Guest
Blogger, Darren Russell, is from Tulare, California and is related to Marion
Reese, Charles Calvin Smith, and the Morris family. He currently lives and
works near Phoenix, AZ, where he assembles in a house meeting of believers with
a few other families.
I would like to clarify some of the very early history of the
Church in question. In the 1930s there were thousands, yes literally thousands
of brethren, scores of ministers and prophets who were following the picking
seasons.
Those were hard times and many of the groups from Oklahoma,
Idaho, and Colorado were coalescing in a western migration to alleviate their
poverty. They were a very evangelistic bunch who for years lived a gypsy type
of existence up and down the west coast from Southern California up into
Canada.
When the Oregon City church took off it was not Walter
White's Church, it was a group of believers that followed Christ, of which he
was one. As brethren began to settle themselves in areas many stayed on in that
area, Bro. Walter even opening up a store. The truth is the Church existed in
that part of Oregon for over 50 years prior to Walter White moving there.
When Walter White left Idaho, he had been taken in by a
doctrine that was present at Jerome since about 1900 that the "fullness of
the gentiles" was upon us. He also debated with other leaders about such
matters as divorce and women cutting hair. He went to Oregon City where there
were already people who would accept him, he having made several trips through
the years into that body.
He was accepted as an
apostle by many, and gradually usurped the authority of many elders who had
been there prior. After a few years most of his opposition left and his
faithful remained, the rest is a matter of history, of which I believe Suzanne
is doing a wonderful job of expounding upon.
For those who do not appreciate the ramifications of the
"fulfilling of times of the gentiles", that is when the amount of
people who will be saved is completed and afterwards comes the Judgment. Once
all those that will be saved have been, there is no longer a point to baptism.
Your only hope is to be numbered among Israel. There are of course variations
on this theme, but they all have the same consequence, a spiritually dead
church results.
You have to understand, there was no thought for the future,
because the eternal future was expected around the corner. There were no
baptisms, no ordinations, and no one expected to live long enough to produce
offspring that would make it to adulthood. Children were always grandfathered into
salvation until the reached the age of personal accountability, when they were
expected to be baptized. At the time of Walter White's death few of his
congregation seriously contemplated that the world would last long enough for
baptisms to be necessary.
I must add that
these aberrations in doctrine are not indicative of the Followers of Christ in
general. There has been through the years and in different areas other splinter
groups who have led similar doctrines. One related group in Cortez, CO are very
similar to the Oregon City group in everything except their last days doctrine,
at least they have maintained their baptisms. Their leader, a man named Carver,
as long as he was living was also supposed to be the only man who could baptize.
After his death there were appointed leaders from his family who could baptize,
but their sermons were simply reiterations of previous Carver sermons, they
were reported to sometimes listen to tape recorded sermons of their late pastor
in lieu of church. Their doctrines were not so much different from the rest of
the groups as much as their claim to be the exclusive inheritors and founts of
the truth.
Then there was the
True Followers of Antlers, Oklahoma whose leader Old Joab Morris sewed his bible
shut and would not allow another one on his mountain or any gentiles to step
foot upon it without a curse. He believed he would live forever, and never see
death as long as he remained at that place. They also expected Christ to return
at any moment. He was never able to put that belief to the ultimate test as he
was evicted by the state authorities and those who possessed the deed to his
property, which he held by a revelation from God. Seems God neglected to file
this revelation at the local courthouse. They had a few more peculiarities but
of course the one predominant in Prophet led flocks, they were the ONLY ones
who were going to heaven!
Now I don't tell
about these groups to insinuate that all FOC churches are the same, I'd say far
from it, the FOC churches as a whole are evangelical in outlook, and take
Christ's commissions seriously. I would like to point out that throughout the
entire history of the Church, since even the days of the original apostles,
there has been group peculiarities and even heresies. Once a group has turned
inward on itself and neglected their duty, their candlestick is removed and
they are no longer a light to any.
