UNITY AMID DIVERSITY: INTERPRETING THE BOOK OF REVELATION IN THE CHURCH OF GOD (ANDERSON)1

by
John E. Stanley

Introduction

Since its inception in 18801881, the ecclesiology of the Church of God, its doctrine and experience of the church, has determined its eschatology. This fact, and the calls of Joseph Coleson and Stanley Walters to exploration of the significance of apocalyptic literature to the establishment and development of holiness traditions, prompt the present study.2

The church-historical method of interpreting the Biblical books of Daniel and Revelation provided the pioneers of the movement which would come to be known as the Church of God (Anderson) with a Biblical foundation for their self-understanding as God's called out people in the final era of church history. According to this exegetical method, Daniel and Revelation present prophetic symbols which outline and predict God's plan for history. They are believed to declare God's periodic judgments against the pagan, papal, and Protestant religious systems, and to predict and describe the emergence of the pure church of God in 1880.

But this approach to the books of Daniel and Revelation did not originate entirely with the Church of God Reformation Movement. John V. W Smith and Melvin Dieter have shown that early Church of God leaders had become well-acquainted with Adventist interpretations of apocalyptic literature, especially with the work of Uriah Smith, and had forged their views in the heat of debate, explicit and implicit, with that tradition, and that the debate had not been "all or none."3 Affinities developed along with the disagreements.

Among the debaters, D. S. Warner, initiator of the Church of God movement, and F. G. Smith, long-lived missionary, pastor, and writer within it, especially, established the church-historical approach to the book of Revelation as authoritative for their fellow believers. And it was to hold its place almost unquestioned until the mid1920's.

This paper will explore the influence of Uriah Smith's work on that of Warner and F. G. Smith and then turn to show that from the mid1920's to the mid1940's a transition occurred in the understanding of what it means to be "church," which, in turn, opened the possibilities for diverse eschatologies. The churchhistorical approach to Daniel and Revelation yielded to other exegetical methods, or at least it lost its place as normative, under the influence of the broader scholarship of Russell Byrum, Otto F. Lian, and Adam Miller. More narrowly stated, this paper will make the point that, for the Church of God (Anderson), the vision and experience of the church has shaped the interpretation of the book of Revelation, rather than the obverse, that the interpretation of the book of Revelation has shaped the vision and experience of the church.

In some sense, my personal pilgrimage recapitulates the development chronicled here. In March, 1959, a month after my conversion, I attended a series of presentations entitled "Prophetic Lectures on Daniel and Revelation," and found myself questioning the lecturer's interpretations of history and his parochialism regarding other churches, though I did appreciate his conviction that the Church of God is central to God's eternal purpose. Then, in the early 1970's, as a pastor to a Church of God congregation in Maryland, I had to work with the perplexities of a group who, on the one hand, increasingly cooperated with other churches but who, on the other hand, in accepting the church historical interpretation of Revelation, had taken the sense of destiny which it engendered in an exclusivist way. Robert Reardon, a leader in the Church of God, writing of the movement as a whole at the end of the 1970's, described our early experience.

... the collapse of "last reformationism" which began to appear among us in the twenties and thirties left a central theological vacuum, an identity crisis, which cannot be underestimated in the traumatic effect it has had on the movement.4

In some ways, this paper points to the remediation of the situation which Reardon describes. It attempts to show that the experiencing of a sense of spiritual-ecclesiastical unity among the leadership of the Church of God has, along the way, opened an alternative to the "central theological vacuum" in the acceptance of doctrinal diversity.

I. Church of God: Adventist Parallels: 1880-1908

The story is best told by going back to the earliest days of the Church of God Movement and looking at one of its major theological taproots, its understanding of the Biblical books of Daniel and Revelation. And from the beginning, we must reckon with the significant similarities between the earliest Church of God interpretations of these books and those of the Seventh-Day Adventists. Most important in this reckoning is the work of the Seventh-Day Adventist editor, Uriah Smith, and his influence on the Church of God's Daniel S. Warner and F. G. Smith.

Uriah Smith served for more than fifty years as editor of Review and Herald, principal publication of the Seventh-Day Adventists, and for much of that time also taught a Sabbath School class on Daniel and Revelation which had been established by James White, husband of Ellen White, mother of Seventh-Day Adventism.

It was in the discharge of this second responsibility that Uriah Smith collected a personal library of more than one hundred commentaries on Daniel and Revelation and wrote four books: Thoughts, Critical and Practical on the Book of Daniel (1873),5 The Sanctuary and Its Cleansing (1877),6 Thoughts, Critical and Practical on the Book of Daniel and the Revelation (1882)7 and Daniel and Revelation (1897)8 Smith's books were to form, according to his biographer; Eugene Durand, "the standard Adventist position except for a few details."9

Smith developed three interpretive principles and an instructional method which were to have wide effect. First, he insisted on the idea that "a day equals a year" in Bible prophecy. This made possible a very specific interpretation of Daniel 8:14, a text critical to Adventist understandings of history It speaks of the "cleansing of the sanctuary" after a period of 2300 days. Earlier Adventists had used this passage to predict 1844 as the date for Christ's Second Coming. Smith set about to analyze the calculations and scriptures behind that earlier prediction. He concluded that the calculations pointing to 1844 were correct but that the earlier understanding of what was supposed to happen in that year had been incorrect.

Here entered his second interpretive principle: the baseline year, as it were, for the interpretation of the books of Daniel and Revelation is the year 457 B.C., the year in which the Jews began the rebuilding of the Temple under the leadership of Ezra. From this baseline, Uriah Smith calculated the 490 Sabbath years of Daniel 9:2427 to have ended in A.D. 34. Then, subtracting those 490 years from the 2300 day/years of Daniel 8:14, he came to the year 1810, to which he added the 34 years beyond the birth of Christ to which the 490 Sabbath years had brought him, and arrived at the year 1844. Working with the 1290 days of Daniel 12:11 and the 1260 days of Revelation 12:6, he came to supporting conclusions. But, said Smith, we should understand 1844 not as the year for the return of Christ but as the year which "marked the commencement of the work of cleansing the sanctuary."10 And, rather than understanding the "sanctuary" as the (holy) land, or the land of Canaan, or the church, said Smith, we should understand it to be the heavenly temple or sanctuary, in which are recorded all human deeds.11

Smith's calculations led him to divide church history into three periods: pagan Roman, from A.D. 31 to 538; papal Roman, from 538 to 1798; and Protestant, since 1798.12 Here was his third hermeneutical principle.

Smith's instructional method arose in part from the fact that he was a talented artist. As early as November, 1854, he was producing and printing woodcuts of the beasts from Daniel and Revelation.13 He also preserved and interpreted the prophetic charts used by earlier Adventists and made diagrams of his own understanding of history.14 The charts and diagrams were, of course, based on church historical exegesis of the two books.

Neither Uriah Smith's principles for interpretation nor the interpretations themselves were necessarily original, but they were influential. And among those influenced by them were D. S. Warner and other Church of God pioneers. By 1908, Church of God writers had developed three affinities with Smith's work. First, they accepted Smith's day/year system of historical interpretation of Daniel and Revelation. Second, they accepted Smith's division of history into three periods: pagan, papal, Protestant, and added their own, that of the "evening light." And third, they developed and used graphics, such as diagrams and charts, to explain the symbolism of the two books and to advance their teaching.

John W V. Smith has argued that the affinities developed on the basis of later Adventist teachings;15 Melvin Dieter more specifically dates the entry of Adventist ideas into Warner's purview as occurring between 1880 and 1897.16 But contrary to either of these, Warner's own journal indicates that he was aware of Adventist teachings as early as 1874. On November 21 of that year, Warner attended a lecture by a Mr. Boyd, who spoke "on the beasts, heads and horns as is usual for the Adventists." He then met with "Brothers Figard and Osburn" to arrange a debate with Boyd. Boyd agreed, and a debate was set for November, 2425. Warner devoted November 23 to preparation for the debate, spending much of the time deepening his understanding of Boyd's position.17 We also know that on December 27, 1874, Warner mentions meeting another Adventist, a Mr. Kennestron.18 And given the facts that Battle Creek, Michigan, was the Seventh-Day Adventist center, and Warner traveled continually and extensively in northern Ohio, northern Indiana, and southern Michigan, it is highly likely that Warner knew Adventist teachings quite well.

