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What do you know about Church of Christ?


SpeakNow

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Two of the ladies I work with are members of COC. They seem really funde-ish. If you ask them about their church they are quick to mention it is COC but non-demoniational (which I don't understand...but I digress). Their church seems to have really strict rules (women can't talk in church without their husband's permission; no instruments, only a cappella singing during services). I googled Church of Christ, but I was wondering if anyone had any first hand experience or knew more about it.

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Some of my family go to CoC but I wouldn't describe them as fundie in the least. Maybe they go to a less fundie one? My grandma is waaaay too feisty to not speak in church/preach and it's a bring-your-own-tambourine kind of deal music-wise.

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My ex-husband's family (save for his immediate family who are ICOC) are COC. Their church is very traditional, women don't speak or lead songs in church, man is the head of the household, biblical literalists etc.

They did not like me one bit.

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I had a friend when I was 13 or so whose family was COC. They didn't seem fundie at all. They began homeschooling that year, but it was because of the high school her kids would go to (not a good one educationally, they just needed football players!). Pants, regular music, dating, I remember the girl talking about her pastors wife always wore the coolest lipstick (I was soooo jealous!). I have heard that COC is fundie, so I wonder if there are different COC (like there are different Presbyterians).

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Here's a link to a Chruch of Christ that a co-worker of mine attends: http://www.mayfair.org/ not breaking the link since this an actual church website and not a fundie blog that will disappear as soon as they receive negative comments.

Each church is different and independent, and there is no central organization like the Southern Baptist convention. Some can be very fundie or just conservative.

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"Non-denominational" almost always means conservative fundie or evangelical. It doesn't mean that they are open and accepting of everyone; it means that the current conservative denominations weren't strict enough for them so they splintered off to avoid being under anyone's authority. I don't know a lot about CoC specifically, but it is very suspicious that she emphasizes that it's non-denominational.

I drive past a CoC on my way to work and the sign out front always has the most ridiculous puns, and they don't even bother to change it weekly. I have to see the same horribly un-clever pun every day for a whole month.

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I was raised CoC (now Methodist/Episcopalian). The CoC churches were started in the mid-1800s by two disgruntled presbytarian ministers (Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell) so you will occasionally see the churches listed as Stone-Campbell churches or Campbellite. To grossly simplify, Stone and Campbell got tired of the infighting between the various denominations and so they decided to throw out complex theology and only accept as doctrine those Church practices explicitly stated in the Bible. Because he was opposed to the denominational infighting and deification of the leaders of various movements, Campbell insisted that his followers refer to themselves as simply "Christians." A motto of the CoC is "We are Christians only but not the only Christians." This is why CoC members insist that their church is nondenominational. Since there is no mention in the Bible of larger church organizations, each local church was to be in charge of its finances, church rules, and disciplining of members if needed.

Unfortunately for Campbell who, to be fair, did try to interpret in Bible as a historical document, there are a lot of different ways to interpret the Bible so his followers quickly started fighting amongst themselves over the issue of whether or not having instruments in the church was biblical. There was a split in the church into the a cappella CoC and the instrumental CoC.

In practice now, the a cappella CoC tends to be the more conservative branch with beliefs that would be in line with independent fundamental baptists while the instrumental CoC tends to line up more with Southern Baptists in terms of conservatism. However, since each local church is self-governed, there are progressive a cappella CoC and instrumental CoC churches. There is a movement going on among the younger members to bring the church back to its roots as a peace church (Alexander Campbell was a firm pacifist).

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A friend of the family is COC. Among the rather amusing/frustrating things he's insisted:

"The Lord's Prayer is deficient, as is any prayer that is not spontaneous and original, aka "from the heart." "

"Lutherans worship and pray to Martin Luther; he knows this is true because they are part of a church w Luther's name in it whereas he is a member of a church named for Christ."

When he divorced and married a divorcee, elders from his church paid the couple their first & only visit, in which they MOL called his new wife a Jezebel. She told them to get out and he held the door. He still goes to church, she's never set foot in it. So I give him credit for that. But I am just waiting for when he insists that I, as a Lutheran, pray to Luther. I carry my hymnal when I go to visit him. I'll never be the one to broach the subject, but if he does, I will retrieve my book from the car, hand to him and tell him I'll be interested to see if he finds evidence to confirm his claim. ;) I'll even leave it w him so he doesn't have to feel any time-pressure. :D

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Thanks for the history, wildflower!

I think the original church was at the Old Mulkey Meeting House near Edmonton, Kentucky. Some of my ancestors are buried in the church cemetery. There was a marathon held in the county in the fall which would have been awesome to run, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside.

My dad family usually went to the closest church. They weren't tied to a denomination. When my granddad died and my grandmother moved into town, my aunt warned her against going to the COC. The ones in their small town were more of the fundie variety. My aunt just thought that they'd make my grandmother feel bad. Grandma joined the methodist church down the street.

