DISCIPLES. - A name given to Protestants also called Campbellites, because they are followers of Thomas Campbell (1763-1853). He was an Irish Presbyterian who, having emigrated to the United States in 1807, set out to unite all Christians by adopting a name that was genuinely biblical and not sectarian. To this end he separated from the Presbyterians, and with the help of his son Alexander (1788-1866) founded in 1810 the “First Church of the Christian Association.”
To unite all denominations Campbell proposed that: a) only the Bible should be the norm of faith, worship, organization, and government; b) deductions drawn from the Bible, even if true doctrines, should not be binding on the Christian; c) confessions of faith, though useful, should never be considered essential conditions for membership in the Christian Church. The two Campbells, convinced that baptism by immersion was necessary, at one time joined the Baptists, submitted to rebaptism, but later separated from them in 1829. A few years afterward, in 1838, the followers of Barton W. Stone joined them; Stone, a Presbyterian minister, had become a “Christian” (cf. Christians). Hence arose the question of a name that should be purely biblical: Stone wished them to be called “Christians,” while Alexander Campbell preferred “Disciples”; confusion resulted, as they were indiscriminately called by both names. Even after the 1906 schism, in which the more conservative officially took the name Church of Christ or Christians, while the progressives adopted the definitive name Disciples, some confusion persists among Protestant writers, as may be