What is "restorationism"

Restorationism \Res`to*ra"tion*ism\ (-?z'm), n. The belief or doctrines of the Restorationists.

n. 1 Any movement or opinion that seeks to restore something to the way it was. 2 (context specifically English) A movement that rejects much or all of contemporary Christianity and advocates a return to what is viewed as Jesus's original teachings. The Mormons are an example of a restorationist church.

Christian primitivism, also described as restorationism, is the belief that Christianity should be restored along the lines of what is known about the apostolic early church, which restorationists see as the search for a more pure and more ancient form of the religion. Fundamentally, "this vision seeks to correct faults or deficiencies [in the church] by appealing to the primitive church as a normative model." The term "restorationism" is sometimes used more specifically as a synonym for the American Restoration Movement. The term is also used by more recent groups, describing their goal to re-establish Christianity in its original form, such as some anti-denominational Charismatic Restorationists, which arose in the 1970s in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In comparable terms, earlier primitivist movements, including the Hussites, Anabaptists, Landmarkists, Puritans, and the Waldensians have been described as examples of restorationism, as have many seventh-day Sabbatarians. Landmarkism (often identified with Baptist Successionism) is more properly a theory of the continuation of the pure Church through the centuries, recognizable by certain key doctrines, primarily believers baptism. Many groups have attempted a history of their movement and an ecclesiology that falls somewhere in between the two ideas of Restorationism and Successionism.

Efforts to restore an earlier, purer form of Christianity are often a response to denominationalism. As Rubel Shelly put it, "[t]he motive behind all restoration movements is to tear down the walls of separation by a return to the practice of the original, essential and universal features of the Christian religion." Different groups have tried to implement the restorationist vision in different ways; for instance, some have focused on the structure and practice of the church, others on the ethical life of the church, and others on the direct experience of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. The relative importance given to the restoration ideal, and the extent to which the full restoration of the early church is believed to have been achieved, also varies between groups.

Restorationism or Christian primitivism is the belief that a purer form of Christianity should be restored using the early church as a model.

Restorationism can also refer to:

• The Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, Christian primitivism from the 1840s onward in North America and Britain
• The British New Church Movement, British Christian primitivism of the 1960s onward
• Christian Restorationism, a 19th-century movement promoting restoration of Jews to the Holy land, later related to "Christian Zionism"
• Universal restoration, Greek apocatastasis, the "restoration of all things" mentioned in Acts, and most closely associated with Origen of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa
• The formative Universalist Church of America's Restorationist faction of the 1820s, which insisted on a period of purgatory for some souls
• Restoration (Latter Day Saints), the process by which the Latter-day Saint movement was started, also at times used as a synonym for the movement itself
• Restoration Branches, independent organizations separate from the Community of Christ (at the time of separation the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)