Click to join the conversation with over 500,000 Pentecostal believers and scholars
Click to get our FREE MOBILE APP and stay connected
| PentecostalTheology.com
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 240
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”: A Proposal about Race Relations in the Church of
God (Cleveland, TN) 1909–1929*
H. Paul Thompson, Jr.
“One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it.”
—Elizabeth Bowden
The saying that the most segregated hour in America is on Sunday morning at eleven o’clock is attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. But racial segregation has prevailed not just in single-race congregations, but in whole denominations that cater to only one race or ethnic group. The Civil Rights Movement compelled many American churches to face the difficult matter of race for the first time, but American Pentecostal churches struggled with racial integration as early as 1906. Growing out of the late- nineteenth-century Holiness movement, and first organized as the Christian Union in August 1886, the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) attempted to combine blacks and whites into one organization during the height of Jim Crow. But truthfully, between 1909 and 1929, the Church of God was neither fully “integrated” nor a “whites only” church.
Rather than undergo a split along race lines comparable to other Pentecostal denominations, in 1922 the Church of God created a parallel structure for its black congregations (initially only those in the South). Why was this unique arrangement made when other Pentecostal groups split into two or more completely separate organizations?1 Although Ian
* Special thanks is due to Dr. David Roebuck, Director, and Louis Morgan, Archivist at the Hal Bernard Dixon, Jr. Pentecostal Research Center, both of whom were extremely help- ful in orienting me to the world of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) and guiding me in my research.1
Cheryl Sanders examined race relationships in denominations from both the Holiness and Pentecostal traditions, in Saints in Exile (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 18- 21. She identified five basic patterns: The first is the black Holiness denomination that remained black and rejected glossolalia (e.g., Church of Christ Holiness, U.S.A.). Second is a black Holiness denomination becoming a Pentecostal one (e.g., United Holy Church of
© 2003 Brill Academic Publishers, Inc., Boston pp. 240–264
1
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 241
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”
MacRobert and Mickey Crews claimed that whites in the Church of God ranged from giving no resistance to separation to being “more than happy” with it,2 and David Edwin Harrell said the story of blacks “followed the same path of segregation”3 as other denominations, the evidence leads to more complicated conclusions. Howard Nelson Kenyon, citing the institu- tion of the church as the “only opportunity for black-led initiative” in the South, attempted an explanation that corresponds with our knowledge of the time and place, but his use of writers from a later time to explain the thinking in the first twenty years of the church oversimplified the reality of what was occurring in the Church of God at that time.4 The circumstances preceding this partial split went beyond the ubiquitous, systemic racism of the times, and it is an oversimplification to treat this split as analogous to the experiences of other Pentecostal denominations at that time. Serious conflicts within the Church of God in the years leading up to 1922 may shed more light on the partial split than purely racial considerations.
Overview of Pentecostal Race Relations Before 1922
The Azusa Street Revival of 1906 preceded, and perhaps spawned, a short-lived period of interracial cooperation at the outset of the Pentecostal Movement in the United States. Whether one believes the origins of the Pentecostal Movement begun at Azusa to be interracial—as do Vinson Synan and Howard Nelson Kenyon5—or African-American—as do
America). Third is an originally interracial Holiness denomination that splits into two different denominations along race lines (e.g., Fire Baptized Holiness Church). The fourth type is an originally interracial Pentecostal denomination splitting into two racially separate denominations (e.g., Pentecostal Assemblies of the World). “A fifth type is an interracial Holiness or Pentecostal denomination with local congregations, caucuses, conventions, and/ or educational institutions serving its black constituents” (e.g., Church of God–Anderson, IN and Church of God–Cleveland, TN). While the Church of God (Anderson) divided like the Church of God (Cleveland), it also never adopted the doctrine of glossolalia.2
Mickey Crews, The Church of God: A Social History (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1990), 165; Ian MacRobert, The Black Roots and White Racism of Early Pentecostalism in the USA (London: Macmillan, 1988), 67.3
David E. Harrell, Jr., White Sects and Black Men in the Recent South (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1971), 42.4
Howard Nelson Kenyon, “An Analysis of Racial Separation within Early Pentecostal Movements” (unpublished M.A. thesis, Baylor University, 1978), 49-50.5
See Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States (Grand
241
2
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 242
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
Leonard Lovett, Ian MacRobert, Ithniel Clemmons, Walter Hollen- weger, and James S. Tinney6—all would have to agree that one of its most salient characteristics was that blacks and whites worshipped and prayed together under the authority of a descendant of slaves, William J. Seymour. Mack E. Jonas, who attended many of the services in 1906, recalled that “everybody went to the altar together. White and colored, no discrimination seemed to be among them.”7 The words of participant Frank Bartleman most poignantly described the racial accomplishment of Azusa Street when he declared that “the color line was washed away in the blood.”8 In the America of 1906, this degree of racial cooperation was exceptional. One of the influences on Seymour was the Methodist preach- er-turned “radical” holiness preacher, Martin Wells Knapp, who preached racial equality. When Seymour began publishing The Apostolic Faith in 1906, he used it to speak explicitly of racial and ethnic equality.9
Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1971), 168; Kenyon, “An Analysis of Racial Separation,” 9. The idea that the Pentecostal Movement began with the Azusa Street Revival most accu- rately refers to the origin of the movement in the United States. Traditionally it has also referred to the entire worldwide Pentecostal Movement. In recent years, however, Paul Pommerville, Gary McGee, and Harold Hunter, among others, have used reports of glosso- lalia experiences in other nations to question the appropriateness of considering Azusa Street the origin of worldwide Pentecostalism.6
See Leonard Lovett, “Black Origins of the Pentecostal Movement,” in Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins, ed. Vinson Synan (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1975), 135; MacRobert, The Black Roots and White Racism of Early Pentecostalism in the USA; James S. Tinney, “The Blackness of Pentecostalism,” Spirit: A Journal of Issues Incident to Black Pentecostalism 3 (1979): 28-30; Augustus Cerillo, Jr., “Interpretive Approaches to the History of American Pentecostal Origins,” Pentecostal Theology 19 (Spring 1997): 41-45. Surveys of American religious his- tory, as opposed to writings by Pentecostal specialists, tend to treat Pentecostalism as begin- ning before the Azusa Street Revival and therefore better understood as not necessarily biracial. See Winthrop Hudson, Religion in America (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973), 345; Sydney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 820; Catherine Albanese, America: Religions and Religion (New York: Wadsworth, 1999), 172. At least one specialized study sees Pentecostalism rooted in broader white-led movements. See Joseph R. Washington, Jr., Black Sects and Cults (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1972), 68.7
Lovett, “Black Origins of the Pentecostal Movement,” 133.8
Robert Owens, Speak to the Rock: The Azusa Street Revival (New York: University Press of America, Inc., 1998), 67.9
MacRobert, The Black Roots and White Racism of Early Pentecostalism in the USA, 49-50, 55. I put “radical” in quotes when used with “holiness” because I mean by it what Roger Robins means in his recent dissertation. He describes at least three overlapping tem- plates in the Holiness movement. To him “radical” means preachers who were most militant and individualistic and more influenced by the “ruder elements of plainfolk culture” than by
242
3
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 243
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”
When the movement began to organize itself, it initially maintained this interracial ethos. The first Pentecostal denominations were either origin- ally Holiness bodies that accepted Pentecostal doctrine, or groups of min- isters who coalesced around common theological positions. Four of the six denominations that predated the Azusa Street revival and subsequently became Pentecostal practiced a degree of interracial cooperation.10 For instance, in 1898, the several Fire Baptized Holiness Associations united and admitted blacks on an equal basis with whites.11 One scholar has said that by 1908 the Fire Baptized Holiness Church was a “striking example of interracial worship and accord.”12 The Church of God in Christ, founded in 1897, became Pentecostal in 1907, and white Pentecostals sought out its leaders, especially C. H. Mason, to receive ordination.13 Beginning in 1909 the Church of God ordained black evangelists, and from 1912 on, it ordained black deacons and bishops and established black congregations.14 In 1912 the Pentecostal Holiness Church also began to establish black con- gregations. Also in the early years of the Assemblies of God, which was founded in 1914 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, by an all white ministerial council, there existed integrated northern congregations, and one of its largest affiliated churches was led by a black man, G. T. Haywood, in Indianapolis.15 It seemed for a short while that the racial cooperation of Azusa Street might be reflected in the institutions that it spawned.
