Denominations
Church of God in Christ
Christianity
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Origin 1897 to 1907
The Church of God in Christ is the largest historically Black Pentecostal denomination in the United States and one of the seven historic denominations C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya name as the core of the Black Church. Charles Harrison Mason, a licensed Baptist minister pushed out of the Baptist tradition over his holiness preaching, organized the church at Lexington, Mississippi, in 1897. After Mason embraced speaking in tongues at the 1906 to 1907 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, he and his co-founder Charles Price Jones split at the church's 1907 general assembly in Jackson, Mississippi; Jones led the non-Pentecostal remainder into what became the Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A., while Mason reorganized the Church of God in Christ as a Holiness Pentecostal body headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, retaining the church's legal name and charter. Between 1907 and 1914 it was the only legally incorporated Pentecostal body in the United States, and Mason ordained hundreds of white ministers under its charter before most of them left in 1914 to form the Assemblies of God.
Facts
Belief
Defining Doctrinal PositionSourced to the subject's own accountTrinitarian: one God in three persons 3 Doctrinal Position DetailSourced to the subject's own accountHoliness Pentecostal doctrine built on three works of grace: salvation, entire sanctification, and baptism in the Holy Spirit, with speaking in tongues held as the initial evidence of Spirit baptism. Trinitarian, which distinguishes it from the Oneness Pentecostal bodies that split from the wider Pentecostal movement over the same tongues doctrine a few years later. 3 Position on MarriageMarriage is held to be a lifelong, monogamous, indissoluble union; remarriage after divorce is not sanctioned while a spouse lives 4 Sourced to the subject's own accountThe General Assembly's 10 November 2014 resolution defines marriage as "a covenant relationship between a man and woman," rejecting "all attempts to redefine marriage in terms of same-sex unions." The Church's official teaching describes marriage as a lifelong, exclusive covenant. Marriage Position DetailSourced to the subject's own accountThe Church's General Assembly resolution, adopted 10 November 2014, states the Church "unequivocally affirms that marriage is a covenant relationship between a man and woman and rejects all attempts to redefine marriage in terms of same-sex unions." 4 Position on SexualitySame-sex orientation or practice is held to bar full membership or participation 4 Sourced to the subject's own accountThe same 10 November 2014 resolution directs that credential holders "will neither perform same sex marriages, nor bless or condone such a union," and that church properties will not be leased, rented or loaned for any purpose related to one. The Church also states it condemns violence or harassment against any person on the basis of their sexual practice. Sexuality Position DetailSourced to the subject's own accountThe General Assembly's resolution, adopted 10 November 2014, directs that "credential holders within the COGIC, in obedience to God's command, will neither perform same sex marriages, nor bless or condone such a union," and that "our church properties will not be leased, rented, or loaned for any purpose related to such a union." Alongside this, the Church states it condemns acts of violence against or harassment of any person on the basis of their sexual practice, citing the Christian obligation to love one's neighbor. 4 Organisation
GovernanceEpiscopal: governed by bishops 2 OrdinationSourced to the subject's own account Ordination Practice DetailSourced to the subject's own accountThe church does not ordain women as elders, pastors or bishops. Women in ministry are recognized as missionaries, in the categories of Deaconess Missionary and Evangelist Missionary, and lead the denomination's Women's Department, its largest department, headed by a General Supervisor of Women appointed for life by the Presiding Bishop. 3 Attributions
Church Family History
Separation or DivergenceSourced to the subject's own accountCharles Harrison Mason and Charles Price Jones, both licensed Baptist ministers in Mississippi, were expelled from the Mississippi Baptist State Convention around 1896 for preaching entire sanctification, a Wesleyan holiness doctrine the Baptist establishment rejected; Mason organized the Church of God in Christ at Lexington, Mississippi, in 1897. After Mason embraced speaking in tongues at the 1906 to 1907 Azusa Street Revival, the two founders split at the 1907 general assembly in Jackson, Mississippi: Jones led the non-Pentecostal remainder into what became the Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A., and Mason reorganized the Church of God in Christ as a Holiness Pentecostal body in Memphis, retaining the church's legal name and charter. Its status as the only legally incorporated Pentecostal body in the country from 1907 to 1914 also led several hundred white ministers Mason had ordained under its charter to leave in 1914 and form the Assemblies of God. 3 Position Profile
Key TextSourced to the subject's own accountNo single confessional text beyond the Bible; official doctrine is set out in the church's Constitution and the resolutions of its General Assembly rather than in a fixed confession. 3 Practice
Liturgical Language Finances
