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Ultimately, this movement was birthed as part of the “Restoration Movement” in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Founded by a Methodist preacher named James O’Kelly in 1793. O’Kelly sought to escape the control of the Methodist church and broke away to form a new group called the Republican Methodist Church which, as it moved from Virginia, south and west, the name was changed to the “Christian Church”.
O’Kelly in the southern states was joined by a group of Baptist preachers, Abner Jones and Elias Smith, in New England who shared his zeal to return to a “first century church” and they taught followers to scorn all of the denominations or “creeds” formed by man and embrace the Bible, specifically the New Testament, as the sole authority in life. They believed in baptism for the believer and not as infants, as did O’Kelly. Another group of early charismatic leaders/founders for the Church of Christ were the Presbyterian ministers Barton Stone and the Scottish immigrant father-son team Thomas and Alexander Campbell. With Methodist, Baptist, and now Presbyterian influence, ultimately this group merged in Kentucky in the 1830s and to this day, rejects denominationalism i.e. the “creeds of man” in favor of the Bible alone to pursue a more pure form of New Testament Christianity.
This group became the denomination known as the Church of Christ. One of the unique characteristics of this denomination is the absence of a clear cut hierarchal structure among its many churches. They seem to each exist to themselves and answer to no “main office” however, they tend to share a common bond of doctrine, practice, and liturgy across the thousands of churches around the world. A Church of Christ website (I am not sure if it is THE Church of Christ website) gives an explanation for this characteristic with the following statement:
We are undenominational and have no central headquarters or president. The head of the church is none other than Jesus Christ himself (Ephesians 1:22-23). Each congregation of the churches of Christ is autonomous, and it is the Word of God that unites us into One Faith (Ephesians 4:3-6). We follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and his holy Apostles, and not the teachings of man. We are Christians only!
No one receives eternal life and eternal presence with God (from Whom all good things come – James 1:17), by belonging to the right church, denomination, world religion, or by having a particular world view. Rather only those who trust in the Lord Jesus (preached by the Apostles in the Bible) for their own sin. We will not trust in a Savior for sins that we either don’t believe we have or that we think aren’t deserving of hell. But the Bible says that ALL have sin and the wages of that sin is eternal separation from God (death). The good news is that the Bible says that you can know that YOU have eternal life. Click the button below to see if you are genuinely saved from your sins according to the Bible: