## Summary John Alexander Dowie (1847–1907) was a Scottish-Australian-American evangelist known for his faith-healing ministry. He founded the Christian Catholic Church and, in 1901, established the planned community of Zion, Illinois. His emphasis on divine healing influenced the healing currents that fed into early Pentecostalism. ## Substance Born in Edinburgh, Dowie ministered in Australia before moving to the United States in the late 1880s. He built a following around divine healing, drawing both large crowds and public controversy. In 1896 he organized the Christian Catholic Church in Chicago. In 1901 Dowie founded Zion, Illinois, north of Chicago, as a community run on his religious and civic principles. He led it with tight personal control and made expansive claims about his own role, which drew criticism. Financial trouble and a dispute over leadership led to his removal from control of Zion in 1906, and he died the following year. Historians note that Zion produced or influenced several figures who later joined the Pentecostal movement, giving Dowie an indirect but real place in that lineage. His teaching on healing predates Pentecostalism but shares its emphasis. ## Why it matters in this wiki Dowie sits upstream of the divine-healing tradition this wiki traces through later charismatic movements. His community model and healing claims offer an early example of patterns that recur in movements the wiki examines. ## Related - [[Pentecostalism]]