In the past year or two, Christian Churches or Churches of Christ have regularly shown up in a variety of national news stories. For many Americans, including a large number of Protestant evangelicals, these churches are part of a little known tradition. Some know that they are somehow related to the early nineteenth century immigrant religious leader, Alexander Campbell.
          I provide students in my History of Worship course with an overview of this religious movement, often referred to as the "Restoration Movement" or the "Stone-Campbell Movement." If you are unfamiliar or confused with these names, the following information may be helpful to you, as well.

          In the opening years of the nineteenth century, the United States saw the emergence of a number of new religious movements. Several of these, such as the Mormons, had beliefs or practices considerably outside the norms of orthodox Christianity. However, many other religious movements reflected a desire to abandon manmade traditions and return to the beliefs and practices of the New Testament church.  This impulse is called Primitivism, because of its goal of returning to the “primitive” ideals of the apostolic church.  When found in the rustic log church environment of the American frontier, it is called Frontier Primitivism.
          At the same time, other voices arose calling for unity of all Christians and the abolition of “European denominationalism.” The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had seen much of western Europe torn apart by periodic religious wars and the wholesale persecution by of one group by another.  The pilgrims of Plymouth were fleeing just such persecution. Like others, however, once they came to be the controlling group, they were quite willing to suppress and persecute others.
          In central Kentucky and western Pennsylvania religious movements arose that linked these two ideals.  The ancient church should be restored. But, to this primitivism was added a strong ecumenical impulse.  All Christians could come together around a relatively straightforward set of core beliefs that were plainly asserted in scripture.  Detailed theological statements, or creeds, were not to be used to determine church leadership or the limits of Christian fellowship.  As a direct outgrowth of these priorities, churches within this movement began to refer to themselves by what we might now call “generic” names.  These were the “Christian Churches” or “Churches of Christ.”  The believers themselves were simply “disciples.”
          One difficulty, of course, is that the New Testament never settles on a single uniform name for the church. As this movement spread, one name or the other tended to be dominant in particular regions. Most churches in the northern states called themselves “Christian Churches.” Most southern churches, especially rural congregations, adopted the name Churches of Christ.*(1)   By the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, both names were in widespread use.*(2)
          Two significant divisions would occur from the end of the nineteenth century onward. These would result in the present-day reality of three distinct groups within the Restoration (or Stone-Campbell) Movement.
The first of these schisms occurred in the final decades of the nineteenth century. Many northern churches, as well as some churches within larger southern cities, adopted a number of new practices or “innovations.” Two of these innovations involved the hiring of salaried preachers and the addition of Sunday School programs. The third, and most important, innovation was the introduction of musical instruments into worship. Churches of the Restoration Movement, like most Protestant traditions,*(3) had refused to use organs in worship.  Beginning with the work of Zwingli and Calvin in the sixteenth century, it was believed that true Christian worship should not be tainted by the sounds of manmade mechanical musical instruments.  The organ was seen as yet another vestige of the apostate papacy.
          In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the question of using instruments in worship became one of tumultuous debate in the Church of Scotland, American Presbyterian Churches, Congregational Churches, and Baptist Churches.  Churches of the Restoration Movement also experienced these tensions in the second half of the nineteenth century.
          By 1850, the production of small portable reed organs meant even modest congregations could afford to purchase and place an organ. All parties recognized that the New Testament makes no explicit statement prohibiting the use of instruments in worship. Neither does it make any statement to suggest instruments should be used in worship.  So, the question becomes how should the church handle a component of worship that is not expressly mentioned in the New Testament.  Should this silence be understood as prohibition (worship only in the ways clearly described in the New Testament) or as permission (only those things in worship that are prohibited were off limits)?  Does the silence of the Bible imply an area for human discretion?  Should the church only do in worship those things we know the New Testament church did?
          These issues were major sources of discord. Restoration Movement churches, particularly in the south, saw the introduction of paid ministers and organs as steps involving a major abandonment of the very principles that had been foundational to the movement.  Naturally, those churches that believed this to be the case began to openly excommunicate churches that brought organs and paid preachers into churches.  In response, those churches that used organs severed fellowship with churches that did not.
By 1900, the two groups, one predominately southern and the other predominately northern, had abandoned all efforts at fellowship or cooperation. By 1906, the United States Census Bureau officially recognized the existence of two distinct religious bodies.

