r/excoc

My ancestors are from middle Tennessee (slightly west and south of Nashville, Williamson County, now Franklin TN). I have traveled to where they lived in the 19th century. It was a very primitive "Deliverance" type area but is being invaded by Californians now. A town my great grandmother lived in was Centerville TN and it has more CoC's than anywhere I have seen, the town is run by CoC people and almost every church there is CoC. I drove the Natchez Trace Pkwy just south of there and by mistake got on a gravel road that parallels the parkway, Every half mile or less you would see a primitive baptist church (and they had all the names, Hard Shell, Foot Washing, Old School on their signs). These were all very small church which seemed in reasonable state of repair, they weren't falling down, it looked like they were used. I assume having these extreme fundamentalist churches in this area is related both to the poverty in the area and the closeness to the second great awakening event. Does anyone else know anything about the religious history of this area???

Sometimes I wonder, what kind of Christianity is this?
They act as if they alone have the right interpretation of Scripture. They want to control how people think. They insist that the Bible gives instructions that are 100% applicable to every conceivable culture, in every time and place, with virtually no room for nuance. If you read the Bible differently than they do, you’re told you’re doing it wrong. The only acceptable interpretation is their 19th century way of reading it. If you disagree, you’re labeled a bad person, disobedient to God, a rebel, or someone who has let the culture consume them.
By the way, what does “letting the culture consume you” even mean? Many of these same people are deeply Republican, and those political values clearly influence how they see the world. Yet they act as though they are completely untouched by culture themselves.
They’re surprised when people push back against their behavior. They accuse everyone else of creating division and call it denominationalism. They say others are building walls between Christians and dividing the body of Christ. Yet they refuse to take communion with Christians who aren’t exactly like them. In some cases, they won’t even fellowship with other Churches of Christ that do things differently.
They’re controlling toward everyone, not just women. They place incredibly high expectations on people and then tell them they’re not following God correctly. They quote statistics to scare people into compliance. They misrepresent other people and their beliefs. They spread pseudoscience. I had a preacher repeat the old left brain, right brain myth as if it were fact. I heard revisionist history about instrumental music. I heard all kinds of bizarre claims presented as truth.
Their universities often feel more like propaganda mills than places that encourage honest inquiry.
Looking back, I think it’s remarkable that I ever saw this group the way I did. They’re one relatively small movement in a world filled with Christians from many different traditions, all of whom sincerely believe they are trying to follow Christ.
So why should I believe that the Church of Christ is uniquely what the world needs?

I've posted about celebrities from the c of c long ago.

Obviously Max Lucado is considered a traitor by conservative c of c. Way back people also cursed Amy Grant my grandmother really had a personal grudge against Pat Boone. FLegard Smith comes to mind since he wrote a book about getting along with other denominations.

Are there another sell outs of the c of c that my mid age ass is not aware of?

Hey everyone, this is a bit of a strange question, but I’m curious how much truth you think there is to the Church of Christ’s claim that our culture is uniquely bad or evil.
Recently my parents were talking about my younger sister and how they need to teach her to be “a good young lady,” make good choices, and be “ladylike” (whatever that means). During the conversation my dad said, “This culture is so bad.” They went on a long tirade about drinking, children seeing their parents drink, and the general moral decline of society.
I remember sitting there wondering: is American culture really that uniquely evil? Or is this mostly Church of Christ moral panic? Growing up, I heard constant warnings about “the culture” — the culture is corrupt, the culture is dangerous, the culture is pulling people away from God. It felt like almost every problem was blamed on “the culture.”
To be clear, I’m not saying modern culture is perfect. Every society has problems. But I’m genuinely curious whether the Church of Christ has a point here, or whether it tends to exaggerate the uniqueness of our moral decline. Are we actually living in an unusually evil culture compared with other times and places, or is this a recurring pattern where religious groups view the surrounding culture as especially dangerous?
I’d be interested to hear how others here think about this, especially people who grew up hearing constant sermons and warnings about “the culture.”

