Restorationism, a Later Split, and the Disciples Today

The united movement, generally called the Restoration Movement or Stone-Campbell Movement, grew rapidly across the American frontier through the nineteenth century, from roughly 25,000 adherents at its 1832 union to nearly 200,000 by 1861, on the strength of its appeal to Scripture over creed and its promise of Christian unity without denominational division. That very looseness of structure, however, eventually produced its own split: by the turn of the twentieth century, more conservative congregations, concentrated in the South and led by figures such as David Lipscomb, had come to oppose instrumental music in worship and centralized missionary societies as unscriptural innovations, while others embraced both. The 1906 United States religious census formally listed the conservative wing separately as the Churches of Christ, the first major division of the movement.

The remaining body eventually organized itself denominationally as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), commonly called simply the Disciples of Christ, ordaining women to ministry since the nineteenth century and taking an active role in the ecumenical movement. It has experienced a steep membership decline in recent decades, falling from close to two million at its 1958 peak to roughly 278,000 by 2022, a decline scholars attribute to factors including an aging membership and the loss of a clear denominational identity distinct from its founding restorationist ideals. It is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.