Willful Naïveté: American Evangelicalism and the Stone-Campbell Tradition

The publication of the Last Will and Testament of the Springfield
Presbytery signaled a reorientation of American Protestantism from
English and European influences to American sources. Abetted by a
Common Sense reading of the Scriptures, the Restorationist movement,
in turn, has influenced the various forms of evangelicalism in
America, all of which claim an ahistorical, naïve approach to the
Bible in the formulation of their beliefs. Unlike evangelicalism, however,
Stone-Campbell Restorationism has retained its suspicion of
institutional forms.