When groups of radical reformers immigrated to America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, their ideas found fertile soil and flourished in the colonies. In America, and elsewhere, they emphasized experiential salvation, God's love, and practical holiness. Love and holiness were, to them, the hallmarks of the true Church, in contrast to the complicated and formal creedalism prevalent in their day. Great revivals, some marked by pentecostal manifestations, occurred among the radical reform groups, especially the Baptists and the followers of George Whitefield and John Wesley. Following in this tradition, the forefathers of the Church of God of Prophecy viewed their work as both a continuation and restoration of the Apostolic Church.
In August 1886, Richard Spurling ( 1810-1891 ), an ordained Baptist minister, and his youngest son, R. G. Spurling, reacted against the prevailing creedalism among many Baptists of the day. The "Landmark Movement" had permeated Baptist congregations in the southern United States with an exclusivistic view of the Church, which the Spurlings rejected. Consequently, Richard Spurling and seven other individuals came out of the Holly Springs and Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Churches in Monroe County, Tennessee and Cherokee County, North Carolina and organized what they believed to be a true restoration of the Apostolic Church. They called it "Christian Union" and constituted it upon principles remarkably comparable to the sixteenth-century Anabaptists. The group agreed to free themselves "from all (man) made creeds and traditions to take the New Testament, or law of Christ" as their "only rule of faith and practice, giving each other equal rights and privileges to read and interpret for yourselves as your conscience may dictate," and to "sit together as the Church of God to transact business" In September of that same year Spurling ordained his son, R. G., to be the pastor with the consent of the congregation. In 1891 the elder Spurling died, leaving the younger alone to carry on his father's vision for the Christian Union.
Richard Green Spurling (1857-1935) succeeded in establishing at least two more Christian union congregations, even though the initial congregation at Barney Creek in Monroe County ceased to function. Some of the charter members from the original congregation helped to form the two succeeding congregations, and thus, the original organization was perpetuated.
In 1895, portions of western North and South Carolina, northern Georgia, and southeastern Tennessee were agitated by the radical wing of the Holiness movement. Benjamin Harding Irwin had come south from the midwest and greatly affected the region with his "fire-baptized" message. Spurling's congregations were swept into this movement, thus moving away from the general characteristics of Baptists to the tenets of the Holiness movement. R. G. Spurling himself accepted holiness, but endeavored to modify the fanaticism that tended to characterize Irwin's movement. Those who experienced "fire-baptisms" were often difficult to manage, and thus, Spurling struggled to maintain control of his followers. In the summer of 1896, in Cherokee County, North Carolina, about twelve miles from Spurling's congregations in Monroe and Polk Counties in Tennessee, an Irwin-influenced revival broke out. During these meetings, held in Shearer Schoolhouse, some one hundred thirty people were baptized with the Holy Ghost and spoke in unknown tongues. The principal leaders of this revival were William Martin, a Methodist, Joseph M. Tipton, Milton McNabb, and Billy Hamby, all Baptists. Each of these men were acquainted with Spurling and had been influenced by him.
W. F. Bryant, a Baptist lay preacher, was drawn into the Holiness movement during this revival in Cherokee County. Eventually he became the leader of the group in the area of Camp Creek, North Carolina. Great persecution followed Bryant's group in the succeeding years. The Baptist churches in the area disfellowshipped all those "harboring the modern theory of sanctification," maintaining it to be "a dangerous heresy." Persecution, violent at times, continued, with the opponents of holiness taking special advantage of Bryant's loosely-formed fellowship. Oppression from the outside, coupled with an internal lack of order and discipline, nearly devastated Bryant's group. By 1902 the little band had dwindled to no more than twenty people.
Indeed, had it not been for the wise counsel and influence of R. G. Spurling, Bryant and his company of believers may have vanished from history. But on May 15, 1902 Spurling persuaded Bryant to organize in order for the work to survive. Consequently, the Holiness Church at Camp Creek was born. Spurling was selected by the congregation as pastor and Bryant was ordained as a deacon. In this manner Spurling's vision for the restoration of God's Church was perpetuated.
The following year a dynamic and cheerful new leader was attracted to the Holiness Church at Camp Creek. His name was A. J. Tomlinson. Tomlinson ( 1865-1943), a Quaker, had experienced salvation and holiness in his personal life and had come to the Appalachian mountains in 1899 as a missionary under the auspices of the American Bible and Tract Societies. Tomlinson befriended Spurling, Bryant, and the Holiness Church at Camp Creek. Elder Spurling greatly impressed Tomlinson as he explained to him his vision of the Church. On June 13, 1903, after a period of agonizing travail and a personal revelation from God, Tomlinson united with the group. Spurling administered to him a covenant and extended the "right hand of fellowship" which Tomlinson accepted with the understanding that this was the Church of God of the Bible. This event was held sacred by Tomlinson for the rest of his life. After years of religious wandering, he had finally found his niche in which to work for God.