Most telling is Warner's own copy of Uriah Smith's Thoughts, Critical and Practical, on the Book of Daniel and the Revelation, which is preserved, with the rest of his library, in the Church of God archives at Anderson University. Warner's marginal notes and markings and a full page of manuscript commentary inserted into the book, all at the point of Smith's exposition of the cleansing of the sanctuary (Daniel 89), indicate a vigorous interaction between author and reader.18 Especially important is Warner's having written the word "church" in the margin precisely at the place at which Smith interprets the "sanctuary" as heavenly temple.20

By the time of his death, on December 12, 1895, Warner had written some 400 pages of reply to Smith's "disgusting theory."21 This reply was completed by H. M. Riggle and published in 1903 under the title The Cleansing of the Sanctuary or the Church of God in Type and Antitype, and in Prophecy and Revelation.22 And in addition to the book, Warner and others wrote a number of other critiques of Adventist theory in the Church of God's Gospel Trumpet in the years from 1880 to 1908.23 It seems clear that the Church of God and the Seventh Day Adventists were competitors, especially in Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, and especially for persons intrigued by eschatology. They knew each the other's position well. And so it is that Church of God writers, D. S. Warner being the first among them, developed affinities with Adventist thought, but they usually constructed doctrinal edifices very different from those built by the Seventh-Day Adventists.

Warner clearly shows the affinities with Adventism which we listed earlier. He adopted the day/year system in the interpretation of prophecy and accepted some of Uriah Smith's temporal calculation in interpreting the 2300 days of Daniel 8:14; he disagreed with Smith only at the point of insisting that the 2300 brought us to 1880 and the establishment of the true Church of God, rather than to 1844 and the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary And Warner accepted Smith's division of history into pagan, papal, and Protestant periods, but Warner added a fourth age, that of the evening light, which began in 1880.24 Warner got his notion of the evening light from his understanding of Zechariah 14:7. He took it to refer to the radiance of God's now-revealed pure church as contrasted with the cloudy light which had shone, more or less, between 1530 and 1880. He took to graphic representations of his own ideas; in fact, a number of them strongly resembled Uriah Smith's older ones.25

The principal disagreement between Uriah Smith and D. S. Warner lies at the point of interpreting the lamb-like beast of Revelation 13:1119. Earliest Adventism had believed it to represent their Saturday Sabbath; Smith had deliberately opposed this view and saw it as symbolic of the United States of America; Warner believed that it symbolized Protestantism.26

The principal element which the Church of God writers built into their understanding of Bible prophecy which made it different from the Adventist teaching was the insistence on exclusivity. The Church of God understood the prophecy of the "cleansing of the sanctuary" to refer to God's work in purifying and reforming the church of and from denominationalism, "sectism."27 It had gone into bondage in Babylon and become confused and contaminated, and now, in 1880, God began to call and gather believers out from the bondage in Babylon into holiness and unity in the emerging Church of God. Following Uriah Smith's interpretation, Church of God writers understood the "Babylon" of Revelation 14:8 and 18:2 to be the confused religions of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.28 Then, appealing to Revelation 18:4, they called persons out of both personal sin and the Babylon of sectarianism/denominationalism. Here, they both approved and disapproved of the Holiness Movement. They applauded its emphasis on holiness of heart and life but they criticized very sharply its failure to call people out of the established denominations, corrupted by Babylonian captivity, into true Christian unity.29 "God's church is exclusive," Warner declared.30

Dieter is thus quite correct in placing Warner, and by implication other early Church of God writers and preachers, among the radical "comeouters" of the Holiness Movement,31 and Andrew Byers quite aptly characterizes Warner's ministry in the very title of his book on the topic: The Birth of a Reformation. 32 The emergence of the Church of God marked a "new epoch," as Byers and others saw it.33

This sense of divine destiny, with its characteristic exclusivism finds succinct expression in a paragraph from E. E. Byrum, second editor of the Gospel Trumpet:

Many think they belong to the best denomination on earth and perhaps they do belong to as good as any, but it is far from being the genuine true Church of God. Praise the Lord the evening light is now shining forth in the glorious splendor of the God's true church.34

Here were people who were convinced, as John W. V. Smith says, "that they were participants in the fulfillment of a segment of divine destiny for humanity"35 This conviction, in fact, was one of the four primary articles of faith which motivated the Church of God pioneers. And it was held in the context of an understanding that theirs was a reformation movement within Christianity, a reformation, not a novelty.

But there is irony here, for while Warner's original vision (and that of the other pioneers in the Church of God) had been one which included all born-again persons, the very call to come out of the Babylon of sectism was a call to come into the Church of God Reformation Movement. And this nourished a grassroots exclusivism. Competition with other holiness groups only exacerbated the irony. The reforming ideal was holiness and the unity of all believers. But the very implementation of the ideal often sowed the seeds of separation and exclusiveness.

Church of God Reformation Movement preachers and people based their insistent call to join them on the church historical interpretation of Daniel and Revelation. They had turned to these Biblical books to "project the date for a new, and final, reform of the church...." And they found there a Biblical foundation for their self-understanding as God's called-out people in the final era of church history, for their calculations convinced them that Bible prophecy declared that the great reform was to come "at the approximated time of the beginning of the movement in which they were involved."36

II. The Role of F. G. Smith in Establishing Church of God Teaching

It was F. G. Smith, preacher, missionary, writer, editor, and executive who firmly established the church historical interpretation of Daniel and Revelation among the Church of God. Smith began his ministry in 1898, served as a missionary in Syria, edited the Gospel Trumpet from 1916 to 1930, served as a pastor in Ohio for seventeen years, and returned to Anderson, Indiana, as President of the Gospel Trumpet Company from 1946 until his death in 1947.

Smith's wide influence on the theology of the Church of God is indicated by Robert Reardon: .... . one man, more, perhaps than any other, gave a strong skeletal structure to our faith and practice. His name: F. G.Smith."37 John W V. Smith, reflecting within a narrower range, says that F. G. Smith was "the chief authority and spokesperson for the church-historical interpretation of prophecy applied to the Church of God."38 Referring more narrowly still to F. G. Smith's interpretation of the book of Revelation, John W V. Smith says, It was his very capable work on the subject which made this interpretation standard and identified it as crucial to the movement's existence."39 One's own personal experience bears out the accuracy of this evaluation.

F. G. Smith was a scholar in the era before the Church of God had colleges and other opportunities for the formal education of its ministry. but he read widely and was helped along by what John W V. Smith reported to be a photographic memory. For instance, in his sermon, 'The Millennial Dream," he quotes Plato, Aristotle, Vergil, several of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and Eusebius; and the church historians Neander, Mosheim, Gregory and Ruter, and Waddingron.40 And elsewhere, he draws upon a thorough reading of Adam Clarke.41 In the preface to The Revelation Explained, he describes his research method:

I have availed myself of all the helps and commentaries within my reach in the study of this important subject. However, I have seldom referred to the opinions of expositors.42

F. G. Smith's major works include The Revelation Explained (1908),43 What the Bible Teaches (l~4),44 The Last Reformation (1919),45 and Prophetic Lectures on Daniel and Revelation (1941).46 In addition to these and other books, he wrote regularly for The Gospel Trumpet during his tenure as editor (19161930).

