Pepperdine among the Campbellites

How the university has related to the rest of the Stone–Campbell Movement

May 23, 2025

In my recent essay Pepperdine among the denominations, I shared three stories of Pepperdine’s relationships with Christian denominations other than its own Churches of Christ, namely charismatics, Catholics, and Congregationalists. I began that essay by observing how the attention paid to Pepperdine’s affiliation with the Churches of Christ has tended to come at the expense of analysis of its interactions with other churches. In this sequel, I focus on Pepperdine’s relationships with three of the churches that are closest to the Churches of Christ on the family tree: the Disciples of Christ, the Churches of Christ (non-institutional), and the International Churches of Christ.

Following a brief history of the neighborhood of the family tree that includes the Churches of Christ, I’ll take up each cousin in turn and offer a few remarks on Pepperdine’s relationship therewith.

A church history in three schisms

The Stone–Campbell Movement is a Christian movement with origins on the American frontier in the 1800s, deriving its modern name from the union of Barton W. Stone’s Christians with Alexander Campbell’s Disciples in 1832. The movement aimed to unite all Christians and restore the practices of the first-century church established by Christ. Over the course of the next two centuries, disagreements about how best to effect restoration have resulted in a number of divisions, and I’ll structure this brief history of the movement around three such divisions. Because the movement was never organized under a single denominational hierarchy, these divisions took place at the local level, as individual congregations identified with one or another of the branches, rather than regional, national, or international bodies negotiating formal schisms.

A simplified family tree of the Stone–Campbell Movement

Schism 1: Disciples of Christ

For the first several decades, the Stone–Campbell Movement remained more or less unified, but divisions began to develop between a disproportionately-northern liberal wing and a mostly-southern conservative wing. Among the many issues dividing the two camps were two questions, the first relating to what is sometimes called the regulative principle of worship, and the second dealing with the issue of inter-congregational cooperation.

The liberal churches, in short, were in favor of organs and organizations—which is to say (1) they regarded as acceptable certain elements of worship not mentioned in biblical descriptions of the early church’s practice (like musical instruments) and (2) they accepted certain collaborative parachurch organizations like missionary societies. The more conservative churches, which rejected both missionary societies and the use of musical instruments in corporate worship, came to be known as the Churches of Christ, and the liberal churches were called the Disciples of Christ.1 This schism was gradual, but it’s normally dated to 1906 when the federal government began observing the distinction in its demographic data.

Since the split, the Disciples of Christ has become a mainline Protestant denomination, granting full communion to the otherwise unrelated (and thus confusingly named) United Church of Christ. The Disciples’ most visible legacy today may be the universities they established, which include Texas Christian University (TCU) and Chapman University.

The branch of the movement that yielded the Disciples also produced an offshoot sometimes called “Christian churches and churches of Christ” or “independent Christian churches,” who agreed with the Disciples about organs and organizations but ultimately objected to denominationalizing, among other issues. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll mostly lump them in with the Disciples for the purposes of this essay, but they are different in important ways.

Schism 2: Churches of Christ (non-institutional)

The second schism was also slow moving, with roots as far back as the 1870s, when preachers like Daniel Sommer from Indiana were teaching that the churches’ opposition to collaborating in missionary societies should be extended to Christian colleges and orphanages—in short, the church is the only Christian institution that’s authorized by the New Testament other than the home, so all good works (be they missions, education, or charity), should be overseen by individual congregations rather than independent boards of trustees supported by church funds. Due to Sommer’s influence, those who agreed with him were sometimes slurred as “Sommerites.”

By the 1930s, Sommer’s anti-institutionalism had gained ground in many churches of Christ, inspiring a muscular response from the pro-institutional or “mainstream” churches that had long since denounced the missionary societies but would fight to keep their colleges and orphanages. In 1954, a preacher and journal editor among the mainstream churches named B. C. Goodpasture advocated quarantining the anti-institutional churches, essentially ejecting them from the fellowship.2

By the end of the 1960s, the informal separation was more or less complete, with the mainstream Churches of Christ allowing funds from a congregation’s treasury to support organizations like orphanages and colleges, while the “non-institutional” churches objected to such arrangements as unbiblical. The non-institutional churches count one college (Florida College) as affiliated with their movement, but of course that school does not accept donations from any congregations.

