Denomination
Disciples of Christ
Also Known As Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) · Christian Church Disciples of Christ The bare form of the name. The atlas files this entry under a longer, shorter or differently punctuated form.
Christianity
Origin 1801 to 1832
Disciples of Christ, formally the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), grew from the union in 1832 of two independent frontier reform movements, Barton W. Stone's Kentucky-based Christians, whose fellowship traced to the 1801 Cane Ridge Revival, and Thomas and Alexander Campbell's Pennsylvania-based Disciples, who broke from the Baptists over creeds and church authority. Both movements sought to restore New Testament Christianity and to unite believers by discarding denominational creeds, a project historians call the Restoration Movement or the Stone-Campbell Movement. In the early twentieth century a more conservative wing split away as the Churches of Christ, leaving the Disciples of Christ the more ecumenically minded branch of that movement. It is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Facts
Belief
Defining Doctrinal PositionSourced to the subject's own accountRestorationist: holds the apostolic church to have been lost and restored 1Tradition: Christianity Position on SexualitySame-sex marriage is performed and LGBT clergy are ordained on equal terms with heterosexual clergy 2 The 2013 General Assembly voted to affirm and welcome LGBTQ plus people in all aspects of church life including leadership. Congregations and regions retain autonomy over their own ordination and marriage practice, several regions and many congregations now ordain LGBTQ plus clergy, and the general minister and president has confirmed that ministers whose consciences call for it may conduct weddings for couples regardless of sexual orientation. Sexuality Position DetailAt its 2013 General Assembly the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) voted to affirm and welcome LGBTQ plus people in all aspects of church life, including leadership, encouraging congregations to become more inclusive while leaving individual congregations and regions autonomous over their own ordination and marriage decisions. Several regions and many congregations now ordain LGBTQ plus clergy, and following the Supreme Court's marriage equality decision the general minister and president confirmed that ministers whose consciences call for it may conduct weddings for couples regardless of sexual orientation. 2 Reach
Adherents Today Attributions
Church FamilySourced to the subject's own account Origins
Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account Place of OriginSourced to the subject's own accountKentucky and Pennsylvania 1 FounderSourced to the subject's own accountBarton W. Stone (1772-1844), and Thomas Campbell (1763-1854) with his son Alexander Campbell (1788-1866) 1 Practice
Liturgical LanguageSourced to the subject's own account Trajectory
Membership Over TimeChristian Church (Disciples of Christ) membership had fallen to 278,000 by 2022, a decline of roughly 77 percent since its 1958 to 1964 peak, per the Christian Post's reporting on the denomination's own statistics, cited in the same Christian Standard analysis. 3 Membership Over TimeChristian Church (Disciples of Christ) membership peaked at just under 2 million in 1958, per a Christian Standard analysis of the denomination's own reported rolls. 3 Membership Figure As Of Membership Figure As Of Basis of the Membership Figure History
Separation or DivergenceSourced to the subject's own accountStone's Christians separated from Presbyterianism in 1804; the Campbells' Disciples separated from the Baptists over creeds and church authority in the late 1820s 1 Date of SeparationSourced to the subject's own account Organisation
GovernanceA federation of autonomous member organisations 1 Sourced to the subject's own accountAutonomous congregations in covenant with regional and general expressions of the church, with no governing hierarchy over local congregations OrdinationSourced to the subject's own accountHas ordained women to ministry since the nineteenth century Status
Status TodaySourced to the subject's own accountLiving tradition, practised today 1 Giving
Standing Giving ExpectationThe Disciples Mission Fund is the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ's own common fund, through which congregations voluntarily share support divided among general, regional and educational ministries, the ministries it funds covenanting not to solicit congregations directly for more. No fixed percentage or mandatory rate binds a congregation, still less an individual member; the fund's own materials describe participation as voluntary. 4 How the Expectation Is Enforced Learn More
Cane Ridge, the Campbells, and a Frontier Union
The Disciples of Christ trace their origin to two separate reform movements on the American frontier that, discovering how much they shared, chose to unite. In August 1801, Barton W. Stone (1772-1844), a young Presbyterian minister in Kentucky, hosted what became the Cane Ridge Revival, a camp meeting so large and emotionally intense that it drew tens of thousands and became a defining event of the Second Great Awakening. Stone concluded that denominational creeds divided Christians who ought simply to follow Scripture, and in 1804 he and fellow ministers dissolved their presbytery, taking for their fellowship only the name Christians.
