With the landmark division between the liberal Dis-ciples of Christ/Christian Church and the more conserva-tive churches of Christ that occurred in the early part of the 1900’s still being very much talked about, some see another division on the horizon between the encampments of truth and error.  They wonder what form the division will take, with the proponents of liberalism pulling away to form themselves into a separate community, disassociating themselves from churches of Christ.  It is happening right now in the form of the Community Church trend.
     It is not merely a matter of dropping the name church of Christ.  When a group chooses to drop the name of Christ from their identity, they typically drop the doc-trine of Christ from their formality.  As Charles Hodge has correctly pointed out, “The church belongs to Christ – not the community!  The church answers to Christ – not the community.  The church is here to convert the community not please it.”
     As my inside article continues to show, we may Scripturally call ourselves the church, churches of Christ, churches of God, the Kingdom of God, or the house of God.  None of these are formal names, but everyone is a Scrip-tural designation showing that God owns the church.  There is no Scripture for a name showing that a community owns the church!  Christ loved the church, died for it, is the head of it and will receive it into heaven one day!