Schism 3: International Churches of Christ

The third schism had its roots in the late 1960s at the Crossroads Church of Christ in Gainesville, Florida, where a campus ministry aimed at students attending the University of Florida started growing rapidly as it emphasized evangelism and discipleship. One of the early converts was Kip McKean, who exported the ministry’s practices to other churches, including the Lexington Church of Christ in Massachusetts (later renamed the Boston Church of Christ), which likewise saw tremendous growth.

McKean’s Boston church planted congregations around the country and then around the world, all organized in a strict hierarchy reporting up to McKean himself, who was soon clearly the leader of what became known as the Boston Movement. By the late 1980s, McKean’s churches had begun re-baptizing Church of Christ members from outside the Boston Movement, whose first baptisms were regarded as inadequate. This practice of re-baptism, together with a strictly hierarchical discipling program, furthered the divide with mainstream Churches of Christ, who came to regard the Boston Movement as out of line with church practice.

In the early 1990s, the Boston Movement officially became the International Churches of Christ (ICOC). Around this time, McKean moved to Southern California, where his Los Angeles Church of Christ ballooned to some 14,000 weekly attendees. Following a series of accusations and recriminations regarding the church’s controversial discipling program which some regarded as cultish, McKean resigned from his leadership position in 2002.

All three of these schisms—with the Disciples, the non-institutional churches, and the International Churches of Christ—involved disputes about the role of the church. The Disciples wanted the church to subordinate its funds to the missionary society and ultimately adopted a denominational structure; the non-institutional churches didn’t want the church to subordinate its funds to any external organization at all; and the International Churches of Christ adopted a hierarchical structure.

With this church history established, I’d like to share for each church an episode from Pepperdine’s history that I hope will reveal to some extent how the university has related to each of these “cousins.”

Pepperdine and the Disciples of Christ

George Pepperdine College was founded late enough that the separation between the Churches of Christ and the Disciples of Christ was entrenched by the time the college came on the scene. As a result, unlike some of the earlier colleges affiliated with the Churches of Christ, Pepperdine was never roiled by the controversies that attended that schism. It was probably for this reason that the first two decades of Pepperdine’s history saw the college hardly interacting at all with the Disciples.3

But the story changed when William S. Banowsky came to Pepperdine in 1968 to raise funds for the construction of the Malibu campus. Banowsky had no qualms about approaching members of the Disciples of Christ to ask for donations. Around 1969, he approached Mildred Welshimer Phillips, the widow of Benjamin Dwight Phillips, who had used his oil fortune to support colleges associated with the Disciples, including Bethany College, Milligan College, and Phillips University.4

The Phillipses had first become interested in supporting Pepperdine following an unlikely series of events that I call the Smoot affair, which I cannot cover here but which involved a conservative talk radio host, an honorary degree from Pepperdine, and the conditional bequest of a million-dollar dog food fortune.5 Mr. Phillips was impressed by Pepperdine’s courage and wanted to make a donation. He went back and forth with Banowsky and president M. Norvel Young, contemplating an auditorium or perhaps a chapel, before finally deciding to fund a tower symbolizing Pepperdine’s Christian commitment.

Mr. Phillips died in 1968 before the gift went through, but Pepperdine’s fundraisers kept in touch with his widow. She even attended the Birth of a College dinner in 1970. Ultimately, Mrs. Phillips donated funds to build the Phillips Theme Tower (the obelisk/cross tower on Pepperdine’s Malibu campus). Her generosity is also honored in the name of one of the freshman dormitories in Malibu: the Mildred Welshimer Phillips House (dorm 2).

Mildred Welshimer Phillips speaking at the dedication of the Phillips Theme Tower with chancellor M. Norvel Young in the background, c. 1974, courtesy of Pepperdine University Archives Photograph Collection.

Thus, the primary symbol of Pepperdine’s connection to the Churches of Christ was actually funded not by the Churches of Christ but by a member of the Disciples of Christ.

Pepperdine and the non-institutional Churches of Christ

George Pepperdine grew up in what would later be called the non-institutional Churches of Christ. His childhood church in Kansas was, in his words, “somewhat under the influence of the teachings of Daniel Sommer on the College Question,” and many of his acquaintances around the time he founded George Pepperdine College called him a Sommerite explicitly.6 Mr. Pepperdine’s stance on Christian colleges probably liberalized some as he aged. His friend Jimmie Lovell later recounted to his fellow Trustees, “With his Sommer background he [viz. Brother Pepperdine] came a long way in what he did – thanks mostly to Hugh Tiner,” the founding dean and second president of the college.7

By the time of the founding in 1937, Mr. Pepperdine obviously was not opposed to Christian colleges, but he still didn’t want his college to depend on donations from churches, preferring to fund the college’s operations from his own private fortune. Thus, while Florida College is the only college often claimed by the non-institutional churches, it is not the only one founded by disciples of Sommer.