was going to hold off on making another post until I recently saw a video from a Baptist church’s Vacation Bible School. In the skit, people dressed as soldiers execute Satan while the kids in the audience are chanting, “Take him out! Take him out! Take him out!”
It got me thinking about my own upbringing in the Church of Christ. My first reaction was that my church never really glorified violence. But then I started asking myself, did it? In what ways, if any, did the Church of Christ glorify violence?
For those of you who also grew up in the Church of Christ, did you ever get the impression that violence against people was celebrated or encouraged? Looking back, I’m not sure. A lot of Christianity can seem to frame violence in positive ways, but I don’t remember my congregation doing that explicitly.
I know we sang “lords army ,” but I never took that as glorifying war or military violence. I do think comparing spiritual warfare to military conflict is a bit inappropriate, but that’s a separate discussion.
One thing I do remember is being taught violent Bible stories at a very young age. I specifically remember hearing about Joshua destroying Jericho, with everyone being killed except Rahab and her family. I remember asking about the children, and the teacher’s response was essentially, “God took those children to heaven.” That answer disturbed me when I was younger, although I eventually accepted it at the time.
So I’m curious: looking back, do you think the Church of Christ ever glorified violence, even indirectly? Or was your experience similar to mine, where it wasn’t really emphasized?

Did anyone else notice that the Church of Christ seemed to encourage constantly correcting other people’s understanding of the Bible?
I remember a preacher saying something like, “I don’t see how you can be right with God if you’re teaching or believing something incorrectly.” The message was that if you misunderstood a passage or taught it wrong, you couldn’t really be right with God. There wasn’t much room for honest mistakes or good intentions.
Looking back, I wonder if that mindset creates a culture where everyone is trying to catch everyone else’s errors. I remember people questioning teachers after class over small details, and it sometimes felt like they were always looking for something to correct.
I even found myself doing the same thing when I was in the Church of Christ. Instead of simply learning together, it often felt like we were expected to police one another’s interpretations.
Is this something others experienced too, or was it just the congregations I attended?

These are the things I remember happening that were big events: sunday schoolteacher went to prison for a year for perjury, jewelry theft, elders daughter got pregnant out of wedlock, people were pretty sympathetic, there were always stories of preachers complaining about salary and not showing up to work.

Never heard much discussion in CoC concerning Birth Control, even went every week with my mother recently and the topic was never broached. I looked up what the baptist position on birth control was and they seem very opposed to IUD's and Plan B but it isn't a consistent position however it is what AI views as the dominant view. Also there are groups in baptists that think BC should be abandoned and let God decide what size family one should have.

Has anyone heard this discussed in CoC?

I’ve been using AI to generate some Excoc image content and memes to combat the CoC within my local community. I was wondering if anyone knows of any pages or websites where I might find some already created? Or a good place to generate more content. Chatgpt has a policy against creating content that puts down a religion.🙄

Thanks in advance

One of the things I could never cope with in the CoC was the whole idea that the only acceptable divorce was if you got cheated on, and if it was over anything else, you could never get remarried. It never sat right with me that domestic violence and other forms of abuse weren't included in that, as well as many other issues where the one in the right is still punished for marrying somebody who wasn't like that when they got married. I remember hearing growing up when asking about that "that doesn't happen. Nobody becomes abusive and there's always going to be signs beforehand", but I've seen so many times where that's not the case. There's so many examples of men only becoming abusive once they're married since now there's consequences to leaving, so now a woman is no longer allowed to try again if her first husband turns out to be one of those men who are like that?

Secondly, forcing unhappy couples to stay together forever if kids are involved does more damage to the kid than having happy mom and happy dad living separately. Those kids are going to turn out more well adjusted than some kid who watches Mom and Dad scream at each other all day every day and fight over every little decision, or even just have tension leaving that kid anticipating a divorce that never happens, so the kid is going to have some intense anxiety.