But, in spite of his influence, or perhaps because of it, F. G. Smith's teachings did not go unchallenged, especially not after the publication of The Last Reformation in 1919. As some Church of God ministers and congregations came to involve themselves with Christians in other denominations, they came to feel uneasy about the exclusivism implied in the church-historical interpretation of Revelation and its bearing on ecclesiology, especially in the form in which F. G. Smith presented it. By the 1920's and 1980's, some, who had become aware of the affinities between the church-historical interpretation and Seventh-Day Adventism, wondered if Smith were not teaching something too near to the convictions of the Adventist tradition. In fact, the suspicion lingers that Smith simply substituted Church of God dates into the Adventist system, though comparison of his work with that of Uriah Smith clearly allays that suspicion.

Still, there are parallels between the works of F. G. Smith and Uriah Smith. These may be explained by coincidence, that both authors arrived at the same conclusions independently; or by reference to a source or sources drawn upon in common by both Smiths; or by acknowledgment of indebtedness, conscious or unconscious. The evidence seems to point to the third explanation as the most likely. F. G. Smith knew and utilized the work of Uriah Smith.

Six major similarities to the thought of Uriah Smith appear in the writings of F. G. Smith.

First, both Uriah Smith and F. G. Smith use the church-historical method of interpreting Daniel and Revelation, and both employ the "a day equals a year" principle. Moreover, both divide history into distinct periods, basing their Systems on the 2300 years of Daniel 8:14, though F G. Smith amends the termination dates calculated by Uriah Smith and adds a fourth period to Uriah Smith's three.47 The Adventist Smith had posited a pagan Roman period running from A.D. 31 to 538; the Church of God Smith had altered it to the year A.D. 1 to 270. The Adventist Smith's papal Roman period ran from 538 to 1798; the Church of God Smith's ran from 270 to 1530. Uriah Smith believed that the age of apostate Protestantism had come in 1798; F. G. Smith believed that the age of the "cloudy light" of Protestantism had run its course by 1880 and that in that year we had entered the age of the "evening light," the fourth age.

The second area of ideas in which one finds parallels (and differences) between Uriah Smith's work and that of F. G. Smith is that of their interpretations of the Biblical symbol, Babylon. Both turn to Revelation 16:19 and interpret "Babylon" there as being composed of three parts: paganism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. Their single difference at this point lies in F. G. Smith's preference for the word "heathenism" in place of Uriah Smith's consistent use of "paganism."48

The third area of similarity between the writings of the two Smiths lies in their understanding of the six seals of Revelation 6. Only on the meaning of the last of the six do they differ significantly, though in writing of the meaning of the fifth seal, F. G. Smith is more specific concerning the Protestant reformers than is Uriah Smith. The closest parallel between the two writers comes in the description of the rider upon the pale horse in Revelation 6:8, where both simply paraphrase (F. G. Smith with a single clause of commentary) the Biblical text.49 With regard to the five seals on the meaning of which there is essential agreement, there seems to be little direct quotation, or even close paraphrase of Uriah Smith by F. G. Smith though the ideological parallels are quite clear.

In the fourth instance of similarity, there is some evidence of both Smiths having borrowed from a third source at one point, but otherwise, Adventist Smith seems to have served as the basic source for the work of Church of God Smith. The latter attaches the same interpretation to the trumpets as the former, in two instances using almost identical language; and the latter refers to the same secondary sources as the former. So, for both, the first trumpet symbolizes the decline of Rome's western Empire, the second trumpet symbolizes the Vandals (and both Smiths cite Gibbon, with specific reference to the Vandal chief Genseric); the third trumpet symbolizes Attila and the Huns; the fourth trumpet symbolizes the collapse of imperial government (and both refer to the role of Odoacer, with Uriah Smith acknowledging his source); the fifth trumpet symbolizes Mohammed; and the sixth trumpet symbolizes the Turks and the Ottoman Empire (though they differ on the dates of the decay of the Ottoman Empire).50

As a sort of parenthesis, we might use the similarity in the two Smiths' treatments of the third trumpet as an example of the complexity involved in determining F. G. Smith's sources. He writes, as if it were his own line: "It was the boast of Attila that the grass never grew on the spot which his horse had trod."51 The same sentence appears in Uriah Smith's work, in an attributed seven line quotation from an otherwise unknown writer named Keith. 52 Further, F. G. Smith introduces the line with words similar to those of Uriah Smith's (and Keith's) though he moves away from it in a way very different from that of Uriah Smith. Clearly, F. G. Smith has borrowed. But from whom? From Uriah Smith? From "Keith"? Of course, even to attribute the sentence to Keith is somewhat misleading. The quotation originally comes from Gibbon (Decline and Fall vol I, ch. 35), who says it is a saying, but does not cite its source. The weight of evidence would seem to tip the scales in favor of concluding that F. G. Smith borrowed rather directly from Uriah Smith in this case, but it is not really conclusive.

A fifth instance of similarity between the understandings of F. G. Smith and Uriah Smith may be seen in the two authors' understanding of the meaning of the leopard beast of Daniel 7:6 and Revelation 13:110. Both say that it represents the papacy and the papal period of history. And further analysis shows that F. G. Smith quoted quite directly from Uriah Smith in the development of his commentary on the matter, but without naming him. (He only calls him a "certain expositor.")53 But from whence came Uriah Smith's understanding? The Adventist Smith was usually rather careful to let the reader know when he was quoting directly and there is no such indication in this case, so we may conclude that F. G. Smith worked directly with Uriah Smith's work and not with some third source common to them both.

A sixth instance of similarity between the works of the Adventist Uriah Smith and the Church of God's F. G. Smith may be seen in F. G. Smith's occasional reliance upon Uriah Smith's earlier charts and diagrams.54

It is of interest to note that in his later work, Prophetic Lectures on Daniel and Revelation (1941), in which F. G. Smith returns to analyze the relationship of the little horn of Daniel 7 to the beast of Revelation 13:110, he essentially recaps what he had written in The Revelation

Explained (1908), but this time finds nine similarities between the two beasts (instead of the earlier six, five of which he took verbatim from the Adventist Smith), and this time he omits the direct quotation from the "certain expositor," Uriah Smith.55 Why the change? Was it incidental or was F. G. Smith somehow responding in this way to criticism that he had relied too heavily upon the Adventist point of view?

Whatever may be the answer in this case, so obvious and heavy was F. G. Smith's use of the work of Uriah Smith that some said (and even yet some say) that F. G. Smith's system was essentially that of Uriah Smith, with some changing of dates. But the fact is, there are basic differences between their systems.

First, as we have seen, they disagreed on the internal chronology of the 2300 years. The aligned their historical epochs differently. Especially important is their difference regarding the great prophetic year at the end of the 2300.56 For Uriah, it marked the beginning of the work of atonement in heaven; for F. G., it denoted the dawn of the Church of God as the final reformation. And from this difference arise very important divergences regarding the sanctuary, its cleansing, and the atonement.

Second, they differed significantly in their interpretations of the two-horned beast of Revelation 13:1118. For Uriah Smith, it "symbolizes a government which is Protestant in religion, or which at least is a non-Catholic power.... The United States is a Protestant nation, and meets the requirements of the prophecy admirably in this respect."57 For F. G. Smith, the beast symbolized Protestantism itself, as it developed after the Augsburg Confession (1530). In this way, F. G. Smith retains a thoroughly religious understanding of history, one which does not entangle itself with political developments as Uriah Smith's does.

Third, and this is a weighty difference, the two Smiths disagree in their interpretations of the seven bowls of Revelation 16:121. Uriah Smith locates the pouring out of the vials in the future. F. G. Smith believed that the first five were poured out between the years 1765 and 1870. The sixth bowl, he believed, represented the downfall of Babylon and was being poured out in the age of the restored church. The seventh bowl will be emptied at the final judgment.58

These differences demonstrate the fact that whatever may be their similarities in method, the obvious congruities in the treatments of certain Biblical passages and symbols, and even the verbatim parallels in their commentaries, the two Smiths articulated diverse theologies. And governing those diverse theologies were diverse principles as well. Eschatology served as the governing category for Uriah Smith's theology while ecclesiology served that function for F. G. Smith's theology. Or, to put it in terms of F. G. Smith's theology only, ecclesiology governed eschatology. His experience of the church dominated F. G. Smith's eschatology. Consequently, he saw his eschatology as serving the Church of God. He employed it to calculate the date of birth of the church which he loved and served.

