Christian Churches / Churches of Christ (independent)
Stone-Campbell · 1927–1971 · United States; worldwide
The middle stream: congregations sharing the Churches of Christ's restorationism but accepting instrumental music, which resisted the Disciples' centralization and liberalizing trajectory across the mid-20th century and stood apart when the Disciples restructured in 1968.
Christian Churches / Churches of Christ (independent) was formed between 1927 and 1971, as a process rather than a single event. Christian Churches / Churches of Christ (independent) continues today. Christian Churches / Churches of Christ (independent)'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 Christian Churches / Churches of Christ (independent) stand 4 divisions along the institutional line, counting separations and disputed forks, not mergers, renewals or national organizations.
At a glance
- Formed
- Between 1927 and 1971, as a process rather than a single event
- Family
- Stone-Campbell
- Region
- United States; worldwide
- Cause tags
- Doctrine, Governance
- Also known as
- Independent Christian Churches
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.
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".
Sources
Research compiled July 2026. Page data built 2026-10-31.