Churches of Christ

Modern Churches of Christ have their historical roots in the Restoration Movement, which was a convergence of Christians across denominational lines in search of a return to an original "predenominational" form of Christianity. Participants in this movement sought to base their doctrine and practice on the Bible alone, rather than recognizing the traditional councils and denominational hierarchies that had come to define Christianity since the first century A.D. They aspire to be the New Testament church as established by Christ. • Autonomous, congregational church organization, without denominational oversight; based on New Testament passages teaching to sing for worship, with no mention of instrumental music (and also worship in assemblies of the early Church for centuries had a cappella singing). They view the Old Testament as divinely inspired They believe that the New Testament demonstrates how a person may become a Christian (and thus part of the universal Church of Christ), and how a church should be collectively organized and carry out its scriptural purposes. In the United States, there are approximately 1,087,559 members and 11,776 congregations. Estimates of the proportion of the US adult population associated with the Churches of Christ vary from 0.8% to 1.5%. Approximately 1,240 congregations, with 172,000 members, are predominantly African-American; 240 congregations with 10,000 members are Spanish-speaking. The average congregation size is approximately 100 members, with larger congregations reporting over 1,000 members. ==Name==

"Church of Christ" is the most common name used by this group. In keeping with their focus of not being a denomination, using Ephesians 1:22–23 as reference to the church being the body of Christ and a body cannot be divided, congregations have identified themselves primarily as community churches and secondarily as Churches of Christ. A primary motivation behind the name is the desire to use a scriptural or Biblical name – to identify the church using a name that is found in the New Testament. Adherents are also referred to as Campbellites by academics because it is assumed that they follow the teachings of Alexander Campbell, similar to Lutherans or Calvinists. Campbell himself refuted the idea that he started or headed a denomination in The Christian Baptist publication in 1826 and 1828, stating: "Some religious editors in Kentucky call those who are desirous of seeing the ancient order of things restored, 'the Restorationers', 'the Campbellites'... This may go well with some; but all who fear God and keep his commands will pity and deplore the weakness and folly of those who either think to convince or to persuade by such means" (The Christian Baptist, Vol. IV, 88–89) and: "It is a nickname of reproach invented and adopted by those whose views, feelings and desires are all sectarian – who cannot conceive of Christianity in any other light than an ISM" (The Christian Baptist, Vol. V, 270). He was also associated with the Baptist denomination until 1820. The term "Campbellite" is usually offensive to members of the churches of Christ because members claim no allegiance to anyone except Jesus Christ and teach only what is presented in biblical texts. Alexander Campbell said the "calling of Bible things by Bible names" was important in the reformation. This became an early slogan of the Restorationist Movement. Thomas Campbell expressed an ideal of unity in his Declaration and Address: "The church of Jesus Christ on earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one." This statement essentially echoes the words of Jesus Christ in John 17:21, 23. Other terms are derived from their use in the New Testament: "church of God", "church of the Lord", "churches of Christ", "church of the first-born", "church of the living God", "the house of God", and "the people of God", while some terms recognized as scriptural, such as Church of God, are avoided to prevent confusion or identification with other groups that use those designations. As a practical matter, use of a common term is seen as a way to help individual Christians find congregations with a similar approach to the scriptures. Members understand that a scriptural name can be used in a "denominational" or "sectarian" way. This is based on the understanding that the term "church of Christ" is used in the New Testament as a descriptive phrase, indicating that the church belongs to Christ, rather than as a proper name. ==Church organization==

Congregational autonomy and leadership Church government is congregational rather than denominational. Churches of Christ purposefully have no central headquarters, councils, or other organizational structure above the local church level. Rather, the independent congregations are a network with each congregation participating at its own discretion in various means of service and fellowship with other congregations (see Sponsoring church (Churches of Christ)). Churches of Christ are linked by their shared commitment to Biblical restoration principles. Congregations also typically apply a requirement that an elder has children who believe. Congregations look for elders who have a mature enough understanding of scripture to enable them to supervise the minister and to teach, as well as to perform "governance" functions. In the absence of willing men who meet these qualifications, congregations are sometimes overseen by the congregation's men in general. While the early Restoration Movement had a tradition of itinerant preachers rather than "located Preachers", during the 20th century a long-term, formally trained congregational minister became the norm among Churches of Christ. Ministers are understood to serve under the oversight of the elders No special titles are used for preachers or ministers that would identify them as "clergy". Churches of Christ emphasize that there is no distinction between "clergy" and "laity" and that every member has a gift and a role to play in accomplishing the work of the church. Variations within Churches of Christ While there is an identifiable mainstream within the Churches of Christ, there are