PUBLICATION TENSIONS IN FALCON IN 1917 AND 1918
How G.F. Taylor was Uprooted to Franklin Springs, Georgia[1]
Presentation to the IPHC North Carolina Conference Archives
30 July 2021
Dr. A.D. Beacham, Jr.
Background to the Controversy
George Floyd Taylor, a resident of Falcon, North Carolina, at the age of thirty-two became the second General Superintendent of the Pentecostal Holiness Church on the afternoon of January 28, 1913, in Toccoa, Georgia, as delegates from the two-year-old denomination met for the second General Convention. Along with Taylor, delegates also nominated S.D. Page, the first General Superintendent elected in 1911, and Rev. J.H. King, the former leader of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church.
No vote tallies were given in the 1913 Minutes, but Taylor was elected on the second ballot. Page was elected as the Assistant General Superintendent. This General Convention was noted for 1) determining that the General Convention would be held every four years; 2) dropping the “Colored Convention” from the roll of the body; 3) the hotly debated issue of divorce and remarriage, and the delegates left with divided opinions on this matter.[2]
For the next four years Taylor led the denomination as it continued to take the baby steps of a merger of two separate organizations in 1911, the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church and the Pentecostal Holiness Church of North Carolina.[3] The ministers, churches, and leadership were involved in the complicated process of becoming more than a relational group of people. The natural questions of policies, procedures, accountability, and personal differences began to manifest over Taylor’s tenure.
Among the issues Taylor faced, and which seem to have taken a toll on him between 1913 and 1917 were:
- The controversial Virginia Gift movement. Dr. Dan Woods described this controversy in his 1997 University of Mississippi dissertation, “Living in the Presence of God: Enthusiasm, Authority, and Negotiation in the Practice of Pentecostal Holiness.”
- A split within the movement, as people who had formerly been members of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church left the Pentecostal Holiness Church. On October 21, 1916, they organized the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church in the Southeast. While King was initially grieved over this, he later was glad that the legalistic group had left the PHC.
- During these four years, the General Officials were authorized to preside over an annual conference at the invitation of that conference. In most instances, the conference superintendent presided over the annual meetings. Taylor never presided over the North Carolina Conference during these years though he lived in Falcon. This was because the young denomination was concerned about too much power being vested in leaders.[4]
- In addition, during this period Taylor and early American Pentecostalism faced several points of tension with the rise of Durham’s “finished work” theology, the formation of the Assemblies of God (1914), and Oneness theology.[5]
The Third Pentecostal Holiness Church Convention was held on January 23-29, 1917, at the Abbeville (SC) PHC. That legislative body determined that local churches should adopt the tithing system “for the purpose of centralizing our financial forces (Malachi 3:8-10).”[6] The delegates also called for the publication of a Pentecostal Holiness Church magazine and elected G.F. Taylor as the editor. Due to the challenges during the 1913-1917 quadrennium, the denomination moved towards a stronger episcopal structure and greatly empowered the office of General Superintendent. The historic Methodist roots of many Pentecostal Holiness ministers showed itself in this shift to a more episcopal structure and exchanging the word “convention” for the word “conference” for the General Conference and the Annual Conferences. Furthermore, it was determined that the General Superintendent would preside over annual conference sessions.
When it came to the election of general officials, Taylor was not renominated, and J.H. King was elected General Superintendent. Page was again elected as Assistant General Superintendent; Albert E. Robinson, a layperson, was elected Secretary, G.F. Taylor was elected Treasurer, and several others were elected to complete the board.[7]
The Third General Convention in Abbeville was significant for the changes in policy and personnel that it brought. King would serve as General Superintendent until his death in 1946, a period of thirty years, making him the longest serving General Superintendent in our history. Joseph E. Campbell called the Abbeville conference “the most important General Conference in the entire history of the church.”[8]
Falcon Holiness School faculty. Front row seated (l-r): Roberta Maxwell, Ada Barnes Culbreth. Back (l-r): C.B. Strickland, G.F. Taylor, Talmadge Rousseau. (Courtesy Karen Lucas).
The Roots of the Publishing Controversy
Prior to 1917 and the general conference action regarding The Pentecostal Holiness Church Advocate (henceforth PHC Advocate), denominational news and information was disseminated mainly through The Apostolic Evangel, the roots of which go back to J.H. King and the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church.
