“It is contrary to Scripture to divide the church of God into different sects and denominations. This is sufficiently evident from the fact, as I before showed, that the word ecclesia, or church, is never used by the inspired penmen in such a sense, but always as denoting either the whole collective body of the faithful throughout the world, or a distinct congregation of Christians located in some given place. Accordingly, there are individual or particular churches; and those collectively constitute one general or universal church. Beside this division of the church, there is no divine warrant given for any other. Hence, the combination of two or more individual churches into a sect or distinct connection wearing a sectarian name and governed by human laws is highly improper and anti-scriptural.”
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From ‘A Brief Scriptural View of the Church of God’ (1885), Chapter One.
Click HERE to find see this document online.
John Winebrenner Quotes 
So also claims the Catholic Church, but the divisions among those who are “of Francis” or “of Dominic” or “of Jesus” (Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits) remind me of “of Paul,” “of Apollos,” “of Peter,” and “of Jesus” in I Cor. 1:12. Not to mention the ethnic division among Eastern Rite and Western (Latin) Rite Catholics somewhat akin to the Judaizers versus the “Freedom faction” (my term) in St. Paul’s day.
There’s also a name problem. The Church of God about which Winebrenner speaks now has to be called Church of God, General Conference,” to distinguish it from all the other Churches of God: Anderson, Indiana; Cleveland, Tennessee; Adventist; or Sabbatarian to name a few. Likewise, the Church of Christ today needs to be qualified “instrumental” or “non-instrumental.”
When I was in grad school, a new Christian group began called “The Way.” (Acts 9:1) Like “Church of God,” the group took its name from how the New Testament referred to Christians. Like the Catholic church, The Way claimed that this was the one true church.
The branching tree of thousands of denominations is graphed in a pocket in the back of Kenneth Scott Latourette’s monumental 7-volume history of the Christian church. By that measure, we aren’t doing very well heeding Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17 that we may be one.
My favorite example from Latourette is the “Straightway Baptists,” who get their name from Matthew 3:16. The insist that everyone be baptized just as Jesus was: in water over his head, so that he could remain vertical. After all, that verse says it clearly: straightway Jesus was baptized.
::sigh:: in the King James version at least!
Dan, thanks for getting this blog started. I’m going to pass it on to my friend Dean Hay, Jr, who is one of you Church of God, General Conference pastor types.
Winebrenner’s thought is not well known and interacted with even among many leaders in the cggc (Churches of God, General Conference). My hope with this blog is to bring some discussion of his ideas.
Church of God Anderson is much bigger than us but broke off from us – something that was disturbing to Winebrenner you can imagine. The link with cog cleveland, TN is less clear, but they practice feetwashing which seems to indicate a tie, since they are not from an Anabaptist background, to my knowledge.
does cggc preactive foot-washing? i didn’t know that.
‘preactive’ ? I’m not familiar with that word. Yes, we wash feet. Jesus said to do it, after all. 🙂
“practice”. Never keep typing after your mind is disengaged!
I honestly didn’t know if that was a word – it didn’t look like a type. Anyway, yes, we do practice feetwashing. Like the Brethren 🙂
so, based on the above quote, my question is this: why did winebrenner start a new denomination? or did he really expect that all the true Christians of the world would join under the churches of God umbrella? did he see no other faithful Christian groups in his day with which he might join, instead of adding to the sectarian mess?
walt – the short answer is that he didn’t think he was starting a new denomination. He had a long term debate with a guy named Nevin during his lifetime if you want to read more about his views.
It seems that Winebrenner did fellowship regularly with several other Christian groups.
I’m not necessarily trying to defend him here, but he really thought he was going right back to the New Testament organization and even name of church. Maybe he was naive. It is an interesting subject to think about though.