The first of its kind, this seminal work charts the unlikely theological quest for Christian holiness by founder Charles Harrison Mason and the Wesleyan-Holiness Pentecostal tradition known as the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States. Through fresh research and critical analysis, this book challenges existing assumptions by scholars and reveals how little-known black renewal movements informed Mason’s theological understanding and that of the movement.
The rich theological resources of this historically marginalized movement are not primarily accessible in academic journals, position papers, or theological treatises. Instead, these resources function as “lived religion,” where the theological presuppositions are embedded in primitive worship, ecstatic religious practices, and countercultural distinctives.
By unpacking the “lived religion” of this self-professed sanctified church, this book explores how sanctification and the practice of Christian holiness shaped and empowered the COGIC, its people, and its practices in creative and profound ways—resulting in a radical holiness ethic that emerged from an inexhaustible exilic vitality with personal, social, and political implications. Given the challenge of Christian nationalism today, this book provides a framework that informs Christian identity and faithful living for the broader Christian community.
Life’s challenges have a purpose. Whether the challenge is loss, sickness, pain, or grief, God’s overall plan is at work.
Even when those who love God don’t understand the situation that God allows, they can still believe that life is working out for their good.
Healing is the Children’s Bread recounts the true story of a mother’s alarm at the sudden unexplainable illness of her 8-year- old daughter and how a devout Christian could face such a challenge.
Like a road map, this book details the process of healing, and the things one learns while in the fight to be well.
For this ministry family, the challenge of sickness comes amid the fallout of three consecutive job losses that put them in a financial tailspin. Their crisis within a crisis required this mother and her family to trust God for their most basic needs and a miracle healing. Prayer, their key component, helped the family’s faith to grow as they witnessed God’s power to keep them from hunger, foreclosure, homelessness, and death.
This book will take you on an emotional rollercoaster. As you read through the peaks and valleys of my journey, you will discover the faith that has sustained me.
It is intended to ignite dreams buried by fear, intimidation, failure, cultural conditioning, and any other dream killer. If this book finds its way into your hands, I believe you are on the brink of an encounter with God that will change your life forever.
I am transparent about many difficult events in my life. I recount how I progressed through hard times with faith in God, a faith that continues to keep me through hopeless moments of life. If you have lost hope, this book will inspire you to hope again. If your faith in God is waning, it will challenge your faith.
This book could have been entitled “Making of a Miracle,” because I surrendered my heart to Jesus Christ as a teenager and I have watched him make a miracle out of my life. Miracles are sometimes instantaneous and other times progressive. The point is that we only have one lifetime to grow into the fullness of God’s plan for our life. My hope is that you do not miss what God has planned for your life.
I hope my story inspires you!
