Appeal to the understanding of the common populace found particular resonance in the religious life of America. It addressed several topical issues of the time, including the proclamation of certainty among religious confusion, a confidence in the ordinary mind to understand God’s word, a return to biblical language for clarity, and an equalizing factor between the clergy and the laity. That pious individuals could upon their Bibles for themselves and understand it without the intercessory services of the clergy was a revolutionary idea in tune with the early American ethos. Echoing the rhetoric of the American Constitution, Alexander Campbell, among many others, called for the “inalienable right of all laymen to examine the sacred writings for themselves.”
David L. Little, “Inductive Hermeneutics and the Early Restoration Movement” in Stone-Campbell Journal 3 (Spring, 2000): 10.
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