In profound ways, the ecclesiastical and ecclesiological commitments of both Smiths shaped their respective exegeses. They read Daniel and Revelation through presuppositional lenses. That is to say, they understood the symbols in those books to explain the significance of their own faith communities.

Contemporary critics of such perspectives might recall David Kelsey's analysis of the use of Scripture by contemporary theologians. Kelsey shows that the "imaginative acts" or prior commitments of those theologians have very much to do with the ways in which they use and interpret Scripture.59

F. G. Smith articulated his interpretation of Revelation in such a way that it became the standard, and almost institutionalized and official, point of view with respect to the book in the Church of God. That it did not finally reach official status is a consequence of the development of new forces and interests in the 1920's and of the teaching methods and points of view of Russell Byrum, Otto F. Linn, and Adam Millerto whom we now turn.

III. The Transition to Diversity in Eschatological and Ecclesiological Understandings

Between 1920 and 1943, the Church of God underwent transition in its interpretation of the book of Revelation. Russell Byrum, Otto F. Linn, and Adam Miller led the church to recognize the acceptability of interpretations other than that provided by the church-historical method of D. S. Warner and F. G. Smith. And hand in hand with the transition in eschatological understanding went a transition in understanding the nature of the church.

F. G. Smith faced opposition to his point of view no sooner than he published it in The Last Reformation, in 1919. Among others, John Morrison, Principal of Anderson Bible Training School, "openly told F. G. Smith he did not agree with the positions set forth [in that book]."60 But Smith was not to be deterred from his plan to make his teaching official within the Church of God. In 1924, he urged the General Ministerial Assembly to establish the literature then published by the Church of God as its standard literature.61 In the opinion (and words) of Reardon, as Smith looked around he was aware that his foundational work, Revelation Explained, upon which he built the whole rationale for the last reformation, was being discreetly undermined by a new brand of scholars whose views on prophetic literature did not match his own.62

So he sought the path of official endorsement of his views as definitive.

His strategy failed, but not because his perception was erroneous. Winds of change were blowing across both the practices and the literature of the Church of God. In some quarters, especially, cooperation with other churches was replacing exclusivism.

Typical of the expressions of change (and a-typical of traditional fare) was a sermon preached by Marcel Desgalier at the 1928 Anderson Camp Meeting. Desgalier testified to having been deeply moved in a Methodist Church in Baltimore, and went on to refer positively to Henry Ward Beecher, Francis Xavier, John Calvin, Martin Luther, and Charles Finney"sectarians" all.63 And while Desgalier was expressing positive appreciation for persons representative of "sectism," the Board of Sunday Schools and Religious Education, which had been organized in 1923, had begun looking toward cooperation with the International Council of Religious Education. By 1930, it was sending a representative, Bessie (Mrs. Russell R.) Byrum, to the Convention of the Council, held in Toronto that year. The Convention was, of course, a cooperative interchurch event, so it is indicative of changes in perspective among the leadership of the Church of God that Ms. Byrum's quite positive report on it appeared in the August 21, 1930, number of the Gospel Trumpet. 64 In effect, her column was an unofficial endorsement of the Convention by the Gospel Trumpet company.

Change came to other areas in the Church of God as well, opening the way to new questions and new responses regarding the nature of the church and interchurch relationships. In 1928, Anderson Bible School and Seminary began to offer a liberal arts education, and in the following year it changed its name to Anderson College and Theological Seminary. And from 1922, the General Ministerial Assembly began to establish boards and committees intended to organize the work of the Church on a movement-wide scale, but not (this was almost always made explicit) to organize the Church itself. The most important of these, with the dates of their establishment, were the Board of Church Extension and Home Missions (1922); the Executive Council (1931), which was founded as an agency for carrying out any administrative tasks necessary to the wellbeing of the movement between assemblies; and the National Women's Home and Foreign Missionary Society (1932).

In this period of organization, the Church of God also experienced its highest rate of growth, which brought it to the period surrounding its Golden Jubilee reflecting on its past, pondering the very significant changes in its present, and looking toward a bright future.65

Movement into that future seemed to many to require a transition from what seemed to them a brittle, exclusivist theology to one more inclusive and tolerant of differences. Most of those calling for change believed that the greatest ideological obstacle to such change as was needed was the church-historical interpretation of the book of Revelation. As Russell Byrum put it some forty years later:

After a preacher preached on Sunday evening that the other churches are "harlot" churches, he could not be very consistent in meeting the pastors of those churches in the city ministers' meetings in fellowship. Times had changed in this respect, and with our strong emphasis on Christian unity we needed to adjust. Our teaching on Revelation had become a practical matter.66

Byrum's background had not suggested that he would be at the center of the storm of transition. His parents left the United Brethren Church in 1886 to help found Praise Chapel, New Pittsburgh, Indiana, and one of his earlier recollections related to the Church of God was reading the announcement of the death of D. S. Warner in the Gospel Trumpet in December, 1895. Byrum's father built the Gospel Trumpet homes in Moundsville, West Virginia, and in Anderson, Indiana, as well as the first auditorium on the Anderson Camp Grounds. Russell Bynim himself had helped to establish three congregations in West Virginia, and, in 1917, he had accepted the invitation to serve as Managing Editor of the Gospel Trumpet Company under the direction of F. G. Smith. Concurrently, he served as Assistant Principal of the then-new Anderson Bible Training School, and as teacher of Bible and theology there. His wife, Bessie, also served on the faculty of the Bible Training School teaching church history. Russell Byrum's claim to being a true child of the earliest period of the "evening light" movement was at least as strong as that of F. G. Smith.67

And, in fact, early on in his career, Byrum approached his work from a quite conventional, traditional Church of God point of view. His Christian Theology, published in 1925,68 follows a church-historical method in interpreting the book of Revelation, including reference to the Church of God as the restoration of the evening light of Zechariah 14:6-7.69 He referred readers who desired more information on the place of the church in Biblical prophecy to "an able treatment of the subject, The Last Reformation, by F. G. Smith."70 Scripture Readings and Sermon Outlines, compiled and edited by Byrum, and published in 1928,71 contains two sermons by H. M. Riggle which quite clearly follow the church-historical method of interpretation: "The Church in Prophecy and Revelation" and "The Church in the Gospel Day." Another sermon, "The Fall of Babylon," follows the same hermeneutical path as those of Riggle.

So it is that Byrum's earlier work as writer and editor, much of it done as Managing Editor of the Gospel Trumpet Company, of which F. G. Smith was Editor, attests his fidelity to the traditionally received church-historical method of interpretation.

But already in 1926, the year following the publication of his Christian Theology, he began to express publicly some uneasiness concerning the traditional hermeneutic. In that year and the following, Byrum taught "Introduction to the New Testament" at Anderson Bible Training School, and his teaching ignited the fuse of controversy. Forty-five years later, he recalled making certain decisions about teaching the book of Revelation in that course:

I decided to be honest with the students, and yet be as mild as possible. After giving the History of the Various Methods of Interpretation, I showed how the "year for a day" teaching in the post-reformation period had made the "beast" the Roman Catholic Church and how other Protestant churches had worked out the 1260 days to show the beginning of their respective churches and how D. S. Warner had made the year 1880 a prophetic year. Then I stated that we had no proof that the year for a day method had any real support in the Bible. Then I read a few pages to the class from "Syllabus for New Testament Study" by A. T. Robertson, professor of New Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.72

John Morrison, Principal of the Bible Training School, and later President of Anderson College, described Byrum's teaching method.

He used Dr. Smith's book, The Revelation Explained, in his classes, but he did not feel obliged to defend the book's thesis. Nor did he oppose it. He merely presented different views of a given aspect of the subject and then encouraged the students to make up their own minds as to the truth As teaching, the method was excellent.73

But as apologetic or as polemic it was useless, and some pastors and other leaders objected to it. C. E. Byers, pastor in Springfield, Ohio, led the defense of the church-historical method and posed the issue to Byrum in a letter dated February 3, 1928.

