The American Restoration Movement

The word “restoration” is not unique to Latter-day Saints. During the Second Great Awakening (1790-1850). The American Restoration movement (1790-1850), led by Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone, recognized that all the different denominations were dividing Christians. The Restoration movement strove to “restore” the primitive Church of Christ as patterned in the New Testament, and by so doing would hasten the second coming of Jesus Christ.

The idea of restoration to the New Testament church or “primitive church” was familiar and meaningful to seekers of the second great awakening, including Sydney Rigdon and the large number of Campbellite converts he brought to the Mormon movement or “The Church of Christ'' as originally named in 1830.

Joseph Smith, while also striving to restore the primitive church as Alexander Campbell was in Ohio, claimed divine authority straight from the heavens in 1835, rather than just implementing patterns from the New Testament.

Influential churches emerged from the American Restoration movement or Stone Campbell Movement such as The Church of Christ...a name also originally used by the Mormon movement in 1830.