The General Assembly and Church of the First Born — commonly called the Church of the First Born or Followers of Christ — is a fundamentalist Christian sect defined by its commitment to divine faith healing and rejection of conventional medical care. It traces its roots to the 19th-century American frontier, developing from a network of traveling preachers, many of whom had earlier been affiliated with the early Latter-Day Saint movement before splitting off over doctrinal disputes.
The church has gone by several secondary names, including Faith Preachers, Peculiar People, McDonaldites, Burtonites, and Kissers, though adherents have preferred “Followers of Christ.” Its foundational history centers on 19th-century ministers whose baptismal lineages became the basis for authority, including Jacob McDonald, David T. McDonald, John N. Burton and Elias Brewer. Burton, an LDS traveling minister expelled for apostasy in the late 1840s, established an independent ministry and baptized Elias Brewer in 1869, followed by David T. McDonald.
By the 1870s the movement was established in Nebraska and Kansas, associated with reports of miraculous healings and informal house churches, and it expanded further after an 1876 revival near Arkansas City, Kansas. It later spread into Indian Territory and Oklahoma, which became a long-term center of the faith, and eventually into the Pacific Northwest, forming related communities in Idaho, Oregon and California. These regional branches, while sometimes operating independently, stayed connected through shared theology, common heritage and extensive intermarriage — a pattern that has fed later concerns about insularity.
The church has no centralized headquarters, formal hierarchy, ministerial training or official membership rolls; local assemblies are guided by elders and deacons. Worship is unprogrammed, driven by spontaneous prayer, testimony, preaching and speaking in tongues, without instruments or Sunday school. Members have traditionally emphasized close-knit communal life, modest dress and rigid gender roles, with men holding structural authority and women expected to focus on domestic life.
During World War I, church leaders sought conscientious objector status, submitting a statement of faith to President Woodrow Wilson in 1918 grounding their opposition to military service in biblical prohibitions on killing — a document that borrowed heavily from Joseph Smith’s LDS articles of faith. By World War II, “General Assembly and Church of the First Born” had become the standard name recognized by federal authorities.
The church’s central and most controversial doctrine is faith healing in place of medical treatment. Members believe illness should be addressed through prayer and anointing with oil by elders; conventional medicine — drugs, surgery, hospital care — is seen as a failure of faith, though minor aids like eyeglasses are sometimes tolerated. This rejection of treatment has been linked to preventable deaths, especially among children, and has driven allegations that the group operates with cultlike, high-control dynamics: limited contact with outside society, discouragement of higher education and outside careers for women, discouragement of discussing church matters with outsiders, and a culture in which the church is presented as the sole source of spiritual truth — fostering dependence and social sanctions against dissent.
Child deaths from treatable conditions such as appendicitis, diabetes, infections and childbirth complications have led to prosecutions in several states, notably Colorado and Oregon, where parents have been convicted of child abuse, negligent homicide or manslaughter. These cases spurred the repeal of “faith healing exceptions” in some states’ laws, and courts have generally ruled that religious belief does not override the state’s duty to protect minors. In some instances, authorities placed surviving children under independent guardianship. Judges and law enforcement have often noted the tragic complexity of these cases, describing parents as devoted but bound by deeply held belief rather than deliberate cruelty.
Accounts from former members have added detail on the church’s internal culture: early marriages, frequent intermarriage among established families, homeschooling meant to limit outside contact, and practices like the “holy kiss.” Ex-members have also suggested that some preventable deaths may go unrecorded due to the group’s insularity and distrust of government. Much public understanding of the church still comes from these former members, whose testimony continues to fuel broader debate over the tension between religious freedom and protecting vulnerable people in high-control religious communities.
Key Sources:
Becker, T. (2014, December 19). Faith-healing parents get 10 years in prison. KOIN-TV.
Hamner, V. (1982). Legacy of Faith, Indiana Church of the Firstborn History.
Lofholm, N. (1999, March 3). Baby dies after medical care withheld. The Denver Post.
Lofholm, N. (2001, March 10). Charges follow faith-healing death. The Denver Post.
Torkelson, J. (2000, July 30). Church holds fast to healing beliefs. The Rocky Mountain News.