordination, consisted of attendance at yearly sessions of eight weeks each over a five-year period. 

The school week consisted of a general lecture on Monday, sermons by students on Tuesday, a lecture in Latin on systematic theology on Wednesday, an examination on the theology lecture on Thursday, more student sermons on Friday, and, on Saturday, a lecture on the Confession of Faith. He finished his course in 1791. 

It was probably while teaching school at Ballymena in County Antrim between sessions at the theological school that Thomas met his future wife, Jane Corneigle (1764-1835), a descendant of French Huguenots. The exact date is not known, but probably Jane and Thomas were married sometime in June 1787. Their first child, a son, Alexander, was born September 12, 1788. 

Shortly after Thomas Campbell completed his work at the theological school, he and his family returned to the Sheepbridge area, where Thomas continued to teach school and to preach occasionally for Seceder congregations of the area. While living in the town of Market Hill two daughters were born: Dorothea, born July 27, 1793, and Nancy, born September 18, 1795. 

About 1798, Campbell was ordained at the time that he accepted a call to become the pastor of a Seceder congregation recently established at Ahorey, in the open country near the village of Rich Hill not far from Armagh. The family moved to a small farm near Rich Hill. 

Thomas Campbell’s ministry at Ahorey coincided with troublesome years of religious conflict. Organizations of Roman Catholics and of Protestants were formed for the purpose of driving the other out. These conflicts culminated in the rebellions of 1798 and 1803. Peace was partially restored by a new agreement between the parties, but many Irishmen were still discontent. 

The family grew larger with the addition of a third daughter, Jane, born June 25, 1800; a second son, Thomas, born May 1, 1802; another son, Archibald, born April 4, 1804; and finally another daughter, Alicia, born April 1806. With seven children in the family Campbell found his expenses greatly increased. Unable to manage on a preacher’s small salary, Campbell began to look for some means to add to his income. 

Considerably occupied in teaching his own family, he decided it might be profitable to establish an academy that would be available to the public. When a house suitable for use both as a home and a school was found in nearby Rich Hill, the family moved there from the farm, and an academy was opened. 

Even though he was a member of the Anti-Burgher Seceders, Campbell always displayed a surprising independence of mind. After he moved to Rich Hill, several influences began to work on Thomas, bringing him to a less rigid Calvinism: (1) the Independents (Congregationalists) he met in the village, (2) the “evangelical” revival going on about him evidenced by such men as James A. Haldane (1768-1851), and (3) his increasing concern over the sectarian spirit of the Seceders. 

Rebuffed in attempts to reunite the several Presbyterian groups and discouraged by renewed violence between Protestants and Catholics, Campbell decided to leave Ireland. He migrated to the United States in 1807, leaving the family in the charge of 19–year-old Alexander.

 Upon arrival in Philadelphia he found the Associate Synod of North America (the organization of the Seceders in the United States) in session. Many persons known to him in Ireland had earlier settled in Pennsylvania. At his request, he was assigned by the synod to the Chartiers Presbytery in the western part of the state and moved immediately to the town of Washington. 

Probably one of the best-educated clergy on the frontier, Campbell was soon in conflict with several of the native-born and less educated Presbyterian leaders. Censured by the Presbytery for his failure to follow orthodox practice in offering the Lord’s Supper only to Seceders and having failed in his appeal to the Associate Synod in its next meeting, Campbell resigned from his ministry in that organization. 

Under the influence of a fresh environment and with the hope that the religious quarrels of Ireland could be prevented in the new land, Thomas Campbell next began to preach for and to cooperate with all Christians, of whatever persuasion. This led in 1809 to the formation of “The Christian Association of Washington.” 

Before long the leaders of the new organization asked him to draw up a statement of their purposes and objectives. This resulted in a document called the Declaration and Address, read and approved at a special meeting of the association on September 7, 1809. It was published sometime during the last two weeks of that year. 

The full title of the document is the Declaration and Address of the Christian Association of Washington County, Washington, Pennsylvania. It reveals more fully than anything else the spirit and genius of Thomas Campbell and is his major literary work. Rouse and Neil, in their definitive history of the ecumenical movement, call the report “one of the most important documents on the ecumenical movement to come out of North America.” An unpretentious document, it has as a major presupposition that the church of Christ is one but has been divided into different parties by doctrines and practices not authorized by the New Testament. 

