Adventist - American Family Tree [Return to List of Trees]
Adventist churches originate from founder William Miller in the late 19th century, who taught that Christ soon would return to earth and that Saturday rather than Sunday should be observed as the Sabbath. The Adventist family includes the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which was founded by Ellen Gould White and James Springer White, as well as offshoots such as the Advent Christian Church.
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| Religious Group | Founded | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Advent Christian Church | 1860 | The Advent Christian Church, originally named the Advent Christian Association, was organized in 1860 and grew out of the Adventist movement initiated by William Miller in the 1840s. The Church adheres to Sunday (rather than Saturday) worship. Another prominent Adventist group, the Life and Advent Union, merged into it in 1964. |
| Primitive Advent Christian Church | The Primitive Advent Christian Church developed out of a controversy centering on the preaching of a Reverend Whitman, a minister of the Advent Christian Church in West Virginia. Whitman opposed both footwashing and re-baptizing reclaimed backsliders. Proponents of these two practices organized the Primitive Advent Christian Church. | |
| Advent Christian Association | 1860 | Among the first of the Adventist groups to form after the Great Disappointment of 1844 was the Advent Christian Association, which eventually changed its name to the Advent Christian Church. |
| Millerite Movement | Early 1800s | William Miller (1782-1849), a Baptist layman, initiated the millenial movement known as adventism in New York after the war of 1812. After studying the Bible, he was convinced that the end of times was near and that he was supposed to tell the world about it. His first public efforts to do so took place in 1831 in Dresden, New York, where a revival followed his speech. He became an itinerant preacher for the next decade, and his teachings were widely circulated in both a pamphlet and book he authored. These efforts energized the movement, and Miller's followers grew. After careful study of the book of Daniel and Revelation, Miller predicted that Christ would return in 1843, which he derived from several calculations. More specifically, he predicted Christ's return between March 21st, 1843, and March 21st, 1844. When the prediction failed, however, opposition to Miller's movement increased, and he acknowledged his error. Adjustments to Miller's predictions by Samuel S. Snow produced a new prediction of Christ's return on October 22, 1844, but again, Christ did not return. The failure of this second prediction became known as The Great Disappointment. Despite these failed predictions, though, Miller still believed in the imminent return of Jesus, and many of his followers would soon form denominational bodies. Almost all American Adventist bodies can be traced back to Miller. |
| Seventh-day Adventist Church | 1844 | The Seventh-day Adventist Church grew out of the work of William Miller, who predicted the Second Coming of Christ in 1843/44. After the failure of the prophecy, many attracted to his message reorganized. Some who continued as Adventists and also accepted sabbath worship found new leadership in the persons of Ellen G. White and James White. The church was formally organized in 1965. |
| Evangelical Adventists | 1845 | What is now known as the Adventist movement traces its beginning to the 1830s and the preaching of the imminent return of Christ by Baptist preacher William Miller. Miller predicted Christ's return in 1843, later revised to 1844. When Christ failed to return, believers gathered at a conference in Albany, New York, to consider their future. The amorphous movement took the name Evangelical Adventists and over the next decade several distinct groups began to coalesce and then assume formal organized form, though a variety of otherwise independent evangelists, writers, and periodical publishers continued to exist through the end of the century. Adventists were initially divided by the acceptance of many of sabbatarianism (the belief that Saturday, not Sunday, was the proper day for Christians to gather and worship). Sabbatarians then split over the acceptance of the prophecies of Ellen G. White, whose followers founded the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Among the Adventists who continued to gather for worship on Sunday, a series of new dates were proposed for the second coming, each date provoking the organization of those who accepted it. |
| Life and Advent Union | 1863 | The Life and Advent Union formed in 1863 and, after a century as a separate body, merged into the Advent Church in 1964. |
| International Bible Students Association | 1880s | Charles Taze Russell, a Presbyterian influenced by several independent Adventists, founded a periodical advocating his solution to the main questions concerning Christ's return in 1879, which led to his formation of the International Bible Students Association in the 1880s. That association was transformed into the Jehovah's Witnesses organization in 1931 and now exists as the largest group to originate out of the original Millerite excitement. |