also significant variations within the fellowship. The approach taken to restoring the New Testament church has focused on "methods and procedures" such as church organization, the form of worship, and how the church should function. As a result, most divisions among Churches of Christ have been the result of "methodological" disputes. These are meaningful to members of this movement because of the seriousness with which they take the goal of "restoring the form and structure of the primitive church". Few congregations clap hands or use musical instruments during "formal" weekly convocations. The remaining congregations may be grouped into four categories which generally differ from the mainstream consensus in specific practices, rather than in theological perspectives, and tend to have smaller congregations on average. The remaining three groups, whose congregations are generally considerably smaller than those of the mainstream or non-institutional groups, also oppose institutional support as well as "fellowship halls" and similar structures (for the same reasons as the non-institutional groups), but differ by other beliefs and practices (the groups often overlap, but in all cases hold to more conservative views than even the non-institutional groups): • One group opposes separate "Sunday School" classes for children or gender-separated (the groups thus meet only as a whole assembly in one area); this group consists of approximately 1,100 congregations. The no Sunday School group generally overlaps with the "one-cup" group and may overlap with the "mutual edification" group, as defined below. • Another group opposes the use of multiple communion cups (the term "one-cup" is often used, sometimes pejoratively as "one-cuppers", to describe this group); there are approximately 550 congregations in this group. Congregations in this group differ as to whether "the wine" should be fermented or unfermented, whether the cup can be refilled if during the service it runs dry (or even if it is accidentally spilled), and whether "the bread" may be broken ahead of time or must be broken by the individual participant during the Lord's Supper itself. • The last and smallest group "emphasize[s] mutual edification by various leaders in the churches and oppose[s] one person doing most of the preaching" (the term "mutual edification" is often used to describe this group); there are approximately 130 congregations in this grouping. ==Beliefs==

dating to AD 1859 Churches of Christ seek to practice the principle of the Bible being the only source to find doctrine (known elsewhere as sola scriptura). The Bible is generally regarded as inspired and inerrant. Their approach to the Bible is driven by the "assumption that the Bible is sufficiently plain and simple to render its message obvious to any sincere believer". • Analysis of commands, examples, and necessary inferences; • Dispensational analysis distinguishing between Patriarchal, Mosaic and Christian dispensations (however, Churches of Christ are amillennial and generally hold preterist views); and • Grammatico-historical analysis. The relative importance given to each of these three strategies has varied over time and between different contexts. Use of this tripartite formula has declined as congregations have shifted to an increased "focus on 'spiritual' issues like discipleship, servanthood, family and praise". This was not an entirely new approach, as others had actively "affirmed a theology of free and unmerited grace", but it did represent a change of emphasis with grace becoming "a theme that would increasingly define this tradition". Immersion is seen as more closely conforming to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus than other modes of baptism. The most significant disagreements concerned the extent to which a correct understanding of the role of baptism is necessary for its validity. However members of the Churches of Christ reject this, arguing that since faith and repentance are necessary, and that the cleansing of sins is by the blood of Christ through the grace of God, baptism is not an inherently redeeming ritual. One author describes the relationship between faith and baptism this way, "Faith is the reason why a person is a child of God; baptism is the time at which one is incorporated into Christ and so becomes a child of God" (italics are in the source). However, since the early 2000s, an increasing number of congregations within the Churches of Christ have begun using musical instruments in their worship assemblies. Some of these latter describe themselves as a "Church of Christ (Instrumental)". Christian theology as classically understood – the systematic development of the classical doctrinal topics – is relatively recent and rare among this movement. Churches of Christ do tend to elaborate certain "driving motifs". Eschatology Regarding eschatology (a branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind), Churches of Christ are generally amillennial, their originally prevalent postmillennialism (evident in Alexander Campbell's Millennial Harbinger) having dissipated around the era of the First World War. Before then, many leaders were "moderate historical premillennialists" who did not advocate specific historical interpretations. Churches of Christ have moved away from premillennialism as dispensational millennialism has come more to fore in Protestant evangelical circles. Amillennialism and postmillennialism are the prevailing views today. whose eschatological views came to be most singularly opposed by Foy E. Wallace Jr. By the end of the 20th century, however, the divisions caused by the debate over premillennialism were diminishing, and in the 2000 edition of the directory Churches of Christ in the United States, published by Mac Lynn, congregations holding premillennial views were no longer listed separately. Work of the Holy Spirit During the late 19th century, the prevailing view in the Restoration Movement was that the Holy Spirit currently acts only through the influence of inspired scripture. This rationalist view was associated with Alexander Campbell, who was "greatly affected by what