I always heard growing up that "God's way is always better" and "God's rules are better for humanity", but like in this regard, this is an example of God's way having an innocent victim being punished by making that awful person their only chance to find love and then them being expected to live the rest of their life single because they chose the wrong person? Disgusting.

I’m tired of pretending this is okay.
I’ve watched multiple preachers proudly brag about not sparing the rod and treating physical punishment like it’s some sacred duty. I’ve heard them mock parents who say “I don’t believe in hitting my kids” and call them weak or worldly.
They love to say they just follow the Bible but they completely ignore what actual studies show about corporal punishment. Those studies show increased aggression, anxiety, depression, and damaged relationships. When people bring that up, the response is always the same. Those studies are biased. God’s word is clear.
I’m sorry but spare the rod spoil the child does not mean you need to physically hit your children to raise them right. And it’s honestly disturbing how aggressive some of these preachers get about defending their right to hit kids.

They treat any suggestion that hitting your kids might be harmful as an attack on the Bible itself. Their preachers will straight-up say things like “the government has no right to tell me I can’t discipline my children” and act like child protection laws are some kind of demonic overreach

Out of respect for their boundaries, I'm not replying to this thread in the r/churchofchrist forum, only here. Thread URL is: https://www.reddit.com/user/deverbovitae/comments/1uhzjk4/new_testament_textual_criticism_why_it_matters/

My response: This is a sermon, not scholarship. It's an exercise in confessional apologetics cosplaying as serious historical criticism. It uses the language and resources of textual criticism, but it's engaged in a fundamentally different project than rigorous scholarship. There's a fundamental incommensurability between what this person is doing and what someone like Bart Ehrman and many other known textual critics do. This is ideological boundary maintenance to assure the faithful, i.e., Christian apologetics. It is not an attempt to rigorously work toward an undetermined outcome driven only by the data/evidence. It's also a sermon dump, not a serious call to critical dialogue. It's a theologically-driven confessional monologue cross-dressing as serious scholarly discourse.

I was trained in biblical textual criticism by such churchachrist scholars as Frank Pack, Neil Lightfoot, John T. Willis, F. Furman Kearley, J. D. Thomas, Thomas Olbricht, among others. I learned a lot from them, but there was always this ideologically driven assurance that nothing in this exercise of "lower criticism" (i.e., textual criticism) could ever be a threat to one's Xn faith. And that presumption/claim was foundational to their approach (i.e., all the variants/disputed texts were ultimately doctrinally unimportant and/or trivial).

A complementary topic that I've spent too much time on is the longer ending of Mark (16:9-10). But how churchachrist folks have addressed this textual challenge supports my observation that the theologically-driven practice of textual criticism has often been an ideological exercise masquerading as scholarship. McGarvey originally insisted it was authentic (1875). But by 1896, under the influence of Westcott-Hort and emerging NT textual criticism, he acknowledged it was not part of the original gospel, but still hedged his bets by insisting it was "authentic" in that it was added by a contemporary writer (i.e., not the author "Mark" but a contemporary).

But Guy N Woods would have none of that, declaring the "best and most conservative scholars" accepted this longer ending, and those who rejected it were "infidels, despisers of truth, and rationalistic 'scholars'" who rejected its authenticity for the obvious reason that it clearly establishes the necessity of baptism. [Woods was not much fun at parties.]

Much of the above about McGarvey/Woods from:
Helton, Stanley N. Churches of Christ and Mark 16:9-20. January 1, 1994. https://www.academia.edu/11556546/_Churches_of_Christ_and_Mark_16_9_20.

There are two different and, I would argue, ultimately incommensurable projects at play here. One is confessional and theological, despite its explicit use of the language and resources of critical scholarship. The other project is engaged in a critical attempt to establish the biblical text at some recoverable point in the past without regard to theological or confessional considerations or expectations.  As far as I know, the best we can do is establish the textual tradition to about the 4th century CE. Lots of interesting stuff before that, but much about that earlier period is unknown and/or speculative, with only fragmentary evidence to work with. But that's another thread.

