page_title: Father Divine
section_title: 1942–65: Pennsylvania
hierarchical_section_title: Father Divine / Life and career / 1942–65: Pennsylvania
caption_attribution_description: "Woodmont," Alan Wood Jr. Mansion, 1622 Spring Mill Road, Gladwyne, Pennsylvania (1892), Will Price, architect. Caption: Hon. Alan Wood, Jr., Residence "Woodmont," Conshohocken. Hon. Alan Wood, Jr., the sheet iron manufacturer and ex-Congressman, built the palatial mansion now owned by his nephew, Richard G. Wood. It is in the French gothic chateau style, and one of the grandest of American homes. It is 475 acres above tidewater, overlooking the beautiful Schuylkill Valley. William L. Price, architect.
context_page_description: Father Divine, also known as Reverend M. J. Divine, was an African-American spiritual leader from about 1907, until his death. His full self-given name was Reverend Major Jealous Divine, and he was also known as "the Messenger" early in his life. He founded the International Peace Mission movement, formulated its doctrine, and oversaw its growth from a small and predominantly black congregation into a multiracial and international church. Due to his ideology, many consider him to be a cult leader.
  Father Divine claimed to be God. He made numerous contributions toward his followers' economic independence and racial equality. He was a contemporary of other religious leaders such as Daddy Grace, Charles Harrison Mason, Noble Drew Ali and James F. Jones.
context_section_description: After moving to Philadelphia, Father Divine's wife, Penninah, died. The exact date is not known, because Father Divine never talked about it or even acknowledged her death. However, it occurred sometime in 1943, and biographers believe Penninah's death rattled Father Divine, making him aware of his own mortality. It became obvious to Father Divine and his followers that his doctrine might not make one immortal as he asserted, at least not in the flesh.
  In 1944, singer/songwriter Johnny Mercer came to hear of one of Divine's sermons. The subject was "You got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative." Mercer said, "Wow, that's a colorful phrase!”  He went back to Hollywood and got together with songwriter Harold Arlen ("Over The Rainbow"), and together they wrote "Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive", which was recorded by Mercer himself and the Pied Pipers in 1945.  It was also recorded by Bing Crosby with the Andrews Sisters that same year.
  After his first wife died, Father Divine married a white Canadian woman called Edna Rose Ritchings in Washington, D.C., on April 29, 1946. The ceremony was kept secret even from most members until Ritching's visa expired. Critics of the movement believed that Father Divine's seemingly scandalous marriage to 21-year-old Ritchings would destroy the movement. Instead, most followers rejoiced, and the marriage date became a celebrated anniversary in the movement. To prove that he and Ritchings adhered to his doctrine on sexual abstinence, Father Divine assigned a black female follower to be her constant companion.
  He claimed that Ritchings, later called "Mother S. A. Divine", was the reincarnation of Penninah. Reincarnation was not previously part of Father Divine's doctrine and did not become a fixture of his theology. Followers believed that Penninah was an exceptional case and viewed her "return" as a miracle.
  Going into the 1950s, the press rarely covered Father Divine, and when it did, it was no longer as a menace, but as an amusing relic. For example, light-hearted stories ran when Father Divine announced Philadelphia was capital of the world and when he claimed to inspire invention of the hydrogen bomb. Father Divine's predominantly lower-class following ebbed as the economy swelled.
  In 1953, follower John Devoute gave Father Divine Woodmont, a 72-acre (0.3 km²) hilltop estate in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia.  This French Gothic manor served as his home and primary site of his increasingly infrequent banquets until his death in 1965.
  As his health declined, he continued to petition for civil rights. In 1951, he advocated reparations to be paid to the descendants of slaves. He also argued in favor of integrated neighborhoods. However, he did not participate in the burgeoning American Civil Rights Movement because of his poor health and especially his dislike of the use of racial labels, denying he was black.
  On September 10, 1965, Father Divine died of natural causes at his Woodmont estate. His widow and remaining followers insist his spirit is still alive and always refer to Father Divine in the present tense. Believers keep the furnishings of Father Divine's personal rooms at Woodmont just as they were as a shrine to his life.
  The widow Edna Rose Ritchings became spiritual leader of the movement. In 1972, she fought an attempt by Jim Jones to take over the movement's dwindling devotees. Jones based some of his doctrines on the International Peace Mission movement and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine.  Although a few members of the Mission joined Peoples Temple after Jones made his play for leadership of the movement, the power push was, in terms of its ultimate objective, a complete failure. That Jones was 34 years old at the time of Father Divine's death made his claims of being a new incarnation rather hard to sustain - Jones claimed Divine's spirit had entered his body upon the passing of the elder man - and Ritchings was left unimpressed by Jones' impassioned rhetoric. Jones' custom of tape-recording all his sermons was copied from Div
caption: "Woodmont" was Father Divine's home from 1953 until his death in 1965.
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