Church Of God in Christ (COGIC)

The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) is a Pentecostal Christian denomination in the United States. Founded in 1907 by Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, the church is headquartered at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. As a Pentecostal church, the COGIC places much significance on the individual believer's personal relationship with God, a relationship held by the faithful to be enabled by the power of the Holy Spirit and fostered through the rite of baptism.

The COGIC was primarily composed of Black American members to begin with; however, the church has expanded to claim between five and six million members in 112 countries around the globe as of 2024. With more than 12,000 churches in the United States, the COGIC is the fourth-largest Protestant Christian faith community in North America. It is also the largest African American Pentecostal church in the world.

History

Harrison Mason was the son of formerly enslaved African Americans who became Christian converts prior to their emancipation. As a child, Mason moved with his family from Tennessee to Arkansas to escape an outbreak of yellow fever. The disease claimed Mason's father, and Mason contracted tuberculosis. Though the disease left Mason debilitated, he suddenly recovered his ability to walk after claiming that God appeared to him in a vision. Shortly thereafter, Mason was baptized into the Baptist faith and became a lay preacher at the Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church near Plumerville, Arkansas.

Mason earned his ministerial credentials and began a brief Baptist preaching career. He then enrolled in the Arkansas Baptist College, but he abandoned his studies after three months, citing dissatisfaction with the school's interpretation of the Bible and its pedagogical methods. He began to preach independently, eventually joining a group of militant evangelists who launched a revivalist ministry in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1896. The group's divergent doctrines led to its estrangement from the mainstream Baptist community in the American South, forcing Mason to resort to preaching at the doors of the Jackson courthouse. Mason drew sizeable crowds to his sermons, leading a local warehouse owner to offer an unused gin distillery as the site of future congregations. This distillery is cited as the original birthplace of the faith community that would become the COGIC.

After returning to Tennessee from a retreat in Los Angeles in 1907, Mason adopted a controversial theology of free-form worship that led to a split from the other militant preachers with whom Mason had launched his ministry. Mason called for members to join him in a new church, which was called the Pentecostal General Assembly of the Church of God in Christ. Establishing a hierarchy of auxiliaries and overseers, Mason grew the church into a national organization. In 1925, the church built its first headquarters, the National Tabernacle, in Memphis. After the National Tabernacle was destroyed in a fire in 1936, the COGIC erected a new home, the Mason Temple, which was dedicated in 1945. The Mason Temple has served as the denomination's headquarters ever since.

After Mason's death in 1961, the COGIC continued to expand, growing to three million members by the early 1970s. In the mid-2020s, the COGIC had churches on every continent, including more than 12,000 in the United States alone. The COGIC has eschewed membership in the World Council of Churches, a high-profile global ecumenical organization that counts most major Christian denominations among its members.

Beliefs

One of the definitive features of the COGIC is its endorsement of a free and dramatic form of worship characterized by the ecstatic praising of God and Christ as well as celebratory practices such as singing and dancing. The church's alignment with Pentecostal beliefs emphasizes the importance of each individual member's personal relationship with God.

Dogmatically, the COGIC endorses the traditional Christian Trinity of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Through baptism, church members are believed to invite the Holy Spirit into themselves, thus starting them on the path to salvation. Full immersion in water is the preferred method of baptizing a new church member.

The COGIC also believes in the power of divine healing, claiming that faith alone is capable of curing mental and physical afflictions. In addition to baptism, the church also recognizes two other ordinances: communion, in which adherents participate in a symbolic reenactment of the Last Supper, and feet washing, which was practiced by Christ himself as a statement of humility motivated by his universal love for humankind.

Angels and demons figure prominently in the church's view of the universe. Angels are envisioned as divine spirits who serve as minions of God, coming to Earth to enact God's will. Demons are evil spirits that can root themselves in the souls of human beings, from which they must be ritually cast out.

Organization

The ecclesiastical hierarchy of the COGIC is divided into three units: the general assembly, judiciary board, and executive branch or general board. The general assembly consists of delegates with voting privileges who represent the denomination's individual churches, while the judiciary board is staffed by an elected collective of bishops, pastors, and senior church members. The role of the judiciary board is to pass final judgment on questions related to church doctrine, as well as all other canonical issues requiring a consensus. The executive branch or general board is responsible for creating and enacting official church policies and is led by a presiding bishop. These three branches mimic the structure of the federal government of the United States, which also includes legislative, judiciary, and executive bodies.

In addition, the COGIC has a civil branch, which was established by the denomination's 1973 constitution. The civil branch oversees the day-to-day operations of the church and is led by a president along with two vice presidents, a general secretary, a financial secretary, and a general treasurer, all of whom are elected to four-year terms by the general assembly.

Bibliography

"Church of God in Christ (COGIC)." University of Southern California Dornsife Center for Religion and Civic Culture, 16 Apr. 2019, crcc.usc.edu/report/national-association-of-real-estate-brokers-nareb-religious-literacy-primer-2019/church-of-god-in-christ-cogic/. Accessed 8 Jan. 2025.

Clemmons, Ithiel C. Bishop C.H. Mason and the Roots of the Church of God in Christ. Christian Living Books, Inc., 2012.

Grissom, Alvin C. "Church of God in Christ (COGIC)." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas, 27 Sept. 2023, www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2296. Accessed 8 Jan. 2025.

Menefee, Mary. "Charles Harrison Mason, 1866–1961." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas, 27 Sept. 2024, www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=4003. Accessed 8 Jan. 2025.

“The State of Church Membership: Trends and Statistics [2024].” ChurchTrac, www.churchtrac.com/articles/the-state-of-church-membership. Accessed 8 Jan. 2025.

“What We Believe.” Church Of God In Christ, www.cogic.org/about-us/what-we-believe. Accessed 8 Jan. 2025.