Research article

“Bringing perfection in these different places”: Father Divine's vernacular architecture of intention

Bibliographic Data

ID8933583
AuthorsLeonard Norman Primiano (Cabrini University, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume115
Issue1
Pages3-26
Publication date2004-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFolklore (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0015-587X • E-ISSN: 1469-8315
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0015587042000192501
OpenAlexW203197061
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited13

The Peace Mission Movement, an American intentional religious community founded by the Revd M. J. Divine, also known as "Father Divine," expressed through an intentional use of architecture their own quest for a utopian perfection of consciousness in America. What is especially significant about this expression of perfection is that they did not seek it by building environments of their own creation. Instead, the movement and its leader created a unique religious vernacular architecture not by architectural design, but by a spiritualised appropriation of existing spaces. Through purchasing, restoring, re‐using, and preserving many different types of American domestic and commercial structures, Father Divine and his followers developed a theology of material culture and historic preservation that expressed a major theological perspective of their belief system—to spiritualise the material and to materialise the spiritual—all in the service of God and for the transformation of human nature. Notes See Cherry (Citation1998) for a collection of readings tracing the national mythology of America's destiny as a providentially chosen land. Three noteworthy book‐length studies of Father Divine and the Peace Mission are Burnham (Citation1979), Weisbrot (Citation1983), and Watts (Citation1992). These texts treat the activities of Father Divine during his ministry, and Watts speculates on the historical beginnings of the man, George Baker, who would later be identified as Father Divine. Mother Divine and the followers, of course, disagree with such personal assessments of Father Divine whose nature they understand as purely spiritual, and such historical theorising as disrespectful and unnecessary. These Banquet Services have continued with the remnant of the community into the twenty‐first century. Griffith (Citation2001), using Watts (Citation1992) as a source, notes the influence of New Thought, most especially the Unity School ideas of Charles Fillmore, on Father Divine. Particularly important for Griffith is Father Divine's development of the conviction that the human body was an important materialised reflection of a developed, spiritualised consciousness. My own work on the Peace Mission's use of space and the built environment bears out the sacralisation of the material, as well as its indication of powerful spiritual advancement and social liberation for followers. Griffith's analysis is a valuable reading of the history of the Peace Mission; however, according to my own ethnographic research on the contemporary movement, her perspective does not speak to the way the Mission has developed since 1965. Mother Divine's theology of the body emphasises health, natural foods, exercise, and the path to Divine consciousness through eating well. It is significant to note that the central membership of the Mission were, and remain, female. This original residence of Father Divine and Penninah, or the first Mother Divine, on 72 Macon Street has been preserved by the Peace Mission as a holy site and is referred within the movement as "the Home of the Soul." The present Mother Divine still occasionally holds Holy Communion Banquet Services there and uses the property as a place for rest and meditation. See, for example, Church Discipline, Constitution, and By‐Laws of Unity Mission Inc. (n.d.). The payment of taxes was allowed because it "is constitutional; in short evangelical" (Father Divine 11 January 1944, 36). See, for example, New York Times 4 August 1938, 3; 7 August 1938, 62; 10 August 1938, 3; 2 May 1939, 25; 16 June 1939, 2 July 1939, E10; 20 August 1939, E2, 26; 9 July 1945, 18; 18 February 1947, 27; 2 December 1948, 33; 19 May 1949, 31; 11 September 1953, 98; 18 November 1962, 124; 10 May 1964, 65. This coverage continued even when Father moved the Peace Mission out of New York City and into Philadelphia in 1942. Legal complications involving other members and their request for a return of donations were the immediate cause of this move, but Father Divine announced it was because of "the antagonistic and malicious" attitude that the people, public officials, and press of this city has shown toward him" and "because of the disrecognition of those who are in authority of my work and mission" (New York Times 20 July 1942, 15). See Ivey (Citation2002, 108–32) for a useful article on the religious architecture designed for American cities by Christian Science, another New Thought religious movement. I would like to return to an analysis of the Mission's feminine aesthetic of praise in a future publication. Architecture can be comprehensible to sensitive scholars of both humble and grand built environments, but even more significantly it is comprehensible to the designers, builders, and inhabitors of that created space. "Buildings, like poems and rituals," Henry Glassie begins his textbook on vernacular architecture, "realise culture ... Architecture intrudes in the limitless expanses of space, dividing it into useful, comprehensible pieces" (2000, 17, 21). See also Glassie (Citation2000, 46–7) on the relationship between building designers, builders, and users. Mother Divine has been recognised by preservation organisations for her commitment to maintain a number of properties in Philadelphia. In May 2003, for example, she was awarded the Henry Jonas Magaziner Award by the Historic Preservation Committee of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects (see Glassman Citation2003, 10). See Satter's (Citation1996) analysis of Father Divine's understanding of "race neutrality," and its effects on his African American and female followers. Satter's comments on "the latter history of the Peace Mission" (1996, 66) do not reflect the movement's ideas on race and gender in the almost forty years since Father Divine no longer personally led the movement. In this time, the role of nationalism and the consciousness of racism and sexism are companion themes in the lived reality of Peace Mission members' lives and in their understanding of the teachings of Father Divine

Aesthetics · Appropriation · Destiny (ISS module · Divine grace · Epistemology · Perfection · Political science · Proclamation · Sociology · Theology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Religious Tourism and Spaces

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