Persecution in Cleveland, Tennessee
Friday night a crowd of perhaps 35 men and boys headed by a number of leading citizens, cut the ropes of the Holiness tent and grounded it. There was considerable excitement for an hour or two, and for a while it was feared that the property of the Holiness people would be burned, but the advice of the cooler heads in the crowd was followed and the grounding of the tent was the only destruction wrought. The Journal and Banner (Cleveland, Tenn.) August 10, 1909
Two early revivals in Cleveland, Tennessee, illustrate both the blessings and persecution that early Church of God members experienced. The name Holiness Church was still being used when the first Cleveland congregation was organized in 1906. And for many years afterward, both insiders and outsiders referred to the Church of God and its adherents as the Holiness Church or the Holiness people. This proved to be both a badge of honor and an opportunity for derision.
The young Cleveland congregation launched a major evangelistic thrust in 1908 with tent meetings on Central Avenue. The meetings lasted from August 11 until October 14. According to the reported results, 105 were converted, 163 received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, 78 were baptized in water, and 106 were added to the church.
Although persecution was common for Church of God believers, in Cleveland it was generally more of a nuisance than a hindrance. At one point the mayor served Pastor A. J. Tomlinson with legal papers requiring the services to be concluded by 10:00 pm or he would face arrest. But Tomlinson ignored the order and was not apprehended.
A similar tent crusade in 1909 evoked a very different reaction from the community, however. The tent was erected in the center of town on July 15. Persecution began before the final peg was driven into the ground as a prominent citizen attempted to stop the church from raising the tent. When the man returned later that night with a document entitled To the Holy Rollers, Tomlinson refused to read it because of the derisive language. Then on July 21 the pastor was arrested for violating a city ordinance. Brought to trial the next day, he was convicted and fined $5.00.
Yet the tent meetings continued until a mob attacked the worshipers on August 6. Crowds of opposition gathered at the tent; “peppers and hot drops” were thrown on the people, and the tent was cut down. As the mob assailed the downed tent, worshipers scattered to various locations to sing and to preach to their persecutors.
The next day, members of the Church of God prayed at the site where the tent had stood. From there they sang and marched to the public square and then on to the church house. Opponents were busy as well, securing an injunction preventing the church from parading through the streets, holding late-night services, or erecting a tent within the city limits.
Back in court in September, the judge found church leaders guilty of violating the law and fined them two dollars each. But by that time, the undaunted church was concluding two weeks of tent meetings south of Cleveland. At the close of those September meetings, 13 were baptized in water and 14 joined the Church of God. Persecution had moved the location of the tent, but it had not stopped the blessings of God.
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This article was written by Church of God Historian David G. Roebuck, Ph.D., who is director of the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center and assistant professor of the history of Christianity at Lee University. This “Church of God Chronicles” was first published in the December 2002 Church of God Evangel.
