Contemporary commandment -keeping, sectarian Christianity: Description, analysis, criticism

Commandment-keeping Christianity, the religion of Christian Commandment Keepers, is a sectarian movement currently most numerous in America but also existing in many other countries. This movement teaches observance of Old Testament dietary laws, holy days including Sabbath-keeping, and maintains a sectarian approach to society. In the late twentieth century it has been most effectively represented by the Worldwide Church of God. That church has recently rejected Commandment-keeping Christianity, but many splinter groups are preserving the earlier teachings.;Chapter One provides a general background to the topic. The second Chapter contrasts the views of three major Christian theologians with those of the Commandment Keepers regarding the relationship of Christians to Old Testament commandments. These theologians are Thomas Aquinas, representing mainstream Roman Catholicism, and Martin Luther and John Calvin, representing mainstream Protestantism. All three are viewed by Commandment Keepers as deficient in their representation of the authentic Christian Church of apostolic times, because of their rejection of certain Old Testament commandments as binding for Christians.;Chapter Three shows that some Radical Reformation communities in their effort to reflect more accurately the beliefs and practices of the primitive Church, reintroduced practices originally found in biblical Judaism. More recently, this approach has been promulgated by the Radio Church of God, later known as the Worldwide Church of God, whose roots go back to nineteenth century Adventism.;Chapter Four presents the overall theological framework for the Commandment-keeping Christian position. In addition to commandment keeping, fellowships with a Worldwide Church of God heritage usually share certain heterodox beliefs such as annihilationism and a benign form of Anglo-Israelism.;Chapters Five, Six and Seven respectively analyze three assumptions used by Commandment Keepers as hermeneutical principles to determine which Old Testament laws are obligatory for contemporary Christians. Briefly, the principles are: (1) a positive view of Old Testament law; (2) the centrality of Jesus Christ in God's plan of salvation and (3) a Christ against culture perspective on the role of the Church in society. The epilogue comments on recent trends in Commandment-keeping Christianity.