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two ⭈ ‘‘Grace Has Given God a Vacation’’: The History and Development of the Theology of the United House of Prayer of All People DANIELLE BRUNE SIGLER In February 1942, in a nearly illegible hand, Arthur Hu√ Fauset scribbled in his notebook, recording his observations of Bishop Charles M. ‘‘Daddy’’ Grace’s United House of Prayer for All People. If Bishop Grace himself is present, many worshipers will march or dance to the front and grasp his hand. Not infrequently the worshiper will place a bill of requisite denomination in his hand. Often the mere touch of the leader’s hand is su≈cient to induce terrific contortion of the body or to produce a state akin to catalepsy. The Bishop assures me there was nothing on his person (such as an electric battery) to account for this phenomenon. It is the action of the Holy Spirit he says.1 Fauset was interested in many of the aspects of the House of Prayer that he had captured in these notes: Grace’s charismatic spiritual power, his followers’ attitudes toward him, and the emphasis on money and fundraising during worship services. His notes also hinted at the skepticism with which Fauset and others outside of the church greeted Grace’s claims. Could spiritual power really account for the ecstatic responses of his followers? Were Daddy Grace and the House of Prayer aberrations or were they similar to the other religious organizations that Fauset was observing? In Fauset’s final evaluation of the United House of Prayer, his dissertation and its published incarnation, Black Gods of the Metropolis, Fauset broadly categorized the church as a Holiness church with an interest in faith healing. He argued, how- 32 New Religious Movement(s) of the Great Migration Era ever, that Daddy Grace’s power and dominance had transformed the organization into something quite di√erent. The church’s beliefs, he wrote, ‘‘boil down to a worship of Daddy Grace. God appears to be all but forgotten.’’2 He included a quote from Grace to make his point: ‘‘Never mind about God. Salvation is by Grace only. . . . Grace has given God a vacation, and since God is on His vacation, don’t worry Him. . . . If you ask God to save you, He cannot save you. You must have Grace to be saved. Only I can save you.’’3 According to Fauset, Grace had superseded God, a move that made the House of Prayer radically di√erent from its Holiness forebears and from one of his other subjects, Bishop Ida Robinson’s Mt. Sinai Holy Church. When Fauset’s book, Black Gods of the Metropolis, was published in May 1944, William H. Baldwin reviewed it in the New York Times Book Review under the headline ‘‘Negro Spellbinders.’’ In spite of the fact that Fauset’s book devoted more time to Father Divine, Baldwin devoted most of his review to extensive quotes from Fauset’s discussion of Daddy Grace. He reprinted the quote that has come to dominate scholarship on Grace, ‘‘There is at least a spark of genius in this man, who assumes the name of ‘Grace’ . . . for the Bible is replete with references to one or another form of Grace. . . . [A]ccording to Dr. Fauset, he has been heard admonishing his worshippers, ‘Grace has given God a vacation.’ ’’4 And so Baldwin inaugurated a trend that then continued among scholars working in the field of African American religion.5 These historians and scholars of religion have focused on the ‘‘Grace has given God a vacation’’ quote and have not paid attention to much else. E. Franklin Frazier quoted Fauset directly in The Negro Church in America (1964) and Joseph R. Washington recycled the excerpted quote in Black Sects and Cults (1972). Wilson Jeremiah Moses paraphrased Fauset’s quote in Black Messiahs and Uncle Toms (1982), which he introduced with the explanation that ‘‘doctrine consisted of little more than a play on words.’’ Even as recently as 1998, Benjamin Sevitch, in ‘‘When Black Gods Preached on Earth,’’ similarly introduced Fauset’s quote by adding, ‘‘[Grace’s] theology became little more than a play on words.’’6 By focusing almost exclusively on this excerpted quote, scholars have missed the complexity and richness of Grace and his ministry. The full quotation from Grace, which appeared in Fauset’s appendix, demonstrated the innovation of the House of Prayer’s theology. Far from being a simple ‘‘play on words,’’ the ‘‘vacation’’ statement revealed the compelling evolution of a Pentecostal-inspired...

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