This content was created by Craig Dietrich. The last update was by Will Luers.
The Bible Institute (part 2)
1 -001-11-30T00:00:00-07:52 Craig Dietrich 2d66800a3e5a1eaee3a9ca2f91f391c8a6893490 10 3 Two episodes documenting the 50th anniversary banquets held at The Bible Institute in north Philadelphia on April 29th and 30th, 1996. 6-7 minutes each. plain 2011-05-10T11:12:45-07:00 wluers@gmail.com Critical Commons Will Luers 2f0376b300f2ff7145f4f5c8f06d3ab51e0c730dThis page is referenced by:
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2010-10-08T22:48:48-07:00
The Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary
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In April, 1946, the remaining Peace Mission members celebrated The Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary of Father and Mother Divine with seven banquet services held at various properties in the Philadelphia area.Mother Divine arrived at each banquet by limousine and wearing a formal gown, as she had always done at her anniversary banquets with her husband since their marriage in 1946. She greeted the invited guests of Father Divine and then took her place at the head of the long table next to the place set for her "personally absent," but still spiritually present husband.Guests from the city's private and public sectors joined followers and co-workers in re-enacting a "divine"celibate marriage that, to the believers, was a union of races, nations and most importantly a union of Heaven and Earth. For the hundreds of elderly believers still in the Movement, the marriage was not only between God and his "spotless virgin bride," but between God and themselves, his own church. Peace mission believers, male and female, continue to wear a wedding ring in recognition of this 1946 bond.
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#16a72c
2010-10-08T22:48:48-07:00
The Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary
126
split
2011-05-11T14:21:47-07:00
In April, 1946, the remaining Peace Mission members celebrated The Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary of Father and Mother Divine with seven banquet services held at various properties in the Philadelphia area.Mother Divine arrived at each banquet by limousine and wearing a formal gown, as she had always done at her anniversary banquets with her husband since their marriage in 1946. She greeted the invited guests of Father Divine and then took her place at the head of the long table next to the place set for her "personally absent," but still spiritually present husband.Guests from the city's private and public sectors joined followers and co-workers in re-enacting a "divine"celibate marriage that, to the believers, was a union of races, nations and most importantly a union of Heaven and Earth. For the hundreds of elderly believers still in the Movement, the marriage was not only between God and his "spotless virgin bride," but between God and themselves, his own church. Peace mission believers, male and female, continue to wear a wedding ring in recognition of this 1946 bond.
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2010-08-27T22:55:51-07:00
"A Greater Picture of ME": The Peace Mission Archive
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Since the late 1930s, Father Divine and his followers oversaw the documentation of the Peace Mission's own history and public pronouncements in a weekly newspaper, with wire and tape recordings, film and photography.
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If you take cognizance of MY Message, a greater picture of ME can be reproduced in your likeness.
-Father DivineSince the late 1930s, Father Divine and his followers oversaw the documentation of the Peace Mission's own history and public pronouncements in a weekly newspaper, with wire and tape recordings, film and photography. These texts, images and recordings were used to communicate the ideas of "God in a body" to followers in missions around the United States -- from Harlem to Los Angeles -- and around the world -- from Switzerland to Australia. The Peace Mission would later sacramentalize artifacts from this archive of media as "the word of God revealed," making use of Father Divine's printed words and recorded voice within their own religious rituals and practices to maintain contact with the deity and his standards when he was "physically absent."Covering eighty years of the Movement -- from posed studio portraits of Father Divine and Penninah or Mother Divine in her first reincarnated body to Polaroids of Mother Divine in the second body with the immediate community of believers around her; from newspaper photographs originally published in the Movements newspaper, The New Day, to personal snapshots of followers in attendance at various Peace Mission Holy Communion Banquet services around the world, from Church residence to followers' businesses, this collection represents a remarkable disclosure of images by an American intentional community -- images which for the most part were taken by members by community themselves. These photographs formed a series of religious family albums of sorts -- exemplars of what some scholars have identified as "vernacular photography."While Father Divine's Peace Mission was not the first American religion to actively engage such media as photography, sound and film (and now video) to promote its existence and purpose and celebrate and maintain its history, it did so with a passion that is related to dual causes. First, is the social energy in the Movement's early years for empowerment, justice, and intellectual stimulation felt by African Americans in Harlem during the era of "The New Negro" Movement in the period after the First World War. And second, the spiritual energy generated by a belief system that proposed that God had been incarnated on the earth as a black man; a figure whose appearance alone represented empowerment and equality. When his photographic image for Church members was circulated by the Movement in 1932 (having been photographed by now noted Washington, D.C. studio photographer, Addison Scurlock), it was soon venerated as a sacred icon of justice, freedom from oppression, and protection from ills. These images placed in every room of Church residences were the Peace Mission's answer to the omnipresent crucifix in Roman Catholic institutional and domestic spaces; they showed God in a "dark-complected" body and the very representation of that idea radiated its own positive power and spirit. Today, followers re-enact their collective past by watching together the old movies and listening to their God's recorded words. - 1 2010-08-10T14:06:35-07:00 The Holy Communion Banquet Service 18 The main communal ritual of the Peace Mission. Table are multi-course dining events that include singing and testimonials. text 2012-05-04T14:55:50-07:00 "The Holy Communion Banquet Service" was central to Father Divine's fame as he and his followers dined, worshipped, sang, ecstatically danced, and praised God together. These public display events of the bounty of God's spiritual and physical harvest served a great variety of foods representative of the abundance received by followers through a life of faith and service to God, Father Divine (See Kephart's description 1987:94-99). Many men and women became adherents as a result of such material displays in the face of their experience of urban poverty, especially through the years of the Great Depression when Father charged very little or what one could afford for the food.
