I think it is time to share some thoughts about the Cincinnati Church of Christ and the International Churches of Christ to which it belonged to. I’ve avoided this subject for a while because it was still too personal to me.  I still had some bitter roots in dealing with it, and didn’t want to use my blog as a line to attack it.  Which is why you won’t find my other previous church directly mentioned on this site.  However there have recently been some comments made about the Cincinnati Church of Christ to my wife and I, and I just want to put my thoughts to ‘paper’ and let them sit here.

Let’s start off with a bit of a history lesson.  I think this stuff is accurate, and if not I’m sure a certain guy with a three letter name will comment.

The Churches of Christ had three very distinct sects in the late 70’s.  The instrumental Churches of Christ, and the non-instrumental Churches of Christ and the Disciples of Christ.  The instrumental churches lived by a thought process that where the Bible is silent, reasonable men could make reasonable decisions in line with the rest of the Bible.  The non-instrumental group believed that if the Bible was silent on a subject then it was forbidden.  They both believed in autonomous churches, no governing body other then the Elders of the local body.  The Disciples of Christ however had a central head quarters that were over the churches.  The ICOC formed from the non-instrumental groups of churches. 

When you live in a way where a difference of opinion was a sin, if you believed that a large part of your church was in sin… you needed to split and form your own church.  This was the way of the ICOC in its early days.  They continued this process of splitting churches for many years.  Though eventually they wised up a bit and just started planting new churches with mission teams.

The Cincinnati Church of Christ formed from a split.  I used to know the church they split from, but I don’t recall that anymore. 

Now the ICOC had a very bad reputation during its early years for many reasons, some valid, some just reactionary from the large amount of splits.

A few reasons:
1. When you grow by splitting churches, people don’t like you.  That was the vast majority of their growth for many years.
2. The people complaining about them were bitter because when they split they were bad mouthing their church.  Ignoring the fact that many of the things they were complaining about were very valid.  Churches of Christ have a bad reputation not because of the ICOC alone, but because their legalistic views on things as small as a kitchen in a church just turned people off.  As I read back on things I really see the late 70’s as being a really unhealthy period for the Churches of Christ. Many old leaders that have out served their usefulness.  The 80’s and 90’s were good times for the Churches of Christ because many of these old stubborn leaders started taking their trip home to heaven.  Letting in a new breed of leadership.
3. They had some bad teachings.

The bad things of the ICOC did not form in a vacuum.  They formed from a very unhealthy group of churches, so it would make sense that they were unhealthy themselves.

Well that’s enough for post one.  I think I’ll next touch on the history of the Cincinnati Church of Christ itself.