Before there was ever The House of God (THOG) in Parker, Colo., there was the Spiritual Rights Movement (SRM) in downtown Atlanta.
The SRM was started by Bob and Edna Stewart. According to a House of God document from 2005, the movement is about finding true spiritual freedom.
Allan McConnell, president of Radar13 Ministries in Birmingham, describes it another way on his Web site, www.wewillfindthetruth.com. “[It is] The House of God’s bizarre effort to recreate the United States civil rights movement of the 1960s from a spiritual perspective.”
When Mark Duke, who would go on to found THOG, met the Stewarts, it marked the beginning of a 13-year mentoring relationship between him and Bob Stewart.
In 2000, Duke and his wife, Becky, moved to Parker and started THOG, which has since changed its name to Parker Community Church.
According to its Declaration of a New Covenant, the purpose of THOG is “to re-establish our relationship with God and to rebuild His New Testament church.”
The initial meeting of THOG was a prayer group of six people on the first Sunday following Sept. 11, 2001.
Church membership grew to more than 100 by 2005 but was reduced by at least half when Duke, who served as pastor, and more than 50 members moved Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit organization begun by THOG in 2005, to Selma in 2007. (TAB)
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