I have been informed by some of the good brethren who are very close to the school, that in your teachings you infer that the Church of God has been wrong in her teachings on the church questions and the Brothers Smith and Riggle and other writers can no longer be depended upon and that their books are not to be considered as authoritative but that you refer to other men's writings in Protestantism as being authoritative.... I have your book on Christian Theology and prize it very highly. But I understand that you have changed your mind on a number of topics in the past two years.74

Byrum had already written Byers on February 2. The two letters probably crossed in the mail. In Christian love, Byrum assured Byers that he (still) believed what he had written in Christian Theology concerning the church, reformation and future punishment. And responding to Byers' letter of February 3, Byrum added a postscript:

As to my having changed my mind on any points concerning the church since I wrote the theology, I do not know of a single point on which I have done so. That book ought to be taken as my present teaching.75

At issue then was not the question of Byrum's agreement with the church-historical method of interpretation but the question of his right to present and explain other views, as he had done.

The controversy smoldered until June, 1929, when a committee of twenty-eight Church of God ministers listened as Byrum presented his case and then voted to vindicate him. As Byrum himself put it, 'The judges agreed in my favor."76

However, the trustees of the Bible Training School, now newly renamed Anderson College, produced a creed which they asked all faculty members to sign. Byrum refused to sign because, as he later said, "I saw this would limit our thinking, and the purpose of the school was to learn to think."

Still, Byrum sought to maintain the unity of the church. He "arose and said, 'This whole trouble is because of me, and a simple solution is for me to resign from my teaching work.' "77 The trustees accepted his resignation and Byrum went into the building business. The trustees then withdrew their demand that the faculty sign the creed.78

John W. V. Smith's analysis of the significance of this episode interprets it as a return to an earlier principle.

[It affirmed the church's] original stance of openness to truth by rejecting the principle of demanding adherence to what had been written in the "standard" literature The Byrum "trial" came close to snapping the lid shut, but the judges exonerated him of teaching "heresy," even though his views were at variance with previous interpretation.79

Byrum, reflecting back on the events of 1929 from the vantage point of 1973, reiterated the principle laid down, with great personal pain and at great personal cost, at the earlier date.

At this point it might be well to consider the basic question: Is it necessary that a church group all see and teach alike on all matters of doctrine and practice?... We humans do not see alike because we do not know alike and never can on all matters. But we can learn to love each other enough that we appreciate the other person's sincerity in thinking as he can.... We must allow a "conservative" and a "liberal" wing in the church, for individual progressives and those not so. But love will help us to be respectful and considerate toward those who see differently.80

In June, 1930, F. G. Smith's term as Editor for the Gospel Trumpet Company expired. The Publications Board, taking into account the fact that Smith's interpretation of the book of Revelation had become a center of controversy, invited Charles E. Brown, a moderate in the debate, to succeed him as Editor. Brown accepted the invitation and would serve in that post until 1951.

The departures of Byrum and Smith from Anderson College and the Gospel Trumpet Company in 1929 and 1930, respectively, marked a transition. Implicit within their leaving were the seeds which would blossom into an acceptance of diverse eschatologies in the Church of God. But even as late as 1930, no one had yet articulated a clear alternative to the church historical method of interpretation. It remained for Otto F. Linn, almost unwittingly; certainly unexpectedly, to rise to that challenge.

Otto Linn, a native of Oklahoma, was, like Russell Byrum and F G. Smith, a child of the Church of God Reformation Movement. Intellectually, he was immersed in the church-historical understanding of Bible prophecy. He entitled his Master of Arts thesis (1980) at Enid Seminary, "The Apocalyptic Enemies of Christ,"81 and identified those enemies as paganism, the papacy and Protestantism. These had opposed both Christ and the true church. He concluded:

... in the onward march of history we have come to a date when this third false system [i.e., Protestantism] is being judged, and God is calling his people back to the simplicity and purity of the early church.82

In 1935, Linn completed a Ph.D. in New Testament at the University of Chicago, the first Ph.D. earned by a Church of God scholar in Bible or theology. And later he served on the Advisory Committee for the translation that came to be known as the Revised Standard Version. In the meantime, between 1930 and 1942, Linn revised his views on the book of Revelation.

Linn's change of perspective came to light as he responded to a request from the Gospel Trumpet Company that he write a series of articles on New Testament books, which Warner Press planned to collect and publish as three short commentaries. Warner published the first two collections without any serious question: Studies in the New Testament: The Gospels and Acts (April, 1941),83 and Studies in the New Testament: Romans to Philemon (April, 1942).84 But the Press refused to publish the third, and last, volume: Studies in the New Testament: Hebrews to Revelation. 85 In the opinion of Editor C. E. Brown and former Editor F. G. Smith, it "presented a variant view of interpreting the Book of Revelation."86 "Variant" meant "unacceptable" to some, but only "different" to others. So, while Warner Press refused to publish the book, it was given to an independent publisher, the Commercial Service Company, and printed.

In what ways was Linn's view "variant"?

After noting, in the preface to volume three, that many ministers had urged him to write on the book of Revelation,87 Linn expresses some tentativity concerning the project.

Since there is a great deal of controversy centered around the interpretation of many of the symbols of this difficult book, the author submits this writing with reserve. It is hoped that those who differ with him 'will have as tolerant an attitude as the writer has toward their differences.88

Linn's "reserve" was well-taken. Rather than following the church-historical method, Linn took a preterist or historical critical approach. Concerning the 1260 days of Revelation 11:3, Linn rejected the dating systems of the Seventh-Day Adventist and earlier Church of God writers.89 Instead, he rooted John's message in the first century and contended that "this fiery prophet was not passing dispassionately over the life and death struggles [of that day] to meander through the divinely charted course of ages to come."90 The leopard beast of Revelation 13:110 symbolized Emperor Domitian, and the lamblike beast of Revelation 13:1118, Linn identified as the priests of the first-century emperor cults.91 Linn confronted the church-historical interpretation of Babylon directly and polemically: "By some queer method of reasoning some people have explained this profligate woman as the papacy and her daughters as the Protestant denominations."92 Instead, said Linn, Babylon "refers unmistakably to [imperial] Rome."93

An analysis of Linn's seventy-three pages on the book of Revelation suggests that Linn was deliberately attacking the pillars of the church-historical approach. His treatment of the book of Revelation is polemical; his treatment of the other New Testament books more nearly devotional. He takes a strictly unwavering, hard-line, historical-critical/preterist approach to Revelation which contrasts noticeably with his treatment of the historical-critical issues found in other books e.g., such questions as the authorship of the Pastoral Epistles, the use made of Paul's activities by the author of the Acts, and the composition of the Synoptic Gospels.

Many who had difficulties with the church-historical method found Linn's interpretation valuable, especially as it was grounded in modern Biblical scholarship; and some made him a "patron saint." Certainly his brief commentary on the book of Revelation became a watershed for Church of God Biblical interpretation, for which the church has come to owe him much.

What may not be properly appreciated is the overreaction involved in this episode, an overreaction of which Linn was both an expression and a source. It became fashionable for those who disagreed with the church-historical approach to praise the scholarship and abilities of Otto F. Linn at the expenses of the exegetical and theological abilities of F. G. Smith, principal architect and advocate of the older method in the Church of God. Overlooked was the creativity of Smith's work in adapting earlier views to the unique character of the Church of God. Especially disparaged were Smith's lack of formal education, alleged lack of originality, and intransigence. But these charges usually came without due regard being given to Linn's corresponding doggedness and lack of originality in simply accepting, apparently uncritically, the exegetical method advocated by his teachers at the University of Chicago. Would Linn have been more conciliatory had he given himself time to internalize his learning before sharing it with the church?

