The “General Apostasy from Good Taste and Good Sense”: Alexander Campbell’s Critique of Fashionable Religion

Alexander Campbell often wrote about what the church ought to be as
he reacted to fashionable religion as he perceived it. While he became
somewhat less iconoclastic as the years passed, he continued to promote
the repudiation of many aspects of fashionable religion in his day. He
called for simplicity in church buildings, furnishings, apparel, and
manners. It is against this backdrop that Campbell wrote disparagingly
(though infrequently) about the use of instrumental music in
worship services.