The Christian Community
The Christian Community belongs to the Metaphysical, New Thought and Swedenborgian family of churches.
Governance: episcopal.
Anthroposophical; founded 1922.
A movement for religious renewal founded in 1922, celebrating the Act of Consecration of Man — sacramental worship shaped in conversation with Rudolf Steiner.
Heritage
The Christian Community was founded at Dornach, Switzerland in 1922 by a circle of ministers and theologians led by the German Lutheran pastor Friedrich Rittelmeyer, with counsel from Rudolf Steiner, founder of anthroposophy. It describes itself as a movement for religious renewal; its central service, the Act of Consecration of Man, is a renewed form of the eucharist. Congregations exist across Europe and in a modest number of North American cities.
Theological family
By self-description, a sacramental Christian movement: seven sacraments, Christ's death and resurrection as the turning point of time, and freedom of teaching — priests are bound to celebrate the sacraments as given but not to a confession of doctrine, and members are free in matters of belief. Its relationship to anthroposophy is one of shared inspiration rather than governance; trinitarian churches differ with it variously, and this record adjudicates nothing.
Who decides what
Episcopal in shape: ordained priests — women and men from the beginning — with regional lenkers and an erzoberlenker (chief coordinating priest) internationally.
What a first-time visitor would find
The Act of Consecration of Man, celebrated with vestments, readings, and a quiet, deliberate solemnity; the service is open to all, communion is received without membership tests, and congregations are typically small.
What it has always cared about
Renewal of the sacraments; freedom of thought held together with liturgical fidelity; and unhurried reverence as a style of worship.
Its gift to the wider church
A distinctive answer, kept alive for a century, to a question many traditions ask: whether rich sacramental form can coexist with complete freedom of individual belief.
Commonly confused with
With Anthroposophy itself and with Waldorf schools — related by inspiration, but The Christian Community is a church, not the Anthroposophical Society; and its name is generic enough to be confused with any number of unrelated congregations called Christian Community.
Range of views inside it
Congregations vary chiefly in size and cultural setting; the liturgy is held in common.
A note from the mapmakers: This record is deliberately brief: the body's US presence is small. No US congregation count is published in RCMS 2020, and none is offered here. The generic name means our data cannot reliably distinguish this body's congregations from unrelated churches with similar names; nothing may be asserted of a specific congregation, and sentences drawn from this record yield to the congregation's own materials.
Sources: The Christian Community — about the Movement for Religious Renewal (The Christian Community in North America) · Encyclopedia of American Religions (J. Gordon Melton, Gale)
Where The Christian Community churches are on the map
6 The Christian Community congregations appear on The Church Map, across 6 states.
More of the Metaphysical, New Thought and Swedenborgian story · Find these churches on the map