Church of God in Christ
- Grew from
- Pentecostal
- From
- 1897 AD
- Origin
- Memphis, Tennessee
Founded by Charles Harrison Mason, who went to the Azusa Street revival in 1907 and returned convinced; the body reorganised as Pentecostal that year and is now the largest African American Pentecostal denomination. For a period its credentials were among the few available to Black ministers in the American South, and it ordained a great many white ministers too before they organised separately.
What marks it out
Worship shaped by the Black church tradition — the music that came out of it fed directly into gospel and, through it, into most of American popular music. Sanctification held as a distinct work of grace, keeping the Holiness inheritance the Assemblies of God set aside. Mason was placed under federal surveillance during the First World War for preaching against participation in it.
Alongside it
Also from Pentecostal.
In the record
-
1906–1909 AD Revival
The Azusa Street revival
A racially mixed revival in a disused mission, from which Pentecostalism spread worldwide within a generation.
This body appears in the history but does not carry recorded doctrinal positions here, so it is absent from the comparison panels.