Church Of God Research Articles

Pentecostal healing as an expression of godly love: an empirical study

This study examines questionnaire data collected from a congregational survey of worshippers among the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) Pentecostal denomination (N = 1522). It is part of a larger study that considers the influence of a perceived relationship of love with God upon benevolent attitudes and action. This paper explores the influence of religiosity and socialisation upon healing experiences and practices. This is because engagement with healing practices is regarded by Pentecostals as a form of benevolent action. A causal model is presented that suggests healing experience can be explained by means of specific background variables (gender, age and ethnicity directly; marital status and education indirectly), religiosity (Sunday worship and all-age Sunday school) and socialisation factors (significant others and perceived influence of a direct encounter with God). The significance of these findings for understanding healing practices among Christians in relation to religion and health is subsequently discussed.

The rise to respectability: race, religion, and the Church of God in Christ

The rise to respectability: race, religion, and the Church of God in Christ

Black Church Giving

Church giving is an understudied phenomenon; queries on Black Church giving are even rarer. In response to the latter dynamic, levels of tithing, income, and mission donations are examined based on a national sample of 1,601 Black churches across seven denominations using linear and ordered logit modeling. Findings show minimal ideological and programmatic effects. However, denominational differences suggest that Black congregations affiliated with the Church of God in Christ have higher relative percentages of tithers and those associated with the Presbyterian and United Methodist faiths have the lowest rates as compared with their Baptist peers. Moreover, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Presbyterian, and United Methodist churches are more likely to have higher church incomes and mission giving than Baptists. Thus, although Baptists tend to generally have higher rates of church tithers, this pattern does not translate to higher church incomes or mission donations. As expected, church size and formally educated memberships positively influence giving patterns. Results provide important insights into the Black Church economic ethic.

Religious socialization and benevolence: a study among American Pentecostals

This study explores benevolent action among Pentecostals in the USA using a congregational questionnaire survey of worshippers among the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) (N = 1522). The influence of religiosity and the socialization of a perceived relationship of love with God (Godly Love) are explored, while controlling for background variables. The findings suggest that Pentecostal spirituality expressed in terms of charismatic experience is a predictor of benevolence, alongside the socialization factor of Christian media, and to a limited extent the factors of reference group, significant other and personal agency.

Nearer, My God, to Thee

Nearer, My God, to Thee

The Strange Immortalities of Race

The Strange Immortalities of Race

“The Saints Go Marching”: Black Pentecostal Critical Consciousness and the Political Protest Activism of Pastors and Leaders in the Church of God in Christ in the Civil Rights Era

Abstract Although black Pentecostal leaders are known for their emphasis on holiness and spiritual empowerment, they are not renowned for having led and spearheaded political protest struggles during the Civil Rights movement. In this paper I discuss black Pentecostals’ postures toward political protest struggles, and I analyze reasons why some black Pentecostals participated in the Civil Rights movement while others did not. My central argument is that critical consciousness formation played an integral role in motivating a minority of Church of God in Christ (COGIC) clergy and leaders to engage in Civil Rights protest struggles. That is to say, many black Pentecostals who took part in the movement reconciled their strivings for spiritual empowerment against evil with critical reflection upon complex social, political, and economic realities. They recognized the utility of opposing structures of oppression through direct, nonviolent means.

Metabolic Syndrome in Relation to Body Mass Index and Waist to Hip Ratio; A Study in Kumasi Metropolis