| General Conference of the Church of God (Seventh Day) | 1884 | The General Conference of the Church of God (Seventh Day) is a sabbatarian church representative of those Adventists of the mid-nineteenth century who rejected the visions and messages of Ellen G. White (founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church). More specifically, the church traces its roots to believers in Michigan and Iowa in the late 1850s. Some of these Adventists associated together around a periodical, called The Hope of Israel (later known as the Bible Advocate), which was published by the church in Michigan in 1863. The group grew during the nineteenth century, was formally organized in 1884, and was incorporated in Missouri in 1899. |
| Church of the Gospel | 1912 | The Church of the Gospel was formed in 1911 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts by the Rev. and Mrs. C. T. Spike and members of the Advent Christian Church. In 1912, the group incorporated as the Church of God but adopted its present name in 1930 to avoid confusion with other groups. In 1971, there was only a single congregation in Virginia and remnants in the New England area. |
| Pastoral Bible Institute | 1918 | Following the death of Charles Taze Russell in 1916, the International Bible Students Association (now the Jehovah's Witnesses) went through a period of struggle in the attempt to name a successor. After J. H. Rutherford was confirmed, those who opposed his selection withdrew and in 1918 founded the Pastoral Bible Institute. |
| Assembly of Yahweh | 1920s | In the 1920s, some Adventists became convinced that calling the Creator and Savior by their revealed Hebrew names (Elohim, Yahweh, and Yeshohua, rather than God, Lord, and Jesus) was important. Thus was the Sacred Name movement launched. The Assembly of Yahweh in Eaton Rapids, Michigan, an independent congregation in the Church of God (Seventh-day) tradition was the first outpost of the movement and began to issue its first periodical, The Truth. It remains an important center of the movement. |
| Dawn Bible Students Association | 1920s | In the late 1920s, a group of members of the Pastoral Bible Institute withdrew and launched an expansive radio ministry, which led to the formation of a new national organization proclaiming Christ's second coming, the Dawn Bible Students Association. |
| Church of God General Conference (Abrahamic Faith, McDonough, GA) | 1921 | The Church of God General Conference (Abrahamic Faith) is the outgrowth of several independent local groups of similar faith, some in existence as early as 1800; others date their beginnings from the arrival of British immigrants to this country around 1847. These diverse groups shared in general Adventist theology. A national organization was instituted in 1888 and 1889; however, because of strong convictions relating to congregational rights and authority, the national body ceased to function until 1921, when the present general conference was formed at Waterloo, Iowa. In 1991, the group's headquarters and Bible college were moved to Morrow, Georgia, where they remained until 2009. At that point, their headquarters were moved again, this time to McDonough, Georgia. |
| Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement | 1925 | When organized on the heels of the American Civil War, the Seventh-day Adventists had a strong commitment to pacifism. Several generations later, that commitment began to slip and members were allowed to participate in World War I. This change of policy caused a break in fellowship, primarily in Europe, when a number of members who still adhered to the pacifist position were unable to affect a return to the church's traditional position. In 1925, they founded the Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement. |
| General Association of the Shepherd's Rod Seventh-day Adventists | 1934 | The General Association of the Shepherd's Rod Seventh-day Adventists is one of several small groups to grow out of the work of Victor Houteff, a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church who developed unique views on the imminent end of the worldly order, and called for a return to the pacifist stance of the early Seventh-day Adventist movement. The most famous branch of the Houteff movement was the Branch Davidians, which in 1993 had a violent confrontation with government agents at Waco, Texas, that led to the death of most of its members. The other branches of the Houteff movement were not related to the Branch Davidians at that time. |
| Jehovah's Witnesses | 1931 | The Jehovah's Witnesses emerged out of the Bible Student movement begun by Charles Taze Russell, who founded the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society in the 1880s. The organization took its present name in 1931. |