middle-class inhibitions. “Radical holiness prospered . . . where militancy and nonconfor- mity, under the right circumstances were… positively admired” (56). See Roger Glenn Robins, “Plainfolk Modernist: The Radical Holiness World of A. J. Tomlinson” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1999).10
The six denominations are the United Holy Church (1886), The House of God, Church of the Living God, The Pillar and Ground of Truth, Without Controversy (1899), Fire Baptized Holiness Association (1895), Church of God in Christ (1897), Pentecostal Holiness Church (1898), and Church of God, which adopted its name in 1906. The first two have remained essentially black denominations.11
“100th Anniversary—Church History—Time Line” on website of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas at fbhchurch.org.12
Vinson Synan, The Old Time Power (Franklin Springs, GA: Advocate, 1973), 100; and Dr. Daniel Woods, Associate Professor of History, Ferrum College, phone conversation with author, October 5, 2000. Ironically, 1908 is also the year the FBHC decided to split along race lines.13
Charles Edwin Jones, Black Holiness (Metuchen, NJ: Theological Library Association and Scarecrow, Inc., 1987), 98.14
Ledger of Ministers, Church of God, housed at the Hal Bernard Dixon Jr. Pentecostal Research Center.15
The General Council of the Assemblies of God, The Assemblies of God (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, n.d.), 7. (Adapted and updated from Edith Blumhofer, The
243
4
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 244
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
Although consistent with the Azusa revival, this institutional racial cooperation was out of step with the dominant patterns of American Christianity. While scattered, independent, black congregations had devel- oped before the Civil War, the creation of independent black denomina- tions (African Methodist Episcopal 1817 and African Methodist Episcopal Zion in 1821) and complete emancipation were powerful impetuses for the widespread exodus of blacks from denominations and congregations that refused to treat them as equals. This resulted in explosive growth for the AME and AME Zion, as well as the creation of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (1870) and the National Baptist Convention, which formed from the union of three separate black Baptist conventions in 1895. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Primitive Baptists, and Free Will Baptists also split along the color line, while the Northern Methodist Episcopal Church permitted blacks to create their own conference within the denomination.16 By 1900, Christianity was more divided along the “color line” than ever before, and southern churches were “almost com- pletely segregated.”17 While racially homogeneous denominations and congregations were changing the landscape of American Christianity, by 1900 the Holiness movement, which most directly birthed the Azusa Street Revival, had also evolved into organizations and local congregations demarcated by race (see Table 1). Writing in the 1920s about church race relations, H. Richard Niebuhr spoke for all American Christianity when he said that “the movement toward separation has gone forward from the Revolution to the present day.”18
It was in this racially schismatic religious milieu that the Azusa Street Revival and the fledgling Pentecostal denominations attempted a degree of racial cooperation. Perhaps it is not surprising then that it proved ephe- meral. The most prominent black preacher in the Fire Baptized Holiness Church was Bishop W. E. Fuller, Sr., who rose to prominence as a prolific church planter and occupied a seat on the denomination’s four-member executive board, but requested a separation because of constant difficulties obtaining facilities for interracial meetings. In 1908 he “amicably” parted
Assemblies of God: A Popular History (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1985)); Synan, Holiness-Pentecostal Movement, 157; Anderson 189.16
H. Richard Niebuhr, The Social Origins of Denominationalism (New York: Holt and Co., 1929; repr. Cleveland, OH: World, 1957), 258 (page citations are to the reprint edition).17
Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the Making of America, 3rd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 161.18
Niebuhr, Social Origins of Denominationalism, 255.
244
5
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 245
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”
ways by establishing the Colored Fire Baptized Holiness Church (now known as the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas), tak- ing with him about thirty congregations with nine hundred members, and $25,000 worth of property—about one third of the whole denomination.19
Three years later the now all-white Fire Baptized Holiness Church united with the mostly white Pentecostal Holiness Church of North Carolina. Within two years the united church began to establish black congregations from South Carolina to Virginia and created a Colored Convention for them. But at its Second General Convention (1913), after opening with an election of officers and recording a list of delegates, including one black minister and one layman, it summarily eliminated the Colored Convention without comment. It was recorded as follows: “On motion, the Colored Convention was dropped from the roll of this body.”20 Joseph Campbell, the church’s first historian, writing in both 1921 and 1951, never saw fit to elaborate on the decision except to state that since that time the denomination had done “no work among the colored brethren” in the United States.21 The underlying assumption seems to have been that nothing more needed to be said. From this dismissal two small black denominations developed: the Universal Pentecostal Holiness Church, based in Anderson, South Carolina, and the Greater International Pentecostal Holiness Churches, Incorporated, based in Martinsville, Virginia, with ten and thirteen congregations, respectively, by the late twentieth century.22
19
Synan, Old Time Power , 100; Jones, Black Holiness , 111, 126; and fbhchurch.org. There is some disagreement over how “amicable” the process of sepa- ration was for Bishop Fuller.20
Minutes of the Second General Convention of the Pentecostal Holiness Church (1913), 3-5.21
Joseph E. Campbell, The Pentecostal Holiness Church 1898-1948 (Franklin Springs, GA: Publishing House of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, 1951), 259; and Joseph E. Campbell, “Our Church History: Chapter X-Charter, Divorce, etc.,” The Pentecostal Holiness Advocate, 31 March 1921, 8. The most recent writing on this issue is by A. D. Beacham, Jr. He explains it this way: “One of the most interesting aspects of the F.B.H.C., as well as the Pentecostal Holiness Church of North Carolina, was its open attitude toward black participation. . . . It was inevitable this interracial character would change in the South as the effects of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), spelling out the government supported doctrine of ‘separate but equal,’ soon created an inequality that rivaled the Antebellum South in inten- sity.” See A. D. Beacham, Jr., A Brief History of the Pentecostal Holiness Church (Franklin Springs, GA: Advocate, 1983), 47-48.22
Jones, Black Holiness, 130; “Take A Note,” International Pentecostal Holiness Legacy, Spring and Summer 1999, 3; and Dr. Daniel Woods, email to author, November 2, 2000.
