Restorationism

Restorationism, also known as Christian primitivism, is a religious perspective holding that the early beliefs and practices of the followers of Jesus were either lost or adulterated after the deaths of his apostles, and therefore require restoration. It is a view that often "seeks to correct faults or deficiencies, in other branches of Christianity, by appealing to the primitive church as normative model". Efforts to restore an earlier, purer form of Christianity are frequently a response to denominationalism. As Rubel Shelly put it, "the motive behind all restoration movements is to tear down the walls of separation by a return to the practice of the original, essential and universal features of the Christian religion." Different groups have attempted to implement the restorationist vision in various ways; for instance, some have focused on the structure and practice of the church, others on the ethical life of the church, and still others on the direct experience of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. The relative importance assigned to the restoration ideal, and the extent to which the full restoration of the early church is believed to have been achieved, also varies among groups. The term has been used in reference to the Stone–Campbell Movement in the United States, as well as certain bodies of the holiness movement that emphasize that true believers are members of the "church of God" and thus use this locution in their name, such as the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), Church of God (Holiness), and Church of God (Guthrie, Oklahoma); these denominations do not keep membership rolls. It has also been used by more recent groups describing their goal to re-establish Christianity in its original form, such as some anti-denominational Charismatic Restorationists, which arose in the 1970s in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. More...