Pulpit and Politics: Clergy in American Politics at the Advent of the Millennium

9. Churches of Christ

The Churches of Christ is an offspring of the largest church group whose origins are strictly American. Historically, the Churches of Christ traces its roots to a primitive back-to-the-Bible revivalist movement of the early part of the nineteenth century.22 Leaders of what is today known as the Restoration Movement included three ex-Presbyterian ministers: Alexander Campbell, Thomas Campbell, and Barton W. Stone. Their followers (known as Campbellites, Reformers, Disciples, or Christians) have grown from a single congregation of thirty members at Brush Run, Pennsylvania, into what constitutes three sizable religious bodies: the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Christian Church, and the Churches of Christ. Today, some four million Americans are part of this religious heritage based on the practice of primitive Christianity as found in the biblical text. The principle enunciated by Thomas Campbell, “Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; and where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent,” captures the originally unsophisticated and uncomplicated nature of the movement (Walker 1959, 512). Assessing the personality of Campbellism, Martin Marty writes: Chapter 9 Churches of Christ Mel Hailey and Timothy C. Coburn 113 No one better formulated the concept of simplicity than did Alexander Campbell and his fellow Disciples of Christ or members of the Churches of Christ. Formed out of a number of schismatic groups after 1809, these primitive movements wanted to contribute to the American concept of community. They rejected complexity and religious development. Men would find God and be found in him if they could overlap nineteen centuries of the Fallen Church and restore first-generation biblical Christianity . (1970, 86–87) HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Today, the Churches of Christ consists of independent churches that do not consider themselves as a denomination per se. Unlike most other communities of faith, there are no central headquarters, national governing body, common missionary societies, or administrative hierarchies for the Churches of Christ. The denomination does not hold annual authoritative conventions of congregational representatives, and there are no “official” membership records of adherents or even congregations. Despite this long tradition of separatism from other congregations (and certainly from other religious groups), there is an “unofficial” but very well developed network of Churches of Christ congregations and ministers. This is primarily established through various meetings and lectureships that have been arranged by universities and colleges associated with the Churches of Christ. And, while congregations of the Churches of Christ are located throughout the United States, they tend to be concentrated in the South and Southwest. Since there is no central headquarters, there are no official statistics, but according to an unofficial directory, there were 9,806 mainstream congregations of the Churches of Christ in 2000, representing around 1.4 million adherents (Lynn 2000). Because the principle is to speak where the Bible speaks and to be silent where the Bible is silent, the Bible is seen to be the vehicle through which God-fearing people achieve spiritual unity in terms of faith and morals. Accordingly, members of the Churches of Christ do not recognize any other written creed or confession of faith. The governing statement is “No creed but Christ.” In addition to its practice of local congregational autonomy, the Churches of Christ is further distinguished from other denominations by its observance of the Lord’s Supper every Sunday and its lack of any instruments of music in the worship service.23 Given the restorationist desire to return to the life and practice of the New Testament church 114 Churches of Christ and its emphasis on the Bible as the foundation for faith and practice, this opposition to the use of instrumental music within the worship service is based on the fact that it was neither evident in the early church nor authorized in the New Testament. The most visible person in a local congregation of the Churches of Christ is the pulpit minister. Ministers are ordained by the local congregations rather than licensed by a denomination, and pastors remain in their pulpits by mutual agreement with the local elders of the congregations they serve. The governance of the church is vested in its elders rather than through the pastor. Members within the Churches of Christ do not become part of a particular congregation on the basis of some vote of acceptance. Rather, once they have confessed Jesus as the Son of God and have been subsequently baptized by immersion, they are accepted as equals in the brotherhood...