245
6
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 246
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
The last split of these early years occurred after the call of E. N. Bell in 1913 “to the saints everywhere” for a meeting in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914.23While sounding inclusive, Bell and others, some of whom had been ordained by Bishop C. H. Mason of the predominantly black Church of God in Christ, were seeking to create a separate new entity (not a “denom- ination”). (Some white ministers remained with Mason for several more years.) This attempt to create a unified Pentecostal organization out of mul- tiple independent ministries was initially racially homogeneous, and the new organization did not extend itself to blacks, although a handful did begin to affiliate with them. The black minister G. T. Haywood, who joined after the initial Hot Springs council, left along with many other black (and white) ministers—27% of all ministers—in 1916 over a doctrinal dispute.24 Even before that, however, in 1915, the Assemblies of God had identified its position on race relations with an article in its Weekly Evangel by an executive presbyter that praised segregation of the races as ordained by God and affirmed the South’s racial customs as “wholesome.” Through at least the 1960s, the Assemblies of God did not seek to organize black churches, to ordain blacks, or to integrate its white congregations.25 So ended the earliest attempts at interracial cooperation within institutional- ized Pentecost.26
23
The General Council of the Assemblies of God, 7.24
Anderson, 189; Synan, Holiness-Pentecostal Movement, 155-57.25
Frank D. Macchia, “From Azusa to Memphis: Evaluating the Racial Reconciliation Dialogue Among Pentecostals,” Pentecostal Theology 17 (Fall 1995): 207-8; Harrell, White Sects and Black Men in the Recent South, 41-42. A handful of blacks were ordained by the denomination during this period, including the author’s father. The author’s father was ordained, so he was told, against the wishes of south- ern ministers in the denomination. His candidacy was pushed through in 1948 by his influen- tial New York City pastor, Rev. Robert Brown.26
There was one more split along racial lines that culminated in 1925. When the Assemblies of God split in 1916 over the oneness issue, many who left created the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. (Not everyone would characterize the origins of the PAW this way.) Synan, in Holiness-Pentecostal Movement, states on pp. 172-73: “For nine years the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World operated as a completely interracial church with roughly equal numbers of Negroes and whites serving as both officers and mem- bers.” They had all their conventions in the North to avoid Jim Crow laws governing hotels, but in 1921 the “white ministers conducted a ‘Southern Bible Conference’ in Little Rock,” and at the 1924 General Conference those same ministers decided to withdraw from the denomination, creating in 1925 the all-white Pentecostal Ministerial Alliance.
246
7
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 247
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”
Evidences of Racism in the Church of God
The story of blacks in the Church of God began in 1909 when Edmund and Rebecca Barr received the baptism in the Holy Spirit at a Florida camp meeting where General Moderator A. J. Tomlinson was preaching. Tomlinson licensed them both to preach as evangelists that same year.27 Three years later the church ordained Edmund Barr as bishop—the high- est level of credentialing. The Minutes of the Eighth Annual Assembly, held in January 1913, listed him and two other blacks. From this time until 1922, all-black congregations formed throughout Florida and a few other states (see Table 2). At the Seventeenth Annual Assembly in 1922, Tomlinson announced that “on account of conditions which seem unalter- able a number of them are going away from us each year” and that he had received “several appeals” from black pastors requesting to be “set… off to themselves” with “their own overseers and the privilege of holding their [own] assemblies.”28At that assembly he appointed Thomas J. Richardson to the office of Overseer of the Church of God “Colored Work” (in Florida).
But why this request? What were these “unalterable” conditions? There was no list of grievances. Blacks filled a few leadership positions, the number of black churches and ministers was increasing, black churches had black pastors, and the members worshipped freely in homogeneous churches—some of the issues blacks in other denominations had com- plained about. The witness of contemporary writers is the best place to begin. In 1906, the year of the First Annual Assembly, an erudite young white southerner named Gilbert T. Stephenson, soon to make his mark in the fields of law, business, and education, published an article with an ominous observation about southern race relations. He noted that “social distinctions have been and are being more clearly defined.” He further predicted that “in matters social we may expect the races to drift further and further apart.”29 Writing in the late twenties, H. Richard Niebuhr declared that “on the whole… race discrimination is so respectable an attitude in America that it could be accepted by the church without
27
E. L. Simmons, History of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN: Church of God, 1938), 119-20.28
Minutes of the 17th Annual Assembly of the Church of God (1922), 25.29
Gilbert T. Stephenson, “Racial Distinctions in Southern Law,” The American Political Science Review 1 (November 1906): 60-61.
247
8
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 248
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
subterfuge of any sort.”30 If segregation and discrimination were both so intrinsic to and explicit in the southern religio-cultural ethos, and if every other Pentecostal group completely divided, why not the Church of God too? Based on Stephenson’s and Niebuhr’s reading of their times, one might expect to find explicit evidences of racism in official church records. If racism and discrimination were an issue, why did blacks not completely leave the denomination and form their own? If there was no significant racism and discrimination, then why did they separate at all?
Racism and discrimination are chameleon-like, and past examples can range from obvious to exceedingly subtle. It seems that no explicitly racist policies limited blacks in the Church of God. One must look deeper. Five practices and trends can be said to imply racism in the Church of God. Although none of the five individually “prove” the existence of racism, collectively they point in that direction.
First was the problem of attendance at the annual assemblies. Even though the Church of God held its assemblies in its private facilities in Cleveland, and therefore avoided hotel regulations that might forbid racial mixing, almost no blacks attended. The only exception seems to have been Bishops Edmund Barr and P. G. Talley. During the years when the minutes listed clergy in attendance, the Church of God had as many as seventeen ordained black clergy, but the sea of faces was, for all practical purposes, white.
