The Assemblies of Yahweh

Also on my Sunday drive, I passed radio station WMLK in Pethel, Pa., which caught my eye because I wondered whether the call letters stood for Martin Luther King. But no; the billboard said this was the broadcasting arm of the Assemblies of Yahweh, which I looked up when I got home.

Based in Bethel, Pa., this is the largest church in the Sacred Name Movement, a Depression-era outgrowth of the Adventist movement that asserts the authority of the Old Testament, the observance of Jewish festivals and -- you guessed it -- the correct name of the divine. At the Assemblies of Yahweh website, the Statement of Doctrine reads, in part:

We affirm that it is necessary and most important to our salvation that we accept the revealed, personal Name of our Heavenly Father YAHWEH and the Name of His Son, our Savior YAHSHUA the MESSIAH. We affirm also that the most accurate transliteration of these Names from the Hebrew into the English is by the spellings employed above, Exodus 3:14-15; Psalm 68:4; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 42:8; Isaiah 52:6; Acts 4:12.

The Assemblies of Yahweh was founded in 1969 by Jacob O. Meyer, who was fed up with the other Sacred Name churches; since then, other Sacred Name churches have been created by folks fed up with the Assemblies of Yahweh. Such is the story of Protestantism.