The Apostolic Evangel was the third-generation publication that originated with the FBHC Live Coals of Fire, the name of which was shortened to Live Coals in 1902.
Live Coals of Fire began under the ministry of the founder of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, Benjamin Hardin Irwin, and was published beginning in October 1899 on Irwin’s personal property in Lincoln, Nebraska. Irwin was the editor, and Albert E. Robinson, originally from Ontario, Canada, became the printing apprentice. (Robinson later served as secretary of the FBHC). This magazine is historically important as it is the “first paper in the United States to teach that the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire was subsequent to sanctification.”[9]
In 1900 Irwin confessed to moral failures and resigned from leadership and the denomination.[10] The young organization tottered on the edge of collapse, but the actions of a few leaders, particularly those of thirty-one-year-old J.H. King, saved a remnant. King took over the editorship of the magazine and called for a meeting of the convention leaders across the nation in Olmitz, Iowa. They met from June 30 to July 2, 1900, and chose King as the general overseer. The next two years King was busy holding the organization together, and during that time Live Coals of Fire was not published.
King, who had moved back to his home in northeast Georgia to the rural railroad town of Royston, used the basement of the newly constructed Royston Fire-Baptized Church to restart a Fire-Baptized denominational magazine named Live Coals (1902).[11]
Following King’s experience of the baptism with the Holy Spirit and the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church adoption of Azusa Street Pentecostal theology, King ended Live Coals and began a new magazine in March 1907 named The Apostolic Evangel.[12] This magazine became an important voice in declaring the Azusa Street Pentecostal message. But the magazine ceased publication later in 1907 due to financial hardship.[13]
In the meantime, many of the holiness churches in eastern North Carolina had been organized under the ministry and leadership of A. B. Crumpler. He began a magazine named The Holiness Advocate, which was first published in Lumberton, North Carolina, on April 15, 1901. Crumpler’s magazine was important in proclaiming many of the truths that are part of IPHC theological history.
However, Crumpler’s response to the Azusa Street revival, especially the Dunn revival of New Year’s Eve, 1906, ultimately led him to leave the denomination he began. While Crumpler believed in the baptism with the Holy Spirit and speaking in other tongues (he wrote that he had that experience), he did not accept that speaking in tongues was the initial evidence. Added to this was the exploding ministry of G.B. Cashwell in eastern North Carolina that spread through much of the USA. Cashwell also began in October 1907 a magazine titled The Bridegroom’s Messenger, which strongly supported the Azusa Street theological construct.[14]
Thus, Cashwell, who had connections to Crumpler and the Pentecostal Holiness Church of North Carolina, began competing with Crumpler’s magazine, expressing the Azusa Street theology about which Crumpler had reservations. By 1908 Crumpler’s Holiness Advocate had lost many subscribers to Cashwell’s Bridegroom’s Messenger and King’s Apostolic Evangel. At the November 1908 Pentecostal Holiness Church of North Carolina Convention, held in Dunn, the delegates, who included G.F. Taylor, voted to formally adopt the Azusa Street theology about Spirit-baptism. In response, Crumpler walked out of his own convention, leaving the church he had founded some ten years earlier.[15]
While Cashwell’s magazine was read by many in the Fire-Baptized and North Carolina churches, it did not function as a primary news voice for either movement.
In 1909 King moved to Falcon and worked with J.A. Culbreth. Culbreth, who had started the Falcon Camp Meeting Association in 1900, organized the Falcon Publishing Company, which operated out of Falcon. It was at this time that King, in Falcon, cooperated with Culbreth to restart The Apostolic Evangel. The first issue was published on February 15, 1909, in Goldsboro and mailed from Falcon, with King as editor and Culbreth as the business manager.[16]
It is important to remember that by 1909, many leaders in the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church and the Pentecostal Holiness Church of North Carolina knew one another well and not a few lived in Falcon.[17] The Falcon Camp Meeting was an annual gathering of holiness and Spirit-baptized people from across the south and other parts of the nation. By 1909 Crumpler was no longer leading the churches in eastern North Carolina, and the camp meeting had become fully Pentecostal based on the Azusa Street revival and Cashwell’s ministry.