The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and examine the risk associations between obesity indexes [body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR)], cardiovascular risk factors [plasma glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure] and morbidity conditions (type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension and dyslipidemia) in the Kumasi metropolis. Three hundred and eighty seven Penteco- Charismatic Ghanaian subjects (18–85 years of age) were recruited from Pentecost Church Santasi, and the Bantama and Old Tafo Assembly of God Churches in Kumasi, Ghana. The parameters determined on the subjects included: height; weight; waist and hip circumferences; blood pressure; fasting plasma glucose and cholesterol. There were 267 females (69%) and 120 (31%) males with mean age 41.36 ± 13.59 years. Mean BMI was 25.85 ± 5.89 kg/m2 and 22.61 ± 3.48 kg/m2 in male and female subjects respectively. Mean WC measurement was 35.41 ± 4.93 in and mean WHR was 0.86 ± 0.11. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 8.0%, while in females and males were 10.86% and 1.67% respectively. The prevalence of diabetes was 5.0%, while in females it was 6.4% and 3.3% in males. The overall prevalence of hypertension was 32.04%, 39.0% in females and males of 16.7%. There were increasing trends between obesity indices and the severity of cardiovascular risk factors and the prevalence of morbidity conditions (all P-values for trend <0.05). Patients with a greater number of comorbidities also had higher BMI, WC, and WHR measurements (all P-values for the trend were <0.05 with adjustment for age and gender). Hence, despite Penteco-Charismatic Ghanaian subjects being less obese than Caucasians and Western countries, the intimate relationships among obesity, cardiovascular risk factors and morbidity conditions remain. Our data support using BMI and WC as part of routine clinical evaluation of patients to define obesity and its associated health risks. The results suggest that prevention of obesity, particularly central obesity; healthy living, lifestyle modification and exercising could be the most direct route to prevention of Metabolic Syndrome and its complications.

"Casos de família": um olhar sobre o contexto da disputa "Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus x Igreja Mundial do Poder de Deus" nas mídias

A propósito das disputas entre a Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus e a Igreja Mundial do Poder de Deus no primeiro semestre de 2012, o artigo estuda a dimensão do espetáculo e do mercado cultural religioso nas mídias. Por meio de uma pesquisa exploratória dos principais escândalos e embates envolvendo igrejas e líderes religiosos nas mídias nas últimas décadas, o estudo busca (1) localizar o fenômeno da espetacularização da fé como uma estratégia de marketing, como resposta à concorrência, que inclui a visibilidade também por meio de conflitos; (2) indicar caminhos que instigam a novas investigações.

Philanthropy in the Faith Community: Mobilizing Faith-Based Organizations for Substance Use Prevention

Keywords: Faith, philanthropy, substance use, prevention, addictionThe Assistance for Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP) Center was created in 2000 by the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati to strengthen grassroots substance abuse prevention through technical assistance and grantmaking. Over the years, the ASAP Center has worked with community partners in the faith community to prevent alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use. Reviving the Human Spirit (RTHS) was a collaborative project that provided resources to help congregations provide substance use prevention and recovery support in their communities. The ASAP Center also helped mobilize faith communities that were not involved with RTHS to implement evidencebased prevention programs. The center conducted surveys and interviews to understand the successes and challenges of congregations engaged in community-based substance abuse prevention efforts. This reflective practice article examines lessons learned in the faith community and describes how those lessons will shape the ASAP Center's future. This article will also introduce the Faith-Based Prevention Toolkit, a resource developed by the ASAP Center, the Coalition for a Drug-Free Greater Cincinnati, and collaborators to help members of the faith community implement and sustain substance abuse prevention activities in their congregations.The Health Foundation, an independent 501(c)(4) social welfare organization dedicated to improving community health, awards grants to nonprofit and governmental organizations for programs and activities that improve health in Cincinnati and 20 surrounding counties in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. The Health Foundation provides direct support for addiction treatment and created the ASAP Center to carry out prevention activities within the Health Foundation's Substance Use Disorders focus area.1 The center operates as an intermediary of the foundation, providing capacity building, grants, and technical assistance to community organizations (e.g., senior citizens clubs, community centers, civic and fraternal organizations, congregations, and after-school programs), to promote evidence-based prevention.When the ASAP Center was founded, foundation staff, in consultation with community members and prevention professionals, identified the faith community as one of the center's four areas of concentration: Hispanic/Latino, rural, older adults, and the faith community. The center's founders recognized that congregations play an important role in the lives of many people in the region and that there is potential to engage community members in prevention efforts by leveraging the existing infrastructure of the faith community. In order to meet the needs of a wide variety of faith-based organizations, the center developed a two-pronged approach to work within its faith community area: encouraging shared learning through the RTHS project and providing prevention support directly to congregations and faith-based organizations.Supporting Shared Learning Through RTHSThe ASAP Center formed RTHS in collaboration with regional and national partners, including the Coalition for a Drug-Free Greater Cincinnati, League Ministry Consultants, and the Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Program. RTHS created a network of professionals and members of the faith community that provided support for the development of prevention and recovery ministries. This group came together to implement the Faith Partners model for Substance Abuse Team ministries.2 The ASAP Center provided funding, coordination, and support to the RTHS collaborative and its members.Since its founding in 2000, more than 2,000 individuals representing 215 faith-based organizations have participated in RTHS activities, including 38 congregations that started Substance Abuse Team ministries. These included a variety of faiths and denominations, including Church of God, Episcopalian, Baptist, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Presbyterian, Seventh day Adventist, and Non-Denominational Christian. …

