Church of God (Winebrennerian)

At the time of his first effort in the ministry, which occurred more than two years after his conversion, Brother Warner had not as yet given his name to any religious society. To join a sectarian denomination is never by divine prompting, but is urged from human source. A young convert possessing the spirit of Christ is naturally at home in the Lord and with Christians anywhere. It is foreign to that spirit for one to limit oneself by subscribing to any particular creed of men. Accordingly, our young brother was only “acting natural” when he manifested no particular anxiety to “join the church.” Representatives of the denominations in his neighborhood proposed to him and presented their articles of faith. The fact that he referred the great question to the Scriptures and could see no authority for joining anything not recognized in the Scriptures shows that he was already poor material for sectarian construction, at least so far as the common arguments for sects go.

There was one society, however, by which he was persuaded. The followers of John Winebrenner called themselves the Church of God. As they professed to hold to no creed but the Bible, repudiated sectarianism, baptized by immersion, and observed as an ordinance the washing of feet in conjunction with the Lord’s Supper, all of which seemed good to him, and especially as they had the exact New Testament name for the true church, he was constrained to unite with that body. The mark of fellowship which differentiated them from other Christians and constituted them a sect was not apparent to him, and so, even during the many years of his earlier ministerial career, he identified this body with the true church. He said in later years that he had more liberty as a minister before he took that step than he had during the years he belonged to the denomination, which after all was but a sect.

The Church of God, spelled with a capital C, and more fully denominated “General Eldership of the Churches of God in North America,” was founded by John Winebrenner in 1830. Winebrenner had been baptized and confirmed in the German Reformed Church (now the Reformed Church in the United States), and was given the pastorate at Harrisburg. He was a good man and the work of the ministry became the uppermost desire of his heart. He sought to raise the standard of true piety. His earnest preaching resulted in a revival in which he opposed theaters, dancing, gambling, lotteries, and racing. Revivals of religion were new experiences in the churches of that region, so that his ministry awakened strong opposition, which resulted in official charges against him. He severed his relations with the Reformed Church but continued his ministry, extensive revivals following.

Dr. C. H. Forney, in his History of the Churches of God, says:

Winebrenner did not entertain the purpose of founding a new denomination. These bodies he stigmatized as sects. Professor Nevin called the United Brethren and like bodies “rolling balls,” and accused Winebrenner with “putting in motion a similar ball, which continues rolling to this hour [1842], not without abundance of noise.” Winebrenner denounced this as gross misrepresentation. “But, sir, I did not retire for the ignoble purpose, as you have intimated, of putting another sectarian ball in motion. No, not at all. I had seen, through mercy, the great evil of these rolling balls, put in motion and kept in motion by the cunning craftiness of men and devils, and how by their repeated and unhappy collusions they hindered and marred the work of God in the earth; and, therefore, I resolved to fall back upon original grounds—to stand aloof from all these sectarian balls, and to do the work of an evangelist and minister of Christ by building up the church of God (the only true church) according to the plan and pattern as shown us in the New Testament. This is the high and firm ground we take. Our ball, therefore, is not like your ball, nor similar to other human balls. Ours is the Lord’s ball. It was not cut out of the Romish Church by the hands of Calvin and others as was yours. But it was ‘cut out of the mountain without hands.’* (Daniel 2:45) The ball commenced rolling upwards of eighteen hundred years ago, and it continues rolling to this hour; yea, and it will never cease rolling till every other man-made ball shall he either crushed or rolled up by it, and until the sound of it shall be ‘as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder.’* (Revelation 14:2) ”

[Dr. C. H. Forney; History of the Churches of God, “Chapter III: 1825-1830”]

On the subject of organization the same writer continues:

Winebrenner was indisposed to begin the organization of churches. The uniform testimony of his contemporaries is that he “had not at the beginning the remotest idea of organizing a distinct or separate body of people.” But driven out of the pulpit by the Reformed Church, ostracized and persecuted, he was led to a closer personal investigation of church polity. He went to the highest source for light. He applied himself with singleness of purpose to the study of the Word of God. The result was a material modification of his former views on ecclesiology. As he himself testified later: “As the writer’s views had by this time materially changed as to the true nature of a Scriptural organization of churches, he adopted the apostolic plan, as taught in the New Testament, and established spiritual, free, and independent churches, consisting of believers or Christians only, without any human name or creed or ordinances or laws.” The local church was the unit. It possessed perfect autonomy. It was wholly independent of every other unit. Each such unit “possesses in its organized state,” as Winebrenner expressed it in 1829, “sufficient power to perform all acts of religious worship and everything relating to ecclesiastic government and discipline. Every individual church is strictly independent of all others as it respects religious worship and the general government of its own affairs.” Fellowship between these “free and independent” units there would be, but no higher organization was then recognized by Winebrenner which could limit the powers of the local church. Each of these local organizations would accept no human name, creed, nor ordinances; but would adopt the divine name and creed and ordinances. In his broad platform he saw a basis of the union of all Christians and churches. And so the imperative duty of cultivating union between all believers was strongly urged. These views prepared the way for Winebrenner to fall in with the growing demand for local church organization. For the multitudes of converts had “conceived the idea of, and began to talk about, organizing themselves into churches founded on Bible doctrines and principles even before Winebrenner had determined in his own mind to do so.”

[Dr. C. H. Forney; History of the Churches of God, “Chapter III: 1825-1830”]

Thus there were independent local churches organized in and around Harrisburg, which Winebrenner denominated simply “Churches of God.” Each assumed the name of “Church of God at ____.” The members of these churches had equal rights, and elected and licensed men to preach.

There was as yet no common bonds, no general organization or directing authority. In order to effect this and adopt a regular system of cooperation, a meeting was held at Harrisburg in October 1830, attended by six of the licensed ministers. Of this meeting Winebrenner writes, “Thus originated the Church of God, properly so called, in the United States of America, and thus also originated the first Eldership.” This organized body assumed no other name than Eldership, though later the term General Eldership was used to distinguish this body from the eldership of the local church. The term General Eldership was, however, applied at first only to the presbyteries or Elderships of sections or States, which held their sessions annually. In October 1844, Winebrenner proposed a General Eldership for the transaction of all business of a general nature affecting the various annual Elderships. It was provided that this General Eldership should hold its meetings triennially for the first twenty years and after that every five years. Thus we see that by this time Winebrenner’s views of church government were still further modified.

The work continued to grow and spread to adjoining counties and to Maryland, western Pennsylvania, and Ohio, where Elderships were organized.

Each local church elects its own elders and deacons, who with the pastor constitute the church council and are the governing power, having charge of the admission of members and the general care of the church work. The churches within a given district are associated together for cooperation in general work. The pastors and other ordained ministers within a district, together with an equal number of lay members, constitute the Annual Eldership, which appoints the ministers of the various charges. Each local church votes for a pastor, but the Annual Eldership makes the appointments within its own boundaries. These Annual Elderships elect an equal number of ministerial and lay delegates, who constitute the General Eldership.

The Churches of God, as already stated, have no written creed but assume to accept the Word of God as their only rule of faith and practice. They hold the doctrine of the Trinity, believe in human depravity, the atonement of Christ, justification by faith, the resurrection, future punishment, and are, in general, orthodox. Through these articles of their faith, and the fact that they took the Scriptural name, Church of God, the followers of Winebrenner made their appeal to D. S. Warner. But they were lacking in some very important particulars, without which they could not possibly be, as was claimed, identical with the New Testament church. Winebrenner started out well, but on the subject of Holy Spirit organization and government he was not sufficiently illumined to avoid more or less of the human ecclesiastical authority which crept into the body of his followers and constituted them a sect. When holiness came they repudiated it, thereby revealing their position as outside the Holy Spirit control of believers. However, their teaching on the church question was correct as far as it went, and it took years of actual practice of obeying the lead of the Spirit to discover to Brother Warner and others the clash between the Holy Spirit rule and the rule of human authority.