At almost the same time, Thomas Campbell (1763-1854), an Irish Presbyterian minister who had emigrated to Pennsylvania, arrived independently at similar conclusions, articulated in his 1809 Declaration and Address, which called for Christian unity on the sole basis of the New Testament. His son Alexander Campbell (1788-1866) carried the movement forward, leading it first into fellowship with the Baptists and then, after disputes over creeds and authority, into a fully separate reforming movement calling itself simply Disciples. When Stone and Alexander Campbell met and corresponded in the 1820s, both movements recognized a shared vision, and on January 1, 1832, congregations of the two traditions formally united at Lexington, Kentucky.
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.
Disciples of Christ
Filter Results1 entry
Connections
Associated With
This source names Disciples of Christ directly: "article on the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a denomination within the American Restoration Movement."
Source Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
This source names Disciples of Christ directly: "Restoration Movement, which became the Disciples of Christ and Churches of Christ, and the camp meeting tradition that spread through the South."
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors
This source names Disciples of Christ directly: "page on the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)'s stance on LGBTQ issues."
Source Stances of Faiths on LGBTQ Plus Issues: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Human Rights Campaign)
This source names Disciples of Christ directly: "Restoration Movement that produced the Disciples of Christ."
Source Encyclopedia of American ReligionsJ. Gordon Melton
This source names Disciples of Christ directly: "is trade press analysis of the Disciples of Christ denomination's own published annual membership figures rather than an independent academic study."
Source Understanding the Disciples' Decline (Christian Standard)Christian Standard
Belongs To Church Family
Belongs to Tradition
Branch Of
Contained In
Classified as mainline Protestant tradition per Pew Research Center's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study; one of William R. Hutchison's Seven Sisters, live in the atlas as Disciples of Christ.
Source Pew Research Center: 2023-24 Religious Landscape StudyPew Research Center
A Protestant body of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement.
Source Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Critiqued
The Disciples of Christ read the same silence as leaving instrumental music to the church's judgement as an expedient, and it was on this reading, with the missionary societies, that the movement divided.
Source Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Governed By Polity
Entity-backed identity for the polity value this entry already carries, resolved to the live entity it names, phase 3 bucket conversion (docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md, w-bucketconv-divmore-0929). The original fact with its own citation stays on the entry unchanged.
Holds Element
Sung with the organ, which the Churches of Christ refused, and the instrument was among the questions on which the two bodies parted.
Held as the title for ordained ministry in this church.
Source The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical NotesPhilip Schaff
Objects and Practices of This Tradition
Giving is congregational and is directed by the congregation.
Baptism is by immersion, of those who have confessed faith, and this body was founded on the argument that the New Testament pattern requires it.
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
The funeral is a service of the congregation.
Marriage is solemnised by the congregation's minister.
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Prayer at the table is offered by elders of the congregation rather than by the minister, which follows from this body's conviction that ministry is not a separate order.
The Lord's Prayer is used, in a body that otherwise prefers free prayer.
The Lord's Supper is celebrated every Sunday, which was one of the founding contentions of this movement and remains its most visible difference from the other American bodies of believer's baptism.
The Disciples of Christ descend directly from the Stone-Campbell plea to restore the New Testament church and unite believers by discarding creeds and denominational names, and remain its most ecumenically minded heirs.
Source Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Related To
One movement until the separation recorded in the 1906 United States religious census. Neither body accepts the account the other gives of who left.
Source Churches of Christ (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Uses Liturgical Language
Entity-backed identity for the language enum value this record already carries, resolved to the live divinity language entity that value names, per the phase 3 entity-backed browse bucket conversion (docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md, owner decisions 2026-09-28, w-bucketconv-divlang2-0929, mapping corrected). The language fact itself, with its own citation, stays on the record unchanged; this relationship only adds the durable entity identity the value already names.
Sources
1. Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedialead paragraph
The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th century as a loose association of churches working towards Christian unity, then slowly forming quasi-denominational structures through missionary societies, regional associations
- Whole article
View the Source 2. Stances of Faiths on LGBTQ Plus Issues: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Human Rights Campaign)
Human Rights Campaignthe stated position on sexuality and its supporting detailView the Source 3. Understanding the Disciples' Decline (Christian Standard)
Christian Standard, Christian Standard, 2024Membership trend analysisView the Source 4. What Is the Disciples Mission Fund (Christian Church, Disciples of Christ)
The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes
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