Mr. Pepperdine’s ability to fund the operations of the college on his own didn’t last long. By 1951, his fortune had been lost to imprudent investments, at which point the college had to turn to other sources to balance its budget. It’s not clear to me whether, in the years following 1951, Pepperdine received many donations from congregations. My sense is that the Churches of Christ in California were so few and so small that they couldn’t have done much to support the college’s operations even if their donations had been sought by Mr. Pepperdine, who remained chair of the board.

I don’t want to overstate the extent of Pepperdine’s connection with the non-institutional churches. I’m not aware of any evidence that suggests Mr. Pepperdine ever changed his mind about his opposition to congregationally funded colleges, but he didn’t exclude from the college those who disagreed. When picking a new president for the college in 1957, he eagerly sought M. Norvel Young, a preacher who had done as much as nearly anyone in the Churches of Christ to fund good works (orphans’ homes, colleges, etc.) from congregational treasuries.

Still, given how little the college associated with the Disciples in the early years, it’s worth pointing out how different the school’s relationship was with the non-institutional churches.

Pepperdine and the International Churches of Christ

The earliest mention of the International Churches of Christ I’ve found in the Pepperdine archives comes from 1993, shortly after an investigative report on the church had aired nationwide on ABC’s 20/20 program. The episode featured many former members suggesting that the church’s discipling methods were so manipulative—even abusive—that the group should be regarded as a cult.

Leaders of the mainstream Churches of Christ in Malibu were worried that viewers of the program might be confused by the churches’ similar names and falsely believe that Pepperdine was associated with the International Churches of Christ. Campus minister Scott Lambert told The Graphic, “We have no ties with these churches and we disagree with many of their methods.” The student newspaper reported that Kip McKean himself had approached Pepperdine’s administration around 1989, hoping to plant a ministry on campus, but that his group had been forbidden (like all non–Church of Christ groups) from operating on campus.8

In 1998, the booming Los Angeles congregation of the ICOC planted a satellite church in Malibu called the Malibu Hills Christian Fellowship, meeting at Juan Cabrillo Elementary School. Again, leaders of the mainstream Churches of Christ in Malibu turned to The Graphic to dispel any confusion, with preacher Ken Durham saying, “It’s important that people understand we’re two different fellowships,” though he stopped short of using the cult label.9

Evangelists from Malibu Hills Christian Fellowship respected Pepperdine’s wishes by staying off campus, but Pepperdine students reported being approached at Ralphs and elsewhere in town where they were invited to attend services and Bible studies: “It was obvious they knew we were Pepperdine students and it was fairly obvious that’s why they came over.”10

The early relationship between Pepperdine and the International Churches of Christ thus seems mostly to have been a matter of the university trying to disavow any connection at all. However, following McKean’s removal from church leadership in 2002, some members of Pepperdine’s religion faculty engaged in talks with ICOC leaders to try to heal hurt feelings on both sides of the divide.11

Conclusion

Because so much attention has been (rightly) paid to Pepperdine’s relationship with the mainstream Churches of Christ, it would be easy to think that there was nothing more to say about how the university has related to the descendants of the Stone–Campbell Movement more broadly. I hope I’ve shown that, while Pepperdine is certainly most closely related to the mainstream Churches of Christ, that identity does not exhaust the university’s connections to the wider movement.

Obviously, Pepperdine has not related to all Stone–Campbell Movement churches equally. It has benefitted materially from the generosity of Mildred Welshimer Phillips from the Disciples of Christ. It was in some sense born out of George Pepperdine’s time among the non-institutional Churches of Christ. And its attitude toward the International Churches of Christ has been more suspicious, if not exactly hostile.

I don’t pretend to have totally filled a hole in the literature in this short piece, but I have at least gestured at some of the different ways in which Pepperdine’s origins in the Stone–Campbell Movement have brought it into contact with other churches.

Ghost of George Pepperdine

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