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I've met members of the Church of Christ who are moderate to liberal, and then I have an uncle who's a COC pastor and is fundie-lite to fundie, and sounds very much like the pastor of the church MamaJ's friend goes to. (When my parents married, he and his wife, my dad's sister, made a number of distasteful comments at the reception concerning the fact this was my dad's second marriage and my mother is a Catholic).

It seems like it really just depends on the specific church as to whether it's more fundie or more liberal.

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My husband's family is Church of Christ and he grew up in it. The ones he went to were definitively fundie. Women had long hair, wore skirts, no instrumental music, no "secular" music, women were submissive and couldn't teach/preach, men were the leaders of the household, etc.

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When I was in grade school, I was friends with a neighbor girl who was COC. I always had the impression her mom didn't like me. It was years later that it dawned on me...I was Catholic at the time and I think she thought I would be a bad influence even though eight year olds rarely engage in deep theological discussions.

However, I did go to church with them from time to time. I can remember having fun in SUnday School-we sang fun songs like "Deep and Wide", something we didn't do in cathecism (sp?)

I do know COC believes baptism is necessary for salvation. If a person died before he or she is baptised, they will go to hell.

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When I was in grade school, I was friends with a neighbor girl who was COC. I always had the impression her mom didn't like me. It was years later that it dawned on me...I was Catholic at the time and I think she thought I would be a bad influence even though eight year olds rarely engage in deep theological discussions.

However, I did go to church with them from time to time. I can remember having fun in SUnday School-we sang fun songs like "Deep and Wide", something we didn't do in cathecism (sp?)

I do know COC believes baptism is necessary for salvation. If a person died before he or she is baptised, they will go to hell.

The way my husband explained it if they're "before the age of reason" then grace kicks in and God lets them in heaven anyway. He couldn't pinpoint how old that was, it's a bit ambiguous. A smart kid might lose their protection early but a kid with learning disabilities might keep theirs through adulthood. It seems positively terrifying to me if I believed in a literal hell and had kids. I might feel the need to really pressure them to get baptized early. I, personally, don't believe anything terrible happens in the afterlife to unbelievers so I don't really know how I would act if I did.

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I have relatives that are COC. While I (I self-identify as Christian) do not theologically agree with all of the COC theology, I have one thing to say. These relatives are good people, treat other people right, they do the right thing, and are absolutely totally NOT hypocrites.

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I have relatives that are COC. While I (I self-identify as Christian) do not theologically agree with all of the COC theology, I have one thing to say. These relatives are good people, treat other people right, they do the right thing, and are absolutely totally NOT hypocrites.

The people in my husband's family who are CoC seem to really believe and live according to their faith. They are, for the most part, good people. Their staunch anti-feminism is dangerous though. ("they" being these specific people, not all people in the CoC)

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The way my husband explained it if they're "before the age of reason" then grace kicks in and God lets them in heaven anyway. He couldn't pinpoint how old that was, it's a bit ambiguous. A smart kid might lose their protection early but a kid with learning disabilities might keep theirs through adulthood. It seems positively terrifying to me if I believed in a literal hell and had kids. I might feel the need to really pressure them to get baptized early. I, personally, don't believe anything terrible happens in the afterlife to unbelievers so I don't really know how I would act if I did.

Snarkbillie- that's the way it was explained to me too. In my church typically the "age of reason" was between 8-13 with 12 being the most common age to be baptized. My church wouldn't baptize before the age of eight. I know this because my grandmother (whose father was a CoC minister) couldn't persuade my uncle to be baptized and she would fret over him having an accident and dying and going to hell. I was about six at the time and I actually requested to be baptized because I was scared that I would be in an accident. I was told I would have to wait. Fortunately my Dad (who was raised Methodist) found out about the situation and managed to reassure me that I was not going to hell. I did end up being baptized at eight just to please my grandmother.

Generally speaking, in my church, being baptized at twelve was normal. Waiting until you were thirteen was risking it, and if a child wasn't baptized by thirteen, there was a general consensus among the rest of the church that there was something wrong in the family. The whole "age of reason" was one of the reasons I left the CoC.

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I worked for a supppppppper liberal political non-profit in DC, and the head of our legislative branch was a United Church of Christ minister. I never got fundie vibes off of him--obviously the guy's politics were pretty left leaning.

I thought the CoC was the Church that had this huge campaign in early 2000's about accepting gay members. Is this a different one?! Crap I can't keep all of the protestants straight!

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I worked for a supppppppper liberal political non-profit in DC, and the head of our legislative branch was a United Church of Christ minister. I never got fundie vibes off of him--obviously the guy's politics were pretty left leaning.

I thought the CoC was the Church that had this huge campaign in early 2000's about accepting gay members. Is this a different one?! Crap I can't keep all of the protestants straight!

