COC American Or European
Many denominations teach the Church of Christ was an American denomination started by Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone who spread the Church of Christ in the early 1800's, pre-civil war. Though many denominations from Catholic to Baptist assert this theory, it is really just a lie. They use it this way to imply the Church of Christ is of recent origin and not apostolic. Their lie has worked fairly well in leading away the gullible..
I assert Catholics and others know it is a lie, because they interacted with the Church of Christ body well before America was settled, even going back to the Apostles. Both the Baptists and Catholics came from the Church of Christ.
We have excellent evidence the Church of Christ was mentioned by a writer/translator of the King James Bible. Modern Baptists came from those Churches of Christ as they mixed with Calvinists from Europe and split.
The COC was the Catholics enemy going back even to the Donatists. Donatists re-baptized Catholics as we do and Donatists taught most of the doctrines we teach.
There is a picture in England of an inscription where Donatist who settled there referred to themselves as the Church of Christ. They were connected to the Lollard group, but went by the name Church of Christ. They referred back to as early as 1100 AD.
The Donatists were driven out of Africa by 800 AD with few writings after that, with most later mention being in Northern Europe and Britain.
One website has stepped forward and provided historical evidence from Great Britain that Churches of Christ existed in England and Europe before America was discovered by Columbus. The website founder has recently passed away but his work remains. I believe you can still buy his book outlining the evidence out of libraries in Great Britain.
http://www.traces-of-the-kingdom.org/
A site published by a member of the COC in Britain.
To state my case that it is typically taught that the COC was started by Campbell and Stone, I can use Wikipedia. This is the most taught view, but false.
It is commonly taught the COC started in America and that England got their COC from America.
Churches of Christ are autonomous Christian congregations associated with one another through distinct beliefs and practices. Represented chiefly in the United States and one of several branches to develop out of the American Restoration Movement, they claim Biblical precedent for their doctrine and practice and trace their heritage back to the early Christian church as described in the New Testament.
More broadly, the Restoration Movement was an evangelistic and Bible-based effort launched in various places as several people sought a return to the original teachings and practices of the New Testament. Christian leaders including Robert Sandeman, Abner Jones, Elias Smith, James O'Kelly, Rice Haggard, Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell, Walter Scott, and Barton W. Stone were trailblazers of similar movements that impacted the eventual phenomenon known as the American Restoration Movement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churches_of_Christ_in_Europe
The time in which the churches of Christ in Central Europe began is not agreed upon. Some have said that the churches of Christ began with the American Restoration Movement. However, Hans Godwin Grimm, author of the book Tradition and History of the Early Churches of Christ In Central Europe, born in 1899,[1]:41 wrote that in March 1955 he met for the first time in his life "a member of the restored churches of Christ of America." Grimm continued, saying, "What he had to tell me was not other than the faith of my ancestors which I had taught and practiced all my life. ... the American Restoration Movement had been totally unknown to us."[1]:42
In the early 1800s, Scottish Baptists were influenced by the writings of Alexander Campbell in the Christian Baptist and Millennial Harbinger.[2] A group in Nottingham withdrew from the Scotch Baptist church in 1836 to form a Church of Christ.[2]:369 James Wallis, a member of that group, founded a magazine named The British Millennial Harbinger in 1837.[2]:369 In 1842 the first Cooperative Meeting of Churches of Christ in Great Britain was held in Edinburgh.[2]:369 Approximately 50 congregations were involved, representing a membership of 1,600.[2]:369 The name "Churches of Christ" was formally adopted at an annual meeting in 1870.[2]:369 Alexander Campbell influenced the British Restoration Movement indirectly through his writings; he visited Britain for several months in 1847, and "presided at the Second Cooperative Meeting of the British Churches at Chester".[2]:369 At that time the movement had grown to encompass 80 congregations with a total membership of 2,300.[2]:369 Annual meetings were held after 1847.[2]:369
Even though some Scotts did convert based on Campbell's writing, the website above will show COC in England and Europe hundreds of years before Campbell wrote
Campbell actually quoted an earlier book about the COC that was written before his conversion.
Also, the website shows Baptists came from Churches of Christ and not the other way around.
Archie Watters in his History of the British Churches@of@Christ (1948) wrote "The story of the Churches of Christ in Great Britain is of particular value in correcting an error which has persisted for some time that the movement is peculiarly American. Alexander@Campbell was at considerable pains to point out the fact that the movement was as much native to Britain as America."
Alexander Campbell wrote in his Christian Baptist "He who reads Jones' History of the Church of Christ, the history of that society of Christians which we see described in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Apostolic Epistles, which has been persecuted since Constantine by such secular ecclesiastical establishments as that of the English episcopacy, will readily perceive that the church of Christ is quite a different thing from such hierarchies, and that their creeds and confessions have no claim to divine authority, but are reprobated by it. It will be seen that that such has been described by Mosheim and Milner as the Church of Christ has been the beastly persecutor of his church.” Jones' history was first published in 1816. Alexander Campbell was aware of the materials used both in the book and this website from sources he had, primarily Jones' history. It seems he understood the Church of Christ has always existed. William Jones' was a member of the British church of Christ.
Jones' history was published in 1816, Campbell came out of the Baptist name in or near 1834. Thus COC existed before Campbell converted.
Anglican clergyman, Dr Daniel Featly, (who was one of the translators of the King James@Bible) wrote in 1645 of the Churches of Christ meeting in London and elsewhere in his work the 'Dippers Dipt', took those congregations back to 1525 when he quotes from them "That baptism ought to be received by none, but such as can give a good account of their faith; and in case any have been baptized in their infancy, that they ought to be re-baptized after they come to years of discretion, before they are to be admitted to the Church of Christ." These churches in the 1600s were in communication with other churches of Christ in America, nearly two hundred years before Campbell!
Thus the idea Campbell and Stone started the COC is false, and as the website noted below documents, the COC existed from Christ.
http://www.traces-of-the-kingdom.org/
Catholics have always hated and persecuted the COC because we do not accept infant baptism and re-baptize them. The same charge was made by Freely in the early 1600s.