The Christian Record

Many hours of work have gone into the production of the volume you now hold in your hands. Many people have been a part of this project, and each one did it as a labor of love in order to bring this often forgotten part of Restoration Movement history to light once more. All students of the movement are at least aware of Campbell's two periodicals, The Christian Baptist and Millennial Harbinger. Some have heard of Walter Scott's The Evangelist and Barton Stone's Christian Messenger. Most know about the Gospel Advocate, but may not be aware of its pedigree and history. But ask most members of the church of Christ, the Christian Church, or the Disciples of Christ (those who trace their history back to the Restoration Movement, though some distance themselves from the principles their spiritual forefathers fought for) about the Christian Record, and you'll most likely end up with blank stares.

James M. Mathes was a no-joking-around defender of the faith, who would not back down from controversy. In this first volume of the Christian Record, he pulls no punches in exposing the church-troubling heresy of Millerism (William Miller predicted Christ's return in 1843, then again in 1844), having a back-and-forth debate with a brother in Christ who bought into Miller's claims.

As much as is possible, we have tried to keep the original setup from the 1843/1844 edition of the Christian Record. This has been done so any writers who wish to quote from or reference this classic Restoration Movement periodical can do so with confidence, knowing the text and page numbers are the same as the original.

The text has been cleaned up visually, but no changes have been made to the text itself, except for a few very rare cases where there was an obvious typo (like "teh" instead of "the").

We hope you enjoy this piece of Restoration Movement history.

-The Publisher