Cathartically yours.

Or tell me anything. Yes I just made this account, I’m not a troll lol. I didn’t want people I know to see me post here

Edit: I would love to keep having discussion, but my intention for this post was to be a fun discussion about the oddities of FHU and I selfishly wanted to see from this POV of those who have heard and experienced outlandish stuff.

I know I started it by entertaining a few comments but I would rather it be fun and lighthearted. Most of you are respectful and stuff even though I’ve made it abundantly clear why I believe what I believe, so thanks.

Can we just talk about the silliness of FHU goodness

sorry if you think this is targeted at all I just genuinely wanted a good convo about this.

Hey everyone,
I was thinking about something today.
I remember sitting through a lesson at a Church of Christ where the preacher quoted the Church Fathers over and over, claiming they opposed the use of musical instruments in worship. Whether there is some historical truth to that isn’t really my main point.
What struck me was the inconsistency.
Why is it acceptable to appeal to the Church Fathers and church tradition when arguing that instruments are sinful, but then dismiss those very same sources when they support beliefs the Church of Christ rejects?
If these early Christian writers are considered reliable enough to settle the question of musical instruments, then why aren’t they given the same weight on issues like the real presence in the Eucharist, choirs, infant baptism, bishops, or other practices that are often dismissed as “traditions of men”?
Even figures like John Calvin or Thomas Aquinas, whose theology the Church of Christ would reject in many other areas, are suddenly treated as valuable authorities whenever they appear to support the anti instrument position.
That seems like a selective use of history rather than a consistent approach to scholarship.
I’ve often wondered if this is something that’s taught in preaching schools: find quotations that appear to support your position, present them without much context, and move on. But that’s not how historical scholarship is supposed to work. If we’re going to use historical sources, we should be willing to engage with what they actually believed as a whole, not just the parts that happen to agree with us.
What do you guys think?

I have a lot of issues with the Church of Christ, and I’m no longer really a member. There are plenty of teachings, attitudes, and experiences that led me away from it.
That said, I’ve been rethinking the doctrine of original sin lately, and I think the Church of Christ might actually be right about that one.
The more I read the Bible, the less convinced I am that it teaches that every person is born guilty of Adam’s sin. I can see the argument that humanity inherits a fallen world, a tendency toward sin, and the consequences of Adam’s rebellion. But I’m not sure Scripture clearly says that a newborn baby is already carrying personal guilt before God because of Adam.
Verses like Ezekiel 18, where each person is judged for their own sin, have become harder for me to ignore. Romans 5 is obviously the passage people point to for original sin, but I’m no longer convinced it means inherited guilt in the way many churches teach it.
It’s a strange place to be. I’ve spent a lot of time criticizing the Church of Christ for legalism, tribalism, and other issues, and I still have those criticisms. But I also think it’s important to admit when they may have gotten something right.
So this isn’t a defense of the Church of Christ as a whole. It’s just me acknowledging that on the specific question of original sin, I think their view may be closer to the biblical text than I once believed.
Has anyone else here gone through a similar reevaluation of original sin after leaving the Church of Christ?

As a kid, this would have been the year I hated even more than usual going to the annual "Fourth of July Meeting." Every year, there were services Sunday through Friday evenings, and then ALL DAY ON SATURDAY. When the Fourth of July fell on Saturday, as it does this year, it was particularly miserable. Sitting through mini-sermon after mini-sermon, including BOYS in the afternoon, made me want to tear my fingernails out. That was one of the best parts about escaping that place - I had the holiday back to myself! They don't have the meeting any longer, lucky kids.

Of course, then there was the out-of-town New Year's Meeting that Dad would drag us to some years. Just thinking about it is depressing.