Bishop C. H. Mason and the Roots of the Church of God in Christ

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Church House Publisher 419 W. Silas Brown Street, Jackson, MS 39204; (901) 826-0939

As the preface of the book indicates, Rev. Dr. Clemmons' book is an introduction, not an exhaustive edition on the history and doctrine of the Church of God in Christ, America's largest pentecostal denomination. COGIC, which is predominantly black, is placed at the center of the worldwide Pentecostal movement, which for too long has been viewed through the eyes of the Assemblies of God, a large, predominantly white group, or scholars from outside of classical Pentecostalism. For those who want to know about the class, cultural and theological debates within the post-bellum black church that gave birth to a distinct "holiness" movement in the black Baptist church, and the eventual Azusa Street Revival, this book is a great resource. Of particular interest to the reader may be Bishop Clemmons' recounting of Mt. Helm Baptist church in Mississippi as the center of a tri-fold movement in the black church: Baptist, Holiness and Pentecostal. The primary weakness of Bishop Clemmons' book is that it is cursory. Perhaps a younger generation of black Pentecostal scholars can pick up where he left off, by providing more cultural criticism and theological reflection on the history of COGIC, which has been obscured or overshadowed by a glossy white rendition all these years.  comes to life, yet again, in the pages of this work, and he too can be viewed as a seminal leader within the Pentecostal movement. This is must reading for those students of the black church at the turn of the century and those who would seek to know more about the emergence of the multi-racial Azusa Street Revival, which gave birth to the Pentecostal movement. The book probes the founding of COGIC as a Pentecostal group and the eventual withdrawal of white ministers to establish the Assemblies of God, an important event due to the two groups differing views on the doctrine of sanctification, as well as implications for Pentecostalism and race relations. The book certainly affirms an important, yet neglected study of American religious history.

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