          Those churches that excluded musical instruments in worship were called Churches of Christ.*(4)    These churches generally preserved the styles of Frontier Primitivism, including the absence of salaried ministers, buildings void of any kind of art, and worship services marked by sober unadorned simplicity.  Although the twentieth century would see the presence of salaried minister gradually accepted, this group is still marked by their insistence on unaccompanied vocal music as the only acceptable music to be used in the worship assembly.
          Most congregations in the other group were called “Christian Churches.” In Kentucky, Ohio, and a few other states, however, a number of congregations that used organs in worship also used the name “Church of Christ.”  These congregations came to adopt what would be called typical American Protestant worship styles.  From the choice of hymns to the general styles of the sermons, worship in these churches by 1900 would be quite similar to worship in Presbyterian and Baptist churches of the same period.
          Those congregations that had already been using the name Church of Christ were not inclined to change their church name because of its use by the noninstrumental churches.  Just because they used an organ in worship, they were not about to change the name of their local church solely to accommodate some southerners that insisted on vocal music only.
          So, in many parts of the United States, the names Church of Christ and Christian Church describe two distinct groups.  In parts of Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, however, the name Church of Christ might be in front of an instrumental or a noninstrumental church. Confused yet?  In case you are not, the situation now moves from foggy to downright murky.
          The noninstrumental Churches of Christ continue throughout the twentieth century without another major division. This is not true, however, of the churches that had incorporated instruments into worship. The next division would not be over worship style.  It would be over the nature of the Bible, itself.  Was the Bible uniquely inspired? Are the events recorded in the Bible, including the many miracle stories, historically accurate?
          Among the priorities adopted by these churches was a strong commitment to education in general, and to educated preachers in particular. As admirable as this is, it meant that when the tide of modernism*(5) swept across American religious colleges and seminaries in the early 1900s, many young scholars of the Restoration Movement were among thoseeager to adopt these modern ideas and scientific ways of thinking.*(6)   By the 1920s, the Christian Churches were increasingly dividing into two groups. The larger of these two groups was made up of churches that were determined to remain in full fellowship with the Movement’s historic agencies, colleges, publishing companies, and missionary societies. Some of these were openly amenable to modernist ideas. But the common bound of these churches was that they simply refused to abandon “the brotherhood” over the modernist controversies.
          A smaller grup of conservative churches began withdrawing from involvement with schools and agencies they believed were tainted by liberalism. The modernist/conservative schism was mirrored in a number of other Protestant groups in the same era.  This broader division is directly related to the rise of what will eventually be called “Fundamentalism.”  Indeed, those conservative churches that began to withdraw from involvement with agencies and schools they believed tainted by liberalism, could be labeled the “fundamentalist” branch of the instrumental churches of the Restoration Movement. This schism began in the early 1900s, but was not finalized until 1968. 
          By the 1950s, it was clear that two distinct groups existed and, increasingly, avoided interaction with one another..  In 1968, those congregations that remained in full fellowship with the agencies and institutions formally restructured into a denomination and adopted the name, “Christian Churches: Disciples of Christ.” 
          At the same time, those churches that had withdrawn from these same agencies because of liberalism, were a scattering of hundreds of autonomous congregations.  Since this group came to reject the notion of organization beyond the local church, there could be no official decision about the group’s name.  Although the majority of these churches were simply called “Christian Churches,” over a hundred congregations had historically called themselves “Churches of Christ.”  This religious body, then, is identified by the somewhat complicated name, “Christian Churches/Churches of Christ.”  In recent years, “Independent Christian Churches” has also become a common way to describe this group.

          Today, then, three distinct groups exist in the United States that are rooted in the Restoration Movement. 

The Churches of Christ (or churches of Christ) that do not use instruments is the largest of the three groups. This group remains dominant in the southern states, particularly Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas. Their worship today closely resembles popular evangelical worship styles and forms (howbeit using a cappella singing, only).  Many congregations use contemporary praise choruses, while others remain firmly rooted in hymns and gospel songs.  A large segment of these churches is currently involved in rebuilding links of fellowship with the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ (see below).

The Christian Churches/Churches of Christ OR Independent Christian Churches are a loose confederation of congregations that use instruments in worship, practice weekly communion, and generally follow popular evangelical styles and forms in worship.  Initially the smallest of the three groups, since the closing decades of the twentieth century this has been one of America’s fastest growing religious bodies.  The majority use a praise and celebration style of worship, with a smaller group retaining the gospel styles of the 1960s and 70s.  This group is involved in building bridges of fellowship with the A cappella Churches of Christ, with whom they share both history and a biblically conservative theology.
This is the group historically linked with Ozark Christian College.

The Christian Churches: Disciples of Christ generally worship in the style of mainline Protestants.  Ministers frequently wear robes. Pulpits are open to women and openly homosexual people can hold membership in most of these churches.  The service has a modest amount of liturgy. Most will use hymns, accompanied by organ and piano. A minority, particularly among African-American congregations, can be found using contemporary praise choruses.  The majority of these churches, and the overwhelming majority of this groups educators and national leaders, are theological moderals or liberals (many prefer "progressives").   This denomination is currently among America’s declining religious bodies.

Over the past twenty years, a number of churches and leaders from these groups, particularly from the Churches of Christ and the Independent Christian Churches, have been building bridges of awareness and acknowledgment of one another as brethren in Christ.

For more information on the Restoratment Movement, Churches of Christ Online is a good place to begin. For those who would rather read a good one-volume history (generally from the viewpoint of the independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ) I highly recommend Union in Truth by James North.