| Church of God (7th Day, Salem, West Virginia) | 1933 | The Church of God (7th Day, Salem, West Virginia) was founded in 1933 by former members of the General Conference of the Church of God (Seventh Day). The catalyzing issue that prompted the formation of the new church was a disagreement over congregational polity; at the general conference meeting in 1933, there was a motion to reorganize the church from a congregational polity to one that maintained a hierarchy of 12 apostles, 70 prophets, and 7 financial stewards. When the move was defeated, those who supported it reorganized as a new congregation. |
| Worldwide Church of God | 1934 | Among those who participated in the founding of the Church of God (Seventh-day, Salem, WV) with its emphasis on sabbaterianism and the celebration of Jewish festivals rather than Christian holidays, was Herbert W. Armstrong. In 1934, he founded a radio ministry out of Eugene, Oregon, which he named the Radio Church of God. That ministry grew into the most successful branch of the sabbatarian Church of God, and was eventually renamed the Worldwide Church of God. Over the years, Armstrong proposed a number of innovative doctrines, all of which were rejected in the 1990s by his successors. By the end of the 1990s, the Worldwide Church of God had left its Adventist roots and aligned to the contemporary theologically orthodox Evangelical movement. In 2009, the group would formally accept a new identity and name, becoming Grace Communion International. |
| General Association of Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists | 1942 | The General Association of Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists was formed originally as the General Association of the Shepherd's Rod Seventh-day Adventists in 1934. This was under the leadership and ministry of Victor T. Houteff. In 1942, when needing to register the organization with the state during World War II, Houteff changed the name to the General Association of Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists. |
| Assemblies of Yahweh (Bethel, PA) | 1960s | In the 1960s, Jacob O. Meyer, a member of the Church of the Brethren, was influenced by the Sacred Name movement and began an independent broadcast ministry, the seed of what became possibly the largest of the Sacred Name denomination, which became known as the Assemblies of Yahweh, based in Bethel, Pennsylvania. |
| Philadelphia Church of God | 1990 | In the 1990s, the Worldwide Church of God rejected a set of distinctive doctrines and practices that had been advocated by its founder Herbert W. Armstrong. As a result, a large percentage of its ministers and members left the church and formed a number of splinter groups (as many as 150 have been counted), though most are very small house churches with but a single, small center of activity. The great majority of members adhered to one of the three relatively large groups - the Living Church of God, the United Church of God, and the Philadelphia Church of God - which vary among themselves on the number of former distinctives they have maintained. |
| United Church of God | 1995 | In the 1990s, the Worldwide Church of God rejected a set of distinctive doctrines and practices that had been advocated by its founder Herbert W. Armstrong. As a result, a large percentage of its ministers and members left the church and formed a number of splinter groups (as many as 150 have been counted), though most are very small house churches with but a single small center of activity. The great majority of members adhered to one of the three relatively large groups - the Living Church of God, the United Church of God, and the Philadelphia Church of God - which vary among themselves on the number of former distinctives they have maintained. |
| Living Church of God | 1998 | In the 1990s, the Worldwide Church of God rejected a set of distinctive doctrines and practices that had been advocated by its founder Herbert W. Armstrong. As a result, a large percentage of its ministers and members left the church and formed a number of splinter groups (as many as 150 have been counted), though most are very small house churches with but a single small center of activity. The great majority of members adhered to one of the three relatively large groups - the Living Church of God, the United Church of God, and the Philadelphia Church of God - which vary among themselves on the number of former distinctives they have maintained. |
| Grace Communion International | 2009 | Grace Communion International began in 2009 as a reorganization of the Worldwide Church of God, which was originally founded in the early 1930s by Herbert Armstrong. After Armstrong's death in 1986, the organization began to change its doctrines, setting in motion a long process of transformation that would eventually culminate in a name change in 2009 to Grace Communion International. Almost a third of the group's membership was lost during this transition, as many of the members aligned with Armstrong's teachings left to form splinter groups. The organization is now in full agreement with the National Association of Evangelicals. |
