John Alexander Dowie

John Alexander Dowie ( born May 25, 1847 in Edinburgh, † March 9, 1907 in Zion ( Illinois) ) was a Scottish Congregationalist in the United States.

Journey

Dowie was born in Edinburgh in 1860 and emigrated to Australia. There he was in 1875 in Newton, a suburb of Sydney, preacher of the Congregational Church. A formative experience was a severe epidemic and Dowie had to hold over forty times an abdication once within a few weeks. During this time Dowie developed a strong tendency prayer, leading to many surprising healing. Dowie was among other things an eyesore when parishes made ​​people become tools of their own denominations. This he criticized clearly and rugged, which earned him some animosity.

Then returned to Edinburgh to study theology. He was an evangelist and faith healer. In 1888 he emigrated to the United States and founded in 1896 The Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Chicago, initially with 22 apostles.

In 1902 he claimed to be the restored on Elijah, and found in 1903 at a show in New York a lot of attention. He suffered a severe stroke there. He died in 1907, leaving wife and children.

The faith healer

Dowie believed in faith healing and many of his followers wore crutches, braces and other medical supplies with them, which they supposedly no longer needed, because they had been miraculously cured. While Dowie work of the current Pentecostal revival predates many of his followers had significant influence on the Pentecostal movement in the early 20th century.

Travel and mission success

Dowie tried on several trips for his teachings to advertise and to find recognition as Elijah. In the years 1900 and 1904 he held evangelistic events in Switzerland. Thus was formed following the first Dowies Switzerland stay in a "Christian- Catholic Zion Church " in Zurich, to which transgressed the preacher of the Baptist church in Zurich, together with a part of his followers. In this Dowie community in Zurich in 1907, came the message of the Pentecostal movement from Los Angeles.

Gerrit Roelof Polman (1868-1932) was the founder and director of the Dutch Pentecostal movement and joined in 1890 the Salvation Army. Together with Arthur S. Booth-Clibborn, head of the Salvation Army in Holland, Polman left in January 1902, the Salvation Army to cooperate with Dowie. He went with his wife to America to study at the " Ministerial Training School " Dowie in Zion City. They returned in January 1906 returned to Amsterdam in order to build a similar community in Holland. Polman began a community with about 25 visitors.

Zion City

In anticipation of the end times, he founded in 1901 in Illinois, at Michigan near Chicago, a separate city, " City of Zion " in which his followers should live sinless in anticipation of the return of Jesus Christ. With the name he played on the "New Jerusalem " in the Bible. In cooperatives trade was settled. The Tabernacle, the central church of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church, was completed in 1902 and has a capacity of 8,000 faithful. For the many visitors to a large hotel was built, the " Zion Hotel ". Dowie lived in a house which is known as " Shiloh House ". The Zion project went bankrupt in 1905. By 1935, the city remained under theocratic government. Today the city has about 20,000 inhabitants.

Christian Catholic Apostolic Church

The community, founded in 1896 is to have 3,000 members in the U.S. and Canada today.

Dowie on the goal of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church:

"Let me put it simply and plainly. The purpose of the Christian Catholic Church in Zion is to smash every other church in existence. ( Let me put it simply. , The concerns of the Christian Catholic Church in Zion is the destruction of all other existing churches. ) "

Ahmadiyya

The Life of John Alexander Dowie has a special meaning for the Ahmadiyya, as it came to a sort of divine judgment from the perspective of the movement. This debate has been documented by a number of newspapers in the United States.

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