But the story does not end with Linn and his followers on one side and F. G. Smith and C. E. Brown and their followers on the other. Although Warner Press did not publish Linn's studies on Revelation in 1942, they did publish Adam W Miller's An Introduction to the New Testament94 in 1943an act which shows how quickly an institution can legitimize a new idea.

Adam Miller grew up in Maryland and eventually served as a pastor in Baltimore. Later, he would be a missionary; then Secretary of the Missionary Board of the Church of God; and ultimately, the second dean of the Anderson School of Theology.

In 1916-17, at the age of twenty, Miller began attending public lectures sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University. Through these lectures, he learned of the diverse views on the composition of the Pentateuch and of emerging fundamentalism. In an interview in 1979, he recalled, "The debate gave me in my early years the feeling that one must approach Biblical and theological studies with an open mind."95

Miller's master's thesis (1941) at Christian Theological Seminary was on the interpretation of apocalyptic literature, which practically guaranteed interest in it among his fellow-believers and a place on the shelves of the Anderson College library; However, Miller's prudence in the face of then-rising controversies concerning his interpretation of Revelation in the Church of God removed his thesis from circulation. Instead, he wrote his Introduction to the New Testament, which was published in 1943in the heat of the responses to Linn's third volume.

Miller took an evenhanded approach. He identified and summarized six methods of interpreting the book of Revelation, including those of F. G. Smith and Otto Liun. And at the end of the chapter on Revelation, in his "Suggestions for Further Study," Miller guided readers to works by F. G. Smith, Otto Linn, Shirley Jackson Case, Ernest Finley Scott, R. H. Charles, and Gerhard Kittel.96

Of course, Miller's bibliography did "stack the deck," as it were, against the church-historical method. And the Church of God, in publishing Miller's work, not only in 1943, but in re-publishing it in 1946, and again publishing it in a still-in-print revised edition in 1959, under the title Brief Introduction to the New Testament, committed itself to the historical-critical method as one more among several acceptable ways of interpreting Revelation. That method now took its place alongside the church-historical method taught by D. S. Warner and F. G. Smith, and several others, as an optional interpretive approach.97

In 1926, some within the Church of God had chastised Russell R. Byrum for merely explaining an alternative to the church historical method of interpretation. Less than twenty years later, at least five other methods were now added to the list of acceptable exegetical tools.

What had generated the change? In the first place, one must mention the importance of the original universal vision of D. S. Warner. However much the church-historical interpretation of Daniel-Revelation had created an exclusivism that obscured that vision, many pastors and leaders all along the way had experienced a unity of fellowship with Christians of other church groups that could not be gainsaid. And that experience squared quite well with Warner's vision. Second, people began to see that the principal stumbling-block to the experiencing of the unity which Warner had envisioned, the creator, in fact, of exclusivism, was the church-historical interpretation of Revelation. Third, academically prepared leaders, who were obviously also committed to the historic principles of the Church of God, enabled the church to accept other interpretations with increasing confidence in their utility and spiritual value. But all was not easy or settled yet in the mid1940's.

IV. The Interpretation of Revelation in the Church of God Since 1943

Some hopeful reconciliations did occur in the midi 940's. F. G. Smith and John A. Morrison healed their breach prior to Smith's death,98 and Russell Byrum found H. M. Riggle to be a loyal friend and visitor.99 But the words "uneasy truce" describe the situation best. Peace had not broken out. The Church of God affirmed diversity with respect to the interpretation of the book of Revelation but seemed uncomfortable with it. During the sixteen years that Harold Phillips served as editor of the Gospel Trumpet/Vital Christianity (the periodical changed its name during Phillips' tenure), few submitted anything relating to the interpretation of Revelation to him.100

In fact, the truce was being enforced by a policy of silence, as the following story illustrates.

F. G. Smith's mantle had fallen on Lillie McCutcheon, pastor in Newton Falls, Ohio. She was widely recognized as having taken the lead in the Church of God in the continued advocacy of the church-historical interpretation. By 1964, she had finally published her book, The Symbols Speak,101 but did so under her own imprint, for Warner Press had refused to publish it.

On March 3, 1966, Ms. McCutcheon, responding to an invitation from Barry Callen, Robert Reinhart, and me, spoke in John W.V. Smith's class, "Church of God Backgrounds," at Anderson School of Theology. It was the first time that she had been invited to share her interpretation of Revelation at the Anderson institution or Warner Press, though she had been advocating the traditional interpretation for a number of years, to some considerable effect, and was everywhere recognized as the leader of those continuing to hold it.

That particular visit did serve to reopen discussion of the book of Revelation in a number of places. Ms. McCutcheon, speaking at ministers' meetings since, in which various leaders have presented various views of Revelation, has often said, "The Church of God is big enough for more than one view of Revelation."102

Under the editorship of Arlo Newell, the editorial policy of Warner Press seems to be one of openness to the expression of diverse viewpoints within the church, especially in Vital Christianity. This periodical has, thus, printed articles representing differing interpretations of the book of Revelation.103

In general, then, it may be said that the Church of God finally reached the point where various understandings of Revelation were tolerated in the 1940's; but it must also be said that only since 1966 has the church openly encouraged discussion between those of her members holding diverse views on the topic. Since then, several have taken opportunity to present at least selected aspects of their understandings of Revelation. Among these have been: Lillie McCutcheon, Marie Strong,104 Samuel Hines, Gilbert Stafford, Kenneth Jones,105 Gene Miller,106 and I.107

The renewed willingness to discuss the issues has emerged from the quest for unity, for the Church of God has recognized the need to affirm the desire for unity while admitting that there are differing theological emphases. Recent dialogues on Revelation relate to our experience of the church as a non-creedal fellowship which accepts diversity in doctrine while affirming unity in Christian experience.

An incident from 1985 illustrates this commitment to diversity which arises from the desire for unity.

In 1980, the organization, Women of the Church of God, published a Bible study on Revelation written by Marie Strong. Strong did not take a church-historical approach to interpretation and departed from the teaching of F. G. Smith. Consequently, some pastors urged Women of the Church of God not to distribute the study.

Doris Dale, Executive Secretary of Women of the Church of God, refused to be intimidated. She explained:

The confusion has occurred because more than one interpretation of Revelation is taught within the Church of God. The WCG does not promote Dr. Strong's teaching as the standard Church of God teaching; but as one of the valid interpretations within our movement.108

Continuing, Dale verbalized the approach of the Church of God to scripture interpretation.

As a movement we have taught that the Spirit of God gives each believer the power to interpret scripture for himself/herself. Allowing each believer to interpret scriptures places the responsibility on the believers. .. we jealously guard the personal freedom to read and interpret as each of us see (sic) fit. This is a heritage taught by our early leaders and still valued.109

In summary, the experience of the church has shaped the eschatology of the Church of God. The original church-historical interpretations of D. S. Warner and F. G. Smith complemented their experience of the church as an exclusive movement. As long as the pioneer views were the only legitimately recognized interpretations, Church of God doctrinal boundaries were clearly defined. But coincidental with a transition to a more inclusive understanding and experience of the church, Russell Byrum, Otto Linn, and Adam Miller supplied alternative interpretations of the book of Revelation which stretched the church's doctrinal boundaries and self-understanding. Since the late 1970's, the quest for internal unity has been accompanied by discussion between proponents of diverse views of Revelation. Doctrinal unity has been subordinated to a unity of Christian experience.

In an era in which other denominations, such as the Southern Baptists, are tightening their doctrinal statements and stifling theological freedom, the penchant for experiential unity has prevailed within the Church of God and taken it in quite another direction. Nowhere is this better seen than in the fact that, historically, in the Church of God, ecciesiology has shaped eschatological thinking, and in the ways in which that has transpired.

Notes

1This paper was written for the Wesleyan/Holiness Study Project, sponsored by Asbury Theological Seminary and founded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The author wishes to express his gratitude to the Pew Trusts for their generosity and did interest in his work.

