It should come as no surprise that the ministry of Tkach's WCG is currently having a sweaty, torrid affair with Karl Barth and the Torrance brothers. WCG's roots reach back beyond the Church of God (Seventh Day) and the Seventh Day Baptists. Not to some imaginary unbroken lineage of sabbatarian True Believers anchored in the first century, but to the pestiferous Puritans. Herman Hoeh and Dugger & Dodd had it grievously wrong. Forget Peter Waldo, the WCG's great granddaddy was a highly confused Calvinist in the Church of England.If that sounds a bit far fetched consider this, almost all Anglo-Protestant denominations and sects have been victims of the Puritan meme: Baptists, Brethren, Adventists, Mormons, Methodists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Episcopalians. You have to retreat to Catholic, Orthodox or Lutheran theology to escape the worst of its overpowering influence.
Which is why WCG once had such drawing power. Strict sabbatarianism, for example, only makes sense in the context of deformed Reformed theology.
The Puritans also raised speculation on The End Times to an art form and railed against Christmas. Sound familiar? The godly non-conformists would have loved the Bible Hymnal, preferring to sing only the psalms. (In fact Dwight Armstrong raided the Calvinist cupboard in putting his hymns together.)
Of course, in subsequent centuries the Puritan imperative has gone forth to multiply and mutate, partly thanks to those tenacious Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock. Surface details may differ dramatically among their descendants, but the same Calvinist DNA underlies the astonishing variety.
Even Arminius sprang forth from the Calvinist matrix.
WCG has abandoned only its fictional roots. It's an idea worth exploring, and to set the ball in motion here's a link to From Sunday to Sabbath: The Puritan Origins of Modern Seventh-day Sabbatarianism by Ralph Orr, available at wcg.org.
