The Church of God (Seventh Day) (no hyphen) represents a line of Sabbath-keeping Christians that rejected the visions and teachings of Ellen G. White before the formation of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In 1858, five years before the founding of the SDA Church, a group led by Gilbert Cranmer (1814–1903) of Michigan separated from the Adventists who supported White. Another independent Sabbatarian Adventist body formed in Iowa in 1860, and joined with the Church of God (Seventh Day) in 1863.
A publication called The Hope of Israel (now The Bible Advocate) was started in 1863, and this publication extended the influence of the body into other areas. Through this publication, the doctrines of the second advent and seventh-day Sabbath were promoted, and other Christians were invited to gather for meetings. This extended the movement into Missouri, Nebraska and other places, and in 1884 the General Conference of the Church of God was organized. They incorporated in 1899, and "(Seventh Day)" was added to the name in 1923. Offices were established in Stanberry, Missouri.
A well-publicized member of the Church of God (Seventh Day) was evangelist Herbert W. Armstrong (1893–1986). In 1927 Armstrong was challenged by his wife, Loma, to find a Biblical justification for keeping Sunday as the Christian Sabbath day. Loma had come under the influence of Mrs. Runcorn, a member of the Seventh Day church in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Emma Runcorn and her husband Ora were lay leaders in the Oregon conference. Armstrong soon became a minister for that church and a writer for the Bible Advocate journal. Within a few years Armstrong began teaching the British-Israel Theory - the alternative history that regarded the nations of Western Europe and North America as the literal descendants of the "Lost Ten Tribes" of Israel - and the mandatory keeping of the Feast Days in Leviticus 23. Armstrong was ultimately disfellowshipped over these two issues, which were not original doctrines of the Church of God.
The undivided conference named "Church of God (Seventh Day)" remained until 1933.
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