2 Joseph Coleson, "Toward a Wesleyan Understanding of Prophecy," Kardia 4 (1989), p.40, insists that "our holiness distinctives ought to inform our eschatology." He also encourages an exploration of the relationship between ecclesiology and eschatology within the Holiness

Movement. Stanley Walters, "The World Will End in 1919. Daniel among the Victorians," As bury Theological Journal 44 (1989), p.44, notes that the history of the interpretation of Biblical apocalyptic "has yet to be fully documented." Also important as background to this paper is James Alan Patterson, "Changing Images of the Beast: Apocalyptic Conspiracy Theories in American History," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 31(1988), pp.443452. On nomenclature, cf. John Collins, "Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre," Semeia 14 (1979), pp.120. Because early Church of God interpreters spoke of the church as the fulfillment of the eschatology of the book of Revelation, I will retain their term, though, as a Biblical exegete, I understand both Daniel and Revelation to be apocalyptic, not eschatological, literature.

3 Cf. John W.V. Smith, The Quest for Holiness and Unity (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, 1980), pp.9498; and Melvin E. Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1980), pp.283284. Not being a professional historian, one hesitates to venture into the history of the Holiness and Adventist traditions. I wish to thank Susie C. Stanley, who is a church historian, for her counsel.

4 Robert Reardon, The Early Morning Light (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, 1979, p.87.

5 Uriah Smith, Thoughts, Critical and Practical on the Book of Daniel (Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald Press, 1873). Hereinafter abbreviated as U. Smith, TCPD.

6 Uriah Smith, The Sanctuary and Its Cleansing (Battle Creek, MI: Steam Press, 1877). Hereinafter abbreviated as U. Smith, SC

7 Uriah Smith, Thoughts, Critical and Practical on the Book of Daniel and Revelation (Battle Creek: Review and Herald Press, 1882). Hereinafter abbreviated as U. Smith, TCPDR.

8 Uriah Smith, Daniel and Revelation (Battle Creek: Review and Herald Press, 1897). Hereinafter abbreviated as U. Smith, DR.

9 Eugene Durand, Yours in the Blessed Hope. Uriah Smith (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Press, 1980), p.206.

10 U. Smith, SC, 97.

11 U. Smith, TCPDR, 210261.

12 U. Smith, TCPDR, 185188, 677706; DR, 519, 604605.

13 Durand, op. cit., 161; Cf. U. Smith, TCPDR, Plate I, "The Image of Daniel II," between pp.48 and 49; Plate II, "Symbols of Daniel VI I," between pp.144 and 145; and Plate X, "Symbols of Rev. XIIXIV," between pp.676 and 677.

14 Cf. Durand, op. cit., 202203. Also cf. ibid., 214n1, for a citation of Uriah Smith, Key to the Prophetic Chart (Battle Creek, MI: Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association, 1864). And see U. Smith, TCPDR, Chart: "The 70 Weeks and 2300 Days," between pp.254 and 255.

15 J. W V~ Smith, op. cit., 98. Also see Ron Can; Milan Dekich, Bob Preston, and David Van Norman, unpublished paper, class in "Church of God Backgrounds" (John W V. Smith, instructor), Anderson School of Theology, March 1, 1978, for a list of eight articles written by D. S. Warner prior to September 15, 1887, on the church in the book of Revelation.

16 Dieter, op. ciL, 251.

17 D. S. Warner, Journal, Nov. 2125, 1874.

18 ibid., Dec.27, 1874.

19 Cf. D. S. Warner's personal copy of U. Smith, TCPDR, in Archives, Church of God (Anderson), Anderson University, Anderson, Indiana Warner's remarks may be found on pp.211, 215, 220, 225, 228, 235, 239, 266, 267; marginal markings may be seen on 211, 213, 215225, 235, 262263, 266267; the page-long comment is inserted between pp.228 and 229. Warner expresses strong disagreement with Smith on pp.235, 239, and 267. All of these page references are within Smith's discussion of the cleansing of the sanctuary in Daniel 89.

20 ibid., 211.

21 Daniel S. Warner and H. M. Riggle, The Cleansing of the Sanctuary or The Church of God in T'pe and Antitype, and in Prophecy and Revelation (Moundsville, WV: Gospel Trumpet Company, 1903). The quotation is from p.279. Hereinafter this work is abbreviated as Warner, CS.

22 Cf. Warner, CS, 8182 for specific notice of U. Smith; for criticism of Adventist doctrines, cf. pp.3839, 41, 7475, 77, 79, 80, 208, 209, 224.

23 E.g., H. M. Riggle, "Adventism Refuted," The Gospel Trumpet 19 (July 27, Aug. 3, and Aug.24, 1899). Also cf. Riggle, The Sabbath and the Lord's Day (Moundsville, WV: Gospel Trumpet Company, 1904), iv: "No other people ever met with more disappointments during their existence, or so many blunders as the Adventists].... Many have been led into infidelity as a result of the mistakes of Adventism. The whole system is a yoke of bondage. To counteract this influence, this book has been written."

24 Cf. D. S. Warner, "Questions and Answers," Gospel Trumpet 9 (Sept. 15, 1887), 4. Also see Warner, "Question #3," Gospel Trumpet 10 (Dec. 1, 1890), 1 for a full exposition. See as well, Henry C. Wickersham, "The Cleansing of the Sanctuary," Gospel Trumpet 10 (Nov.15, 1890), 1, 4.

25 Cp. U. Smith, TCPDR, diagram of Daniel 2, insert between pp.4849, and Church of God diagrams of Daniel 7 ,which appear in many publications.

26Cp. U. Smith, TCPDR, 684685 and the references in n23 supra.

27Church of God pioneers referred to other churches as sects, but in doing so were neither connoting nor denoting modern technical or sociological definitions. Rother, they seem to have meant that which is now understood in the use of the word "denomination." In its first twenty years, the Church of God itself bore the traits of "sect" in the technical, sociological sense. Cf. Val Clear, Where the Saints Have Trod. A Social History of the Church of God Reformation Movement (Chesterfield, IN: Midwest Publications, 1977), for an analysis of the sociological development of the Church of God from sect to church. Clear's work is a revision of his Ph.D. dissertation ("The Church of God: A Study in Social Adaptation," University of Chicago, 1953).

28 U. Smith, DRD, 650, 653.

29 Andrew Byers, Birth of a Reformation or the Life and Labors of Daniel S. Warner (Anderson, IN: Gospel Trumpet Company, 1921), 271272.

30 Warner, CS, 267.

31 Dieter, op. cit., 254.

32 Byers, op. cit.

33 ibid., 248.

34 E. E. Byrum, "Settle It By the Word," Gospel Trumpet 9 (June 1,1889), 4.

35 John W V. Smith, op. cit., 94.

36 ibid., 98.

37 Reardon, op. cit., 39.

38 John W. V. Smith, op. cit, 100.

39 ibid., 444.

40 F. G. Smith, Journals, vol.1.

41 Cf. F. G. Smith, Prophetic Lectures on Daniel and Revelation (Anderson, IN; Gospel Trumpet Company, 1941), p.252. Hereinafter this work is abbreviated as F. G. Smith, PL

42 F. G. Smith, The Revelation Explained (Anderson, IN: Gospel mimpet Company, 1908), p.6. Hereinafter this work is abbreviated as F. G. Smith, RE.

43 Cf. n42 supra.

44 F. G. Smith, What the Bible Teaches (Anderson, IN: Gospel Trumpet Company, 1913).

45 F. G. Smith, The Last Reformation (Anderson, IN: Gospel Trumpet Company). Hereinafter this work is abbreviated as F. G. Smith, LR.

46 Cf. n41 supra.

47 Cp. U. Smith, DR, 519, 604605 and F. G. Smith, RE, 235, 260.

48 Cp. U. Smith, DR, 650653 and F. G. Smith, RE, 273, 331, 356.

49 Cp. U. Smith, DR, 408 and F. G. Smith, RE, 108.

50 Cp. U. Smith, DR, 626635 and F. G. Smith, RE, 165170. Uriah Smith dates the Ottoman Empire from 12991840; F. G. Smith seems to date it from 12811672. Neither writer states his dates precisely or clearly.

