Campus CrossWalk Magazine: 2006 Spring Issue -- Our Polar Star

At the far end of the handle of the Little Dipper is Ursa Minor. Pilots and navigators have long called it the Polar Star. You may know it as the North Star.

While all the other stars rotate around the heavens, the Polar Star is always in the north. It is the one constant in the constellation of the sky. Ancient mariners and explorers relied on it for a fixed point of reference through the night.

An artist needs a fixed reference point to establish perspective in her composition. Pitchers need a plate. Soldiers need a flag. Politicians need something besides opinion polls. Justices need a Constitution to trump their personal preferences. Without a reference point, we get lost.

What is your Ursa Minor?

Barton W. Stone lived to answer that question with one phrase: “Christian unity.” But the phrase itself was not his Ursa Minor, the reality behind it was. This reality, Stone believed, could only be found through the transforming power of the pure Christian gospel.

In The Christian Messenger (Stone’s monthly pamphlet, December, 1829), Barton expressed his passion for destroying “sectarian props, creeds and names“ and promoting “love, peace and unity among Christians.” In that article, he called those desires “the polar star to which our attention and exertion shall be chiefly directed.”

Barton was born in 1772 in Maryland. His family moved to Virginia in 1779 after his father died.

People lived close to nature then. As a boy, Barton probably learned early how to use the North Star to find his way home at night.

At 19, Mr. Stone converted to Christianity and dedicated himself to ministry. He ended up in Kentucky, at Cane Ridge Presbyterian Church where he was “alarmed“ (his word) to find such a low level of interest in faith on the frontier. In 1801, he organized a revival meeting at Cane Ridge attracting 25,000 seekers over five days. Denominational lines blurred as, according to Stone, “all united in prayer [and] all preached the same thing.”

The Presbyterian hierarchy was not amused. Their stance deepened Stone’s desire to be free from Presbyterian strings while remaining subject to God‘s Word. He and others wanted to “just be Christian.“ They were losing trust that denominational ties, terms or creeds could guide Christians toward unity. Rather, a return to simple, yet deeper, conviction rooted in God’s Word was the key to unity.

Stone saw his famous handshake in 1832 with Alexander Campbell, merging the “Christians” who followed him with the “Disciples” who followed Campbell, as the noblest act of his life.

In his later years, Stone’s preaching zeroed in on the need for believers to promote the unity and purity of the church through humility. The aging Stone had learned how selfish pride was clearly the bane of union in all ages.

At the Disciples of Christ National Historical Society in Nashville, Tennessee, there is a statue of Stone (yes, it’s also a stone statue--marble, to be specific) with the following inscription: “Let the unity of Christians be our Polar Star.”

That’s his legacy in a nutshell.

Mariners watch the Polar Star for guidance, with a destination in mind. Barton Stone watched for the unity of Christians through the Holy Spirit. “To this let our eyes be continually turned,” he wrote in 1832. Stone was a first-things-first kind of guy and for him, unity came first.

Joel Mark Solliday , B.A., M.Div., is the editor of Campus CrossWalk and the pulpit minister of the Northern Light Church of Christ in Minnesota. A Pepperdine graduate, he later worked in their Campus Life Office. He served as a Missionary in Residence at ACU. He earned his M.Div. at Fuller Theological Seminary. His wife Katie is a fine school teacher and a great listener.