Second, once blacks began attending the assembly in response to a specific invitation from Overseer Tomlinson, the Church of God apparently practiced the “customary” (as opposed to legal) social segregation of the day, namely, racially separate seating in churches.31 In 1925, when blacks held the “Colored People’s Service” they appeared to be previously using the section reserved for blacks, because they came “forward” for their service.32
The third observation is that the minutes document the absence of blacks from the Council of Twelve [Elders]—a body of clergymen estab- lished in 1916 to work closely with the General Overseer in proposing policies and advising him on all business matters pertaining to the church. This quickly became the most powerful governing body in the church—
30
Niebuhr, Social Origins of Denominationalism, 236.31
Minutes of the Fifteenth Annual Assembly of the Church of God (1920), 54.32
Minutes of the Twentieth Annual Assembly of the Church of God (1925), 48-49.
248
9
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 249
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”
and it was all white.33 This probably sent the message that although they were good enough to pastor black churches, blacks were not good enough to exercise significant authority over whites. (They were, however, given less important leadership positions, which will be discussed below.)
Fourth, and perhaps most disturbingly, trends show much instability among black congregations, licensed evangelists, and ordained deacons and bishops.34 The Ledgers of Ministers and Churches and the minutes of the assemblies reveal that of all licensed and ordained black ministers in 1919, 40 percent left the church by 1922 (14 of 35). Of all black con- gregations established before 1919, 67 percent left the fellowship by 1922 (18 of 27), and seven of these had left even before 1919. The Church of God’s records do not show how many individual members left. These losses occurred even after 1919, when Tomlinson announced he was “deviating from former practice” by creating a place in the annual assem- bly for blacks to have their own service.35 And it is important to note that black participation was not limited to their own separate services. They sang, preached, and gave reports in the other services too, as well as served on committees. In spite of this, the denomination seemed to be hemor- rhaging black clergy and congregations. The fact that Table 3 shows an increasing number of black churches over this period only reveals that
33
Crews, The Church of God, 23.34
There are a great many irregularities in the official church minutes and the ledgers I used to create my tables. Generally in the period I studied there was a policy of either writ- ing a (C) or (col.) after ministers and churches who were black, but there are many excep- tions to this, even whole years. For example, no minister is marked “colored” in the Minutes of the 8th and 16th Annual Assemblies. The same minister or church could be labeled “col.” one year, not the next, and then “col.” the next year. Some ministers are marked “col.” only once or twice but are listed for several years. There are also churches and ministers listed for a few years, then omitted for one or two, after which they reappear without explanation. The ledgers also record churches and ministers existing, in some cases, for one or more years before they appear in the annual minutes. Also, the ledgers were not kept from the begin- ning, but were begun several years after the Church of God’s founding. The recorders then reconstructed dates of ordination or congregation establishment. In addition, the spellings of several names of people and churches vary by a letter here and there from year to year. Given all these irregularities, it is obvious that I had many opportunities for errors and that in many cases my personal judgment had to come into play. While I cannot claim these numbers to be without any error, I do stand by them as highly accurate and vital for the purposes of this paper.
For purposes of this paper I consider a church or minister as having “left the denomina- tion” if they do not appear for three consecutive years in the annual minutes. After consid- ering the data this seemed a reasonable standard.35
Minutes of the Fourteenth Annual Assembly of the Church of God (1919), 13.
249
10
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 250
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
while black congregations disbanded, became independent, or switched denominations, new ones were continuously planted. Likewise, the increasing percentage of black churches in Florida masked this high attri- tion rate (see Table 3).
One more point deserves attention. When Tomlinson agreed to the new structure, he said that blacks wanted “to be in a church to themselves where they can be perfectly free in every aspect.”36 He did not explain what “perfectly free in every aspect” meant. Tomlinson taught that the government of the church was a theocracy, and he flatly opposed democ- ratic principles operating in the church in the same manner as they did in national and state politics. It is possible that whatever freedom departing blacks sought was at least partially rooted in a method of governance that affected all Church of God congregations and had led to an earlier exodus of some white congregations and ministers. In addition, such a theocratic government might have been applied to black ministers and their congre- gations in a particularly discriminatory way.
These figures raise several important questions that require further research. Why were so many blacks joining and then leaving the Church of God? Was this a function of the growing pains of a young denomina- tion, or did it reflect institutionalized discrimination? Was it happening among white pastors and congregations? Were local congregations leaving because they were not getting needed support from the leadership? If there is even a way for a historian to quantify such support, these comparisons need to be made. If whites and blacks experienced similar trends it would say something very different about the Church of God than if they did not. One bit of information will help put this issue in perspective. During the years for which the minutes reported the membership of each congrega- tion, many white and black congregations had fewer than ten members. “Congregations,” then, may have been no more than a family or two who, when no growth occurred, decided to return to their older Baptist, Holi- ness, or Methodist churches, or to find another Pentecostal congregation to attend.
Arguments against Racism in the Church of God
Although some evidence suggests institutional discrimination, there is a roughly equal body of contradictory evidence. The Church of God had
36
Minutes of the Seventeenth Annual Assembly of the Church of God (1922), 25.
250
11
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 251
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”
three levels of licensing and ordination. At all levels, the General Overseer and one other person, usually the state overseer, signed the credentials. They licensed many blacks at the lowest level, and, especially for the late teens and early twenties, also ordained equal proportions of blacks and whites as bishops. The percentage of ordained blacks who were bishops was actually higher than whites for some years (see Table 4). Blacks were not disproportionately excluded from the highest levels of credentialing. While the fluctuations from year to year might reflect some record-keep- ing irregularities, they mostly reflect the high attrition rate discussed earlier. From the fall of 1915 to the fall of 1917, when Florida divided into white and colored districts, Barr, as overseer of the colored district, ordained one bishop and three evangelists and oversaw the planting of seven new churches. Prior to his overseer appointment, in his capacity as pastor of the Miami colored church, he had cosigned credentials for three deacons and four evangelists. Barr was the first black clergyman to sign credentials for others.37
Barr was removed from his position in the 1917 assembly, and the col- ored churches were returned to the jurisdiction of the white Florida State Overseer. An unpublished paper on file at the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center, written by a former Lee University professor and Coordinator of the COG Black Ministries Department,38 reveals that his removal may have had nothing to do with discrimination. Tomlinson apparently re- moved Barr after receiving a letter in May 1916 from his church clerk complaining of his disagreeable leadership style.39
An understanding of the nature and degree of integrated leadership after 1919 requires a survey of the evolution of the Church of God’s adminis- trative structure. In 1906 ministers and lay people began holding an Annual (or General) Assembly. In 1910 they created the annually elected position of General Overseer,40 and in 1911 they created the office of state
37
Ledger of Ministers, Church of God.38
The Church of God “Colored Work” was discontinued in 1966. In 1978 a Black Ministries Department was created to focus on evangelism among black Americans. See David Michel, Telling the Story: Black Pentecostals in the Church of God (Cleveland, TN: Pathway, 2000), 42-44, and Joseph E. Jackson, Reclaiming Our Heritage: The Search for Black History in the Church of God (Cleveland, TN: Church of God Black Ministries, 1993), 43-44.39
Joseph E. Jackson, “Edmund S. Barr,” unpublished paper in the Church of God Black Ministries File, Hal Bernard Dixon Jr. Pentecostal Research Center, n.d.40
Charles W. Conn, Like a Mighty Army: A History of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN: Pathway, 1996), 110.
