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Key tenets include trust in God to heal the sick, aversion to war

Indianapolis Star, USA
June 8, 2005
Robert King
www.indystar.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Friday June 10, 2005

The General Assembly and Church of the First Born is a sect with more than 300 years of history in the United States.

Although congregations primarily are found west of the Mississippi River, there were 13 in Indiana with a combined 595 families, according to a 1997 church directory obtained by the Iowa-based nonprofit advocacy group Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, or CHILD.

The church takes its name from a phrase in Chapter 12 of the New Testament book of Hebrews: “the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven.”

The church in Morgantown, where members have witnessed four child deaths since 1998, holds services Thursdays and Sundays; average Sunday attendance is about 150.

Among the church’s articles of faith is an aversion to taking up arms in war. Elder Thomas Nation said members have been conscientious objectors in previous wars, with some serving as medics.

Members greet one another with a “holy kiss” on the lips and call one another “sister” and “brethren.” The church believes in speaking in tongues, baptism by immersion and the gift of prophecy. It has no paid clergy.

A core tenet is that members should live by faith in God alone, and that to do otherwise is sinful. Those who fail to follow that are not excommunicated, but it is believed they will answer to God for their sin.

Regarding medical care, the church cites Chapter 5 of the New Testament book of James in its reasoning for summoning elders to pray for the sick. But, Nation notes, members as well as elders may pray for the sick.

Nation said people put so much faith in doctors that they have become “gods of the world.” And while church members are law-abiding citizens, he said, that ends when the law requires them to do something in conflict with “the law of God.”

“They want us to bow to their gods, which is their doctors,” Nation said. “If we don’t do it, then they are ready to prosecute us. And that’s really what it amounts to.”