The Christian Chronicle
The Christian Chronicle is an international religious newspaper serving the Churches of Christ, published in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, since 1943. Supported since 1981 by Oklahoma Christian University and governed by The Christian Chronicle Inc., an Oklahoma nonprofit corporation, it produces a monthly print edition and a weekly newsletter, with a reported circulation of 132,000 as of 2024. It is widely described as by far the most-read paper in the Churches of Christ, and it operates under a distinctive editorial policy summarised by its own phrase: news, not views.
Founding by Olan Hicks in 1943
The Christian Chronicle was established in 1943 by Olan Hicks, a journalist and Bible scholar, as a newspaper whose primary goal was providing information about Churches of Christ. The first issue was dated 2 June 1943, appearing while the United States was fighting the Second World War, though contemporary anniversary accounts note how much optimism the new paper displayed despite wartime. Hicks introduced himself to readers as happy to assume the job of editor and publisher, while conceding frankly that editing such a paper was among the most arduous and thankless tasks in the world. He took the job, he wrote, because he believed the paper was the best available means of stirring up missionary enthusiasm in the church, and he stated the founding purpose directly: to tell the stories of Churches of Christ, to stir up missionary zeal and activity among members everywhere, and to give all readers a broad vision of the opportunities and responsibilities of the church. Among his early helpers were John F. Wolfe, a veteran missionary to Mexico who wrote on religious conditions among Latin American peoples; Homer Hailey, a Bible teacher at Abilene Christian College; and Hugo McCord, Jim Taggart and Paul Southern, who taught at Abilene Christian.
News, not views: the editorial policy
The Chronicle distinguishes itself from most religious periodicals by insisting that it is a newspaper, not a teaching or doctrinal publication. Its published statement of purpose says the paper is committed to the highest standards of journalistic excellence and seeks to inform, inspire and unite Churches of Christ worldwide, while news coverage represents statements of fact according to cited sources, and signed columns and reviews reflect only their authors' opinions. News, opinion columns, reviews, letters and advertising do not necessarily represent the views of the editors, staff or trustees. All trustees, editors and staff are active members of the Churches of Christ. Editors have defended the approach as a religious obligation: reporting the good and the bad, including racial tension in churches and ministers arrested for misconduct, because hiding such incidents is not the correct way to address them, and because the foundation of Christian faithfulness demands the objectivity and accuracy journalists should aspire to. That policy has sometimes drawn angry responses from readers, a cost the paper has accepted as inherent in its model.
Ownership, Sweet Publishing and Oklahoma Christian University
The paper's institutional history includes a period under commercial ownership and a rescue that fixed its modern home. The Chronicle was acquired by Sweet Publishing Company in the late 1960s. In 1981 the paper was redesigned by Charlie Marler, a journalism professor from Abilene Christian University, and from 1981 it has been supported by Oklahoma Christian University in the Oklahoma City area. The Chronicle's offices are associated with the university, its mailing address is on East Memorial Road in Edmond, Oklahoma, within the Oklahoma City metropolitan area given as its place of publication, and its headquarters is listed at Oklahoma Christian University, Oklahoma City. Today the publisher of record is The Christian Chronicle Inc., an Oklahoma nonprofit corporation that publishes and governs the paper, giving it an independent corporate structure alongside its university support. That combination — nonprofit governance, a Christian university base, and professional newsroom practice — has underwritten the paper's stability for more than four decades.
Readership and influence
The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement describes the Chronicle as by far the most-read paper in the Churches of Christ and as exercising an influence for cohesiveness in that part of the Stone-Campbell Movement, and scholars have characterised it as one of the most important sources of primary historical information on the worldwide missions carried out by Churches of Christ. A survey conducted in the early 1990s found that sixty-eight percent of ministers in the Churches of Christ read the Chronicle, and that eighty-eight percent of those readers said they agreed with its content. Reported circulation stood at 132,000 as of 2024, a large figure for a denominational newspaper in the twenty-first century. Because Churches of Christ are congregationally autonomous, with no denominational headquarters, a shared newspaper performs a connective function no central office provides: it is how a minister in one state learns of a missionary's work on another continent, a congregation's anniversary, or a disaster affecting fellow churches.