251
12
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 252
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
overseer. The General Overseer appointed each state overseer, who reported directly to him. In addition to cosigning ministerial credentials, they pastored full time (during this period), reported on church member- ship, kept a record of clergy addresses, ensured that all churches had pas- tors, and conducted an annual evangelistic crusade.41 For the years of this study, overseers of foreign mission fields like Jamaica and the Bahamas regularly appeared with state overseers in the minutes, and they seemed to have similar duties. In 1916 the General Assembly created the Council of Twelve elders. The Council of Seventy, created in 1921, only existed until 1929. During those years it was combined with the Council of Twelve to constitute the “official Assembly” for voting purposes, with others only allowed to participate in the discussion.42 A. J. Tomlinson was General Overseer from 1909 to 1923; then F. J. Lee filled the position until his death in 1928.
The office of overseer of the “Colored Work” was vested with the “same authority of a state overseer.”43 Beginning in 1925 the churches of the Church of God “Colored Work” began to hold their own annual assem- blies but wrote no formal constitution. At their seventh assembly, the General Overseer answered questions about the ordination process, explaining that he cosigned all credentials and would not overrule a state overseer (in their case, the overseer of the colored work) who rejected a candidate—although he reserved the right to reject someone the state over- seer approved. He also stated that whereas bishops could license evange- lists, both district and state overseers needed to examine bishops before ordination.44 Thomas J. Richardson served as overseer of the “Colored Work” from 1922 to 1923, and David LaFleur served from 1923 to 1928.
Unlike the Council of Elders, when the Council of Seventy was created, blacks were chosen to serve in rough proportion to their numbers among the clergy. In 1921, when 3.4 percent of Church of God clergy were American blacks, they comprised 2.9 percent (2 of 70) of the Council of Seventy. If the two Caribbean clergymen are also included, the Council
41
Ibid., 136-37.42
Ibid., 208.43
“The General Assembly,” Church of God Evangel, November 11, 1922, 1.44
Minutes of the Seventh Annual Assembly of the Church of God Colored Work (1931), 12. According to records on file at the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center, actually it was the colored overseer, not a state overseer, who signed credentials along with the General Overseer.
252
13
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 253
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”
was 5.7 percent people of color. These numbers hardly show an effort to exclude blacks disproportionately from this leadership body.
In addition, promotion of blacks to positions of leadership occurred both before and after the creation of the COG “Colored Work” (see Table 5). If the white leaders were eager to disassociate with blacks, they had their chance after 1922. But David LaFleur and J. H. Curry served on the Council of Seventy from 1923 to 1929, and Curry served as the first black on the Council of Twelve for six years in the 1930s (the only black to do so before the 1980s). Even after 1922 the white leadership chose not to purge all blacks from leadership.
The ambiguous nature of the new arrangement left blacks feeling unset- tled. After conducting two assemblies of their own, a committee of black preachers presented a request in 1926 to the General Assembly for a fur- ther delineation of their freedoms. It was agreed that space in the Church of God Evangel would be regularly made available to them and that they should select their own overseer. Other agreements included sanctioning their annual assemblies, clearly stipulating their continuing membership in the Church of God, and deciding to handle their finances through the same general secretary and treasurer used by the white churches.45 After this decision, several northern black pastors complained about this arrange- ment and threatened to withdraw totally if forced to meet in a separate assembly. They had not participated in the separate assemblies of the “Colored Work” in 1925 and 1926. General Overseer Lee sent one of the letters on to LaFleur, and they both agreed to let them, and effectively any other congregation that so desired, remain with the predominantly white General Assembly in Cleveland, and all without any apparent struggle, reservations, or ambivalence on at least Lee’s part.46 Once again, this move showed no desire to separate from blacks. Either northern blacks did not
45
Minutes of the Twenty-First Annual Assembly of the Church of God (1926), 38-39. Part of the need for this second request to the assembly may result from the fact that when Richardson was appointed in 1922 Tomlinson had also suggested the creation of a commit- tee to arrange the new structure, and there is no evidence such a committee was ever estab- lished. Also, statements by Tomlinson in his annual addresses were not automatically accepted as official policy. The assembly was expected to follow up with discussion and decisions.46
F. J. Lee, Cleveland, TN, to L. C. Hill, Philadelphia, November 16, 1926, and F. J. Lee, Cleveland, TN, to T. W. Hamilton, Norristown PA, December 9, 1926, copies in F. J. Lee Letters File, Hal Bernard Dixon Jr. Pentecostal Research Center, Cleveland, TN.
253
14
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 254
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
sense the same problems as southern blacks, or they disagreed about the power of segregation to solve them.
The Church of God was also willing to license and ordain natives of the Bahamas and Jamaica. It was not customary at that time for white religious organizations to train and license indigenous people as clergy or church workers, but between 1914 and 1921 alone, the Church of God ordained no fewer than twenty natives and even put two in one of its highest gov- erning bodies.47
Official evidence of discrimination against blacks is contradictory dur- ing these early years. While some data points to discrimination and per- haps great dissatisfaction with the denomination, other evidence points to roughly equal opportunities for black ministers. In an attempt to reduce this ambiguity, it is helpful to examine the leadership of General Overseer Ambrose J. Tomlinson.
Issues of Leadership
It is impossible to interpret early Church of God history without a clear conception of Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson. Between 1910 and 1923 he was a larger-than-life figure within the fellowship. Roger Robins, who recently completed a dissertation on Tomlinson, coined the neologism “plainfolk modernist” to capture the multivalence of a man whose life was rooted in Victorian Evangelicalism, “radical” holiness, and the Quaker Holiness movement. Tomlinson, who had a Quaker and abolitionist family heritage, grew up in Westfield, Indiana, a heavily Quaker town widely known for its racial tolerance. He had black families as his immediate neighbors and was familiar with a local annual “colored” camp meeting where whites sat in the back. Tomlinson was an “academically gifted,” “progressive,” “ambitious,” “aspiring,” and “talented” man with “cultural aspirations.” Following his conversion in 1889, he increasingly moved into “radical” Holiness circles that nurtured a “logic that undermined the calculus of race.” As a colporteur for the American Bible and American Tract Societies in southern Appalachia, he corresponded with Martin Wells Knapp, the same evangelist under whom Seymour sat for some time.48 Tomlinson’s policies most clearly revealed this heritage beginning in
47
Ledger of Ministers, Church of God.48
Robins, “Plainfolk Modernist,” 112, 140-51, 168-229 passim, 293; Conn, Like a Mighty Army, 60.