King and Culbreth determined to restart The Apostolic Evangel as an “undenominational” magazine, committed to telling the story of Wesleyan holiness and Pentecost. It spoke for the Pentecostal Holiness Church of North Carolina, the Fire-Baptized, and elements of the Freewill Baptists of eastern North Carolina. In 1912 the Falcon Publishing Company bought a printing press from the Oliver Gospel Mission in Columbia, South Carolina, moved it to Falcon, and published the first issue on April 1, 1913. Keep in mind that the Fire-Baptized and the PHC of North Carolina merged on January 31, 1911, and that G.F. Taylor was elected as General Superintendent in January 1913.
Previously I commented on how the period 1913-1917 saw the Pentecostal Holiness Church move towards a stronger identity as a denomination and shift towards a stronger denominational structure that became a reality in the Third General Convention held in Abbeville, South Carolina.
As noted earlier, it was the 1917 General Conference which called for its own denominational magazine, the PHC Advocate. Taylor, who resided in Falcon, began the work of publishing a second holiness/Pentecostal magazine that originated in the small hamlet.
It was inevitable that conflict would arise between Taylor and Culbreth, and between the new PHC Advocate and the established The Apostolic Evangel.
The Publishing Controversy Begins
Julius Culbreth as young man (courtesy Karen Lucas)
Falcon home of G.F. Taylor (courtesy Stan York and Karen Lucas)
We do not know why Taylor was not nominated for a second term as General Superintendent in 1917. Perhaps it was his own decision. We know that he faced serious problems during his four years, and many of those tensions were felt in the close-knit holiness hamlet of Falcon. Taylor gives us a hint of how he felt about no longer being General Superintendent in the PHC Advocate of July 25, 1918, “If I was in authority, I could not feel free to write as I do, but inasmuch as I have command of no one now, I can speak freely to all, myself included. I have been in authority, and I know how it feels to be doing your best to accomplish something, and then have others to try to defeat you.”
After the Abbeville General Conference in January 1917, Taylor quickly got to work on preparing the PHC Advocate. The first issue was published on Thursday, May 3, 1917, in Falcon. Over a year later in the September 26, 1918 PHC Advocate, he wrote, “Why did I do that? [That is, start the denominational magazine in Falcon.] First, because I lived here, and it is more convenient to have it printed at home. Second, at that time I was president of The Falcon Publishing Co., and as president I supposed that I had the right to have something to say in such matters. Third, at that time the machinery of the Company was rented to Bro. A.E. Robinson to use as he saw fit, and I simply made a contract with him to run until the annual meeting of the board in December.”
In the inaugural issue of the PHC Advocate, May 3, 1917, Taylor made these first-page comments:
“The Pentecostal Holiness Advocate, the Official Organ of the The Pentecostal Holiness Church, has begun. Its purpose in the world is to help forward the work of the Lord, which He has committed into the hands of The Pentecostal Holiness Church. The Pentecostal Holiness Advocate is now a part of The Pentecostal Holiness Church. It is a part that has long been lacking. The church has been lame at this point. The Advocate comes to fill the vacancy. The Advocate then is your paper.”
Then, probably recognizing the potential for tensions with The Apostolic Evangel, Taylor wrote, “We expect to find friends outside the church, but we are not looking to them for support. We do not come for the purpose of crowding out other papers. We do not ask that any leave your paper and take up The Advocate. It would be selfish to ask such a thing. We have a field distinctly our own. In our own field, we choose to live. This we have a perfect right to do. Others are welcome to live with us.”
Taylor then closed the first page comments about other papers and churches with these words, “The Pentecostal Holiness Advocate is not launched as the Official Organ of the church because we think we have “The Church,” and that other churches are failures for God, and that they belong to Babylon. We take no such position. Far from it. We believe that all the other churches have as much right to exist as we do; we believe that they have as much right to their official organs as we have to ours. We mean only to ask for the same right. We are sure it is granted to us by all.” [18]
In Falcon, it is likely that Taylor was hearing comments from supporters of The Apostolic Evangel, that included negative comments about the denominational shift of the PHC in the 1917 General Conference. Though Culbreth was a member of the local Falcon Pentecostal Holiness Church, he had started the Falcon Camp Meeting and the Falcon Children’s Home as “undenominational,” a position about which he felt strongly.[19]
By late 1917 and early 1918, tensions between Culbreth and Taylor over the two magazines had reached a “sanctified boiling point.” By then The Apostolic Evangel was struggling financially. The reasons for that struggle became part of the public controversy between Culbreth and Taylor.
