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As against the declining trend of fundamentalist churches in general the Churches of Christ have grown rapidly in recent years. Congregations willingly allot up to 30% of their budgets to aid missions and new churches; hundreds of churchlets have been spawned in such countries as Italy, Brazil and India. In the U.S., membership has more than doubled since 1952, and the Churches of Christ currently have a number of well-known laymen, including California Democratic Congressman B. F. Sisk, Singer Pat Boone, and onetime Preacher Billie Sol Estes. Church of Christ Evangelist B. C. Goodpasture, editor of Nashville's Gospel Advocate, says that the growth is because "we stay with the Bible. We have something to believe and we have something to tell."
What the churches say seems to reach home to men disillusioned by the dreams of progress and by the value of life's material rewards. "Those who think that the world will get better and better," warns Harrison Mathews, pastor of Austin's University Church of Christ, "are looking for something that will never exist. The peace that the Lord gives is an inward gift. The only stability is of the heart."
* Not to be confused with such major Protestant groups as the United Church of Christ (1,436,884 members) and the Disciples of Christ (1,797,466 members), or with dozens of smaller sects whose names variously involve the words church and Christ.