254
15
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 255
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”
1919. It was in that year that he invited blacks to participate in the annual assembly by holding their own special service; in the same year he began to involve them in the other services and place them on annual assembly committees. In 1922, when he agreed to the requests of black pastors, he plainly said that he did “not like any separation between nationalities and races,” declared that “[i]t is our purpose to make them feel at home with us,” and requested that the separate organization “should be arranged with such bonds of fellowship that there would be no separation and no open- ing left for a separation in the future.”49
Three trends beginning about 1913 altered the Church of God forever. The first was Tomlinson’s meteoric rise in power. Tomlinson joined the Church of God in 1903 and was immediately ordained a minister and appointed pastor of the Camp Creek, North Carolina, congregation. He moderated the first assembly in 1906, and, after being annually reelected as General Overseer from 1910 to 1913, became General Overseer for life in 1914. When the Church of God Evangel began publishing in 1910, he became its editor-in-chief as well as business manager, and when the church opened a Bible school and orphanage, he assumed sole responsi- bility for their operation also.50 By 1920 Tomlinson wrote in his diary that he worked eighteen-hour days and felt “crushed” under the workload.51
At the same time, Tomlinson began teaching the “exclusivity doctrine”: that the Church of God was the restoration of “the same original, gigantic Church that blazed out and wrought havoc to Satan’s devices . . . two thou- sand years ago” (in the Acts of the Apostles).52And he claimed that he ini- tially sought membership “with the understanding that it is the Church of God of the Bible.”53 With this understanding, in 1913 he announced that the Church of God “should seek to reinstate… the government under which banner the brave Apostles… fought, bled and died.”54 To that end, he and the ministers sought the sanction of Scripture for each new admin- istrative body they created. This way of thinking was not original with
49
Minutes of the Seventeenth Annual Assembly of the Church of God (1922), 25-26.50
Conn, Like a Mighty Army, 62, 75, 170-71.51
Ibid., 118, 556; A. J. Tomlinson, Journal of Happenings, August 20, 1919, and February 20, 1920.52
A. J. Tomlinson, Last Great Conflict (Cleveland, TN: Walter Rodgers, 1913; repr. Cleveland, TN: White Wing, 1984), 160 (page citations are to the reprint edition).53
A. J. Tomlinson, Answering the Call of God (Cleveland, TN: White Wing, n.d.), 16.54
Minutes of the Eighth Annual Assembly of the Church of God (1913), 15.
255
16
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 256
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
Tomlinson, but he added a significant element by claiming a divine appointment as the overseer for life of the newly restored Church of God.55 The leadership of the Church of God maintained the “exclusivity doc- trine,” sans lifetime overseer appointments, until at least the 1940s.56
A third crucial point was that Tomlinson was holding direct and largely unchecked control over the church’s finances when fiscal irregularities began to appear. As early as 1913 the Evangel had a debt of $331.61, and he suggested that another editor and business manager be chosen, but the assembly reelected him anyway.57 In 1913 the assembly created a non- obligatory financial system, which was altered in 1917 and again in 1920. The last version resulted in congregations remitting all the tithes of their members to the central office, with Tomlinson personally redistributing the funds to each pastor. Many either never received pay or received less than they expected. At the same time, the Church of God financed the building of a printing plant and new auditorium. By 1920 the plant had a $33,018 debt, and the Evangel was running $22,900 in arrears.58 Questions about the finances of the church began to surface along with opposition to the increasing centralization of power.
Two major challenges to Tomlinson arose in 1918 and 1919. The first came from the state overseer of Florida and a member of the Council of Twelve, Bishop Sam C. Perry. In October 1918, the elders ordered Perry to answer ten charges against him. Included among them were failure to implement the 1917 financial system and to make monthly reports.59 Accused of acts of “disloyalty and sedition,” Perry lashed out as he was defrocked in May 1919, asserting that “there was no reference or insinua- tion to any immorality, false teaching or wrong spirit in me.” In a tract he mass-mailed to Church of God ministers that summer, Perry listed eight- een objections, including the unquestioned authority of Tomlinson over all finances, his lifetime appointment, and the claim that “we are the true
55
Conn, Like a Mighty Army, 215.56
F. J. Lee, Cleveland, TN, to W. D. Clark, Galloway, FL, July 13, 1926, copy in F. J. Lee Letters File; J. Lee Grady, “Pentecostal Sect in Tennessee Tries to Claim the ‘Church of God’ Name,” Charisma, May 2000, 27.57
Minutes of the Eighth Annual Assembly of the Church of God (1913), 35; The financ- ing of the Evangel was difficult from its inception. See Minutes of the Seventh Annual Assembly of the Church of God (1912), 11.58
Conn, Like a Mighty Army, 179-81, 198-202.59
“The Elders in Council—Sam C. Perry,” October 22-29, 1918, Sam C. Perry File Box, Hal Bernard Dixon Jr. Pentecostal Research Center.
256
17
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 257
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”
church of God and nobody else in the world is it.”60 By the time of the assembly the following year, seven out of fifteen (47 percent) black Florida churches had disassociated themselves (see Table 2). Table 3 shows a sim- ilar effect on white congregations. It is plausible to assume that these con- gregations either left over their anger about how their overseer was treated or because his concerns resonated with their own. Tomlinson called the whole situation “the bitterest opposition against me I have ever known.”61 And it was in this year (1919) that he went out of his way to bring blacks to a new level of participation in the Church of God. The following year, T. J. Richardson preached before the whole assembly on the topic “Stick to the Church,” in which he reinforced the “exclusivity doctrine.”62 Appa- rently, at least until 1922 Perry traveled to Church of God congregations, winning some to his views.
While Perry challenged the consolidation of power in Tomlinson’s hands and the exclusivity doctrine, beginning in 1919 the Rev. J. L. Scott also led a group of ministers away from the Church of God in response to the evolving church hierarchy. Scott was a pastor in Ridgedale, Tennessee, a member of multiple assembly committees, and on the publishing com- mittee for several years. In June 1920 he held a one-day convention, dur- ing which he and several other ministers reiterated what they believed to be the original teachings and practices of the Church of God and listed eleven new ones to which they objected. Among these offensive new prac- tices were the 1917 tithing system, the positions of state and district over- seer, the requirement of monthly pastoral reports, and a system with “all the money being in the hands of any one man.” On July 4th about six hun- dred persons from seventeen churches in three states gathered for a day of worship and became the nucleus of the current Church of God (Original). Like Perry, Scott and his followers actively campaigned among Church of God congregations, but Scott took things even further by using legal means to wrest church property away from Tomlinson’s organization.63
Late in 1922 even those loyal to Tomlinson were becoming concerned. Shortly before the 1922 assembly, a committee began to investigate the
60
Sam C. Perry, “Before A. J. Tomlinson and the Elder’s Council,” May 14, 1919, Sam C. Perry File Box, Hal Bernard Dixon Jr. Pentecostal Research Center.61
A. J. Tomlinson, Journal of Happenings, November 17, 1919.62
Minutes of the Fifteenth Annual Assembly of the Church of God (1920), 51-53.63
Gregory E. Moder, Jr., “A Wedge Driven Home by Satan Himself” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Theology, March 1999), 8-11; Minutes of the Committee of the Original Church of God, 1920, 7-9, 11.