In the January 15, 1918, The Apostolic Evangel, Culbreth wrote a lengthy article about “the past, the present and the future of The Apostolic Evangel.” He described that “I felt more deeply grieved” about the circumstances facing the paper. He wrote that for nine years “The Evangel (had been) “continuously published . . . and most of that time I have been its editor.” His purpose “has been to conserve the work of those revivals [referring to the holiness and Pentecostal revivals] and perpetuate the truths and experiences of the same.” Culbreth then began to talk about “sectarian and denominational prejudices.”
He continued: “The present conditions of lack of support, following the former years when its expenses were met, proves that the number of its friends have diminished instead of increased, and that the trend of the Pentecostal professors, as a body, is towards the same backslidden condition that characterized the churches at the time when holiness and Pentecost was first presented to us.” Furthermore, he wrote, “it is a source of sorest grief to see this evidence of outright backsliding or tendency to denominationalism that makes it impossible for the undenominational paper to exist and receive support.” He added that “church pride and sectarian ambitions constitutes [sic] a stronger motive power with many holiness and Pentecostal professors of today.”
Culbreth felt so strongly about this that he called his remarks a “prophetic utterance . . . as any prophecy that was ever given in connection with Israel of old.” He then announced, “I must frankly and honestly confess that I have borne the burden of my position to the limit of my endurance, and am tendering my resignation as editor to the Board of Directors of The Falcon Publishing Co. to take effect as soon as they can relieve me.” In the final paragraph of his column, Culbreth further revealed the personal sorrow he was experiencing in this situation. “This becomes the most painful severance of relations that I have ever been forced to make, but I can only ask that all such friends, so far as possible, share the pain with me, and pray that only good may come out of it.” [20]
In the February 1, 1918, issue of The Apostolic Evangel, G.F. Taylor, as President of The Falcon Publishing Co., publicly replied to Culbreth. Per Culbreth’s request to resign, C.B. Strickland, the thirty-nine-year-old Director of the Falcon Children’s Home, was made editor of The Apostolic Evangel. The paper printed letters between Culbreth and Taylor from January 28, 29, 30, and February 2, 1918.[21]
Taylor wrote a lengthy response to Culbreth’s “prophetic word” of January 15, 1918. Taylor first described the financial problems of The Apostolic Evangel and remarked that the Board of Directors in December 1916 had passed a resolution raising the price of the magazine from $1.00 to $1.25 per year. He remarked that “so far as I can figure from the records themselves, the cause of the failure (financial) is not that the people have ceased to subscribe for the paper. The subscription list has stood at about 1,000 to 1,100 for the past five [years].” Taylor pointed out that prices of material and labor had risen “since the war broke out.” The US involvement in World War I had begun on April 2, 1917. Taylor continued, “Here is the actual trouble as I see it. The editor ignored this resolution, and kept the subscription at $1.00.”[22]
After the financial explanations, Taylor directly addressed the paragraph where Culbreth spoke of backsliding and denominationalism in the January 15 article. Taylor refuted those charges with these words, “Now I have learned long ago that when one calls you backslidden, it is not the proper thing to try to show him that you are not, for usually in your effort you will prove to his mind that you are; he will have it that way anyhow.”[23] Taylor engaged in a lengthy response defending the Pentecostal Holiness Church, Pentecostal Sunday School Literature, and indicated that The Falcon Publishing Co. charter did not assert that The Apostolic Evangel is an undenominational paper.
On page 6, Taylor continued his defense and implied criticism of Culbreth, that on December 5, 1917 proposals were made at the Board of Directors meeting of The Falcon Publishing Company about improving the finances, but that Culbreth was not present at that meeting. As the meeting continued on December 6, Culbreth was present and was informed of the actions on the 5th. Culbreth was asked if he objected, and Taylor wrote that as of February 2, he had not received any objection from Culbreth.
Finally, Taylor suggested that The Apostolic Evangel “could be made the organ of The Falcon Camp Meeting Association and The Falcon Orphanage.” Since he was not a member of either of those boards, he offered this as “a suggestion.”[24]
In early 1918 steps were taken by Georgia Conference PHC leaders to purchase property in Franklin Springs, Georgia, at what had formerly been a health resort. By the May issues of the PHC Advocate, Bishop King was actively promoting the site as a place for the PHC to have a school and other ministry.[25]
In the May 23 PHC Advocate, Taylor wrote about Franklin Springs. “I am unable to write much about it, for I have never been there. I have visited Royston a number of times, but I never was at the Springs.” He wrote that he first heard of this proposal in March, when “Bro. King came to my home . . . direct from there. I give my heart, my hand, and my financial aid to this enterprise. I expect to visit Franklin Springs before the summer is gone.” We know from his PHC Advocate articles that Taylor was present in Franklin Springs on August 1 for the first service of the Franklin Springs camp meeting.
