The Disciples
of Christ

      This religious brotherhood holds that believers in Christ should wear no religious titles but those given to them by Christ and his apostles. These alone are divinely authorized, while all others tend to perpetuate the schisms in which they originated. They style themselves, therefore, Christians, or Disciples of Christ, and the congregations in which they are organized, Churches of God, or Churches of Christ. They hold that all other titles must pass out of use ere the unity for which Christ prayed and the apostles labored shall be realized.

      They hold that humanly-devised creeds and books of discipline, having likewise originated in schisms, tend to perpetuate these, and should be laid aside in favor of the teachings of Christ [1] and his apostles--the only divinely-authorized rule of faith and discipline. Believing thus, they plead for the restoration of Primitive Christianity as taught by the apostles, and for the unity in faith and practice which must result therefrom.

      As a consequence, they require of persons who seek membership among them a confession of faith in Jesus as the Christ the Son of the living God, preceded by repentance, and followed by the obedience in baptism which was the uniform requirement of the apostolic church. Their individual churches are organized, as in the beginning, with elders and deacons; and they meet at their appointed places of worship on the first day of every week for prayer, singing, public instruction in the Scriptures, and the observance of the Lord's Supper. At these meetings, and at others which are appointed at times and places best suited to the purpose, they hold forth through recognized preachers the proclamation of the gospel to both saints and sinners. Their growth during the last two decades, according to the census [2] reports of the United States, has been more rapid than that of any other body of Protestants in this country, and they now number according to the best obtainable statistics, about 1,400,000.

      In order to greater efficiency in turning sinners to the Lord, both in our own country and in foreign lands, zealous brethren have organized voluntary missionary societies. In almost every State in our Union there is a State missionary society, for the evangelization of the States individually. Besides these, for more general evangelizing in our great country, and for tile promotion of world-wide missions, three other missionary societies have been organized, namely, The American Christian Missionary Society, whose field is the United States and Canada; the Foreign Christian Missionary Society, whose field embraces all foreign countries: and the Christian Women's Board of Missions, whose field has no geographical limits. The first is now maintaining some 500 missionaries; the second has missionaries in Japan, China, Tibet, India, Africa, the Hawaiian and the Philippine Islands, Cuba, [3] Denmark and Sweden. Its number of missionaries and native helpers is more than 600. The third has missionaries in many States of our Union, and in Mexico, Porto Rico, Jamaica and South America. The work of Negro evangelization and education in this country is also in its hands. It employs 500 missionaries and other workers.

[RDOC 1-4]

      The electronic version of J. W. McGarvey's The Disciples of Christ has been transcribed from an electrostatic copy of the tract. Thanks to the Disciples of Christ Historical Society for providing the copy.

      No date of publication appears on the tract. I have assigned an approximate date of 1909, since the statistical information stated in the tract seems to best accord with that for the Centenary Year.

      Pagination has been represented by placing the page number in brackets following the last complete word on the printed page.

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
373 Wilson Street
Derry, PA 15627-9770
412.694.8602
stefanik@westol.com

Created 1 September 1997.