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Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson - His Place in History (1865-1943)
by Dr. Vinson Synan
The following article was originally printed in the June 2003 Commemorative Issue of the White Wing Messenger.
On June 13, 1903, a young man from Indiana joined a small Holiness Church in the mountains of western North Carolina. No one in the humble little church could have known that this event would go down in church history. The man was Ambrose J. Tomlinson, who had been making a living in the North Carolina hills as a “colporteur” (Bible salesman) for the American Bible Society. Tomlinson, who was born a Quaker in Westfield, Indiana, in 1865, was a Holiness preacher and seeker after the true “Church of God” as seen in the New Testament. Raised near Anderson, Indiana, Tomlinson was familiar with the Church of God people in Indiana, who were also known as “the Evening Light Saints.”
After attending Martin Wells Knapp’s “God’s Bible School” in Cincinnati, Ohio, Tomlinson traveled the nation selling Bibles and visiting well-known ministries. These included Frank Sandford’s “Holy Ghost and Us” Church in Shiloh, Maine, where he was baptized in the Androscogin River. His heart for selling Bibles to the poor, however, brought him back to Culberson, North Carolina, where, in 1900, he started an orphanage and began publication of Samson’s Foxes, a Holiness paper that stressed entire sanctification as a “second work of grace.”
The Role of A. J. Tomlinson
The church Tomlinson joined was known as “Holiness Church at Camp Creek,” a tiny congregation in western North Carolina that met in the home of lay preacher W. F. Bryant. The pastor of the church at this time was R. G. Spurling, Jr., whose father had organized the “Christian Union” in eastern Tennessee in 1886 hoping to restore primitive Christianity.
Tominson was told about Christian Union and great Fire-Baptized Holiness revival in the nearby Shearer [Schearer] Schoolhouse in 1896 where it was reported that many people had spoken in tongues after receiving a “third blessing” called the “baptism in the Holy Ghost and fire.” The leaders of this revival were elders in the “Fire-Baptized Holiness Church” led by Benjamin H. Irwin, who later established meeting places in Cleveland and a “World Headquarters” in nearby Beniah, Tennessee.
Thus it was that Tomlinson, who had visited the region occasionally since 1896, happened upon the tiny congregation at Camp Creek and was invited to join. His education and knowledge of the Bible were obviously superior to that of the congregation, and so he was looked on as a prize that could help the struggling group. Before joining, however, Tomlinson spent the night in “prevailing prayer” on nearby Burger Mountain where he received a vision of the “Church of God of the last days” that would restore the entire body of Christ to the faith of the New Testament. In describing the revelation he received, Tomlinson said the following:
Jesus had started the Church of God when He was here on earth, and a record was kept of the progress and activities for several years after the death of its founder. The period of history known as the Dark Ages had come after the Church of God had departed from the faith and the church was lost to view.
The next day, June 13, 1903, the Hoosier salesman joined the church with the understanding that it was the Church of God of the Bible and not a man-made organization. With the winning of Tomlinson, the Camp Creek Church gained one of the great organizing geniuses of modern American church history.
In a short time, Tomlinson had planted churches in Union Grove and Drygo in Tennessee and a small congregation in Jones, Georgia. A mission was also established in nearby Cleveland, Tennessee, which became a center of activities for the group. By 1906 these churches were able to call the first general gathering to consider matters of common interest. Thus, on January 26 and 27, 1906, the first General Assembly convened in the home of J. C. Murphy of Camp Creek, North Carolina.
Since Tomlinson was serving as pastor of the local church, he was selected to serve as the moderator. The new church adopted strict teachings of personal holiness, which forbade their members to use tobacco or alcohol. Foot washing as a required ordinance was approved as was the use of Sunday schools. To avoid the errors of denominationalism, Tomlinson wrote into the record that none of the Minutes should ever be used “to establish a sect or denomination.” The congregations represented by the 21 delegates who gathered in the living room of the Murphy home were to be known simply as “Holiness churches.”
In the second meeting, which convened in Bradley County, Tennessee, in January 1907, the group chose the name “The Church of God” since it was a name mentioned in the Bible. There seemed to be no connection with any other church in America other than Tomlinson’s knowledge of The Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) and the Winebrenner group in Pennsylvania.
