Writer traces common roots of
Church of God and Seventh-day Adventists

Surprised by others of like mind

In his article "How I Came to Accept the Holy Days" (In Transition, Dec. 18), Dr. Bacchiocchi said he was surprised to find that "in every [SDA] church in which I presented my seminars during the latter half of 1995, I met some fellow believers who had been studying, and in some cases observing privately, the annual feasts. In fact, some of them have been observing the feasts privately for many years."

Further, Dr. Bacchiocchi found support for observing the Holy Days in the writings of Ellen G. White herself! In her book Patriarchs and Prophets, Mrs. White devoted an entire chapter--"The Annual Feasts"--to the subject of the Holy Days.

She wrote: "Well would it be for the people of God at the present time to have a Feast of Tabernacles--a joyous commemoration of the blessings of God to them. As the children of Israel celebrated the deliverance that God had wrought for their fathers, and His miraculous preservation of them during their journeying from Egypt, so should we gratefully call to mind the various ways He has devised for bringing us out from the world, and from the darkness of error, into the precious light of His grace and truth" (The Story of Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 540, 541).

In the late 1980s I observed the Feast of Tabernacles with a small group in northern Arkansas. We were startled to read in a local newspaper that a group of SDAs was likewise observing the festival nearby. Until Dr. Bacchiocchi's recent revelation, I was not aware of how prevalent Holy Day observance was among SDAs.

Holy Day teachings among Adventists are not of recent origin. Greenbury G. Rupert (1847-1922) was an SDA minister for 30 years, including several years as a missionary in South America. He was president of the Oklahoma Seventh-day Adventist Conference, covering five states, at the time he left the Adventists at or before the year 1902.

Mr. Rupert's similarities

Mr. Rupert had known Mrs. White personally for 40 years but was led to break with the SDAs when he published books contrary to official SDA teaching. As told in my book, Six Papers on the History of the Church of God, Mr. Rupert's doctrines were in many ways similar to those of Herbert W. Armstrong. He observed the Holy Days, eschewed unclean meats, held to the church name "Church of God," advocated local autonomy, rejected Christmas, Easter and other pagan holidays, believed in tithing and church eras, emphasized Bible prophecy in his preaching and taught that the United States was part of Israel.

It just so happens that Pasadena, Calif., figures prominently in the ministry of both Mr. Rupert and Mr. Armstrong. Persistent rumors remain that piles of Mr. Rupert's magazine, The Remnant of Israel, were found in Mr. Armstrong's basement and desk at the time of his death, in 1986.

Many Bible teachings extant in the offshoots of the Worldwide Church of God today appear to be derived from the SDAs through Mr. Rupert and then Mr. Armstrong.

But there is more. A.N. Dugger (1886-1975), the most noted Church of God (Seventh Day) leader of the 20th century, was no doubt an avid reader of G.G. Rupert. Mr. Dugger and C.O. Dodd coauthored the famous church history A History of the True Religion, which was first published in its present form in 1936, but written in part in the late 1920s.

When relating the formation of the Church of God in the 1860s, Mr. Dugger in his book referred to the original Church of God paper in Michigan as Remnant of Israel. Actually, the name of the paper, founded by Gilbert Cranmer, was Hope of Israel. Since Mr. Dugger was so familiar with Mr. Rupert's material, he mistakenly confused the names of Mr. Rupert's magazine with the COG magazine.

Hope of Israel was later moved to Iowa and then Stanberry, Mo., and its name was changed to The Bible Advocate. In 1914 Mr. Dugger became the editor.

In the previous year, 1913, G.G. Rupert wrote several articles in The Bible Advocate that supported the annual Holy Days. Both A.N. Dugger and Herbert Armstrong were strongly influenced by former SDA G.G. Rupert.

