History
The OBSC's origins are found in two smaller Pentecostal groups which can be traced to the Azusa Street Revival: the Bible Standard Conference founded in Eugene, Oregon in 1919 and the Open Bible Evangelistic Association founded in Des Moines, Iowa in 1932; as both were similar in doctrine and structure, the two groups amalgamated in 1935.
The Bible Standard Conference was formed in 1919 after Fred Hornshuh and several other ministers withdrew from the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) led by Florence L. Crawford. Hornshuh disagreed with the AFM's isolationist stance from other full gospel groups, centralized and authoritarian leadership style, and its strict position on divorce and remarriage. The Open Bible Evangelistic Association began in 1932 when thirty-two ministers led by John R. Richey left the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. The separation grew out of the reluctance of these ministers to give ownership of local church property to the Foursquare Church denominational leadership. They were also concerned over the church's divorced leader Aimee Semple McPherson's remarriage.
The two Pentecostal groups were similar in their resistance to authoritarian leadership and denominational ownership of church property, and they also thought that local churches should maintain some autonomy. Both Hornshuh and Richey were also influenced by John Alexander Dowie.
Since 1996, the association's public name has been simply Open Bible Churches.
Read more about this topic: Open Bible Standard Churches
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)