The new denomination was typical of the Holiness churches formed in America in this period. The second blessing of entire sanctification was sought as a baptism with the Holy Ghost, which freed the seeker from the results of original sin. Also strongly affirmed was the certainty of divine healing for the body in answer to prayer. The Irwinite fanaticisms of 1896 gave way to a more moderate version of the American Holiness Movement. Under Tomlinson’s dynamic leadership, the Church of God planted congregations throughout the mountain areas of Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, West Virginia, and North Carolina.
Pentecost
In 1906, Tomlinson and other leaders of the Church heard from Azusa Street in Los Angeles about a new Pentecost characterized by speaking in other tongues. The news was welcomed in the environs of Cleveland as another wave of holiness revival that could bless all the churches. Tomlinson was especially interested in the new doctrine and experience. In his previous diary entries, he recorded every conceivable spiritual manifestation he saw in his meetings, but never recorded a case of glossolalia before 1906.
With extreme interest, he visited Birmingham, Alabama, in June 1907, to hear Gaston Barnabas Cashwell, a North Carolina preacher from the Pentecostal Holiness Church, who had received the baptism at Azusa Street. Cashwell was on a whirlwind tour of the South explaining the Pentecostal movement to the large crowds of Holiness people who gathered to hear the new tongues. Although Tomlinson missed meeting Cashwell, he did meet with M. M. Pinson, a later founding father of the Assemblies of God, and talked with him about the new Pentecostal movement. Although Tomlinson did not receive the tongues experience in Birmingham in 1907, he returned to Cleveland determined that his Church would enter into this new spiritual experience.
Calling on the Church to pray for a new Pentecost, the general moderator invited Cashwell to preach in the following General Assembly, which convened in January 1908 in Cleveland. By the time Cashwell arrived, which was after the General Assembly officially closed, many of the pastors had already received the Pentecostal experience and were speaking with other tongues. They were now praying for their leader.
Tomlinson’s baptism was one of the most colorful in all the literature of Pentecostalism. While Cashwell was preaching, the General Overseer fell to the floor behind the pulpit with his head under a chair. He then spoke in not one, but ten different tongues in succession. With this event, it was a foregone conclusion that the Church of God would be a part of the growing Pentecostal movement. After January 1907, glossolalia appeared in practically every service that Tomlinson observed in the churches. Tongues, interpretations, and prophecies became so prevalent that major decisions of the General Assemblies were taken in accordance with charismatic directions brought forth by tongues and interpretations.
The new dynamic brought on by the Pentecostal experience caused fantastic growth in the fledgling Church. Almost all of north Cleveland was won to the Church by 1909. Communities all over the South were soon visited by itinerant preachers who ministered in mill villages, mining camps, towns, crossroads, and larger cities in the region. In time, the churches followed their migrant members north into the industrial cities of the Northeast and the Midwest. The Church of God indeed began to move “like a mighty army” across the land. In 1910, some 1,005 members were reported in 27 churches. By 1920, those figures had mushroomed to 14,606 members in 389 congregations.
Divisions
The impetus of these early years was broken, however, after World War I, when questions arose over the methods Tomlinson used in running the Church. Over the years, more responsibility devolved into his hands, and a constitution was adopted in 1921, which was felt by Tomlinson to be too confining and a departure from biblical principles. By 1922, dissatisfaction arose over the alleged mishandling of funds at the head office. A struggle ensued in the following months between Tomlinson and a council of elders led by Flavius Josephus Lee and J. S. Llewellyn.
In a church trial that took place in Bradley County, Tennessee, in 1923, the council of elders removed Tomlinson from office. He and his followers reorganized as the Church of God. With funds arriving by mail in Cleveland, the post office was at a loss as to how the mail should be delivered. This led to a protracted lawsuit that eventually was decided by the Supreme Court of Tennessee. The final decision resulted in the churches being legally known as “The Church of God” and the “Tomlinson Church of God.”
