CHURCHES OF GOD

an American feligious sect founded in 1830, in Harris burg, Pa., by John Winebrenner, a pastor of the German Reformed Church. The Churches of God as a denomination was the outgrowth of a religious revival which produced declarations that sectional divisions of tians belonged to the Church of God, and that the Scriptures should be accepted as furnishing the sole rule of faith and practice, The sect’s doctrinal position is therefore evangelical. It has no written creed. It is of Baptist principles in adopting immersion as one of its ordinances. It solemnizes two other rites—the washing of feet and the Lord’s Supper. The church holds annual conferences, which are called elderships. Each local church has deacons and elders who constitute the church council with the pastor. The membership, about 30,000, includes many of German origin and descent and has its largest numbers in the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. The sect has about 500 churches. It publishes a weekly organ, the Church Advocate. river, Saskatchewan, Canada; 925 m. long; flows N.E. through series of lakes; enters Hudson Bay. Eng. satirist and clergyman; author of the Rosciad, 1861.