257
18
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 258
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
financial irregularities. This investigation led to months of controversy and the “impeachment” of Tomlinson in July 1923. During this period the Church of God lost both black and white congregations. Structural prob- lems unrelated to race permeated the church at this time, and in some ways perhaps Scott, Perry, and black ministers were all seeking the same “per- fect” freedom Tomlinson said the black ministers requested. It was in the middle of all this controversy, during the 1922 convention, that Tomlinson found the time to initiate the structure requested by Florida’s black preach- ers. Yet, even with all this attention from Tomlinson, it is not clear how many black congregations followed him into the organization initially known as “The Church of God over which A. J. Tomlinson is Overseer” (and later as the Church of God of Prophecy). Four out of thirty-six black congregations listed in 1922 and 1923 dropped from the records, but we do not know why. Perhaps as much as one-third of the Church of God mem- bership, including T. J. Richardson, followed Tomlinson,64 in the belief that God had appointed him overseer of the Church of God for life, but on the whole, black ministers remained with the Church of God when they had an opportunity to leave. On September 27, 1923, nine black ministers from southern Florida wrote the new overseer, declaring their intent to “take a stand for the Church of God proper” and saying that their congregations were also “perfectly settled with our decision.”65 In his report on the “Colored Work” at the November assembly that year, Bishop J. H. Curry announced, “We have had our conflicts along with the other brethren, but we have come out more than conquerors and are sticking to the church.”66 Either the black ministers felt as comfortable with the other white leaders as they had with Tomlinson, or they believed that the “exclusivity doc- trine” was not based on the personal leadership of A. J. Tomlinson.
Conclusion
The Church of God did not experience a total separation because the leaders—both white and black—did not desire one. They differed from the leaders of other Pentecostal denominations. When the ministers met at Hot
64
Charles Conn, “Church of God of Prophecy,” in Encyclopedia of Religion in the South, ed. Samuel Hill (Atlanta, GA: Mercer University Press, 1984), 162.65
“The Colored Work—Church of God Proper,” Church of God Evangel, October 13, 1923, 2.66
Minutes of the Eighteenth Annual Assembly of the Church of God (1923), 7.
258
19
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 259
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”
Springs, Arkansas, and formed the Assemblies of God, Bishop C. H. Mason of the Church of God in Christ attended and blessed their new asso- ciation.67 Likewise, the executive officers of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church, J. H. King among them, willingly parted ways with Bishop Fuller. For all Fuller did for the church, J. H. King omitted any reference to him in the history of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church that he wrote in 1921.68 In contrast to these leaders is the way in which General Overseer F. J. Lee wrote about the separation to the black Miami deacon Zephaniah Ambrose in 1926. He told Ambrose, “we had no thought of them standing alone,” and said that he had written LaFleur to say that “if he at anytime, decided that they had made a mistake, they could meet and pass a resolution stat- ing that they choose to remain with the Assembly as they were before.”69 This was a truly different mindset. And as for the black Church of God clergy, no strong leader like Fuller surfaced who could lead them into their own organization, even against the will of the white leaders if necessary.70 The presence of at least three clergymen editors and publishers at the Hot Springs meeting shows the caliber of leaders who created the Assemblies of God. Although given authority to select their own overseer, when LaFleur resigned in 1928 the Colored Assembly could not choose an over- seer from among its own and voluntarily gave up the right by asking the General Overseer to appoint one with prayer and the advice of the Elders.71 Unfortunately, the minutes are silent on why this decision was made.
Based on the evidence available, it seems that the race-based 1922 restructuring of the Church of God does not necessarily require racism as an explanation. The leadership did not seek total segregation, the records do not reveal overtly racist policies, and blacks had some opportunity for leadership. But it does not follow that blacks experienced no racism at the hands of their white brothers. As Robins so aptly said, the “sanctified mind did commonly succumb to the garden-variety, ‘common sense’ racism that
67
Anderson, 189.68
See J. H. King, “History of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church,” The Pentecostal Holiness Advocate, March 24 & 31 and April 7 & 14, 1921.69
F. J. Lee, Cleveland, TN, to Zephaniah Ambrose, Miami, December 23, 1926, F. J. Lee Letter File.70
For a critical analysis on the issue of black leadership in the Church of God through- out its history, see Jackson, Reclaiming Our Heritage, 45-53. For an informative survey of COG black leaders, see Michel, Telling the Story, 89-100.71
Minutes of the Fourth Annual Assembly of the Church of God Colored Work (1928), 8.
259
20
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 260
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
then pervaded American culture.”72 Yet, the white leadership did not overtly discriminate or desire to be separated from their “colored brethren” as did other white Pentecostal leaders. This difference probably owed much to Tomlinson. The new church he went on to lead, and the Church of God (Jerusalem Acres), which split off from it after his passing, both practiced more integration than the Church of God, and collectively, the three were arguably more racially inclusive than other Pentecostal denominations before the 1970s.73 The “exclusivity doctrine” probably also played a part, because blacks who believed that the Church of God was the one true Church would not want to leave it.
The story of blacks in the early years of the Church of God ranges from unclear to contradictory. Two of its leading black ministers embody the contradictions of their times: Bishop C. F. Bright turned in his credentials in 1920 but then returned in 1924,74 and Bishop Thomas B. Smith wrote this glowing endorsement from the 1919 assembly but then disappeared from the clergy records three years later: “The Church of God with head- quarters at Cleveland, Tenn. is right. We know it is right…. The white saints love us. God bless them…. The colored saints could not have treated us better.”75 To be sure, Tomlinson was more open to true racial equality than most Pentecostal leaders of his day. This would seem to account for why blacks did not seek total separation. But at the same time, once they did seek partial separation, Tomlinson’s description of their rea- son sounded vaguely similar to the criticisms leveled by the white clergy Perry and Scott against the church’s government. At some level each
72
Robins, “Plainfolk Modernist,” 111.73
Jones, Black Holiness, 96; a much older citation is in Harrell, White Sects and Black Men in the Recent South. Citing an interview he conducted in 1969 with the Chief Bishop of the Church of God (Jerusalem Acres), Harrell said at that time the group had twenty con- gregations and that the sect was “totally integrated: one of its twelve apostles is black, two of the sect’s counselor’s are black, as is one of the seven General Overseers of Church Auxiliaries. Negro and white ministers work interchangeably with black and white congre- gations.” See Harrell, White Sects and Black Men in the Recent South, 96-98. As soon as Tomlinson set up the structure of his new organization Richardson was given several appointments, including membership on the Bible Government committee, Council of Twelve, and Overseer of the Colored Work east of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio River. See C. T. Davidson, Upon This Rock, vol. 1 (Cleveland, TN: White Wing, 1973), 637, and Minutes of the Eighteenth Annual Assembly of the Church Over Which A. J. Tomlinson is General Overseer (1923), 22.74
C. F. Bright, “Stick to the Church of God,” Church of God Evangel, March 29, 1924, 2.75
“The Assembly,” Church of God Evangel, November 15, 1919, 4.
