![\"This](\"https:\/\/christianchronicle.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/who-are-we-final-300x300.png\")
<\/a>This is part of a series exploring the identity of Churches of Christ. Read more here.<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n By the 1906 U.S. Census, Christians associated with the movement had split into two groups:<\/a> Churches of Christ and Disciples of Christ, or Christian Churches.<\/p>\n But the reasons for this disassociation were more complex than the single issue of instrumental music and brewed over several decades, panelists argued in a discussion on \u201cThe Reversal of 1906.\u201d<\/p>\n Leaders and prominent publications among Churches of Christ took issue with other church practices deemed unbiblical \u201cinnovations,\u201d said Leonard Allen, dean of the Bible college at Lipscomb University<\/a> in Nashville, Tenn.<\/p>\n These practices included parachurch missionary societies, contracts for local preachers and cooperative meetings with denominations, Allen said.<\/p>\n But for many years, Restorationist churches maintained fellowship despite differences over these issues, said Rick Atchley, preacher for The Hills Church of Christ<\/a> in Fort Worth, Texas.<\/p>\n From left, Renaissance Church of Christ minister Orpheus Heyward moderates a panel on \u201cThe Reversal of 1906\u201d with The Christian Standard publisher Jerry Harris, The Hills Church of Christ minister Rick Atchley and Lipscomb University Bible dean Leonard Allen.<\/p><\/div>\n Instead, Atchley pointed to the Civil War as the catalyst for division, as it was with other religious groups.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re a confederation of autonomous congregations, so there\u2019s no way to know officially that we had divided,\u201d he said, \u201cbut the war divided us.\u201d<\/p>\n The timing of the severed ties had mostly to do with post-war socioeconomic disparity, regional identity and rising denominationalism, Allen suggested in a separate seminar on Restoration history.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was a time when big cities were exploding in America and when middle class churchgoing people were prospering in the North, at least,\u201d Allen told attendees. \u201cThey built church buildings that reflected their prosperity. They vied with each other to possess the tallest steeple as a symbol of prestige. They bought expensive pipe organs. They brought in professional musicians and more refined and better educated preachers who are more eloquent.\u201d<\/p>\n Leaders among Churches of Christ in the late 1800s objected to what they saw as attempts \u201cto make the church a fashionable place of resort and entertainment.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Leaders among Churches of Christ in the late 1800s objected to what they saw as attempts \u201cto make the church a fashionable place of resort and entertainment,\u201d Allen added. Benjamin Franklin, editor of the American Christian Review, <\/i>and Lipscomb University co-founder David Lipscomb \u2014 among others \u2014\u00a0believed that money should be used to help the poor, whom they felt would not find a place in these opulent church buildings.<\/p>\n Black Restoration Movement churches divided largely along the same lines as their White counterparts, with a group of Black Christians in Nashville, Tenn., splitting from the Disciples of Christ to form the Jackson Street Church of Christ<\/a> around 1900. Marshall Keeble,<\/a> the famed evangelist and founder of the Nashville Christian Institute, was a lifelong Jackson Street member.<\/p>\n Marshall Keeble sits with a few of his \u201cboy preachers,\u201d including Hassen Reed and Robert McBride, both standing, and Robert Wood and Fred Gray.<\/p><\/div>\n However, Renaissance minister Orpheus Heyward, who moderated the panel, addressed the feeling that \u201cAfrican Americans, within Churches of Christ, in the Restoration Movement, in this generation \u2026 seem to have been forgotten out of history, and we have been feeling rejected, and we don\u2019t feel as welcomed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat feeling and that thought process is a very real concept that I think still plays into the divide,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n While Allen noted that race was not a central point to the overall division of the Restoration Movement, leaders such as Lipscomb strongly disapproved of segregation.<\/p>\n \u201cTo have two separate churches in the same town \u2014 one White, one Black \u2014 is a sin before God,\u201d Lipscomb would say, though Allen pointed out that he could be paternalistic toward Black Christians. And his namesake university has previously apologized for its history of racism.<\/a><\/p>\n Even so, Black Churches of Christ would carve out a rich history of preachers and civil rights leaders \u2014 including Keeble, Fred Gray<\/a> and Andrew Hairston.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\t\t The panel \u2014 only part of a three-day event that included worship and classes on a range of subjects \u2014 paid much attention to a lingering question for Christians today: Can there be fellowship through a difference over instrumental and a cappella worship?<\/p>\n In the panel, Allen noted the hermeneutics \u2014 or interpretive reasoning \u2014 behind Churches of Christ shunning instruments:<\/p>\n \u201cThe question was, what does the word of God require for the worship and work of the church? And they said, the answer is, God\u2019s positive commands. \u2026 The question is not what is forbidden, but what is positively authorized, so positive law.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"From](\"https:\/\/christianchronicle.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/nehemiah-27-600x400.jpg\")
<\/a>
\n\n
\n![\"Marshall](\"https:\/\/christianchronicle.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/p10_preacherboys_0418-300x358.jpg\")
<\/a>What about instruments?<\/b><\/h2>\n