Apparently, the tensions in Falcon continued to increase between Culbreth and Taylor, and supporters of the two competing magazines. Taylor was accused of not being “a friend to The Apostolic Evangel.” In a lengthy article in the September 26, 1918 PHC Advocate, Taylor explained the situation from his viewpoint:
“I have been a friend to The Evangel in a financial way during the last year and a half. I am a regular subscriber to The Evangel, and the date on my label shows that my subscription has been paid until January 1919. The editor of The Evangel [C.B. Strickland] and I are the best of friends.”
Accusations came that the PHC Advocate was causing confusion in Falcon and in the churches. Taylor replied to that accusation with, “The business of The Pentecostal Holiness Church had grown to such dimensions that a channel of communication with our people on church business had become a necessity. We knew that The Evangel did not belong to The PHC any more than it did to others, and we did not care to push our church affairs onto The Evangel; and so to avoid confusion The Advocate was put on foot.”
Taylor emphasized that the PHC Advocate was not designed to “put out” The Apostolic Evangel. He wrote that he tried to make the PHC Advocate “as different from The Evangel as I could.” He added his personal motto about life: “If I can’t succeed without seeking to tear others down, then I myself will fail.”
Taylor then addressed tensions between Culbreth and himself. Some had accused Taylor of being “against Falcon” because he did not promote the August Camp Meeting in Falcon that year in the Advocate. Taylor replied that he would have promoted the camp meeting if the president of the camp meeting had asked him.
He went further by remarking how much he loved Brother Culbreth, but added, “Since I am editor of The Advocate, he may not like me very well, but I am going to love him just the same, and not seek any revenge on what he may say.”
He added these remarks: “People think I am against Falcon because it is thought that I am going to move away. I have a house on two acres of ground that I am now ready to sell. If I can sell, God willing, I am going to move away; but I am not going to move away because I am against Falcon. I am going to move, or rather I am wanting to move, because Falcon is against me and my work as editor of The Advocate. The main reason I have for knowing my work as editor of The Advocate is opposed here is what has been said from the platform, what has been said to me personally, and the spirit manifested toward me. People do not have to flatly tell me that I am not wanted in order for me to learn that I am not welcome. I live here, and I know the spirit of opposition that I meet constantly. Falcon is declared to be absolutely non-sectarian, undenominational, and interdenominational, and The Advocate is viewed as narrow, sectarian, denominational, and strictly out of harmony with all the good work that goes on here. We can’t blame any one for opposing such an enemy right in the very midst of the town. Knowing this as I do, I feel that it will be for the good of Falcon for me to leave.”
Regarding moving, Taylor wrote that if he couldn’t sell, he would stay in Falcon till the Lord called him home (his death). But if he could sell, he would leave Falcon with sixty days’ notice. To this he added, “I want to sell to some one who would be in full harmony and fellowship with Bro. Culbreth, with the other leaders, and with all the Falcon work. I want to sell to some one who will be a greater blessing to the place than I have been. All who want me to leave Falcon will kindly pray that God may send me a buyer. The only favor I ask is that all have patience with me until God will open the way for me to go.”
Taylor closed this revealing article by expressing his appreciation to C.B. Strickland, saying that the two of them were “on the best of terms today. He is a subscriber for The Advocate and I am a subscriber for The Evangel. We have decided that hard feelings about the two papers shall exist only in the hearts of those who find joy in such feelings.” He then made these personal remarks, “When I was a lad I received a mental vision of the vastness of this world and of its needs, and I consecrated my life to God to do something to help save it and bless it; and I have always felt that the world is too large and its needs too great for Christian workers to get in each other’s way, and so I desire to move on where I can not hinder the growth of Falcon, and so Falcon can expand as never before. I know not where I shall go, neither am I concerned about that part of it; I have such an assurance that I am in the will of God for me, that I know God will provide a place for me. When the P.H. Church [his abbreviation] desires another man to edit their official organ, you can get clear of me easily, or if the church wants the paper stopped, all it has to do is to withdraw its support; but I shall never give an inch because a few individuals are against us.”