Spirit Baptism, Socialization and Godly Love in the Church of God (Cleveland, TN)

The aim of this study is to explore the relationship of specific socialization of Godly Love measures and the Pentecostal spirituality measure of the experience of Spirit Baptism on benevolent action, while controlling for the background variables of gender, age and education. The socialization factors are reference group, significant other, Christian media, personal agency and perception of direct encounter with God. Benevolent action is measures in the giving of time and money (intensity) and the extent to which it is distributed to friends and family and to the community and beyond (extensity). Data was provided from a congregational questionnaire survey among Sunday morning attendees in the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) denomination in the USA. The results show that socialization factors (reference group, significant other, Christian media) do predict the extensity measures of benevolence and that personal agency is a predictor of the intensity (giving money) as well as the extensity measures (family and friend, community and beyond). Spirit Baptism is a predictor for one extensity measure (friends and family) but otherwise is insignificant. Age is a predictor of both intensity (giving of money) and extensity (family and friends, community and beyond), while education is a predictor of intensity (giving of money). Gender is insignificant.

Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation (review)

Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation. By Magda Teter. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2011. Pp. x, 331. $39.95. ISBN 978-0-674-05297-0.) Politically powerful noblemen in Reformation Poland, attempting to protect Protestants (and enhance their own power), advanced measures limiting the authority of the Catholic Church. This culminated in the 1 560s when the Polish parliament (Sejm) decided that secular authorities would no longer enforce verdicts declared by ecclesiastical courts. Ironically, with the ecclesiastical courts' loss of power, secular courts gradually began to adjudicate religious and moral matters. Acts that once were classified as sins and might have been punished with symbolic acts of penance or excommunication were now criminalized. As Magda Teter notes, Crimes against religion, such as adultery, blasphemy and sacrilege, almost surely sent the convicts quickly to the stake, while social and sexual crimes, such as adultery, bigamy, abortion and infanticide, became punishable by diverse forms of death. . (p. 7). In effect, local magistrate courts became the adjudicators of religious and moral behavior and the arbiters of the sacred. As the forces of the Counter-Reformation gained momentum in Poland and the Protestant and Catholic Churches vied for the status of ecclesia Dei (the Church of God), local authorities tended to side with the Catholics. With erudition and much precise detail (although with murky rhetorical strategy), Teter traces the highlights of the Protestant-Catholic competition, focusing especially on the issue of transubstantiation and the divine nature of the Eucharist. She shows how both legends and trials of cases of desecration of the host were part of larger project to silence dissent, affirm Catholic dogma, and re-establish the Catholic Church's religious monopoly. Teter forces rethinking of the thesis of Janusz Tazbir, who famously termed Counter-Reformation Poland a state without (p. 225). He claimed that the decline of the Reformation in Poland was gradual and painless (p. 225). Poland, due to its constitutional system and vaunted toleration of dissenters, was spared bloody religious strife (p. 225). Teter insists that, although there may not have been religious wars, or mass trials and autos de fe, numerous individual acts of religious violence imposed by secular courts played key role in Polish re-Catholicization: The stakes were lit . …