he viewed as the excesses of the emotional camp meetings and revivals of his day". As one scholar of the movement puts it, "[f]or better or worse, those who champion the so-called word-only theory no longer have a hold on the minds of the constituency of Churches of Christ. Though relatively few have adopted outright charismatic and third wave views and remained in the body, apparently the spiritual waves have begun to erode that rational rock." The Trinity Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone are recognized as two of the major Reformers of the so-called "Stone–Campbell Movement". Stone was staunchly nontrinitarian as he elucidates in his, "An Address to the Christian Churches in Kentucky, Tennessee, & Ohio On Several Important Doctrines of Religion." Campbell, "rejected the term 'Trinity,' but did not reject the theological idea of the tri-unity of the Christian God." The fact that these two movements merged into one shows that this was not a major point of contention, even if it was a point of disagreement. Due to the autonomous nature of the Churches of Christ it is difficult to ascribe any doctrinal beliefs to the group as a whole. In Trinity in the Stone-Campbell Movement: Restoring the Heart of Christian Faith, Kelly Carter argues that many members of the Churches of Christ believe in the Trinity, but that it has not been discussed very often because of the lack of importance that Campbell and Stone placed on it in their movement. Church history The fundamental idea of "restoration" or "Christian Primitivism" is that problems or deficiencies in the church can be corrected by using the primitive church as a "normative model". The call for restoration is often justified on the basis of a "falling away" that corrupted the original purity of the church. This falling away is identified with the development of Catholicism and denominationalism. In this view the goal is to "help Christians realize the ideal of the church in the New Testament – to restore the church as conceived in the mind of Christ" (italics in the original). A number of congregations' websites explicitly state that the true church never disappeared. The belief in a general falling away is not seen as inconsistent with the idea that a faithful remnant of the church never entirely disappeared. Some have attempted to trace this remnant through the intervening centuries between the New Testament and the beginning of the Restoration Movement in the early 1800s. One effect of the emphasis placed on the New Testament church is a "sense of historylessness" that sees the intervening history between the 1st century and the modern church as "irrelevant or even abhorrent." Contemporary social and political views The churches of Christ maintain a significant proportion of political diversity. According to the Pew Research Center in 2016, 50% of adherents of the churches of Christ identify as Republican or lean Republican, 39% identify as Democratic or lean Democratic, and 11% have no preference. Despite this, the Christian Chronicle says that the vast majority of adherents maintain a conservative view on modern social issues. This is evident when the Research Center questioned adherents' political ideology. In the survey, 51% identified as "conservative", 29% identified as "moderate" and just 12% identified as "liberal", with 8% not knowing. In contemporary society, the vast majority of adherents of the churches of Christ view homosexuality as a sin. They cite Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26–27 for their position. Most don't view same-sex attraction as a sin; however, they condemn "acting on same-sex desires". ==History==

at Cane Ridge, Kentucky Early Restoration Movement history The Restoration Movement originated with the convergence of several independent efforts to go back to apostolic Christianity. The Stone and Campbell movements merged in 1832. There are many similarities between the Churches of Christ and the Pilgrim Fathers and the Puritans, that settled in what is now Massachusetts in the early 1600s. Their first book published in America, The Bay Psalm Book, has a 40 page introduction outlining why the Puritans did not use any instruments of music in worship, no choirs, and no solos, citing the Command, Example and Necessary Inference form of establishing authority, familiar to the Churches of Christ. This form of establishing authority is traced back to Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich, Switzerland, who influenced the teachings of John Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland. John Knox took Zwingli's teachings to Scotland, which influenced the Church of Scotland, and the Presbyterian Church, into which Thomas Campbell and Alexander Campbell were born. The Congregational Church in England and the one in Scotland in the late 1700s, were somewhat similar to Churches of Christ today: having Congregational organization, elders and deacons, priesthood of all believers, no instruments of music, and the establishment of authority and practice through Command, Example and Necessary Inference. They differed in their beliefs on infant baptism, weekly communion, the use of a catechism, closed communion, and predestination. The Restoration Movement began during, and was greatly influenced by, the Second Great Awakening. While the Campbells resisted what they saw as the spiritual manipulation of the camp meetings, the Southern phase of the Awakening "was an important matrix of Barton Stone's reform movement" and shaped the evangelistic techniques used by both Stone and the Campbells. This was the recognition of a division that had been growing for years under the influence of conservatives such as Daniel Sommer, with reports of the division having been published as early as 1883. While there was no disagreement over the need for evangelism, many believed that missionary societies were not authorized by scripture and would compromise the autonomy of local congregations. This disagreement became another important factor leading to the separation of the Churches of Christ from the Christian Church. In 1968, at the International Convention of Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ), those Christian Churches that favored a denominational structure, wished to be more ecumenical, and also accepted more of the modern liberal theology of various denominations, adopted a new "provisional design" for their work together, becoming the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Barton W. Stone was a strong opponent of slavery, arguing that there was no Biblical justification for the form of slavery then being practiced in the United States and calling for immediate emancipation. Schools and colleges associated with the movement were at the center of the debate. Efforts to address racism continued through the following decades. Institutional controversy After World War II, Churches of Christ began sending ministers and humanitarian relief to war-torn Europe and Asia. Though there was agreement that separate para-church "missionary societies" could not be established (on the belief that such work could only be performed through local congregations), a doctrinal conflict ensued about how this work was to be done. Eventually, the funding and control of outreach programs in the United States such as homes for orphans, nursing homes, mission work, setting up new congregations, Bible colleges or seminaries, and large-scale radio and television programs became part of the controversy. Congregations which supported and participated in pooling funds for these institutional activities are said to be "sponsoring church" congregations. Congregations which have traditionally opposed these organized sponsorship activities are said to be "non-institutional" congregations. The institutional controversy resulted in the largest division among Churches of Christ in the 20th century. Separation of the International Churches of Christ The International Churches of Christ had their roots in a "discipling" movement that arose among the mainline Churches of Christ during the 1970s. This discipling movement developed in the campus ministry of Chuck Lucas. The Crossroads Movement later spread into some other Churches of Christ. One of Lucas' converts, Kip McKean, moved to the Boston area in 1979 and began working with "would-be disciples" in the Lexington Church of Christ. He asked them to "redefine their commitment to Christ," and introduced the use of discipling partners. The congregation grew rapidly, and was renamed the Boston Church of Christ. In the early 1980s, the focus of the movement moved to Boston, Massachusetts where Kip McKean and the Boston Church of Christ became prominently associated with the trend. With the national leadership located in Boston, during the 1980s it commonly became known as the "Boston movement". A formal break was made from the mainline Churches of Christ in 1993 with the organization of the International Churches of Christ. This new designation formalized a division that was already in existence between those involved with the Crossroads/Boston Movement and "mainline" Churches of Christ. Other names that have been used for this movement include the "Crossroads movement", "Multiplying Ministries", the "Discipling Movement" and the "Boston Church of Christ". Kip McKean resigned as the "World Mission Evangelist" in November 2002. Some ICoC leaders began "tentative efforts" at reconciliation with the Churches of Christ during the Abilene Christian University Lectureship in February 2004. Restoration Movement timeline ==Churches of Christ outside the United States==

Most members of the Churches of Christ live outside the United States. Although there are no reliable institutional figures, anecdotes suggest there may be more than 1,000,000 members of the Churches of Christ in Africa, approximately 1,000,000 in India, and 50,000 in Central and South America. Total worldwide membership is over 3,000,000, with approximately 1,000,000 in the U.S. The most significant concentrations are in Nigeria, Malawi, Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, South Africa, South Sudan and Kenya. with a membership of approximately 1,000,000. There have been strong ties with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), but many conservative ministers and congregations associate with the Christian churches and churches of Christ instead. The largest concentration of active congregations in Canada are in Southern Ontario, notably in Jordan, Bramalea, Niagara Falls, Vineland, Toronto (several), and Waterloo. However, many congregations of various sizes (typically under 300 members) meet all across Canada. Great Lakes Bible College serves acapella churches of Christ in Canada. Great Britain Whilst, like in America, the Churches of Christ in Britain initially grew as separate and spontaneous local, self-inspired churches, only later joining up into a coordinated movement, John Davies of Mollington was the key founding leader, serving as the British Churches of Christ's first President from 1842 until his death in 1865. He had become the first preacher of the Church of Christ at Cox Lane at the age of 16 in 1809, even before he knew of the existence of like-minded people in America or elsewhere in Britain. He hosted and corresponded with various key figures of the movement, such as Alexander Campbell and Joseph Byrant Rotheram, at his home in Mollington, even helping convert some of them , playing a prominent role in the Restoration Movement's development and spread globally, especially among the then-colonies of the British Empire, where the majority of the Churches of Christ's footprint remains today.. In the early 1800s, Scotch Baptists were influenced by the writings of Alexander Campbell in the Christian Baptist and Millennial Harbinger. James Wallis, a member of that group, founded a magazine named The British Millennial Harbinger in 1837. The Association of Churches of Christ in Britain disbanded in 1980. Further information can be found in the Historical Survey of Churches of Christ in the British Isles, edited by Joe Nisbet. South America In Brazil there are above 600 congregations and 100,000 members from the Restoration Movement. Most of them were established by Lloyd David Sanders. ==See also==