Thomas Campbell

Thomas Campbell (1 February 1763 – 4 January 1854) was an Irish–American Presbyterian minister who became prominent during the Second Great Awakening of the United States. Born in County Down, he began a religious reform movement on the American frontier. He was joined in the work by his son, Alexander. Their movement, known as the "Disciples of Christ", merged in 1832 with the similar movement led by Barton W. Stone to form what is now described as the American Restoration Movement (also known as the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement).

Early life Campbell was born in County Down, Ireland (now Northern Ireland), and raised as an Anglican. On 4 May 1811, the Christian Association reconstituted itself as a congregationally governed church. With the building it constructed at Brush Run, Pennsylvania, it became known as Brush Run Church.

Thomas and his son Alexander worked within the Redstone Baptist Association during the period 1815 through 1824. While both the Campbells and the Baptists shared practices of baptism by immersion and congregational polity, it was soon clear that the Campbells and their associates were not traditional Baptists. Within the Redstone Association, some of the Baptist leaders considered the differences intolerable when Alexander Campbell began publishing a journal, The Christian Baptist, which promoted reform. The Campbells anticipated the conflict and moved their membership to a congregation of the Mahoning Baptist Association in 1824. While he did not explicitly use the term "essentials", in the Declaration and Address, Campbell proposed the same solution to religious division as had been advanced earlier by Herbert and Locke: "educe religion to a set of essentials upon which all reasonable persons might agree."

Thomas Campbell combined the Enlightenment approach to unity with the Reformed and Puritan traditions of restoration. Immigrated to the United States in 1807, settling in western Pennsylvania. Shortly after his oldest son, Alexander Campbell, was ordained in 1812, Thomas began playing a supporting role to Alexander. Thomas was generally less radical than his son, and was a stabilising influence on the movement. Thomas died on 4 January 1854 in Bethany, West Virginia and was buried next to his wife in the Campbell family cemetery.