The Unamended group traditionally allows the teaching that only people who have been baptised are responsible, and it is only these who will be raised from the dead at the time of the Judgement when Jesus returns to the earth.
The controversy caused serious disagreement concerning whether the Judgement at the return of Christ would be limited to baptised believers, or would also apply to anyone who had "heard" the Gospel message, but had rejected it – referred to as "enlightened rejectors".
[citation needed] Although the issue had already surfaced in Sydney in 1884,[9] leading to excommunication of members there, and in London in 1887,[10] when the issue surfaced on a much larger scale 1895–1897, the influential Birmingham Ecclesia, took the decision in January 1898 to amend Clause 24 of their Statement of Faith by inserting 18 words in brackets to clarify this.
A minority in Leeds and London did not accept the amendment and a division in the UK followed led by Albert Hall and John Owler, and finding support from Thomas Williams (Christadelphian) of Chicago.
The division spread to North America and was cemented in 1909 in Williams printed in Chicago a "Unamended Statement of Faith."
Further reunions (unrelated to the Amended/Unamended split in North America) occurred in Britain and Australia in 1957, bringing almost all Christadelphians together into one grouping for the first time since 1885.