A week later in the PHC Advocate of October 3, 1918, Taylor, who felt he had been unjustly criticized, wrote asking people to pray for the General Superintendent and Conference Superintendents rather than criticize them, “Please do not criticize every little thing that does not suit you. You must remember that superintendents have trials as well also that it does not require much grace to be able to criticize. It takes less qualifications to be a critic than to be anything else.”
By November Taylor’s Falcon home had sold. He shared with PHC Advocate readers that he had been approached about coming to Franklin Springs to start the school. He also was bringing the PHC Advocate with him and would establish the Publishing House of the Pentecostal Holiness Church in that northeast Georgia hamlet. By mid-December, 1918, Taylor and his family moved to another sanctified town, the village of Franklin Springs, Georgia. Always industrious, Taylor began the Franklin Springs Institute on January 1, 1919, and within the year had built the Publishing House of the Pentecostal Holiness Church (dedicated August 2, 1919), and organized the Franklin Springs Pentecostal Holiness Church.
Conclusions
The conflict between Culbreth and Taylor, exhibited through the two religious papers published in the same town, was used by the Lord to prepare Taylor to make the move from his beloved “Old North State.” I have not looked for further comments about Culbreth and Taylor in later issues of the PHC Advocate or The Apostolic Evangel. But it is clear the holiness community in Falcon had its struggles related to personalities and programs, not unlike any other community of followers of Jesus.[26]
It is also apparent that the young Pentecostal Holiness Church, consolidated in Falcon in 1911, was making the necessary organizational adjustments to being a denomination with a clear identity, clear accountability, and clear vision. The spirit that motivated Julius Culbreth, and others in the community, of “less organization” and supposed greater dependence upon the Spirit, came in conflict with a movement that was growing across the nation and internationally.
[1] This presentation was originally scheduled for 2020. However, the Covid-19 pandemic led to its postponement till 2021. I am grateful to Bishop Danny Nelson, Rev. Ricky Nelms, and Rev. Karen Lucas for the invitation to speak at this event. Also, I am grateful to the following for their review of this paper: Dr. Harold Hunter, Dr. Dan Woods, Dr. Stan York, Dr. Danny Rollins, Rev. Karen Lucas. Each made excellent suggestions which I have attempted to incorporate into the paper. But for the record, any errors of fact or misinterpretation are solely my own.
[2] It’s difficult to determine the nature of the “Colored Convention” (the language in the 1913 Minutes) at that time in the Pentecostal Holiness Church. Prior to 1908, African Americans had been part of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church. But in 1908 W.E. Fuller, Sr., left that movement and formed the Fire-Baptized Church of God of the Americas. J.H. King was the representative of the group identified at the 1913 General Convention. The fact that there were no black delegates may have led to it being dropped. There was also the reality of increasing “Jim Crow” laws across the South and nation, the result of the 1896 Plessy v Ferguson Supreme Court decision which legalized segregation. The divorce issue plagued the IPHC until the 1989 General Conference when accommodation was made for persons who were divorced and remarried under “biblical conditions,” that is, adultery by the spouse.
[3] The North Carolina group was known variously as The Holiness Church and The Pentecostal Holiness Church from its founding in 1898 to the merger in 1911.
[4] Vinson Synan. Old Time Power: A Centennial History of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (1998). Page 148.
[5] I’m grateful to Dr. Dan Woods for these insights. Durham’s “finished work” theology became a source of conflict for Wesleyan based Pentecostal churches. In a personal conversation, the late Joseph H. King, Jr., told me that his father, J.H. King was invited to Hot Springs, Arkansas for the 1914 meeting of diverse churches that formed the “fellowship” known as the Assemblies of God. King later regretted not attending as he pondered if his presence there would have helped save the Wesleyan Pentecostal theological perspective among these churches.
[6] Minutes of the Third Session of the General Convention of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, p. 8.
[7] Dr. Tony Moon has just completed a history of the IPHC in Georgia titled Pentecostal Holiness in the Peach State: A Brief History of LifePoint Ministries 1898-2020. He opens with a quote from G.F. Taylor, “in a 1933 issue of the Pentecostal Holiness Advocate that the Georgia Conference ‘is the oldest conference in the entire organization, and [the] North Carolina [Conference] is next in rank of age.’” Moon reasoned that Taylor was counting from the Fire-Baptized Holiness Association organization in Georgia being founded in January 1898. Moon’s history will soon be published at www.lifepointministries.org. We should also note that Taylor was elected superintendent of the Georgia Conference in November 1931 and served to 1934. Taylor wrote of his “astonishment” at being elected (Moon unpublished history cited earlier in this note).
