Father Divine

Religious leader

• Born: May 1, 1879
• Birthplace: Rockville, Maryland
• Died: September 10, 1965
• Place of death: Gladwyne, Pennsylvania

Believed to be God (or an incarnation of God) by his followers, Father Divine founded a religious sect, the International Peace Mission Movement, which grew from a small congregation to a large organization with an estimated fifty thousand members.

Early Life

The historical records of Father Major Jealous Divine’s early life are very meager. He always declined requests to provide information about his background, saying that the history of God cannot be expressed in mortal terms. Although some early sources claimed that he was born in the Deep South, researchers have found evidence that he was born in the black ghetto of Rockville, Maryland, called Monkey Run. His father, George Baker, was a former slave who worked as an unskilled farm laborer, perhaps as a sharecropper. His mother, Nancy Smith, also a former slave, was a member of the African Methodist Episcopal church, and Father Divine was fervently religious during his youth. Although he and his four siblings were raised in extreme poverty, he received a rudimentary education in a segregated school, and he became an avid reader. His father apparently taught him how to earn a living as a gardener and yard worker. Certainly, Father Divine experienced the sting of racial discrimination, even though Maryland did not have the rigid system of Jim Crow segregation that was found in the other southern states.

In 1899, after the death of his mother, Divine moved to Baltimore, where he worked as a gardener and lived in the servants’ quarters of a white family. While living in Baltimore, he became active in small storefront churches that were mostly attended by impoverished African Americans. These congregations, frequently without regular ministers, provided him with the opportunity to develop his abilities to communicate with an audience. His developing religious system was a blend of several sources, including an emotional form of evangelical Methodism—the prophetic black religious tradition, which emphasized altruism and racial solidarity—and New Thought, which combined a pantheistic view of divinity with positive thinking. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Father Divine was committed to spreading his version of the Gospel, which he was sure would bring comfort, prosperity, and peace of mind, although he rejected the idea of salvation in a heavenly afterlife.

Life’s Work

In 1902, Father Divine traveled through the South on his first evangelical mission, preaching anywhere he could find an audience—in black churches, on street corners, and in front of workplaces. After returning to Baltimore, he continued to work as a gardener and to preach whenever he had the opportunity. In 1906, he embarked on a missionary trek to the West Coast. While in San Francisco, he attended a Pentecostal revival conducted by William Seymour, and like others in attendance, Divine had the experience of glossolalia (speaking in tongues). He later explained that this was a turning point in his life, for he believed that the Holy Spirit had disposed of his mortal nature and given him a divine identity.

In 1907, while attending a Baptist storefront church in Baltimore, Father Divine met Samuel Morris, who had been ejected from the meeting for shouting, “I am the Father Eternal.” Morris quoted a passage in the Bible proclaiming, “The Spirit of God dwells in me,” which he interpreted to mean that he was actually God. Divine accepted Morris’s divinity, and the two men began to collaborate in holding religious services. Deciding to change their identities, Morris took the name “Father Jehovia, God in the Fatherhood degree,” while Divine’s new name was “the Messenger, God in the Sonship degree.” Their ministerial alliance was soon joined by John Hickerson, who called himself Reverend Bishop Saint John the Vine. Eventually the three preachers began to have theological disagreements. Hickerson argued that everyone is divine, whereas Father Divine came to the conclusion that he alone was the true expression of God’s Spirit. Their collaboration ended in 1912.

After leaving Baltimore, Divine traveled in the South for several years as an itinerant evangelist. He preached the doctrine of heaven on earth, calling for racial harmony and application of the golden rule. He also demanded a strict moral code, with “no smoking; no drinking; no obscenity; no vulgarity; no profanity; no undue mixing of the sexes.” His religious meetings included prayers, sermons, singing, personal testimonies, and a Holy Communion banquet, a full meal that was as lavish as possible. Rather than passing a collection plate, he followed Jesus’s example of subsisting on voluntary contributions of food and lodging. Frequently he encountered hostility from local African American ministers. In 1913, a confrontation with ministers in Savannah, Georgia, resulted in a jail term of sixty days.

Visiting a church in Valdosta, Georgia, in 1914, Father Divine was expelled from the services after announcing that he was a new incarnation of Jesus Christ. A considerable number of black women, however, were attracted to his teachings, especially his egalitarian views on women’s rights. He moved into the home of one of his new followers, where he conducted religious ceremonies for a racially mixed congregation. Some husbands of his followers because furious about his insistence on celibacy, and they joined with local preachers to have Divine arrested and prosecuted on charges of lunacy. After a trial in which he testified, the jury ruled that there was no need to institutionalize him, even if his ideas were “maniacal.” After a second arrest, he was released with the condition that he leave the community.

In 1917, Father Divine established a small commune of dedicated followers in Brooklyn, New York. Hoping to establish an example for the world, he insisted that member of the commune follow an ascetic code and live together as a family, pooling their wages to pay for expenses. During this period he married a committed disciple, Peninniah, and changed his name to Father Major Jealous Divine. His followers sang, “God is here on earth today; Father Divine is his name.”

