How Barton Stone
Relates to the
Heresy of Decisional Regeneration

Barton Stone (1772-1844)

Barton W. Stone (1772-1844) was the first Restorationist minister. He was educated by David Caldwell. Caldwill did NOT teach Stone Scottish Common Sense Realism, because Caldwell attended the College of New Jersey before the arrival of John Witherspoon in 1768. However, it's likely he heard about  Scottish Common Sense Realism from James McGready.

Stone became a Presbyterian minister and starting in 1796, pastored the Concord and Cane Ridge churches in Kentucky. Stone and fellow Presbyterian James McGready shared a growing concern about the need for religious renewal on the frontier. In 1800 Stone attended a Presbyterian Sacramental Meeting at Gasper River, Kentucky and was impressed by the large number of conversions. Soon after, he began planning his own Meeting.

On August 6, 1801, thousands of people from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio appeared at Cane Ridge and participated in the largest Presbyterian Communion service in American history. In the intensity of the service, people cried, jerked, and above all, fell to the ground. By 1803, the Presbyterian Church had accused two of Stone’s closest colleagues of Arminianism. In 1804 Stone and six other ministers resigned from the Kentucky synod and within a year adopted the name “Christians” and took the Bible as their only guide.

Rejecting the Presbyterian Confession, they contended that salvation was open to all believers and that each congregation should govern its own church. Stone spent the years from 1804 to 1832 preaching and writing in Kentucky and Tennessee. In 1832, Stone joined with Alexander Campbell's Restorationists, and the supernatural emphasis of Stone's Restoration churches was eclipsed by the rational views of Scottish Common Sense Realism taught by Campbell.

Stone’s movement was highly expressive, emotional, and emphasized the immediate, supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in salvation. Conversely, Campbell movement viewed saving faith as a rational, intellectual response to "truth impressions" and regeneration as merely the "tipping point" of the understanding. Campbell also believed the "verbal restrictive" theory of the Holy Spirit. When the two movements joined, Campbell's structured, rationalist approach overshadowed Stone's revivalistic, supernatural emphasis.

To his credit, Stone resisted the calls for him to renounce what he knew were supernatural acts of God. At the end of his life, he described how the Holy Spirit affected multitudes when the gospel was preached at Presbyterian Sacramental meetings:

"With astonishment did I hear men, women and children declaring the wonderful works of God, and the glorious mysteries of the gospel ... After attending to many such cases, my conviction was complete that is was a good work - the work of God; nor has my mind wavered since on the subject. Much did I then see, and much have I seen since, that I considered to be fanaticism; but this should not condemn the work. The Devil has always tried to ape the works of God, to bring them into disrepute. But that cannot be a Satanic work, which brings men to humble confession and forsaking of sin - to solemn prayer - fervent praise and thanksgiving, and to sincere and affectionate exhortations to sinners to repent and go to Jesus the Saviour. I am always hurt to hear people speak lightly of this work. I always think they speak of what they know nothing about".