[8] Joseph E. Campbell, The Pentecostal Holiness Church, 1898-1948, page 270. As an interesting aside to Campbell, this was his Th.D. dissertation at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia (now called Union Presbyterian Seminary). The late IPHC US Army Chaplain (COL) Freeman Mashburn was a graduate of this seminary. Also, I am a graduate of that seminary.
[9] Synan. Old Time Power. Pags 53, 54. It should be remembered that Irwin organized his movement as the Fire-Baptized Holiness Association. Later “Association” became “Church.”
[10] Vinson Synan, Daniel Woods. Fire Baptized: The Many Lives and Works of Benjamin Hardin Irwin. Pp. 77-82.
[11] The shortened name was a way of separating from some of Irwin’s extreme teachings about baptisms of “fire.”
[12] The change of the name from Live Coals to The Apostolic Evangel was due directly to King and A.E. Robinson receiving Spirit-baptism (Beacham, pp. 98-101).
[13] An interesting part of this story related to publishing in 1907 about King, Cashwell, and others, is described in Tony Moon, From Plowboy to Pentecostal Bishop: The Life of J.H. King (2017), pp. 157-160. Also see Beacham, Azusa East, pp. 126-131.
[14] Doug Beacham. Azusa East: The Life and Times of G.B. Cashwell (2006). Michael Thornton. Fire in the Carolinas: The Revival Legacy of G.B. Cashwell and A.B. Crumpler (2014). See Thornton for a different perspective concerning Crumpler’s decision to no longer remain in the movement he founded. Thornton argues that Crumpler did not leave the church; rather, the church left him.
[15] The relationships between Crumpler, King, Culbreth, and Cashwell are discussed in Michael Thornton’s Fire in the Carolinas. The implications of Thornton’s investigation and conclusions are interesting and await further study by others.
[16] Moon, p. 168. See North Carolina Conference historian Daniel Rollins Forward, Ever Forward: A History of the North Carolina Conference of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, 2011. Rollin’s book includes many details of the early growth of Falcon as a holiness community and the prominent role of Julius Culbreth in that community. Rollins in personal correspondence with me as a response to this presentation, remarked on the substantial differences in education, class, business success, and influence between Culbreth and Taylor.
[17] I’m grateful to Dr. Harold Hunter for this observation regarding where many of the early leaders lived.
[18] The Pentecostal Holiness Advocate, May 3, 1917, p. 1. This part of Taylor’s life and reference to the 1918 controversy is covered by Stanley York, George Floyd Taylor: The Life of an Early Southern Pentecostal Leader, 2013. Pages 96-103.
[19] Email communication from Rev. Karen Lucas to me on July 21, 2021. She documents Culbreth’s relationship to the local Falcon PHC from Minutes of the local congregation.
[20] The Apostolic Evangel, January 15, 1918, p. 4, 5.
[21] Though The Apostolic Evangel for this issue is dated February 1, 1918, it included a letter from Taylor to Culbreth dated February 2.
[22] The Apostolic Evangel, February 1, 1918, p. 3. It should be noted that Taylor did not identify himself as the writer of this column titled “The New Editor.” Yet from the context of the letter, it is clear that Taylor is the writer.
[23] Ibid., p. 5.
[24] Ibid., p. 6. Taylor further suggested that the paper could be a voice for the Free-Will Baptists.
[25] The Pentecostal Holiness Advocate, May 2, 16, 1918 issues. Other ministries included a camp meeting and orphanage.
[26] All one has to do is read the Book of Acts to see that the first Christian communities faced the same organizational and personal challenges: Acts 5 and lying against the Holy Spirit within the fellowship; Acts 6 and complaints between Hebraic and Hellenistic Jewish followers of Yeshua about treatment of widows; Acts 11 and theological differences regarding the nature of salvation and Gentiles; Acts 15 and the Jerusalem Council addressing the theological issues from Acts 10, 11, and the mission to the Gentiles; Acts 15:36-39 and the conflict between Barnabas and Paul over John Mark.
