Father Divine (c. 1876 – September 10, 1965), also known as Reverend M. J. Divine, was an American spiritual leader from about 1907 until his death in 1965. His full self-given name was Reverend Major Jealous Divine, and he was also known as "the Messenger" early in his life. He founded the International Peace Mission movement, formed its doctrine and oversaw its growth from a small and predominantly black congregation into a multiracial and international church. He also engaged in anti-lynching activism. His organization had a few tens of thousands of adherents and was the largest property owner in Harlem at one time. Many consider him to be a cult leader, since he claimed to be God.
Prior to 1912: Early life and original name
Little is known about Father Divine's early life, or even his real given name. Father Divine and the peace movement he started did not keep many records. Father Divine declined several offers to write his biography, saying that "the history of God would not be useful in mortal terms". He also refused to acknowledge his relationship with any family. Newspapers in the 1930s had to dig up his probable given name: George Baker. This name is not recognized by the Library of Congress, and from 1979, there is no further use of that name as a heading for Father Divine in libraries' catalogs.
Federal Bureau of Investigation files record his name as George Baker, alias "God". In 1936 Eliza Mayfield claimed to be Father Divine's mother. She stated that his real name was Frederick Edwards from Hendersonville, North Carolina, and he had abandoned a wife and five children, but Mayfield offered no proof and claimed not to remember his father's name. Father Divine replied that "God has no mother."
Father Divine's childhood remains a contentious point. Some, especially earlier researchers, suppose that he was born in the Deep South, most likely in Georgia, as the son of sharecroppers. Newer research by Jill Watts, based on census data, finds evidence for a George Baker Jr. of appropriate age born in an African-American enclave of Rockville, Maryland, called Monkey Run. If this theory is correct, his mother was a former slave named Nancy Baker, who died in May 1897.
Most researchers agree that Father Divine's parents were freed black slaves. Recordkeeping about this generation of African Americans was notoriously poor, so controversy about his upbringing is not likely to be resolved. On the other hand, he and his first wife, Peninniah (variant spellings: Penninah, Peninnah, Penniah) claimed that they were married on June 6, 1882. This date appears to have a spiritual meaning rather than a literal one.
Father Divine was probably called George Baker around the turn of the century. He worked as a gardener in Baltimore, Maryland. In a 1906 trip to California, Father Divine became acquainted with the ideas of Charles Fillmore and the New Thought movement, a philosophy of positive thinking that would inform his later doctrines. Among other things, this belief system asserted that negative thoughts led to poverty and unhappiness. Songwriter Johnny Mercer credited a Father Divine sermon for inspiring the title of his song "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive".
Father Divine attended a local Baptist Church, often preaching, until 1907, when a traveling preacher named Samuel Morris spoke and was expelled from the congregation. Morris, originally from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, had a soft-spoken and uncontroversial sermon until the end, when he raised his arms and shouted "I am the Eternal Father!" This routine had him thrown out of many churches in Baltimore, and was apparently unsuccessful until Morris happened upon the receptive Father Divine.
In his late 20s, Father Divine became Morris's first follower and adopted a pseudonym, "The Messenger". The Messenger was a Christ figure to Morris's God the Father. Father Divine preached with Morris in Baltimore out of the home of former evangelist Harriette Snowden, who came to accept their divinity. Morris began calling himself "Father Jehovia".
Divine and Father Jehovia were later joined by John A. Hickerson, who called himself Reverend Bishop Saint John the Vine. John the Vine shared the Messenger's excellent speaking ability and his interest in New Thought.
In 1912, the three-man ministry collapsed, as John the Vine denied Father Jehovia's monopoly on godhood, citing 1 John 4:15 to mean God was in everyone:
Whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him and he in God.
Father Divine parted ways with his former associates. Denying that Father Jehovia was God, and saying that not everyone could be God, he declared that he himself was God, and the only true expression of God's spirit.
Father Divine traveled south, where he preached extensively in Georgia. In 1913, conflicts with local ministers led to him being sentenced to 60 days in a chain gang. While he was serving his sentence, several prison inspectors were injured in an auto accident, which he viewed as the direct result of their disbelief.
Upon his release, he attracted a following of mostly black women in Valdosta, Georgia. He taught celibacy and the rejection of gender categorizations.
On February 6, 1914, several followers' husbands and local preachers had Divine arrested for lunacy. This arrest expanded his ministry, with reporters and worshipers deluging his prison cell. Some whites even began calling on him.
Former Mercer University professor and lay preacher, J.R. Moseley of Macon, Georgia befriended Divine and arranged for J.B. Copeland, a Mercer alum and respected Valdosta lawyer, to represent him pro bono. Moseley was interested in what he termed "this unusual man" in his autobiography Manifest Victory.
Decades later, in the 1930s, Moseley met Divine in New York City when he received word that the man going by that name might in fact be the same person he met in Georgia. Father Divine was found mentally sound in spite of "maniacal" beliefs. He had given no name when arrested and was tried as "John Doe (alias God)".