Institutional Wealth or FinancesChurch of God in Christ does not publish a consolidated denomination-wide financial statement. The only figure to reach the public record came through Christianity Today's reporting on the denomination's first financial audit, commissioned under then presiding bishop Charles E. Blake Sr., which found an additional 10 million dollars that had not been accounted for after COGIC's individual departments and ministries had operated with increasing financial independence. The same reporting found that giving to the denomination fell by nearly half during the COVID-19 pandemic, a steeper decline than the roughly 42 percent of churches nationally that the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability found had experienced declines over the same period. 5 Basis of the Wealth FigureJournalistic or Scholarly Estimate 5 Financial Disclosure RegimeChurch of God in Christ, the fourth largest Protestant body in the United States by membership with more than 13,000 congregations in over 100 countries, has never published a denomination-wide audited financial statement covering all of its departments and ministries. What the public record holds instead is Christianity Today's own account of an internal audit's findings, relayed second hand rather than read directly from the audit report itself. 5 Origins
Origin Period Place of OriginLexington, Mississippi, where Charles Harrison Mason organized the church in 1897; reorganized as a Holiness Pentecostal body at Memphis, Tennessee, in 1907, which remains its world headquarters. 2 FounderCharles Harrison Mason (1866 to 1961), a licensed Baptist minister who organized the church at Lexington, Mississippi, in 1897 and reorganized it as a Holiness Pentecostal body in Memphis in 1907 after embracing Spirit baptism evidenced by speaking in tongues at the Azusa Street Revival. 2 Status
Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 1 Trajectory
Membership Over TimeThe 2010 US Religion Census, compiled by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies from congregation level reporting, counted 624,419 members in 2,966 congregations in the United States, well under a tenth of the church's own worldwide claim for the same period. 6 Membership Over TimeThe Church of God in Christ's own official website states an estimated 6.5 million members and 12,000 congregations worldwide. The church has not published detailed supporting statistics behind this figure. 7 Membership Figure As Of Membership Figure As Of Basis of the Membership Figure Basis of the Membership Figure Open Questions
Standing Giving ExpectationNot established. COGIC's own Official Manual, the denomination's binding source on financial doctrine, could not be read as text, and no other source checked states its tithing requirement in its own words.
COGIC's own Official Manual is the denomination's binding source on financial doctrine, and outside description states in passing that it requires a pastor to pay tithes to the presiding bishop, but that could not be confirmed in the Manual's own words. Two scanned editions were located and fetched directly, a 1957 seventh edition and a more recently posted edition, and both render only as compressed image data rather than extractable text. Four other sources on the denomination, an online encyclopedia entry, a state historical encyclopedia entry, a reference database entry and a general encyclopedia article, were all checked directly and none of the four discusses tithing at all. The secondhand description of the Manual's own tithing language could not be verified against the Manual's own text and is not asserted here as a fact. Learn More
The Founding Dispute With the Baptist Tradition
The Church of God in Christ exists because the Baptist tradition would not hold the doctrine its founders came to believe. Charles Harrison Mason and Charles Price Jones were both licensed Baptist ministers in Mississippi in the 1890s, and both began preaching entire sanctification, the Wesleyan holiness teaching that a believer could be made completely free from sin in this life. The Mississippi Baptist State Convention treated the doctrine as a departure from Baptist teaching and pushed both men out around 1896. Rather than abandon the doctrine, Mason organized a new church at Lexington, Mississippi, in 1897, taking the name Church of God in Christ from a phrase in the first letter to the Thessalonians that he said had come to him directly.
For a decade Mason and Jones led the young church together as a Holiness body, until Mason traveled to Los Angeles in 1906 for the Azusa Street Revival and returned convinced that speaking in tongues was the required evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit. Jones was not convinced, and the disagreement broke the partnership. At the church's 1907 general assembly in Jackson, Mississippi, Jones led the members who rejected the tongues doctrine into what became the Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A., and Mason reorganized the remaining body as an explicitly Pentecostal church, keeping the Church of God in Christ's original legal name and charter for himself. A single expulsion from the Baptist tradition over sanctification had produced, within a decade, two separate denominations divided again over tongues.
The One Charter Every Early Pentecostal Minister Needed
For seven years after its 1907 reorganization, the Church of God in Christ held a distinction no other Pentecostal body in America could claim: it was the only one with a state charter. Early Pentecostal ministers of every race needed legal standing to perform weddings, claim clergy tax status and found congregations, and Charles Harrison Mason's charter was the only one available. Mason ordained hundreds of white ministers under it alongside Black ones, an arrangement that held only a few years before the country's racial climate made it untenable. In 1914, some three hundred white ministers he had ordained met in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and organized their own body, which became the Assemblies of God. The church that remained under Mason continued as the denomination it is today, overwhelmingly Black and Black led.
