Dr. Robert Richardson (1806 – 1876) was an American

medical doctor A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis ...

who spent much of his life teaching and working as an administrator at Bethany College. He served as family physician for Alexander Campbell, noted

Restoration Movement The Restoration Movement (also known as the American Restoration Movement or the Stone–Campbell Movement, and pejoratively as Campbellism) is a Christian movement that began on the American frontier during the Second Great Awakening (1790–1 ...

pioneer, for well over 30 years. He was also associate editor for Campbell's ''

Millennial Harbinger The ''Millennial Harbinger'' was a religious magazine established by the early Restoration Movement leader Alexander Campbell in 1830. Douglas A. Foster and Anthony L. Dunnavant, ''The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement: Christian Church ...

'' magazine for nearly 30 years.

Contribution to the Restoration Movement

In the early 1840s Richardson spoke out against what he felt to be the Restoration Movement's mistaken focus on

doctrine Doctrine (from , meaning 'teaching, instruction') is a codification (law), codification of beliefs or a body of teacher, teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a ...

s and theories. Richardson felt the movement relied heavily upon a system that trusted, “belief in correct intellectual views...; as respect to the mind rather than to the heart.” Richardson attributed this development, in large measure, to the influence of

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 28 October 1704 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thi ...

's philosophy. Locke taught that true knowledge was gained through the five senses and that human reason must be our last judge and guide in everything. Richardson labeled the popular philosophy as ''dirt philosophy''. He called it that because of its insistence that God could influence human beings only through material objects or through revealed words.

References

''Distant Voices: Discovering a Forgotten Past for a Changing Church'' by C. Leonard Allen: ACU Press; 1993 Members of Restoration Movement denominations 1806 births 1876 deaths American primary care physicians Bethany College (West Virginia) people {{US-reli-bio-stub