The Church of God of Prophecy
This situation with the Tomlinson Church of God continued until Tomlinson’s death in 1943 when questions of future leadership opened between the followers of Tomlinson’s two sons, Homer and Milton. Homer, a longtime preacher, had considered himself heir to his father’s position. Many pastors, however, felt that Homer was unstable and preferred the younger son, Milton, who had worked as a printer in the White Wing Publishing House owned by the Church and as a pastor in Kentucky. When Milton was chosen Overseer, Homer left to organize yet another denomination known as the “Church of God, World Headquarters.” Until his death in 1968, his headquarters were in Queens, New York. Over the years, he became famous worldwide for his claims of being the king and bishop of the entire world.
The church Milton headed adopted the name “Church of God of Prophecy” in 1952 and pursued a vigorous ministry from a modern headquarters in Cleveland. Both the World Headquarters churches and Church of God of Prophecy continued to teach Tomlinson’s eschatological vision of a day when all churches would flow into the Church of God that the founder had envisioned in 1903.
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee)
The Church of God, led after 1923 by F. J. Lee, eventually became known as the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) for reasons of identity. This body grew rapidly to become the mainstream of the movement. By 1943, it had joined the National Association of Evangelicals and in 1948 became a charter member in the formation of the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America (PFNA). It also became one of the largest and fastest-growing Pentecostal churches in the world. Early mission efforts made the Churches of God a dominant force in the Caribbean nations. Later mergers established strong affiliations with national churches in South Africa, Indonesia, and Romania.
Tomlinson’s Place in Church History
At the end of the twentieth century, many historians and religious researchers were evaluating what is becoming known as “the Century of the Holy Spirit.” It is now well accepted that A. J. Tomlinson was one of the most important figures in the origins and growth of Pentecostalism around the world. Under his dynamic and transformative leadership, the Churches of God that he founded became some of the fastest-growing congregations in the United States.
By the time he died in 1943, Tomlinson’s place in church history was assured. His legacy, including the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) and the Church of God of Prophecy, will continue to grow as future generations read the amazing story how a tiny church in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina grew to be one of the major churches traditions of the world.
by Dr. Vinson Synan
The following article was originally printed in the June 2003 Commemorative Issue of the White Wing Messenger.On June 13, 1903, a young man from Indiana joined a small Holiness Church in the mountains of western North Carolina. No one in the humble little church could have known that this event would go down in church history. The man was Ambrose J. Tomlinson, who had been making a living in the North Carolina hills as a “colporteur” (Bible salesman) for the American Bible Society. Tomlinson, who was born a Quaker in Westfield, Indiana, in 1865, was a Holiness preacher and seeker after the true “Church of God” as seen in the New Testament. Raised near Anderson, Indiana, Tomlinson was familiar with the Church of God people in Indiana, who were also known as “the Evening Light Saints.”
After attending Martin Wells Knapp’s “God’s Bible School” in Cincinnati, Ohio, Tomlinson traveled the nation selling Bibles and visiting well-known ministries. These included Frank Sandford’s “Holy Ghost and Us” Church in Shiloh, Maine, where he was baptized in the Androscogin River. His heart for selling Bibles to the poor, however, brought him back to Culberson, North Carolina, where, in 1900, he started an orphanage and began publication of Samson’s Foxes, a Holiness paper that stressed entire sanctification as a “second work of grace.”
The Role of A. J. Tomlinson
The church Tomlinson joined was known as “Holiness Church at Camp Creek,” a tiny congregation in western North Carolina that met in the home of lay preacher W. F. Bryant. The pastor of the church at this time was R. G. Spurling, Jr., whose father had organized the “Christian Union” in eastern Tennessee in 1886 hoping to restore primitive Christianity.
Tominson was told about Christian Union and great Fire-Baptized Holiness revival in the nearby Shearer [Schearer] Schoolhouse in 1896 where it was reported that many people had spoken in tongues after receiving a “third blessing” called the “baptism in the Holy Ghost and fire.” The leaders of this revival were elders in the “Fire-Baptized Holiness Church” led by Benjamin H. Irwin, who later established meeting places in Cleveland and a “World Headquarters” in nearby Beniah, Tennessee.