What the Chronicle covers
The paper reports congregations and missions worldwide: church news from across the United States and from mission fields, profiles of ministers and missionaries, campus and youth news from Christian schools and universities, obituaries and milestones, and features on the life of congregations. Its print edition was redesigned in April 2000 and again in May 2024, after which articles are classified under the headers Matter of Fact for top stories, National, International, Life Matters — which includes opinion — and Q&A interviews and reviews. The classification itself enacts the news-not-views policy, separating factual reporting from clearly labelled opinion. Alongside the monthly print edition, the Chronicle produces a weekly newsletter and publishes continuously online, with coverage spanning print, internet and social media. Its stories range from celebrations of long ministries to difficult reporting on conflict and misconduct, reflecting the founder's instruction to report the brotherhood's life as it is.
Missions reporting as a historical record
From its first front page, the Chronicle was a missions paper. Hicks's founding aim of stirring missionary zeal meant that letters and reports from missionaries were core content, and over eight decades that coverage accumulated into an archive of unusual scholarly value: a running, dated record of where Churches of Christ sent missionaries, what they built, and how congregations at home supported them. Historians of the Stone-Campbell tradition treat the paper as a primary source for the worldwide missions of Churches of Christ, and its anniversary coverage has revisited early stories, including that of the missionary who stayed home — the editor himself, whose instrument was the paper rather than a foreign posting. For readers, the same coverage serves a pastoral purpose: supporters read the names and places their contributions sustain, and missionaries read one another's news across continents.
The Chronicle and Oklahoma Christian University
The paper's relationship with Oklahoma Christian University, dating from 1981, anchors it geographically and institutionally. The university, located on East Memorial Road in Edmond in the Oklahoma City area, hosts the Chronicle's headquarters, and the paper's staff and trustees work in that academic and church environment. The association connects the newspaper to journalism education within the Churches of Christ — its 1981 redesign was led by a journalism professor from sister institution Abilene Christian University — and gives students and readers a tangible link between the university and the wider fellowship the paper serves. Anniversary reflections by staff, including accounts of how the Chronicle was saved four decades ago, treat the university partnership as the turning point that secured the paper's future after its commercial period, and the paper's offices and events remain woven into the university's calendar and community.
Anniversaries and self-examination
The Chronicle marked its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2018 with a series revisiting its first issues of June 1943, the founder's columns, and its own conduct over the decades. Retired journalists and longtime readers assessed the paper as having conducted itself as both a newspaper and a ministry of information. Staff reflections from that period describe the tensions of the model honestly: a paper that reports arrests and racial conflict within its own fellowship will receive angry letters, emails and phone calls, and its editors have answered by restating first principles — accuracy and objectivity as demands of faith, not concessions to secular journalism. Such self-examination is part of the Chronicle's public identity: it explains its standards to its readers, labels its opinion content, and publishes its governance and purpose statements openly on its website.
Digital presence and current form
Today the Chronicle publishes a monthly print edition, a weekly newsletter and a full website at christianchronicle.org, where news is organised by its current section headers and supplemented by interviews, reviews and opinion clearly marked as such. The name The Christian Chronicle and its nameplate are registered trademarks of the nonprofit publisher. Its audience spans print, web and social media, and its support model combines subscriptions with donations from readers and congregations who describe the paper's mission — to inform, inspire and unite — as worth sustaining across generations; individual supporters profiled by the paper include couples who have backed it for more than twenty-five years after first valuing a publication that read like a real newspaper, focused on news throughout the fellowship rather than doctrinal dispute. In an era when most denominational newspapers have closed or shrunk drastically, the Chronicle's reported six-figure circulation and continued monthly print edition make it an exception.
Legacy
The Christian Chronicle's legacy rests on a decision taken in 1943: to serve a fellowship of autonomous congregations with a genuine newspaper rather than a doctrinal journal. Founded by Olan Hicks to stir missionary zeal, carried through a commercial period under Sweet Publishing, redesigned and stabilised under Oklahoma Christian University's support from 1981, and governed today by its own nonprofit corporation, it became the most-read paper in the Churches of Christ and a primary historical record of their worldwide missions. Its news-not-views discipline — fact reported plainly, opinion labelled, bad news not hidden — remains its defining claim on readers' trust, more than eighty years after its first issue appeared in wartime Oklahoma.
