Christian Connection

Christian Connection
ClassificationProtestant Restorationist
OrientationEvangelical
PolityConnectional
FounderAbner Jones, Elias Smith, James O'Kelly and Barton Stone
Origin1792 as Republican Methodist Church
1810 as Christian Connection
Separated fromBaptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Methodists
SeparationsChristian churches and churches of Christ
Merged intoCongregational Christian Churches
Defunct1931

The Christian Connection was a Christian movement in the United States of America that developed in several places during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, composed of members who withdrew from other Christian denominations. It was influenced by settling the frontier as well as the formation of the new United States and its separation from Great Britain. The Christian Connection professed no creed, instead relying strictly on the Bible.

In practice, members coalesced around shared theological concepts such as an Arminian theological anthropology (doctrine of human nature), a rejection of the Calvinist doctrine of election, and an autonomous church government. The Connection's periodical, the Herald of Gospel Liberty (first published on September 1, 1808), was among the first religious journals published in the United States.[1]

  1. ^ Mark Fackler and Charles H. Lippy, eds., Popular Religious Magazines of the United States (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995), 263-268.

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