Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith

Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith International
ClassificationProtestant
OrientationOneness Pentecostal
PolityEpiscopal
Presiding BishopLambert W. Gates
Headquarters723 S. 45th Street Louisville, Kentucky[1]
Origin1957
Detroit[2]
AbsorbedApostolic Church Assemblies of Africa (1959)
Separations
Congregations851 (2025)[3]
Members30,000+ (2025)[3]
SeminariesBell Apostolic Bible College
PublicationsThe Voice[4]
Official websitepcafintl.org

Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith International, Inc., (PCAFI), founded as Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith Association (PCAF), is a Oneness Pentecostal Christian denomination headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It was founded in 1957 by former members of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World (PAW) after disputes between Bishop Samuel Hancock and PAW leadership.

History

Background

Samuel Nathan Hancock was born November 9, 1883, in Columbia, Kentucky.[5] His family moved to Indianapolis when he was 5. In 1914 he joined Garfield Thomas Haywood's congregation Christ Temple Apostolic Faith Assembly, and in 1915 was rebaptized there under Jesus's name. In 1921, he moved to Detroit and started serving as pastor for the Greater Bethlehem Temple Church there. In 1927, he was appointed as a bishop in the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World.[6] In 1931, Haywood died, and it was agreed that no presiding bishop would be appointed for a year after out of respect.[7] Also in 1931, the majority-black PAW voted to merge with the majority-white Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ to form the Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ, although a small contingent of ministers lead by Bishop Samuel Grimes maintained the PAW Charter.[8] In 1938, Hancock rejoined PAW, as had most black PAJC members after it hosted its General Convention in segregated Tulsa, Oklahoma the year prior.[9][10]

Rifts in PAW

During his time in PAW, Hancock came into conflict in matters of Christology and leadership. In 1940, he was accused of teaching that Jesus was only the son of God and not God, though he was exonerated in 1943.[11] He also published the short book The Great Godhead, which stated that Jesus was not God, only the subordinate son of God, in pre-existence. These teachings lead to the convening of a special meeting of the PAW Executive Board in 1955, in which Hancock and the rest of the board signed an affirmation of Oneness Christology.[12]

In addition to his Christological disagreements, Hancock also believed that he, not Grimes, should have succeeded Haywood as Presiding Bishop of PAW. He argued one-year delay in hiring a new bishop after Haywood's death gave time for a camp to organize against him. At the 1952 General Assembley in Baltimore, Grimes won a runoff vote to become Presiding Bishop over Hancock. The leadership dispute is considered to be the primary cause of Hancock leaving the church.[13][14]

Formation of PCAF

On November 20, 1957, Bishops Samuel Hancock, Herdie Leaston, and Willie Lee, and Elder David Collins left PAW to form the Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith; Hancock had repeatedly threatened to leave prior. Hancock continued to preach his atypical Christology, but PCAF did not require adherence to it. Today, PCAF professes standard Oneness Christology.[15][16]

In late 1959, leaders of Apostolic Church Assemblies of Africa (ACAA), a Liberian, predominantly Bassa Oneness Pentecostal denomination established in 1947, and the predominantly Kru Liberian PAW wrote to PCAF requesting that they send a delegation to their annual convocation in December, seeking the leadership and resources of a foreign ministry.[17] PCAF accepted their offer, and just a week later, Presiding Bishop Hancock and Vice Presiding Bishop Lee attended the convocation at the Burning Bush Tabernacle on 25th Lynch Street Monrovia, Liberia. During the convocation, Hancock agreed to accept ACAA into PCAF and ACAA adopted the PCAF name. On December 5, Hancock appointed Abraham T. Simmons as Presiding Bishop for the new church.[18]

Schisms

Samuel Hancock died on August 18, 1963,[5] and was succeeded as Presiding Bishop by Willie Lee. Lee agreed with Hancock's Christological views which, though tolerated over Hancock's lifetime, caused great controversy under Lee. In 1964, the majority of congregations split off, recognizing previous Assistant Presiding Bishop Elzie Young as Presiding Bishop. The PCAF name was used by both the Lee and Young led denominations for four years, until the Lee group adopted the name Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith, Inc., International Assemblies; Young's group kept the charter and became the modern PCAFI.[19][20] The Lee group at some point adopted the name Emmanuel Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith; he died on June 19, 1969, and was succeeded by James Stewart of Danville, Illinois, as Presiding Bishop.[21] A separate group of churches that left after Hancock's death organized as the Apostolic Assemblies of Christ in 1970, headed by former PCAF bishop George Marshall Boone.[22]