Thus it was that Tomlinson, who had visited the region occasionally since 1896, happened upon the tiny congregation at Camp Creek and was invited to join. His education and knowledge of the Bible were obviously superior to that of the congregation, and so he was looked on as a prize that could help the struggling group. Before joining, however, Tomlinson spent the night in “prevailing prayer” on nearby Burger Mountain where he received a vision of the “Church of God of the last days” that would restore the entire body of Christ to the faith of the New Testament. In describing the revelation he received, Tomlinson said the following:
Jesus had started the Church of God when He was here on earth, and a record was kept of the progress and activities for several years after the death of its founder. The period of history known as the Dark Ages had come after the Church of God had departed from the faith and the church was lost to view.
The next day, June 13, 1903, the Hoosier salesman joined the church with the understanding that it was the Church of God of the Bible and not a man-made organization. With the winning of Tomlinson, the Camp Creek Church gained one of the great organizing geniuses of modern American church history.
In a short time, Tomlinson had planted churches in Union Grove and Drygo in Tennessee and a small congregation in Jones, Georgia. A mission was also established in nearby Cleveland, Tennessee, which became a center of activities for the group. By 1906 these churches were able to call the first general gathering to consider matters of common interest. Thus, on January 26 and 27, 1906, the first General Assembly convened in the home of J. C. Murphy of Camp Creek, North Carolina.
Since Tomlinson was serving as pastor of the local church, he was selected to serve as the moderator. The new church adopted strict teachings of personal holiness, which forbade their members to use tobacco or alcohol. Foot washing as a required ordinance was approved as was the use of Sunday schools. To avoid the errors of denominationalism, Tomlinson wrote into the record that none of the Minutes should ever be used “to establish a sect or denomination.” The congregations represented by the 21 delegates who gathered in the living room of the Murphy home were to be known simply as “Holiness churches.”
In the second meeting, which convened in Bradley County, Tennessee, in January 1907, the group chose the name “The Church of God” since it was a name mentioned in the Bible. There seemed to be no connection with any other church in America other than Tomlinson’s knowledge of The Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) and the Winebrenner group in Pennsylvania.
The new denomination was typical of the Holiness churches formed in America in this period. The second blessing of entire sanctification was sought as a baptism with the Holy Ghost, which freed the seeker from the results of original sin. Also strongly affirmed was the certainty of divine healing for the body in answer to prayer. The Irwinite fanaticisms of 1896 gave way to a more moderate version of the American Holiness Movement. Under Tomlinson’s dynamic leadership, the Church of God planted congregations throughout the mountain areas of Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, West Virginia, and North Carolina.
Pentecost
In 1906, Tomlinson and other leaders of the Church heard from Azusa Street in Los Angeles about a new Pentecost characterized by speaking in other tongues. The news was welcomed in the environs of Cleveland as another wave of holiness revival that could bless all the churches. Tomlinson was especially interested in the new doctrine and experience. In his previous diary entries, he recorded every conceivable spiritual manifestation he saw in his meetings, but never recorded a case of glossolalia before 1906.
With extreme interest, he visited Birmingham, Alabama, in June 1907, to hear Gaston Barnabas Cashwell, a North Carolina preacher from the Pentecostal Holiness Church, who had received the baptism at Azusa Street. Cashwell was on a whirlwind tour of the South explaining the Pentecostal movement to the large crowds of Holiness people who gathered to hear the new tongues. Although Tomlinson missed meeting Cashwell, he did meet with M. M. Pinson, a later founding father of the Assemblies of God, and talked with him about the new Pentecostal movement. Although Tomlinson did not receive the tongues experience in Birmingham in 1907, he returned to Cleveland determined that his Church would enter into this new spiritual experience.
Calling on the Church to pray for a new Pentecost, the general moderator invited Cashwell to preach in the following General Assembly, which convened in January 1908 in Cleveland. By the time Cashwell arrived, which was after the General Assembly officially closed, many of the pastors had already received the Pentecostal experience and were speaking with other tongues. They were now praying for their leader.