From 1919 to 1932, Father Divine lived with his most devoted followers in a large communal house in the overwhelmingly white community of Sayville, New York (on Long Island). During this period, he attracted hundreds of new followers. Each week, large crowds came to take advantage of free Holy Communion banquets. His white neighbors became displeased with all the noisy activity and accused the group of disorderly conduct. Some even alleged scandalous sexual orgies. In May, 1931, the district attorney charged Father Divine with disturbing the peace. On November 15, before the trial took place, a mob of angry neighbors gathered to protest in front of the communal house. The police arrived and ordered Father Divine’s followers to disperse; when they failed to do so, the police arrested Divine and seventy-eight followers.

Sensational reports about Father Divine suddenly began to appear in newspapers and magazines, propelling his popularity. Huge audiences went to hear his religious talks; an estimated ten thousand people attended his presentation at Harlem’s Rockland Palace. Branch colonies were established in several Northeastern cities. In March, 1932, Divine moved to an elegant Harlem house owned by a wealthy disciple. His organization was renamed the Peace Mission movement.

When Father Divine’s trial finally took place in May, 1933, the jury found him guilty, and Justice Lewis Smith imposed the maximum sentence of one year imprisonment and a fine of five hundred dollars. Smith died four days later, causing Divine’s disciples to speculations about holy retribution. Father Divine said to his followers, “I did desire that my heart would touch his spirit and change his mind that he might repent and believe and be saved from the grave.” Although his imprisonment lasted less than a month, the experience gave Divine a new determination to use his influence to promote civil rights and racial justice. His influence at that time was immense. The New York Times reported in November that he attracted two million followers, but historian Jill Watts concluded that a more realistic number would be fifty thousand disciplines and sympathizers.

In 1936, the International Peace Mission movement organized the Divine Righteous Government Convention, in which five thousand followers and sympathizers attempted to organize Father Divine’s teachings into a coherent political program. The resulting platform called for many liberal reforms, including the outlawing of lynching and racial discrimination in employment. However, the platform also had conservative features, such as criticisms of New Deal regulations and expenditures on public works. Although a few candidates for local and state office endorsed the platform, it appeared to have no impact on the outcome of the 1936 elections.

In 1937, at the height of Father Divine’s influence, several misfortunes struck his organization. One of his wealthy disciples, John Hunt, called John the Revelator, was found guilty of kidnapping and convincing a seventeen-year-old girl that she was the Virgin Mary. Soon thereafter, a Peace Mission leader, called Faithful Mary, defected from the organization and alleged that Father Divine had defrauded followers to support his affluent lifestyle. Although he was cleared of criminal charges, the publicity harmed his reputation. Then a former follower, Verinda Brown, filed a lawsuit accusing Father Divine of keeping the savings with which her family had entrusted him, and the court ordered him to repay the money. After the judgment was upheld in 1942, Father Divine fled the state and settled in Philadelphia, which served as his headquarters for the remainder of his life.

After the scandals of 1937, Father Divine was never able to regain his earlier fame and influence, although he continued to have many devoted followers. The press rarely covered him, and when it did, it tended to present him as an amusing clown rather than a crusader or a menace. After his first wife died in 1943, he married a twenty-one-year-old white disciple, Edna Rose Ritchings, who took the name Mother S. A. Divine and was said to be a reincarnation of Peninniah. Father Divine claimed that their relationship was platonic. As his health declined, he continued to preach and advocate equality for persons of African ancestry. He did not participate in the growing Civil Rights movement, however, because of his failing health and because of his denial of racial categories. He died of natural causes in 1965, and his widow, Mother S. A. Divine, became spiritual leader of the movement’s remaining devotees.

Significance

Father Divine’s unusual theology appealed to a surprising number of people during his lifetime. The two major reasons for his success were probably his charismatic personality and the sense of belonging that the Peace Mission movement provided to members. Although considered a charlatan and cult leader by critics, Divine helped to promote the economic independence and social equality of his followers. To some extent at least, he anticipated the social and political ideas of the later Civil Rights movement.

Bibliography

Burnham, Kenneth E. God Comes to America: Father Divine and the Peace Mission Movement. Boston: Lambeth Press, 1979. An interesting and readable account of Father Divine’s ideas and their appeal.

Hoshor, John. God in a Rolls-Royce: The Rise of Father Divine, Madman, Menace, or Messiah. New York: Hillman-Curl, 1936. A sensational and often inaccurate exposé that reflected white fears of the Peace Mission movement during the 1930’s.

Mabee, Carleton. Promised Land: Father Divine’s Interracial Communities in Ulster County, New York. Fleischmanns, N.Y.: Purple Mountain Press, 2008. A study of local followers by a specialist in the history of the Hudson Valley of New York.

Mosley, Glenn. New Thought, Ancient Wisdom: The History and Future of the New Thought Movement. Philadelphia: Templeton Press, 2006. An informed account of the metaphysical tradition that profoundly influenced Father Divine’s thinking.

Watts, Jill. God, Harlem U.S.A.: The Father Divine Story. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. This is the best and most interesting biography of Father Divine, arguing that his political views can only understood within the context of his religious doctrines.

Weisbrot, Robert. Father Divine and the Struggle for Racial Equality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983. A highly favorable account that probably exaggerates the extent to which Divine was a forerunner of the later Civil Rights movement.