Three Members of Churches of Christ Elected to U.S. House, Most in Recent Memory

Three members of Churches of Christ were elected to the U.S. House for the 116th Congress, the most in recent memory and perhaps ever, according to The Christian Chronicle’s determination. The total holds even though a veteran congressman retired. Ted Poe, a Texas Republican, did not seek an eighth two-year term in the 2018 midterms, citing a desire to spend more time with his 12 grandchildren.

Poe, 70, is a longtime member of the Bammel Church of Christ in Houston. He earned a political science degree at Abilene Christian University in West Texas. When he arrived in Congress in 2005, he was the only one of the 435 House members who gave his religious affiliation as Church of Christ, the Chronicle reported.

The three current members are Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., who was elected to a sixth two-year term, and Reps. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, and John Rose, R-Tenn., who claimed open seats. Neal Coates, a political scientist at Abilene Christian, said the group makes up a greater share of the House than its share of the U.S. population. He said that the situation also shows that Christians and people of faith should represent people and solve problems at the local, state and national levels, a call to faithful service in public life (Colossians 3:23).

The U.S. has a population of about 325.7 million. The nation’s Churches of Christ have an estimated 1,442,285 adherents, roughly one in every 226 Americans. By that ratio, the group would be represented by two House members rather than three.

On the Senate side, John Cornyn, R-Texas, was a member of the University Avenue Church of Christ in Austin for many years. His press secretary did not respond to a request for information on his current church. A Pew Research Center report lists his religious affiliation as nondenominational Protestant.

According to the Pew report, 88 percent of House and Senate members describe themselves as Christians. The report’s specific designations of religious affiliation, such as Baptist, Catholic and Presbyterian, do not mention Church of Christ.

The report, titled “Faith on the Hill,” describes Guthrie as a “Restorationist” because Pew places Churches of Christ, along with the instrumental Christian Churches and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), within the broader Stone-Campbell Movement. The data comes from a survey by CQ Roll Call. The report erroneously labels Gooden a “Congregationalist,” a term Pew uses for members of the United Church of Christ, a liberal Protestant denomination. Gregory A. Smith, Pew’s associate director of research, said he could not explain how Gooden came to be listed as UCC in the CQ data. Rose is listed simply as “Christian,” which Pew classifies as Protestant with unspecified denominational affiliation.

Guthrie, 54, attends the University Heights Church of Christ in Bowling Green, Ky. He and his wife, Beth, have three adult children. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., he grew up in the Chisholm Hills Church of Christ in Florence, Ala., a community with a heavy concentration of Churches of Christ. “I went to a congregation where everybody knew everybody,” he told the Chronicle in 2017. “It’s hard to distinguish between my church life and family life. It was all together.”

Source: Read the original report