The Church of Israel was first organized in 1972. Dan Gayman had deposed the leaders of the Church of Christ at Zion's Retreat and was then elected leader of that church. Most of the members of the church followed Gayman. However, the deposed leaders of the Zion's Retreat church sued Gayman, and the courts ordered that the church property and name be returned to the deposed leaders, and that the members of Gayman's congregation be barred from the premises. Gayman informally organized his congregation under the name "the Church of Our Christian Heritage". In 1977, Gayman and 10 other individuals were arrested for trespassing when they led a group back to the Church of Christ at Zion's Retreat in an attempted forcible takeover. In 1981, Gayman incorporated his church under the name Church of Israel. Little of the Latter Day Saint movement background of the church remains in its current teachings and practices, although the influence and beliefs of the Fettingite seem to be apparent in the rural and isolationist settings for the church's headquarters and are practiced by many of its adherents. An investigative newspaper report about the Church of Israel was published in the Joplin Globe in January 2001. The report was mostly negative and suggested that the church had ties to the Christian Identity movement. The Anti-Defamation League includes the Church of Israel in its list of "extremist groups." The ADL report states that members of the church are said to have been involved at times with controversial figures such as Bo Gritz, Eric Rudolph, and Thomas Robb, a national leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
2003 Rudolph connection
In 2003, it was revealed that the Olympic Park bomber and one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, Eric Rudolph, and his mother had attended the Church of Israel in 1984 for three or four months, when Eric was 18. Gayman assumed a fatherly relationship with Rudolph and planned to groom Eric as a potential son-in-law by encouraging Eric to date his daughter.
2003 lawsuit
After a falling-out between Gayman and two other leaders of the church in 2003, Gayman filed a lawsuit in an attempt to revoke a severance agreement that included the deed to a house and property that had been given to a former minister, Scott Stinson. Ultimately the judge sided with Stinson.
Publications
The church issues a quarterly newsletter called The Watchman.
Gayman is famous for propagating the theology known as "two-seedline", or "serpent seed" doctrine. This doctrine holds that white people are descendants of Adam and are hence the chosen people of God. The Jewish people are said to be descendants of Cain and thus of Satan. This belief was developed by Wesley A. Swift, Conrad Gaard, Dan Gayman, and William Potter Gale, among others.