Saints and the “Long Civil Rights Movement”

In the twentieth-century American South, black religious institutions played key roles in shaping and reshaping urban landscapes. In doing so, these institutions made significant, but often overlooked, contributions to the “Long Civil Rights Movement.” In Memphis, no church better exemplified the intimate intertwining of race, space, and religion than the Church of God in Christ (COGIC). The history of COGIC in Memphis complicates the assumption that the Civil Rights Movement dictated a simple move from segregated black space to racially integrated space and breaks down false spatial dichotomies such as black/white and religious/secular. Instead, COGIC built segregated worship space, moved into white residential space, adapted black religious space for overtly political purposes, and finally, claimed white secular space for black religious purposes. Alongside the properly celebrated deeds of national leaders, local reconfigurations of urban space by religious institutions deserve to be recognized as a prime factor in the long road to civil rights.

Reconsidering Roger Bacon's Apocalypticism in Light of His Alchemical and Scientific Thought

“Since you have commanded me to write on the wisdom of philosophy, I shall cite to your Clemency the opinions of the sages, especially since this knowledge is absolutely necessary to the Church of God against the fury of Antichrist.”1 So wrote Roger Bacon to Clement IV. The pope had commanded Bacon to send writings of which Roger had spoken when Clement was still Cardinal Guy Folques.2 Clement's letter does not mention Antichrist, nor does it specify the subject matter of the aforementioned conversation. Still, since Bacon mentions Antichrist in what was likely a prefatory letter to either the Opus maius or Opus minus,3 the specter of Antichrist that lurks throughout Bacon's Opera and other works may not have come as a surprise. Yet, amid the clamor of Joachite apocalypticism that quickly coiled itself around the Franciscan Order in the latter half of the thirteenth century,4 Roger Bacon's own apocalyptic opinions remain underappreciated. This is not to say that Bacon's apocalypticism has gone unrecognized. Scholars have long agreed, as Brett Whalen has said recently, that Bacon “layered his writings with a sense of apocalyptic expectation.”5 Yet the historiographical tendency to separate Bacon's scientific writings from his religious beliefs and practices appears to have obscured Bacon's own radical ideas about the end of days.6

The Lord Will Make a Way Somehow: Strategies for Cross-Cultural Music and Worship

With neighborhoods shifting racially and economically, churches are challenged with meeting the new population with relevant and culturally meaningful worship music. Ethnic groups are diverse within themselves as well, with black and Latino peoples having disparate tastes and traditions from Church of God in Christ to South American Evangelicals. Congregations must have strong pastoral leadership and competent, spiritually alert musicians and singers. Although the leadership may want more effective outreach through music, it requires trained musicians, often in jazz, to educate the musicians as well as the congregation. Vocalists must also be melded together, trained and untrained, into a vernacular blend in praise teams or choirs. Musicians must do research in the community for songs and resources that touch the “heart music” of the target population. The result of such a commitment is to see a congregation rally around a new mission and new friendships. Children growing up in such a cross-cultural worship have a more open view of the world. But bearing fruit in cross-cultural ministry is measured in decades and may not have overwhelming success like some homogeneous church plants. If we want to see the church's witness as credible before a watching world, racial reconciliation and justice fleshed out in the worshipping community must be a greater priority. In a society still plagued with racial alienation, this may be the toughest strategy of all.

“I Have Done the Best I Could”: Opportunities and Limitations for Women Ministers in the Church of God—A Pentecostal Denomination

When the Pentecostal movement emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century, its emphasis on the restoration of apostolic Christianity, including Spirit-inspired prophecy, provided a rationale for women ministers. Yet this position did not change the common belief that women and men are ontologically different, and thus have different ministerial functions. This article uses the testimony of a female evangelist in the Church of God to explore these positions and the particular ways the Church of God discussed women ministers.