Its government today is episcopal rather than congregational, built around a Presiding Bishop elected every four years, a General Assembly meeting twice yearly, and jurisdictional bishops overseeing geographic districts beneath the Presiding Bishop's national authority. Women hold no place in that ordained structure; the church does not ordain women as elders, pastors or bishops. What it does have, and has had since early in its history, is the Women's Department, the denomination's largest department, led by a General Supervisor of Women appointed for life with real spiritual authority over its international women's ministry, organized into the Deaconess Missionary and Evangelist Missionary categories. Headquartered in Memphis at Mason Temple, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final speech in 1968, the church is today the fifth largest Christian denomination in the United States by the National Council of Churches' own count.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Church of God in Christ directly: "over as co-pastors of Christ Memorial Church of God in Christ (later renamed New Christ Memorial Church of God in Christ) in Pacoima, California, the congregation founded by their father Benjamin..."
This source names Church of God in Christ directly: "as "pastor of New Christ Memorial Church of God in Christ (COGIC) in Los Angeles" and states he remained in COGIC ministry, serving as co-pastor of the church his father founded, throughout his..."
This source names Baptist directly: "Charles Harrison Mason, a licensed Baptist minister pushed out of the Baptist tradition over his holiness preaching, organized the church at Lexington, Mississippi, in 1897."
This source names Los Angeles directly: "1906 to 1907 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, he and his co-founder Charles Price Jones split at the church's 1907 general assembly in Jackson, Mississippi; Jones led the non-Pentecostal..."
This source names Church of God in Christ directly: "minister of music for the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), and that her arrangements "replaced the unison or two-part textures of earlier gospel music with three-part settings of the music for..."
This source names Church of God in Christ directly: "Evans, who knelt to wash the feet of Church of God in Christ Bishop Ithiel Clemmons and asked forgiveness for decades of white Pentecostal exclusion of Black believers, a moment participants and the..."
Belongs to Tradition
Branch Of
Contained In
Classified as historically Black Protestant tradition per Pew Research Center's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study; one of Lincoln and Mamiya's seven historic denominations of the Black Church, the tradition's largest Pentecostal body.
Founded By
Co-founded the Holiness congregation that became the Church of God in Christ with Charles Price Jones in 1897, then led its Pentecostal branch after receiving Spirit baptism at the 1907 Azusa Street Revival.
Holds Element
Church of God in Christ holds speaking in tongues as the outward evidence that a believer has received baptism in the Holy Spirit, the doctrine that set the Pentecostal movement its founder helped launch apart from the Wesleyan Holiness churches it grew out of.
Objects and Practices of This Tradition
Composed by COGIC's own longest serving international minister of music, appointed director of the denomination's International Music Department in 1968, and used in the mass choirs she built and trained across COGIC's jurisdictions. An official work of the tradition's own music ministry rather than an outside depiction of it.
Written and first recorded by Andrae Crouch during his active pastorate, alongside his sister Sandra, of Christ Memorial Church of God in Christ, the Los Angeles area congregation his father founded; identified directly by an Assemblies of God heritage record as "The COGIC Minister." A devotional work of the tradition's own ministry, not an outside depiction, matching this program's treatment of works produced by a body's own leaders.
Written and performed by artists raised inside COGIC's own choral tradition under their mother's direct ministry, but the song itself makes no claim about the church and became most famous for crossing into secular disco and R&B airplay against the church's own wishes. Connected to COGIC through its creators and upbringing rather than through the song's own content, matching this program's associated pattern for works tied to a body through their creators rather than their subject.
Critiqued Here
The film dramatizes a real institutional conflict as its central turn: after Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, COGIC's own longest serving international minister of music, performs on stage with her daughters, the church removes her from her position and bans her from performing with them again. Not a rejection of COGIC, whose musical legacy the film otherwise celebrates at length, but a dramatized, sourced critique of the institutional cost the church's own structure exacted from one of its most significant musicians.
Sources
Open Questions (1 open question)
What does COGIC's own Official Manual say about tithing?
Two scanned editions of the Official Manual, the denomination's own binding text, were located and fetched directly and both render only as compressed image data, not readable text. Four other sources describing the denomination in detail were checked and none of them addresses tithing at all, so the only description of the Manual's own tithing language found so far is a secondhand, unverified reference.
What would resolve this A text transcription or OCR of the Official Manual's own chapter on tithes and church finance, or a scholarly source that quotes the Manual's tithing language directly rather than describing it secondhand.
African American religious history and Pentecostal denominational studiesDivinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition
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