260
21
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 261
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”
sought a degree of “freedom.” It seems reasonable to wonder if, given the lack of evidence of pervasive discrimination, blacks largely remained in the Church of God on the strength and influence of Tomlinson’s personal racial ideology, but also requested a separation because of the same Tomlinsonian policies and practices that caused others to leave.
TABLE 1 Early Holiness Churchesa
Predominantly White Predominantly Black
Brethren in Christ (1863) Church of Living God, Christian
Workers for Fellowship (1889) Church of God (Anderson, IN) Church of God (Sanctified
(1880)b Church) (1903)
Church of God (Cleveland, TN) (1886) Christ’s Sanctified Holy Church (1904) Pentecostal Holiness Church of North
Carolina (1898)
Fire Baptized Holiness Associations Church of God in Christ (1897) in Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Holy Church of North Carolina (1894) Georgia, Florida, North & South Christ’s Association of Mississippi of
Carolina (1895-1898) Baptized Believers (1900)
Holiness Association of Texas (1899) Holiness Church of North Carolina
(1894)
Church of the Living God of Earlsboro,
Potawotomie County, Oklahoma
Territory (1899)
The Latter Day Church of the
Foundation of True Holiness and
Sanctification (1899)
a
Many of these have since merged, split, or changed their names at least once. Only some of these groups accepted Pentecostal doctrine after Azusa.
b
The Church of God early on encouraged interracial worship in the South and always maintained a significant number of black churches. Data compiled from: Charles Edwin Jones, Black Holiness (Metuchen, NJ: Theological Library Association and Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1987); J. H. King, “History of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church,” The Pentecostal Holiness Advocate (March 24, 1921): 3; Harold Hunter, “Aspects of IPHC History: Centennial Notes,” from website Pentecostal-Charismatic Theological Inquiry International at pctii.org/arc/timeline.html; and Sherry Sherrod DuPree, “In the Sanctified Holiness Pentecostal Charismatic Movement,” Pentecostal Theology 23 (Spring 2001): 105.
261
22
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 262
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
TABLE 2
Locations of Early Black Church of God Congregations
Year Florida Other States
1913 (Jan.) 3 0 1913 3 1 1914 4 1 1915 7 0 1916 12 0 1917 13 3 1919a 15 3 1920 9 4 1921 13 4 1922 19 11
a
There was no Annual Assembly held in 1918 due to an influenza epidemic, so there are no statistics for this year throughout this paper.
Data compiled from the Minutes of the Eighth-Seventeenth Annual Assemblies of the Church of God and the Ledger of Churches of the Church of God.
TABLE 3
Black and White COG Congregations in Florida
% of all Congregations Year Black White which were Black
1913 (Jan.) 3 24 11.1% 1913 3 28 9.7% 1914 4 33 10.8% 1915 7 37 15.9% 1916 12 38 24.0% 1917 3 46 22.0% 1919 15 66 18.5% 1920 9 56 13.8% 1921 13 63 17.1% 1922 19 59 24.4% 1923 23 70 24.7% 1924 24 70 25.5% 1925 26 68 27.7% 1926 27 73 27.0% 1927 36 84 30.0%
262
23
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 263
“On Account of Conditions that Seem Unalterable”
Table 3 (cont.)
Black and White COG Congregations in Florida
% of all Congregations Year Black White which were Black
1928 50 77 39.4% 1929 47 75 38.5%
Data compiled from Minutes of the Eighth-Twenty-fourth Annual Assemblies of the Church of God and the Ledger of Churches.
TABLE 4
Ordained Church Of God Clergy
White Clergy Black Clergy # of B/D/E # of B % of B # of B/D/E # of B % of B
1913 (Jan.) 232 46 20% 12 3 25% 1913 243 50 21% 16 4 25% 1914 290 53 18% 18 2 11% 1915 279 54 19% 14 1 7% 1916 367 66 18% 21 2 10% 1917 394 86 22% 25 5 20% 1919 650 80 12% 34 9 26% 1920 647 82 13% 20 5 25% 1921 704 84 12% 25 3 12%
Data compiled from the Minutes of the Eighth-Sixteenth Annual Assemblies of the Church of God.
263
24
PNEUMA/F4/240-264 2/27/06 5:56 PM Page 264
Pentecostal Theology, Volume 25, No. 2, Fall 2003
TABLE 5
Early Black COG Ministers in Leadership Outside of the “Colored Work” 1919-1929
C. F. Brighta State Overseer of Pennsylvania in 1919-20
State Overseer of New Jersey in 1920
Question & Answer Committee, 1920 Assembly J. H. Curry Council of Seventy 1923-29
W. V. Eneas (Bahamian) Co-Overseer of Bahamas 1926-28
Overseer of Bahamas 1929
Council of Seventy 1921-24, 1926-29 William R. Franks Overseer of the Bahamas 1920b
(Bahamian) Council of Seventy 1921-29
David LaFleur Council of Seventy 1923-29
Thomas J. Richardsonc Council of Seventy 1921-23
Education Committee, 1922 Assembly T. A. Sears Overseer of Jamaica 1926
John D. Shaw Home Missions Committee, 1920 Assembly Thomas B. Smithd Council of Seventy 1921
Home Missions Committee, 1921 Assembly
a
C. F. Bright voluntarily left the Church of God in November 1920 but returned in January 1924.
b
The minutes show that William R. Franks was appointed Overseer of Bahamas in 1920, but in an interview later in life he recalled holding the position for several years beginning in 1918 because the exigencies of war prevented the COG from sending someone from the U.S. See Christopher C. Moree, ed., Into All the World: Church of God World Missions 75th Anniversary Album (Cleveland, TN: Church of God World Missions Department, 1984), 35. c
Thomas J. Richardson left the church in a split in 1923. See discussion later in article. d
Thomas B. Smith disappears from the records after his appointment to the Council of Seventy in fall of 1921.
Data compiled from: Minutes of the Fourteenth-Nineteenth Annual Assemblies of the Church of God; and Charles Conn, Like Mighty Army (Cleveland, TN: Church of God Publishing House, 1955), 336-37.
264
25