Parentally Mandated Religious Healing for Children: A Therapeutic Justice Approach

Significant controversy surrounds individuals' reliance on religious healing approaches to the treatment of illness, particularly when such efforts focus on the provision of care for children. These approaches, rooted in organized religions and their theologies, encompass a wide range of practices, ranging from prayer, meditation, and the laying on of hands, to exorcism, speaking in tongues, Spiritism, shamanic intervention, and various rituals of Santería. Numerous faith communities espouse one or more forms of religious healing while discouraging reliance on conventional medical treatments: These communities include the Christian Science Church, the Church of the First Born, End Time Ministries, Faith Tabernacle, Followers of Christ Church, Bible Believers' Fellowship, Christ Assembly, Christ Miracle Healing Center, Church of God Chapel, Church of God of the Union Assembly, Holiness Church, Jesus Through Jon and Judy, “No Name” Fellowship, Northeast Kingdom Community Church, and The Source.Others, such as the Assemblies of God, have moved away from an exclusive reliance on religious healing practices to a more holistic approach that combines religious-healing with at least some aspects of biomedicine. For many of these listed groups, health and illness represent the physical manifestation of moral concerns relating to salvation, which can only be addressed through religious healing.

What Puritan Guarantee?

In The Puritan Origins of American Self Sacvan Bercovitch claims American Puritans believed God had made a long promised summons to them, irreversible as was irresistible, to erect New Jerusalem in (97). Eventually, their speculations about millennial site [of New Jerusalem] shifted from New England to, vaguely, America itself (xviii). This divine irreversible geographic guarantee had extraordinary implications. It meant the idea of America ... assured settlers of success.... The American Puritan self was a garden enclosed from threat even of secular failure (101). Over centuries, that Puritan guarantee evolved into a nation's divine right to expand (xvii). Cotton Mather's writings, main focus of Puritan Origins, are ideal for explicating this American Puritan guarantee because, according to Bercovitch, Mather is a come to life (68). Historians reviewed Puritan Origins enthusiastically when came out in 1975. But by time arrived at graduate school twelve years later, enthusiasm had faded. Historians had grown dubious about an American self and about New England as foundation of American history. Puritan specialists became more interested in connections between American and English Puritanism than differences. Perhaps most important, Dwight Bozeman argued persuasively intentionally world-changing Puritan errand into wilderness, millennial or otherwise, was an artifact of mid-twentieth-century scholarship (Guru). Before read Puritan Origins in graduate school, understood, as still do, New Englanders assumed no guarantee of success. God summoned New England as he had summoned ancient Israel, conditionally on holiness of region's inhabitants. As John Winthrop in A Modell of Christian Charitie in 1630 warned, if our heartes shall turne away, soe wee will not obey [God] ... wee shall surely perishe out of good land (48). The conditionality of God's relationship with New England was repeated countless times afterwards, in tones ranging from mild optimism to severe anxiety, not only by individual ministers but by ministers and laity speaking collectively. (1) Millennialism did not alter conditionality. By middle of 1630s, some New Englanders started to believe their pure churches foreshadowed millennium (Winship, Making 61-62). Puritan Origins' many quotations linking New England and millennium express no more than this foreshadowing; they could be piled up endlessly without ever conveying anything about guaranteed success or an American New Jerusalem* The prominent minister John Cotton, for example, served as a very enthusiastic emigrant around 1635 when he wrote to a friend in Holland the order of churches and commonwealth ... brought into his mind new heaven and new earth (C. Mather, Magnalia 1: 325). But Cotton emphasized New England churches needed much more holiness to participate in millennium and there was no certainty of them achieving it. The closest he came to Bercovitch's irreversible Puritan guarantee was I hope Lord will bring us to it (Churches 16, 20-22). Cotton identified New Jerusalem not with America but with coming church of those Jews who were to convert to Christianity as millennium approached (Way 10). Cotton Mather, John Cotton's grandson, was no less representative in his speculation about New England (1702) in Magnalia Christi Americana. There he suggested Christ had intended New England to be a pattern to his other churches, worried this role was finished, and asked whether Plantation may not, soon after this, come to nothing (1: 27). Mather claimed New Jerusalem would hover not over America but over earthly Jerusalem (Smolinski 375-77). Both ministers knew Israel, God's church, did not necessarily need a permanent New England Israel in order to realize prophecies in which New England appeared to play a role. …

