CHRISTIANS (CHRISTIAN CHURCH). - A Protestant sect, it is the result of three small religious movements that occurred almost simultaneously in the United States. The first took place in Virginia (1792), where the Methodist pastor James O'Kelley, dissatisfied with a decision of his bishop and superintendent, after having appealed in vain to the General Conference, separated with some of his followers, taking the name of Christians and rejecting any confession of faith outside the Bible. This schism spread through the southern United States. The second movement took place in New England (1801), where the Baptist minister Abner Jones, desiring greater freedom in ecclesiastical matters, separated from the Baptists, founded a Christian Church like the previous one and spread it through the eastern United States. The third arose in Kentucky (1804) among various Presbyterian ministers, who decided to unite and form a Christian Church, without the hindrance of a confession of faith, and spread it through the central and western United States.
These three movements, independent of one another yet similar, united in 1819. The schism in 1832 of one of their leaders, Barton W. Stone, who joined the Campbellites with 52 Christian churches (v. DISCEPOLI), was the cause of great confusion, since the Campbellites or Disciples indiscriminately assumed the name of Christians or Disciples, and this same name of Christians was also retained by those who had not followed Stone. The confusion has not yet entirely disappeared. Finally in 1929 they united with the Congregationalists (v.), and the two united sects took the name of "General Council of the Congregational and Christian Churches." It should be noted, however, that given the independence of the local Congregationalist Churches, this union does not mean that there is a union between all the Congregationalist sects and that of the Christians, but only with those Churches that have freely chosen to accept it.