In his essay for Rochester Retrospect,* Dr. David Greer, professor of history, examines a foundational but neglected countercultural tradition within the American Restoration Movement from which Churches of Christ and Rochester University emerged. This “apocalyptic tradition,” he argues, retains value for grounding and guiding the mission of RU today.
The pursuit of truth and freedom
Greer begins by identifying two primary aims of RU’s founders in 1959: first, to provide an environment for the encouragement of Christian faith, devotion and leadership; and second, to offer a high-quality regionally-accessible education rooted in the liberal arts.
Both missions, Greer notes, emphasized the pursuit of truth and freedom, reflecting the early-19th-century Restoration Movement’s emphasis on the right of individuals to think for themselves and not merely defer to institutional authority.
Reflecting Dr. Keith Huey’s and Dr. Mark Love’s essays, previously published here, Greer recognizes the valuable legacy of Restorationist co-founder Alexander Campbell’s liberal arts ideal and “conviction that faith and learning were ultimately harmonious, dignified, and mutually beneficial.”
Barton W. Stone and the “apocalyptic worldview”
Then, Greer dives into the worldview of Campbell’s Restorationist counterpart, Barton W. Stone. While Campbell reflected a more modernist, rationalist, and nationalist outlook, Stone reflected an “apocalyptic” worldview that focused on absolute devotion to the kingdom of God and the corresponding values of piety and holiness.
Stone’s position held out major social and political imperatives, including antislavery, pacifism, and care for the poor and marginalized. He also asserted that “Christians’ recognition of the kingdom of God as real, present, and paramount necessarily rendered all other identities and loyalties, if not meaningless, at least conditional and dependent. Hence, for Stone and his spiritual heirs, nationalism was unthinkable. Nay, it was idolatry.”
Stone’s countercultural heirs
Between the Civil War and World War I, Greer continues, two influential leaders carried forward Stone’s countercultural views. David Lipscomb, namesake of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, shared Stone’s skepticism of worldly institutions, including all civil government, asserting that Christians’ allegiance was to God’s kingdom alone. “Lipscomb would scoff at the idea that the United States was, could be, or should seek to declare itself a ‘Christian nation.’ ” Similarly, James A. Harding, namesake of Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, affirmed a kingdom vision that was apolitical and pacifist. Lipscomb’s and Harding’s positions were not first anti-political or anti-American, but rather the consequence of a radical commitment to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.”
“Apocalyptic” decline in an age of war, power and affluence
The First World War proved a turning point toward decline for the Stone-Lipscomb-Harding influence within Churches of Christ, by now a distinct “Bible Belt”-concentrated branch of the Restoration Movement. Subsequently, Greer explains, “the cultural environments of the Second World War, the Cold War that followed, and the unprecedented American power and wealth in the postwar decades were not conducive to pacifist, anti-nationalist, or other countercultural appeals.” Leading Church of Christ voices established “what became over the succeeding decades a more nationalistic, pragmatic, and culturally mainstream movement.” By the mid-1950s, amidst national affluence and Cold War fears, the apocalyptic tradition had been largely pushed to the margins.
Constricted vision
The diminishment of a strong “apocalyptic” voice had consequences. Greer writes that white Churches of Christ in RU’s founding years held a “dulled sensibility about the era’s great moral issues of social ethics and racial justice.” The southeast Michigan founders of North Central Christian College (now RU) leaned heavily toward the rationalist-legalist heritage of the Churches of Christ and less on the tradition endorsed by Stone, Lipscomb and Harding.
Nevertheless, Greer writes, these founders were also, by “fortune of geographical and cultural distance, less bound by the southern cultural constrictions that weighed so heavily on most other of the fellowship’s educational institutions.” RU’s founders and administration adopted a non-segregationist policy from the start, and soon thereafter a vision was cast to attract students from beyond Churches of Christ. The new college also encouraged a global vision and open-mindedness toward other cultures, which persist today.
Concluding observations
Greer concludes with reflections on the value of the apocalyptic tradition for RU’s present and future, the first being that it “draws us back to first principles and priorities.”
“The dual mission to cultivate both spirit and mind in devotion to transcendent reality and truth…remain as essential as ever,” he writes. He commends the RU community’s work as a worthy service in relation to ultimate truth—which is God—reminding students, professors, staff, administration, trustees and supporters that “what we do together and in our respective roles matters in the most fundamental way.”
The apocalyptic tradition also offers a powerful countercultural impulse, Greer argues. “In recognizing God’s authority on earth, Christians are called not to accept conventional priorities, definitions, and values as normative. Instead, we advocate and seek to embody an alternative, kingdom-of-God vision and set of values, which may sometimes and for certain matters parallel secular views and interests, but also often will not.”
Greer warns the community to “remain extremely wary about aligning our identity, energies, and resources—or even appearing to do so—with any particular political, ideological, partisan, or national agenda or agency.”
Finally, Greer affirms that the “apocalyptic tradition calls us to adopt a view of humanity in which all members reflect the image of the creator and hold equal worth. Systems of value disparity such as nationalism, racism, genderism, wealth, power, caste, sexuality, health and ability, age, or heritage stand against the ethic of all being subjects equally loved by and responsible to God.”
The “open table” of RU can find grounding and inspiration in this early Restorationist tradition.
*At the time of publication, the university was known as Rochester University. It is now named Rochester Christian University.
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*Rochester Christian University explored its current identity and mission as rooted in its origins as part of a grant funded by the Council of Independent Colleges. This effort took place in 2022 and was called Rochester Retrospect. A steering committee commissioned the writing of eight essays.
Click on the links below to read Dr. David Greer’s full essay and the other Rochester Retrospect essays:
- American Origins of Churches of Christ by Dr. Keith Huey
- An Ecumenical Christian University: From “Christians Only” to “The Only Christians” and Beyond by Dr. Naomi Walters
- No Creed but the Bible: The Story of Scripture in Churches of Christ by Dr. Mark Love
- Alexander Campbell, Liberal Arts, and Integrative Learning by Dr. Keith Huey
- The “Apocalyptic Tradition” in Churches of Christ: A Countercultural Remembrance and Challenge by Dr. David Greer
- Missions to Missional: Rochester University’s Story in Churches of Christ from Otis Gatewood to Brian Stogner by Dr. Beth Bowers
- Learning Virtues for a Church of Christ University by Dr. Mark Love
- Rochester University: A Distinctive University – In Its Heritage and Its Future by Dr. Brian Stogner