Shared Possessions: Black Pentecostals, Afro-Caribbeans, and Sacred Music

She was left undisturbed, allowed to continue her solitary dance to music that had long since ceased. As she danced, evening worship service progressed in usual manner--a few more testimonies, offertory, beginning of sermon. Soon after start of sermon, her dance subsided, and ladies in white went to her side to fan wipe sweat from her brow, and escort her back to real time. Lord is a work in her, preacher observed in a momentary digression from his sermon. The congregation responded with amens and other devotional affirmations, grateful for this evidence of Lord's work, and unbothered by its spontaneous interpolation into normal unfolding of things. This scene was one of many similar phenomena that I witnessed at Open Door Church of God in Christ in Gary, Indiana, black Pentecostal church of my childhood from late 1960s until early 1980s. There were many labels for this particular brand of Lord's work. The solitary dancer might be described as getting Holy Ghost, doing holy shouting, being filled, catching Spirit, being purged, or simply as someone getting a blessing. Whatever descriptor, phenomenon was familiar to all members of this religious culture. And it was understood that music-not just any music, but certain music--could facilitate such manifestations. While getting Holy Ghost and catching Spirit, parishioners at my urban, black-American church had no awareness of many parallels between our Spirit-driven modes of worship and those common to our Afro-Caribbean counterparts. We were completely unaware, for example, that members of Trinidadian Spiritual Baptist communities, Haitian Heavenly Army churches, and Jamaican Revival Zionist groups entertained and embraced religious phenomena very similar to ours, and that they, like us, used terms like catching power or catching or being filled in reference to Holy Spirit manifestation. We were even less aware of threads that connected both black-American and Afro-Caribbean religious expressions to their West African origins. And although term was nowhere in parlance of my particular church, it aptly describes divine encounters both in our congregation and in religious contexts of African diasporal groups around world. Spirit possession is a phenomenon common to nearly all African societies, one that underscores boundless interchange between physical and unseen in African consciousness. Some writers, such as Kenneth Anthony Lum, distinguish between spirit possession and spirit manifestation. While I use term spirit possession primarily in reference to phenomenon wherein an individual worshipper's consciousness, emotional state, and physical gestures are entirely subjugated to divine presence, I may use this term somewhat interchangeably with spirit manifestation. Spirit possession occurs when, through acts of worship involving ritualistic drumming, dancing, and chanting, divine agent temporarily, yet dramatically, inhabits body of devotee. This divine incarnation brings on a state of transcendence during which worshipper serves as conduit for manifestation of deity's presence. Writing about ubiquity of spirit possession in Africa, Samuel Floyd (1995) that ceremonial possession was about by rhythmic stimulation (drumming and chanting), energetic and concentrated dancing, and controlled emotional and mental concentration. He contends, however, that the whole of ritual experience, which includes dance, music, costumes, and at times storytelling makes possession effective. Floyd further that while hallucinogens sometimes help to facilitate possession, these sacred, blissful, and altered states are brought on principally by drumming (20-21). Spirit possession was as central to my black-American, Pentecostal upbringing as it is to religious cultures throughout Africa. …

(E)raced Men: Complicity and Responsibility in the Rhetorics of Barack Obama

The dynamic tensions that mark contemporary discussions of race gravitate persistently between historical realities and symbolic fictions. Nowhere is this tension more powerfully and provocatively revealed and concealed than in the rhetoric of Barack Obama. Our essay interrogates this simultaneity by juxtaposing rhetorics of race and responsibility in two of Obama's speeches: his June 15, 2008, Father's Day speech before the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, Illinois, and his Remarks to the NAACP Centennial Convention on July 17, 2009.