The United Church of Christ and the traditional CoC are pretty unrelated. As I understand, the UCoC is fairly progressive. I grew up Church of Christ. Someone upthread said they can vary from liberal to extremely fundie. This is very true. My family always attended the churches that were very conservative, frequently denouncing other CoC's in our area as "liberal".

The distinguishing beliefs of CoC are salvation through baptism, the absence of instrumental music, and the lack of a governing body - each church is independent and is run by the church elders. I have seen churches that were loving and truly represented honest, kind christians. I have also seen corrupt churches - ones where women and children are treated horribly, spirituality is used as a threat and a weapon, and where the hypocrasy is astonishing.

Even though I do not think all CoC's are bad, I do know that I have a very hard time finding my spirituality as an adult due to my past in the church. Despite what they will tell you, most members of a conservative CoC truly do believe that they are the only ones who have the bible "right" and therefore are the only ones going to heaven. I was told by my father's parents when I was 6 that my mother's parents were going to hell because they attend the wrong church.

Sorry to write a book. I could write for hours about this. I'd be happy to answer any other questions anyone has, just ask.

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Forgot to add a fun fact - a lot of the stricter CoC's have a curious practice of "disfellowshipping". Basically, if someone leaves the church or does something they view as wrong without repenting (like remarrying after a divorce or getting pregnant out of wedlock), the church will disfellowship them. You are not allowed to talk to the person or have them over. Contact with disfellowshipped persons is limited to rebuking them for their sin or encouraging them to repent. This is not practiced in all or even most CoC's, but the number is growing, I think.

Another interesting thing about CoC is that members are supposed to publically repent of a public sin (one that several/many people know about). This means going forward during the invitation song. You talk to someone (usually the preacher or an elder). This person will then announce to the congregation what you confessed. In more liberal congregations this is not really enforced. Or else you could just ask for prayers for sin or something. In some of the more fundamental and abusive situations, people are coerced to confess very intimate "sins" to the congregation. Which, in turn, encourages the sin of gossip as you can imagine. In these congregations, if a person goes a long time without confessing their sin they are disfellowshipped.

I would like to say, however, that it wouldn't be fair to judge all CoC members or congregations from my stories. These churches range from liberal and progressive churches to extreme fundie-ism. And there's really no way to tell where one particular church lies on the spectrum until you see it.

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To make it extremely confusing there is a denomination called The United Church of Christ, which is a mainline Protestant liberal denomination similar to the Congregational Church and the Methodist Church denominations. The UCofC is gay friendly. Then you have the individual Churches of Christ who claim to not be a denomination, but essentially have many of the makings of one minus the large umbrella organization of a true denomination. The independent Churches of Christ which the OP's friend or coworker attends share the belief that one must be baptized to be saved and most often will not have any instruments in worship services. Many of these churches proclaim to be the one true church as far as church structure, belief and practice go. The churches that believe this also believe that the denomination structure of other churches is proof that they are in fact misled and incorrect. And then to further complicate things there is a spin off denomination called the International Church of Christ that is classified by many as a cult and has been banned on many college campuses. It spun off of the independent Churches of Christ and doesn't consider itself a denomination although it's impossible to really be anything other than one due to its size and hierarchical structure. Like the independent Churches of Christ they believe that baptism is required for salvation and are fundie to fundie lite. The UCofC is the only non-fundie organization of the three.

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  • 3 years later...

I was raised Church of Christ. My grandfather was a preacher and my uncle also. Some are more liberal than others. Some have been broken up by movements like "the Door."I grew up very strict.

My biodad was disfellowshippd and now has his own home cult combining Native American beliefs and his take of Christianity. "The wages of sin is death " and with the power of my prayer I can heal u or kill u by dumping my sins on u. I didn't know where to even put that.

So I believe in God somehow still. But yeah I've been spiritually abused in major ways.

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  • 1 month later...

This thread is very old, but I only recently ventured out of QFOD and found it. I thought I would add my .02 about my experience with the CoC.

I grew up in a hardline CoC in rural Georgia in the 70's and early 80's. My mother went through her own father being disfellowshipped in the 60's when he divorced her mother and heard him preached straight to hell, yet she still had too much fear to leave the "one true church". My own parents married in 1970, my dad had to be baptized again because he was not baptized the right way. He was raised a Baptist. I was born soon after and my sister 5 years later. I was molested by a friend of the family and a member of the church. My own parents divorced in 1985 and that was when we started forsaking the assembly :D . Over the years I have tried going to church off and on again, but always a CoC (just not the same one I grew up in). Finally I decided it was ok to try one of those sinful denominations! I have been going to a Presbyterian church for over 2 years now.

I am sort of bitter that I had to grow up in such a church. It has warped my understanding and really stunted me spiritually. For most of my life I have been haughty and judgmental. Feeling superior to all my friends because I had such a clear understanding of the bible, and yet sorry for them because they were all going to hell. It was just so messed up.

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