51 F. G. Smith, RE, 146.

52 U. Smith, DR, 462.

53 U. Smith, DR, 524525; F. G. Smith, RE, 237238.

54 E.g., cp. U. Smith, TCPDR, chart between 254255, n16, and F. G. Smith, Chart: "The Church of God in Prophecy and History"

55 G. Smith, PL, 8687.

56 Cp. U. Smith, DR, 191 and F. G. Smith, RE, 235.

57 U. Smith, DR, 539.

58 Cp. U. Smith, DR, 641656 and F. G. Smith, RE, 290334.

59 D avid Kelsey, The Uses of Sc rip tu re in Recent Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), passim.

60 J. W. V. Smith, op. cit, 249.

61 Reardon, op. cit., 53.

62 ibid., 51.

63 Marcel Desgalier, "Evangelism, A Demand Upon Youth," Select Camp Meeting Sermons. Preached at the International Camp Meeting of the Church of God, Anderson, Indiana, June 1624, 1928 (Anderson, IN: Gospel Trumpet Company, 1928), pp.359369.

64 Bessie Byrum, 'The Toronto Convention, International Council of Religious Education," Gospel Trumpet 50 (Aug.21, 1930), 1314.

65 W. V. Smith, op. cit, 267269.

66 Russell Byrum, interview with John W V. Smith, Anderson, IN, (no day, no month) 1974, p.16. Copy of transcript in Archives, Church of God, Anderson University, Anderson, Indiana.

67 This paragraph summarizes the interview noted in n66 supra.

68 Russell Byrum, Christian Theology... (Anderson, IN: Gospel Trumpet Company, 1925).

69 ibid., 536552.

70 ibid., 552.

71 Scripture Readings and Sermon Outlines, Russell Byrum, ed. (Anderson, IN: Gospel Trumpet Company, 1922).

72 Byrum/Smith interview, 1617 (cf. n66 supra).

73 John A. Morrison, As the River Flows (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, 1962), p.168.

74 C. E. Byers, letter to Russell Byrum, Feb. 3, 1928.

75 Russell Byrum, letter to C. E. Byers (Springfield, OH), Feb. 2 and 3, 1928. Mso see Russell Olt (Anderson, IN), letter to R. C. Caudill (Middletown, OH), Feb. 6, 1928, and Russell Olt, letter to James W. RueMe (Toledo, OH), Feb. 8, 1928. Olt, Dean of Anderson College, wrote to both Caudill and Reuhie in defense of Byrum. For Byrum's views on church, reformation, and future punishment, see Russell Byrum, Christian Theology..., 507555 and 657660.

76 Byrum/Smith interview, p.18; J. W V. Smith, The Quest for Holiness and Unity, 250.

77 Byrum/Smith interview, p.18 (cf. n66 supra).

78 J. W. V. Smith, The Quest for Holiness and Unity, p.250.

79 ibid., 253.

80 Byrum- Smith interview, pp.1920 (cf. n66 supra).

81 Otto F. Linn, 'Apocalyptic Enemies of Christ," unpublished M.A. thesis, Phillips University, 1930.

82 ibid., 112.

83 Otto F Linn, Studies in the New Testament: 1. The Gospels and Acts (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, 1941).

84 Otto F. Linn, Studies in the New Testament: 2. Romans to Philemon (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, 1942).

85 Otto F. Liun, Studies in the New Testament: 3. Hebrews to Revelation (Anderson, IN: Commercial Service Company, 1942).

86 J. W V. Smith, The Quest for Holiness and Unity, 313. Mso see Harold Phillips, Miracle of Survival (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, 1979), 249, who says of the decision not to publish Linn's volume Hebrews to Revelation: "His interpretations, particularly of the Book of Revelation, differed from traditional Church of God publications, especially those authored by F. G. Smith. Because of irreconcilable differences in the Publication Committee... the third of the Linn volumes came out privately under the imprint of Commercial Service Company, a subsidiary of Gospel Trumpet Company." Among members of the Publications Committee, Phillips, along with A. F. Gray and Earl Martin, favored publishing Linn's book under the auspices of Warner Press.

87 Letters from R. L. Berry in Missouri to Linn in Dundalk, Maryland, Feb.20, and April 29, 1942, are typical. Berry encouraged Linn to "put into your book just what you wish to say and do not pussy foot." Berry went on to express his feeling in the matter: "The fact that a particular interpretation of Revelation has been permitted to become a sort of cornerstone under the reformation work has weakened it tremendously."

88 Linn, Studies in the New Testament: 3. Hebrews to Revelation, p.v.

89 ibid, 108110.

90 ibid., 110.

91 ibid., 123125.

92 lbid., 135.

93 ibid., 131.

94 Adam W Miller, An Introduction to the New Testament (Anderson, IN: Warner, Press, 1943).

95 Adam W Miller, letter to John E. Stanley, January 26, 1979.

96 Adam W Miller, An Introduction to the New Testament, p.235.

97 Still to be assessed is the role of C. W. Naylor in the debate over the book of Revelation in the Church of God. Like Russell Byrum and Otto Linn, Naylor was a child of the Church of God Reformation Movement. From 1896, he lived at the Gospel Trumpet Home. The Hymnal of the Church of God (1971) contains twenty-four hymns and songs by Naylor. John W V. Smith, as reported by Barry Callen in a telephone conversation interview with John E. Stanley, January 18, 1990, believed that Naylor was author of a paper, written in the 1940's, but undated, entitled, "The Teachings of D. S. Warner and His Associates," which rejects Warner's "comeouter" approach to Christian unity and the church-historical interpretation of Revelation. The Committee on Distribution for the paper noted in the Preface: "About thirty representative ministers have read this paper and it has been judged to be of sufficient importance to warrant a wider study."

98 Harold Phillips, telephone interview with John E. Stanley July 19, 1898.

99 Byrum/Smith interview, 13 (cf. n66 supra).

100 Phillips/Stanley interview (cf. n98 supra).

101 Lillie McCutcheon, The Symbols Speak (Newton Falls, OH: Lillie McCutcheon, 1964).

102 Quotation is attributed from conversation between Ms. McCutcheon, Gilbert Stafford, and Samuel Hines at planning session for Central States Mimsters Meeting, early 1980's, in which the topic was the interpretation of Revelation. The remark is consistent with Ms. McCutcheon's actions.

103 E.g., Oral Withrow, "A New Look at Last Things," Vital Christianity 102 (October 10, 1982), 912; and Lillie McCutcheon, "The Revelation of Prophecy," Vital Christianity 102 (October 10, 1982), 68.

104 Marie Strong, Basic Teachings from Patmos (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, 1980).

105 Kenneth Jones, "Babylon and the New Jerusalem: Interpreting the Book of Revelation," Listening to the Word: A Tribute to Boyce W Blackwelder, ed. by Barry Callen (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, forthcoming).

106 Gene Miller, "Studies in Revelation," in Vital Christianity 105 (Dec. 12, 1985), 1519; 106 (Jan.12, 1986), 1519; 106 (Jan.26, 1986), 1519; 106 (Feb.16, 1986), 1518; 106 (Mar. 9, 1986), 1518; 106 (Mar.30, 1986), 1517; 106 (April 13, 1986), 1519.

107 John E. Stanley, "Revelation," Asbury Bible Commentary (Grand Repids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, forthcoming).

108 Doris Dale to Members of the Board of Women of the Church of God, May 29, 1985.

109 ibid.

Edited by Michael Mattei for the
Wesley Center for Applied Theology
at Northwest Nazarene University
© Copyright 2000 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology

Text may be freely used for personal or scholarly purposes, provided the notice below the horizontal line is left intact. Any use of this material for commercial purposes of any kind is strictly forbidden without the express permission of the Wesley Center at Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, ID 83686. Contact the webmaster for permission or to report errors.