I Don't Care What They Say--The COC Is a Denomination
OK, I'll concede that the COC doesn't have the formal structure of a denomination. There is no national or regional council or synod that determines what goes on in the congregations. Individual congregations do not have to report their budgets or anything like that to an overseeing body of any kind. However, there is an informal network of preachers, deacons, and elders that meets and shares ideas on how to run things. I call them the COC Cabal. Furthermore, nowadays most congregations like to hire preachers who've had at least a little formal training, and since all the preachers go to the same Bible colleges and are taught by the same professors, they're all pretty much guaranteed to preach the same things, whether they're in the upper Midwest or the buckle of the Bible Belt. Every COC I've ever attended, no matter where in the United States, has used the King James Bible, the Sacred Selections song book, and has conducted its service in the same way. It's uncanny.
The COC also engages in some practices that mark it as a denomination. For example, if you move from one area to another and need to switch churches, you need to get a letter of recommendation from your current elders/deacons to give to the elders/deacons at the new church. They have to vouch for you and confirm that you're a member in good standing or you won't be allowed to place membership at the new congregation. No mention of any such practice appears in the Bible, which the COC claims to follow to the letter.
If you have gotten into trouble at your current COC congregation, that trouble will follow you everywhere. Once you're disfellowshipped by one group, you'll be disfellowshipped by all of them because either your current elders will send a letter to other churches denouncing you or the news will just get around through the grapevine. Either way, if the churches were truly independent of each other, this wouldn't be an issue.
Finally, another denominational practice of the COC is insisting that congregations call themselves "the church of Christ." They point to a verse in Romans 16 as justification for using this name. There's nothing wrong with the name, but the early Christians didn't name their churches at all. Paul's letters usually referred to churches by the names of their city or by the name of the person in whose house the church met. There was no formal name for any congregation. But according to the COC, if you don't use their name, your congregation can't possibly be biblically sound.
The COC may not be a denomination de juris, but it's certainly one de facto--no matter how much they scream and yell to the contrary. The evidence just doesn't support their position.
The COC also engages in some practices that mark it as a denomination. For example, if you move from one area to another and need to switch churches, you need to get a letter of recommendation from your current elders/deacons to give to the elders/deacons at the new church. They have to vouch for you and confirm that you're a member in good standing or you won't be allowed to place membership at the new congregation. No mention of any such practice appears in the Bible, which the COC claims to follow to the letter.
If you have gotten into trouble at your current COC congregation, that trouble will follow you everywhere. Once you're disfellowshipped by one group, you'll be disfellowshipped by all of them because either your current elders will send a letter to other churches denouncing you or the news will just get around through the grapevine. Either way, if the churches were truly independent of each other, this wouldn't be an issue.
Finally, another denominational practice of the COC is insisting that congregations call themselves "the church of Christ." They point to a verse in Romans 16 as justification for using this name. There's nothing wrong with the name, but the early Christians didn't name their churches at all. Paul's letters usually referred to churches by the names of their city or by the name of the person in whose house the church met. There was no formal name for any congregation. But according to the COC, if you don't use their name, your congregation can't possibly be biblically sound.
The COC may not be a denomination de juris, but it's certainly one de facto--no matter how much they scream and yell to the contrary. The evidence just doesn't support their position.
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