Anglo-Israelism advocated

Besides the annual Holy Days, Anglo-Israelism has been a distinctive tenet in the Church of God. In 1929, two years before his ordination, Mr. Armstrong wrote an extensive paper on British Israel, demonstrating the United States' and Britain's identity as Manasseh and Ephraim. He submitted it to Mr. Dugger, then editor of The Bible Advocate.

Mr. Dugger wrote to Mr. Armstrong July 28, 1929, stating, "I have seen no work near its equal in clearness and completeness. You surely are right, and while I cannot use it in the paper at the present you may be assured that your labor has surely not been in vane [sic]."

Mr. Dugger had obviously read other material on this subject before receiving Mr. Armstrong's paper. He agreed with the Anglo-Israel teaching.

Yet there is another line that likewise shows doctrinal ties between the Church of God and Seventh-day Adventists. Raymond Cole was one of the original Ambassador College students in 1947. He became an evangelist in Mr. Armstrong's church, leaving in 1974 to form his own group, the Church of God the Eternal. Mr. Cole's mother was the niece of Merritt Dickinson (born c. 1864), a prominent Church of God (Seventh Day) minister. It just so happens that Mr. Dickinson was a close neighbor of Ellen and James White in Michigan.

Mr. Dickinson married Ida Nichols, an SDA colporteur (seller of religious books). Ida may have been the daughter of the famous SDA minister J.H. Nichols, who, it is recorded, preached the first Sabbath sermon west of the Rocky Mountains, at Santa Rosa, Calif., in 1862.

Apparently through self-study, Mr. Dickinson came to believe in Anglo-Israelism. In 1919 he published a series of articles in The Bible Advocate, later printed as a tract, that stated that England is Ephraim and the United States is Manasseh. In 1912 Mr. Dugger admitted to Mr. Dickinson that his Anglo-Israel ideas were true, but said he couldn't get anywhere preaching that doctrine.

Australian remnant

The intertwining tree of history linking Adventists with the Church of God has many branches. About the early 1930s A.H. Britten, a former SDA, founded a group in Western Australia that today is known as Remnant Church of God. It observes the Holy Days and appears to have doctrines similar to those of us in the Church of God. Further research may or may not reveal connections with this remnant group to Mr. Rupert.

Even today some Church of God groups claim to be the one and only true church, feeling they have a corner on the truth of the Almighty. They look with scorn on SDAs as well as other COG groups.

The understanding that diverse groups of people in recent times have preserved God's truth should inspire and humble us. God has a scattered people, the proverbial 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal. It is up to Him to regather His people.

In the meantime, we should appreciate, and cooperate as much as possible, with brethren in many scattered groups who hold the same basic truths of the Bible as we do. We have a common past; we should work together in the present and future.

When someone asks me what church I belong to, I generally say, "The Church of God." Many of us are aware that Herbert Armstrong was an ordained minister of the Church of God (Seventh Day). Few know that before 1923 the Church of God (Seventh Day) was officially known as "Church of God (Adventist)."

Our roots to Adventists do not end in the 1850s and 1860s, but were strongly developed in the period of 1902-1929, when ex-SDA G.G. Rupert's Remnant of Israel flourished.

In the late 1800s the major Adventist preachers were anti-Trinitarians. By 1931 the SDAs had fully accepted the Trinity doctrine. Whereas in the mid-1900s many SDAs were against the observation of Christmas and Easter, today many Adventists accept the pagan holidays.

In the SDA Church, as well as the Church of God, there has been a struggle between the forces of liberalism and conservatism. Dr. Bacchiocchi's book on the role of women in the church (he shows that the Bible forbids ordination of female elders) has resulted in his being banned from speaking at almost all SDA universities.

Dr. Bacchiocchi condemns the observance of pagan holidays and now is a supporter of the annual Holy Days.

Let us extend the right hand of fellowship to those in the Seventh-day Adventist Church who are fighting the same battle for truth that we are fighting. Let us remember that we have a common history. Truly you could call us the Church of God Adventist.