Doctrinal Synopsis

Our doctrine is predicated on the belief, validated throughout Scripture, that God reveals Himself through His prophets. In the spirit of Amos 3:7, we believe that prophetic revelation did not terminate in ancient Israel. For in 1892, in Guthrie, Oklahoma, the Almighty revealed Himself to William Saunders Crowdy in a vision, spoke to him in a dream, and ordained him a Prophet unto the nations. Among Prophet Crowdy’s followers, this revelatory encounter led to the re-establishment of the faith of the biblical Israelites and a renewed adherence to the biblical tenets of the “Ancient Judaic Religion” as recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus, we say of Prophet William Saunders Crowdy: he brought back, as it were, the “Ancient of Days” of biblical antiquity. We refer to our Judaic religious faith as “Prophetic Judaism” since it came down to us by divine revelation and because of its continuing reliance upon the medium of prophecy (the Spirit of Prophecy) as the vehicle for God’s revelation.

Prophet Crowdy preached a “Plan of Salvation,” based upon the “Seven Keys” of his original revelation, his elaboration of the Seven Keys in “The Bible Story Revealed,” and his subsequent prophetic pronouncements. The final key of the Seven is the Ten Commandments that were revealed to the prophet Moses on Mount Sinai. (“If you keep these Commandments heaven is yours as true as the Rock of Ages.”) This plan is a way of life, grounded in the faith of our Hebrew and Israelite forefathers and in the promulgation of that faith in the teaching of the prophet Jesus. It is designed to relegate all aspects of one’s life to purity in the pursuit of the Will of God. It encompasses the observance of the biblical Judaic holy days: the Hebrew New Year, the Seventh Day Sabbath, the Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and others that are mandated by Scripture. Its intent is to bring the people of God together into one family, a community of faith, loving, praising, and obeying the God of Abraham, while simultaneously loving and caring for one’s neighbor. In 1896 our Congregation was incorporated under the name “Church of God and Saints of Christ,” the inscription on the first of the Seven Keys.

The chief doctrinal tenets of our faith are briefly summarized as follows:

1. The LORD our God, the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob is One. (Deuteronomy 6:4) Beside Him there is no other. He, alone, is to be worshiped and glorified, and to Him only do we pray.
2. God continues to raise up prophets. The revelatory tradition embodied in the Scriptures is still alive. William Saunders Crowdy, our re-establisher, was a prophet of the Almighty God.
3. The Commandments of God – in particular, the Ten Commandments – are immutable and are to be obeyed.
4. The Commandments of God are summarized as follows:
   1. Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. (Deuteronomy 6:5)
   2. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (Leviticus 19:18)

“On these two Commandments hang all of the Law and the Prophets.”