Churches of Christ
Stone-Campbell · 1889–1906 · United States (strongest in the South); worldwide
Congregations holding the strict regulative reading of the New Testament — no instrumental music, no missionary societies — separated over decades from the Disciples, aggravated by the North–South divide over the missionary society's pro-Union resolutions (1861–63); the 1906 census made the separation official record.
Churches of Christ was formed between 1889 and 1906, as a process rather than a single event. Churches of Christ continues today. Churches of Christ's institutional line runs back through Disciples of Christ (Christian Church), The Christians (Stone movement), Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (1789 line), Church of Scotland, Reformed, Roman Catholicism to the post-apostolic church. No body on this tree is the assembly of Acts 2; where a body claims that, the claim appears in the claimed-lineage layer.
Between the post-apostolic church and Churches of Christ stand 4 divisions along the institutional line, counting separations and disputed forks, not mergers, renewals or national organizations.
At a glance
- Formed
- Between 1889 and 1906, as a process rather than a single event
- Family
- Stone-Campbell
- Region
- United States (strongest in the South); worldwide
- Key figures
- Daniel Sommer, David Lipscomb
- Cause tags
- Doctrine, Politics, Governance
- Also known as
- churches of Christ (a cappella)
What it separated from
- Separated from Disciples of Christ (Christian Church).
On the tree
Solid lines are separations and unions; dashed lines are renewals that began inside a body; dotted gray lines are national organizations of one communion; a diamond marks a fork event where neither side is drawn as the one that left. Every line runs back to the post-apostolic church; no body descends from the assembly of Acts 2. Dashed gray boxes mark the institutional line after the apostles, shown as departure; no line of descent is drawn from Pentecost. A verdict appears on a box once its section is published.
Adherents
About 1,423,295 adherents (official census, as of 2021).
Source: 'Churches of Christ in the United States,' 21st Century Christian directory (2021 data via Christian Standard); 11,875 congregations; attendance 1,092,182; series 1990: 1,684,872 to 2015: 1,519,695
Claimed lineage
What this tradition says about its own origin · restoration
Not a succession but a plea: all Christians united in a single body patterned after the New Testament church — 'Christians only, but not the only Christians'; 'No creed but Christ'; 'Where the Scriptures speak, we speak.' The movement's heirs typically decline the 'Protestant' label: restoration, not reformation.
Its own sources: Thomas Campbell, Declaration and Address (1809); Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery (1804); the movement's slogans (Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, p. 688).
The documented record: Documented origins in the Second Great Awakening frontier revivals (Cane Ridge 1801; the union of 1832). The claimed-lineage layer expresses the plea; the tree records the history.
In the explorer's claimed view this renders as a dashed line, labeled "pattern claimed, not descent".
Notes
- Directory inclusion policy (a cappella identification; 2009 instrumental controversy) shapes the count — a who-counts-whom exhibit for the methodology page.
Sources
Research compiled July 2026. Page data built 2026-10-31.