The document reflects the philosophical studies of Thomas Campbell at the University of Glasgow, chiefly the views of John Locke (1632-1704). Prominent in the document are ideas taken almost directly from Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding and his Letter Concerning Toleration. Campbell reflects Locke’s ideas on the purpose of the church, Locke’s concept of a voluntary association of those interested in unity, as well as Locke’s assumption that individuals have the right to organize a church to worship God as they think proper. 

The Declaration and Address is important as the founding document of the Campbell movement and was so recognized at the centennial celebration of 1909. Hardly noticed by the religious leaders of the day, the document has had great significance in the development of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Thomas Campbell believed he had discovered an infallible formula for Christian union and only incidentally considered the possibility of its potential problems. 

In the midst of these labors, about the first week in October 1809, Thomas received word that his family had arrived safely in New York, had proceeded by stagecoach to Philadelphia, and soon would be on their way to join him. About ten days later the family was reunited, having been separated for over two years. After meeting somewhere in the Allegheny Mountains on the road from Philadelphia, Thomas Campbell accompanied his family to a home he had prepared for them in Washington. 

By the spring of 1810 little progress had been made in the cause of Christian union proposed by Thomas. The proposals of the Declaration and Address had been little discussed, and no other groups had sought to form an organization similar to the Christian Association of Washington. Campbell was joined in his labors at this time by the recently arrived Alexander, who preached his first sermon in July 1810 at a meeting of the Association, which was rapidly taking on the characteristics of a church. 

Thomas was greatly concerned over this development. In the Declaration and Address he had been careful to state that the Christian Association was not to be considered a church. He was distressed at the idea that he should be instrumental in the creation of yet another sect, further dividing the church of Christ. To avoid this possibility Campbell was encouraged to believe the Christian Association would be accepted into the fellowship of the Pittsburgh Synod of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. Though the PCUSA was more inclusive than the Seceder Synod, it was not to be. At a meeting of the Synod at Washington in October 1810 the request for recognition of the Christian Association was denied. Out of this disappointment in the spring of 1811 the Association constituted itself a church and built a meeting house in the valley of Brush Run. 

The Brush Run church accepted the congregational form of government. They also early adopted immersion as the scriptural form of baptism. For these two actions their Presbyterian neighbors bitterly attacked Thomas Campbell and his followers, calling them “reformers.” 

Young Alexander, licensed to preach by the Brush Run church, was ordained January 1, 1812. Within a short while he assumed leadership of the movement, and Thomas moved into the background. For the next forty-five years the father became an able and willing assistant to the son. 

With the adoption of immersion, Thomas and Alexander Campbell were brought into fellowship with the Baptists. Between 1812 and 1814 increasingly friendly relations with the Baptists led the Campbells to apply for admission to the Redstone Baptist Association. Before doing so the members of the Brush Run church discussed the matter thoroughly and presented their views to the Association in a written statement. They made known their opposition to written creeds and expressed their willingness to join the Association provided they should be allowed to teach and preach only what they derived from the Bible. After much debate the majority of the Association voted to admit the Brush Run congregation to membership in September 1815. 

Sometime earlier Thomas Campbell had become convinced that his ministry would have wider influence in another section of the country and decided to move ninety miles west to a farm about two miles from Cambridge, Ohio. Before leaving for Ohio, Thomas announced his decision to follow his son’s lead and preach without compensation. To support his family, in addition to farming, Campbell opened a school in Cambridge. 

