Churches of Christ in Christian Union
Churches of Christ in Christian Union belongs to the Wesleyan-Holiness family of churches.
Governance: congregational.
Churches of Christ in Christian Union reports 186 congregations in the United States (RCMS 2020 (ARDA national table), 2020).
Holiness, and unrelated to the Stone-Campbell Churches of Christ despite the name.
An Ohio holiness body whose name promises confusion twice over — neither Stone-Campbell nor a council of colleges, but a revivalist church born in 1909.
Heritage
The Churches of Christ in Christian Union organized in 1909 at Washington Court House, Ohio, when holiness-revival congregations of the Christian Union movement formed their own body; a 1952 merger with the Reformed Methodist Church extended it into the Northeast. Centered in southern Ohio with headquarters at Circleville, it sponsors Ohio Christian University and continues a camp-meeting revival tradition. RCMS 2020 counted 186 congregations.
Theological family
Wesleyan-holiness: conversion and entire sanctification as definite works of grace, revivalist in temperament, evangelical in doctrine.
Who decides what
Congregational with district and general councils serving cooperation; local churches manage their own affairs.
What a first-time visitor would find
A visitor finds evangelical worship with holiness roots — gospel music, altar invitations, and camp-meeting seasons still marked on the calendar.
What it has always cared about
Revival and the camp meeting; practical holiness; and Christian higher education through Ohio Christian University.
Its gift to the wider church
A regional reminder that the holiness revival was congregational and local as much as denominational — southern Ohio's own homegrown holiness church, still at it after a century.
Commonly confused with
Above all with the Churches of Christ of the Stone-Campbell restoration movement, to which it is wholly unrelated despite the name; and with the Christian Union, the parent movement, which also continues separately.
Range of views inside it
Congregations vary in worship style from traditional revivalist to contemporary; the body is compact and doctrinally settled.
A note from the mapmakers: Nothing here may be asserted of a specific congregation, and the name demands caution in any name-based matching — ours included. Sentences drawn from this record hedge as "Churches of Christ in Christian Union congregations typically…".
Sources: Churches of Christ in Christian Union — our history (Churches of Christ in Christian Union) · 2020 U.S. Religion Census (ASARB)
Where Churches of Christ in Christian Union churches are on the map
10 Churches of Christ in Christian Union congregations appear on The Church Map, across 1 states.
- Ohio — 10
More of the Wesleyan-Holiness story · Find these churches on the map