Tomlinson's leadership potential was readily recognized by Spurling and the others, and he was immediately selected as pastor of the Camp Creek congregation. The former Quaker was now driven by a sense of mission as never before. Under his dynamic leadership the Church rapidly organized several congregations in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia and grew in the next twenty years to a membership of more than twenty thousand, concentrated mainly in the American south. By 1906 a need was felt to hold an annual assembly to promote closer union and fellowship among the churches. The first such meeting was held January 26 and 27 in the home of J. C. Murphy in Cherokee County, North Carolina. It was during a subsequent Assembly in 1907 that the name Church of God was officially adopted. In the Assembly of 1909 A. J. Tomlinson was selected to serve as the General Overseer of all the Church of God, a position he continued to fill until his death.
A. J. Tomlinson, like many in the Camp Creek congregation, leaned toward Pentecostalism even before the turn of the twentieth century. However, it was only after the outpouring of the Holy Ghost at Charles F. Parham's Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas in 1901, and the great interracial revival at Azusa Street in Los Angeles, led by W. J. Seymour, which began in 1906, that the Church of God fully embraced the Pentecostal movement. On January 12, 1908 G. B. Cashwell, the "apostle of Pentecost in the South," who had been at Azusa Street, preached a sermon in the local church in Cleveland, Tennessee at the invitation of A. J. Tomlinson. Following Cashwell's sermon, Tomlinson fell to the floor and received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. He professed to having spoken in at least ten different languages while in the ecstasy, and envisioned a world-wide harvest for the Church through missionary outreach. Since that time the Church has remained in the classical Pentecostal tradition.
The phenomenal early growth of the Church was disrupted in 1923 when it divided over several issues which had been fermenting for some years. These issues ranged from financial matters to the form of government the Church should adopt to serve its ever-growing constituency. Following the division, both factions grew and continued to build God's kingdom, but the anguish of the awful schism has remained heavy on both groups. In recent years, unofficial consideration has been given to ways in which spiritual reconciliation may eventually be achieved. In January 1995, a two-day series of meetings was held between leaders of the two groups in order to seek forgiveness for past hurts and to find reconciliation as Christian brethren.
The group led by A. J. Tomlinson after the disruption of 1923 was by far the smaller of the two groups, but under his untiring leadership it gradually gained new strength. During the 1930's the Church experienced a tremendous period of revival and its growth was considerable. Mission outreach flourished as the Church's ministry began to spread to other countries.
A. J. Tomlinson died in 1943, leaving a huge void in the Church's leadership. After some dissension with Tomlinson's eldest son, Homer, the presbytery selected his younger son, Milton, to succeed his father as General Overseer. This selection met with the overwhelming approval of the subsequent General Assembly. Milton Tomlinson served the Church faithfully in this capacity for nearly forty-seven years. During his long tenure he sought to perpetuate and fulfill his father's vision of the Church's work around the world. The Church expanded under his leadership into every state in America and more than ninety countries worldwide, with a membership of more than 300,000. In 1990, at age 84, Tomlinson announced his retirement due to physical limitations. For only the second time in the Church's history, the presbytery met to select a new leader. On May 2, 1990 the presbytery named Billy D. Murray, Sr. to serve as interim General Overseer until the following General Assembly. In August of that year Murray's selection was marvelously accepted by the General Assembly in proper order.
Since his selection Murray has labored tirelessly to turn the Church's attention away from a somewhat introverted and self-centered view of itself, and to focus it instead on a world full of lost people. These efforts are most clearly seen in his urgent call in 1994 for the Church to embrace "Turning to the Harvest" as its passion. He has also endeavored to reconceptualize some historical misunderstandings about the Church and its mission. In the face of much difficulty, and with great courage, Murray has sought to re-establish the proper theological relationship between Christ and the Church. From the moment he took office he has maintained that "Christ is the message, the Church is the messenger."
The final chapters of the Church's history remain to be written. It is our fervent desire to fulfill our God-ordained role in taking the gospel message of Jesus Christ to a lost world, and to be an agent of reconciliation through which our heavenly Father will one day answer the prayer of Jesus that we may all be made one in Him.
The information above is from the booklet "AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CHURCH OF GOD OF PROPHECY" © 1995 -- The Church of God of Prophecy World Headquarters, P.O. Box 2910, Cleveland, Tennessee (U.S.A.) 37320-2910 URL: http://www.cogop.org
