A Brief Guide to the Restorationist Movement

In this series of articles, I am sharing parts of an article written by Trevin Wax on the Gospel Coalition website. In that article, he gives a brief introduction to the various branches of the Christian Church. The original article can be accessed here.

NOTE: Even though our congregation is named Bay Ridge Christian Church, we are not part of any of the denominations listed here. The name is purely coincidental.

Restorationist Movement

Name: The name “restorationist” refers to the focus on recovering the pure faith of the early church as described in the New Testament.

History: Sometimes referred to as the Stone-Campbell movement, the Restorationist movement started in the Second Great Awakening and focuses on restoring the local churches in their faith and practices to what the Bible teaches in the New Testament.

What Church Is Like: Many Churches of Christ do not use musical instruments since these aren’t mentioned in the New Testament, singing unaccompanied by music (a cappella). Some, however, do include musical instruments in worship. The Lord’s Supper is observed every Sunday.

Polity: Churches of Christ are independent congregations with elders, deacons, and ministers leading the congregation.

Distinctives:

• Baptism by immersion is essential to salvation.
• The New Testament alone is the guide for worship.
• Many within the tradition are against formalizing beliefs in creeds and confessions, even if they agree with many key teachings of the Christian faith.

Famous Figures: Barton W. Stone, Alexander Campbell, Max Lucado, Kyle Idleman.

Related Groups:

• The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is the mainline denomination within this movement.
• Southern congregations called Churches of Christ split from the Disciples of Christ after the Civil War, over using instruments in worship among other reasons.
• Another group called Christian Churches/Churches of Christ began to separate in 1926 from the Disciples of Christ for several reasons including their concern over theological liberalism in the Disciples of Christ denomination. This strand is more broadly evangelical than the other two strands (for example, Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky).

In Christ,

Bret