James A. Garfield, former President of the United States, is one of the best-known individuals associated with the Christian churches/churches of Christ. He even served as a “lay preacher.” To answer the many questions he received about the group of believers with who he worshiped, he wrote a classic statement:

1. We call ourselves Christians, or Disciples of Christ.
2. We believe in God the Father.
3. We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. We regard the divinity of Christ as the fundamental truth of the Christian system
4. We believe in the Holy Spirit, both as to His agency in conversion and as indwelling in the heart of the Christian.
5. We accept both the Old and the New Testament Scriptures as the inspired Word of God.
6. We believe in the future punishment of the wicked and the future reward of the righteous
7. We believe that the Deity is a prayer hearing and a prayer answering God
8. We observe the institution of the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day. To this table we neither invite nor debar; we say it is the Lord’s Supper for all of the Lord’s children.
9. We plead for the union of God’s people on the Bible and the Bible alone
10. The Christ is our only creed.
11. We maintain that all the ordinances should be observed as they were in the days of the apostles.