Tomlinson’s baptism was one of the most colorful in all the literature of Pentecostalism. While Cashwell was preaching, the General Overseer fell to the floor behind the pulpit with his head under a chair. He then spoke in not one, but ten different tongues in succession. With this event, it was a foregone conclusion that the Church of God would be a part of the growing Pentecostal movement. After January 1907, glossolalia appeared in practically every service that Tomlinson observed in the churches. Tongues, interpretations, and prophecies became so prevalent that major decisions of the General Assemblies were taken in accordance with charismatic directions brought forth by tongues and interpretations.
The new dynamic brought on by the Pentecostal experience caused fantastic growth in the fledgling Church. Almost all of north Cleveland was won to the Church by 1909. Communities all over the South were soon visited by itinerant preachers who ministered in mill villages, mining camps, towns, crossroads, and larger cities in the region. In time, the churches followed their migrant members north into the industrial cities of the Northeast and the Midwest. The Church of God indeed began to move “like a mighty army” across the land. In 1910, some 1,005 members were reported in 27 churches. By 1920, those figures had mushroomed to 14,606 members in 389 congregations.
Divisions
The impetus of these early years was broken, however, after World War I, when questions arose over the methods Tomlinson used in running the Church. Over the years, more responsibility devolved into his hands, and a constitution was adopted in 1921, which was felt by Tomlinson to be too confining and a departure from biblical principles. By 1922, dissatisfaction arose over the alleged mishandling of funds at the head office. A struggle ensued in the following months between Tomlinson and a council of elders led by Flavius Josephus Lee and J. S. Llewellyn.
In a church trial that took place in Bradley County, Tennessee, in 1923, the council of elders removed Tomlinson from office. He and his followers reorganized as the Church of God. With funds arriving by mail in Cleveland, the post office was at a loss as to how the mail should be delivered. This led to a protracted lawsuit that eventually was decided by the Supreme Court of Tennessee. The final decision resulted in the churches being legally known as “The Church of God” and the “Tomlinson Church of God.”
The Church of God of Prophecy
This situation with the Tomlinson Church of God continued until Tomlinson’s death in 1943 when questions of future leadership opened between the followers of Tomlinson’s two sons, Homer and Milton. Homer, a longtime preacher, had considered himself heir to his father’s position. Many pastors, however, felt that Homer was unstable and preferred the younger son, Milton, who had worked as a printer in the White Wing Publishing House owned by the Church and as a pastor in Kentucky. When Milton was chosen Overseer, Homer left to organize yet another denomination known as the “Church of God, World Headquarters.” Until his death in 1968, his headquarters were in Queens, New York. Over the years, he became famous worldwide for his claims of being the king and bishop of the entire world.
The church Milton headed adopted the name “Church of God of Prophecy” in 1952 and pursued a vigorous ministry from a modern headquarters in Cleveland. Both the World Headquarters churches and Church of God of Prophecy continued to teach Tomlinson’s eschatological vision of a day when all churches would flow into the Church of God that the founder had envisioned in 1903.
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee)
The Church of God, led after 1923 by F. J. Lee, eventually became known as the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) for reasons of identity. This body grew rapidly to become the mainstream of the movement. By 1943, it had joined the National Association of Evangelicals and in 1948 became a charter member in the formation of the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America (PFNA). It also became one of the largest and fastest-growing Pentecostal churches in the world. Early mission efforts made the Churches of God a dominant force in the Caribbean nations. Later mergers established strong affiliations with national churches in South Africa, Indonesia, and Romania.
Tomlinson’s Place in Church History
At the end of the twentieth century, many historians and religious researchers were evaluating what is becoming known as “the Century of the Holy Spirit.” It is now well accepted that A. J. Tomlinson was one of the most important figures in the origins and growth of Pentecostalism around the world. Under his dynamic and transformative leadership, the Churches of God that he founded became some of the fastest-growing congregations in the United States.
By the time he died in 1943, Tomlinson’s place in church history was assured. His legacy, including the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) and the Church of God of Prophecy, will continue to grow as future generations read the amazing story how a tiny church in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina grew to be one of the major churches traditions of the world.