By late fall of 1815, having heard of an opportunity for a school in Pittsburgh, Campbell moved his family there. His main motivation in moving, however, was the opportunity to organize a congregation on New Testament principles. By the fall of 1817 Campbell, anxious to minister to the needs of a newer frontier, moved his family to Boone County, Kentucky, just opposite Cincinnati, and established a school, a base from which he could travel about the countryside and preach. Between 1817 and 1819 Campbell made several visits and preaching tours into Indiana. Campbell and his family were settled comfortably into their new home in northern Kentucky until a disturbing experience in the summer of 1819. On a Sunday afternoon Thomas preached to a group of slaves and on the next day was told that what he had done was illegal. Refusing to live where he could not freely preach the gospel, Thomas immediately made plans to return to western Pennsylvania. By the fall of 1819 the family had settled near the village of West Middletown, about seven miles from Bethany. From here he could assist Alexander in teaching at Buffalo Seminary, which had been opened in 1818, and also minister to the Brush Run church. 

After it began publication in 1823, Thomas Campbell wrote for, and occasionally edited, the Christian Baptist. He did the same after 1830 when Alexander began publication of the Millennial Harbinger. In 1828, at the request of Alexander, Thomas made a trip to the Western Reserve to observe Walter Scott’s ministry and report on his phenomenal success to a somewhat dubious younger Campbell. Thomas’s affirmative report was enough to quell Alexander’s anxieties. About 1830 Thomas took an important and extensive preaching trip to eastern Virginia and North Carolina that resulted in the organization of a number of congregations. After the death of his wife in 1835 he made his home with his son at Bethany. From 1843, about the time of his eightieth birthday, until his last days, he stayed in retirement at Bethany. 

Thomas remained in fair health until just a few weeks before his death. About the middle of December 1853, he was stricken with digestive difficulties. Patient and calm during three weeks of illness, he passed away on January 4, 1854. Surrounded by his children and grandchildren, he quietly slipped away and was laid to rest in the Campbell cemetery beside his wife, Jane. 

In the 1830s, and later in the 1840s, Campbell was frustrated in his attempts to call the movement away from bitterness and controversy, and to return it to the fundamental principle and objective of the “Declaration and Address,” that of Christian unity based on New Testament teaching. Thomas Campbell recognized that a sectarian spirit had developed in the movement to “restore the purity of the early church.” 

Nevertheless, Thomas Campbell made significant and permanent contributions to the Movement’s identity. It must never be forgotten that the father was chief teacher of his son. He guided much of Alexander’s elementary training in Ireland, and it was he who prepared him for the university. It was the father who continued the son’s instruction when Alexander arrived in the United States. 

Not the least of Thomas Campbell’s contributions was the steadying influence he had on the newly formed movement. He was much less iconoclastic than Alexander. He recognized the debt the Movement owed to the Reformed tradition and was a witness to the historic Christian faith as affirmed in evangelical Christianity. While the father and son did not always agree on the advisability of certain actions, they did agree on the “gospel facts” that bind all Christians in fellowship. Of equal importance, Thomas served as a check against the son’s excesses. The father gave crucial assistance to Alexander in keeping the movement from utter confusion in those early days when ministers from diverse backgrounds were being assimilated into the movement, a number of new congregations were being formed, and many new members were being added. 

When Thomas Campbell’s life is viewed as a whole, it is clear that he sought to base his life and his preaching on the Scriptures. It was a lifelong habit for him to memorize a portion of the Bible every day. An educated, humble minister, he opened his mind and heart to receive God’s truth as it was revealed to him. In his Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell his son Alexander eulogized his father: “I knew no man that so uniformly, so undeviatingly, practiced what he taught.” 

BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander Campbell, Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell: Together with a Brief Memoir of Mrs. Jane Campbell (1861; repr. 1954) • William Herbert Hanna, Thomas Campbell: Seceder and Christian Union Advocate (1935; repr. 1986) • Lester G. McAllister, Thomas Campbell — Man of the Book (1954) • Thomas H. Olbricht and Hans Rollmann, The Quest for Christian Unity, Peace, and Purity in Thomas Campbell’s ‘Declaration and Address’ (2000) • Robert Richardson, Memoirs of A. Campbell, 2 vols. (1868, 1870). 

LESTER G. MCALLISTER

Foster, Douglas A.. The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement (pp. 496-508). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition. 

This entry, written by Lester G. McAllister, was originally published in The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement (Edited by Douglas A. Foster, Paul M. Blowers, Anthony L. Dunnavant, and D. Newell Williams; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), pages 138-142. Republished with permission.