John Alexander Dowie | |
|---|---|
 John Alexander Dowie in his robes as Elijah the Restorer | |
| Born | 25 May 1847 |
| Died | 7 March 1907 (aged 59) |
John Alexander Dowie (25 May 1847 – 9 March 1907) was a Scottish-Australian minister known as an evangelist and faith healer. He began his career as a minister of religion in South Australia. After becoming an evangelist and faith healer, he emigrated with his family to the United States in 1888, first settling in San Francisco, where he developed his faith healing practise into a mail order business. He moved to Chicago in time to take advantage of the crowds attracted to the 1893 World's Fair. After attracting a huge faith healing business in Chicago, with multiple homes and businesses, including a publishing house, to keep his thousands of followers, he bought an extensive parcel of land north of the city to set up a private community.
There Dowie founded the city of Zion, Illinois, where he personally owned all the land and established many businesses.[1] The operations of the city have been characterized as "a carefully-devised large-scale platform for securities fraud..."[2] His lieutenant initiated an investigation of business practices and deposed him from leadership in 1905. Dowie was given an allowance until his death.
In this period Dowie refined his religious organization, naming it in 1903 as the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church.[1]
- ^ a b Percival Serle (1949). "Dowie, John Alexander". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Angus & Robertson. Retrieved 3 September 2007.
- ^ B. Morton, "The Big Con: John Alexander Dowie and the Spread of Zionist Christianity in South Africa."