In May 1974, PCAF founding member David Collins formed the True Churches of the Apostolic Faith to preserve what he saw as Hancock's teachings. Collins espoused an unusual adoptionist Christology, in which all of humankind, including Jesus, pre-existed as the "seed" (either metaphorical or literal) of Adam, with Jesus only becoming Son of God inside Mary, and at no point being God himself.[16]

Later history

Elzie Young held the post of Presiding Bishop until his death on December 27, 1989. He instituted a system payments by local churches to the national body based on a percentage of church income; over his tenure, PCAF went from having $5 in its treasury to over $1,000,000.[20]

In January 1975, PCAF established the Midwest Apostolic Bible College in Maywood, Illinois. After four years, it was moved to Chicago, and later it was renamed to D.R. Bell Apostolic Bible College.[23]

Presiding bishops

  1. Samuel Nathan Hancock, 1957–1963
  2. Wililam Matthew Lee, 1963–1964
  3. Elzie William Young, 1964–1989
  4. Dennis Rayford Bell, 1990–2000
  5. Alfred Singleton, 2000–2008
  6. J.E. Moore, 2008–2016
  7. Lambert Wade Gates Sr., 2016–present[2]

References

  1. ^ "Contact Us". Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith International, Inc. Retrieved January 9, 2026.
  2. ^ a b "History". Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith International, Inc. Retrieved January 10, 2026.
  3. ^ a b Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith International, Inc. (December 10, 2025). "Promo video". Facebook. Retrieved January 9, 2026. "Explore the vibrant heartbeat of Pentecostalism in PCAFI! Join us as we reflect on our rich history, profound reformation, and the ongoing movement that ignites faith and PCAFI across the globe. From the miraculous descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost to today's PCAFI thriving community of over 30,000 believers in 28 dioceses and 851 churches worldwide, we celebrate our legacy of unity, empowerment, and divine transformation".
  4. ^ "The Voice". Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith International, Inc. Retrieved January 9, 2026.
  5. ^ a b "Bishop Hancock". Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith International, Inc. Retrieved January 10, 2026.
  6. ^ Murphy, Melton & Ward 2013, p. 324.
  7. ^ Golder, Morris E. (1973). History of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. Indianapolis, Indiana. p. 140.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) via Braddy, Keith C. "PAWHistory Part III" (PDF). Retrieved January 14, 2026.
  8. ^ Reed 2019, pp. 215–16.
  9. ^ Alexander 2018, "Hancock, Samuel Nathan": "In 1938, however, many of the Blacks returned to PAW after racial tension arose in the new body. Hancock returned as an elder and was elected as a bishop for the second time."
  10. ^ Reed 2019, p. 290: "owing to the selection of the southern city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the site of the 1937 General Convention, black ministers from the North were politely informed that there were no integrated accommodations. With this affront, nearly all of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World leaders who had joined the new experiment returned home."
  11. ^ Alexander 2018, "Hancock, Samuel Nathan".
  12. ^ Golder 1973 via Shaw 2010
  13. ^ Murphy, Melton & Ward 2013, p. 316.
  14. ^ Reed 2019, p. 290: "When he left the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World to form his own organization in 1957, the issue was apparently not one of doctrine but the result of a political struggle for the position of Presiding Bishop of the PAofW following Haywood's death."
  15. ^ Shaw, Matthew (June 2010). "Bishop Samuel Hancock". Indiana Apostolic Trumpet. p. 9. Retrieved January 18, 2026 – via Ball State University Digital Media Repository.
  16. ^ a b Reed 2019, p. 291.
  17. ^ Choloh, Alexander B. (2010). The History of the Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith Association, Inc (Memoir). p. 7. via Mehn 2019, pp. 33–34
  18. ^ Mehn 2019, pp. 34–35.
  19. ^ "Archive details for The Voice in the Wilderness". Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. Assemblies of God. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  20. ^ a b Alexander 2018, "Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith".
  21. ^ Jones, Charles Edwin (1987). Black holiness : a guide to the study of Black participation in Wesleyan perfectionist and glossolalic Pentecostal movements. Metuchen, N.J. : American Theological Library Association : Scarecrow Press. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-8108-1948-1.
  22. ^ Alexander 2018, "Apostolic Assemblies of Christ".
  23. ^ "Our History". Bell Bible College of Central Ohio. Retrieved January 4, 2026.

Sources

Further reading

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.