While researching Bishop Ida Bell Robinson and the Mount Sinai Holy Church of America, I spent an evening with her distant relative by marriage, the late Bishop Minerva Bell. As a child, Mother Bell, as she was affectionately known, attended the church that Robinson pastored. During my meeting with her, Mother Bell mentioned that the bed that Robinson passed away in was in the family home. As a young scholar, I was distracted by the vulnerability of this artifact, but my host did not share my concerns. For Mother Bell, the lore about the founding Bishop’s death and resurrection was far more interesting and vital.
The veracity of that story has never concerned me. In fact, when I recall the story of this fateful visit to the Bell home in conversation or academic writing, I use it as a cautionary tale about the overall carelessness of Pentecostal archives. After further reflection, however, I now find insights beyond my recognition of Pentecostalism’s affinity for supernatural occurrences in the account. This resurrection claim, only scantly corroborated in the annual meeting’s minutes, elucidates relationships between religious authority, belief, and practice. Following Robinson’s “heavenly experience,” her religious authority was recognized in a sizeable “love offering” (equal to $12,000 today). It corresponded with a successful realignment strategy that revitalized the organization’s extant expansion and growth projects.
In 1941, the number of MSHCA churches decreased from seventy-four to seventy-one. Still, in 1942, the number of affiliate ministries increased to seventy-six, and with it, the number of churches repaying an Extension Fund debt (the internal lending and borrowing system for the organization). Despite the positive uptick in member churches, the 1943 Yearbook did not publish a Report of Churches. It returned in 1944—around the same time as Robinson’s purported “heavenly experience.” The annual yearbook’s notations about MSCHA disclose a discernible correlation between its most significant growth period and the institutionalization of internal financial practices. Moreover, these records indicate how Robinson managed numerical changes within the organization. For example, when MSHCA experienced a drop in reported member churches, Bishop Robinson countered with a major expansion campaign that standardized Extension Fund giving among affiliate churches and para-church ministries between 1941 and 1946. Robinson successfully added thirteen new member churches to her organization during this time.
As noted, the incident was scantly addressed in the Year Book of the Twenty-First Annual Convocation of the Mt. Sinai Holy Church of America, Inc. (September 19-28, 1945). Robinson first shared the incident during the first session of the first day; after the usual perfunctory exercises, e.g., singing, scripture, testimony service, and the offertory, Bishop Ida Bell Robinson ascended the podium, greeted the “saints, pastors, and delegates from the various cities,” and shared her testimony. It was during this time she shared about her “heavenly experience.” Although the report does not detail what the Bishop shared, it notes that she repeated the story during the Sunday morning service on the fifth convocation day. During this second recounting, she received a $673 love offering.
I have examined MSCHA’s growth trend elsewhere to establish Robinson’s exceptional business savvy. Although I maintain my previous claims, Pentecostalism's proclivity toward growth via renewal needs attention. Albeit conjecture, aligning with Harvey Cox's observation that “…pentecostalism seems to hold within itself an unfailing self-renewing quality” (Cox, 1995), the “heavenly experience” reversing a time of uncertainty and engendering growth for MSHCA suggests a more nuanced pragmatism associated with Pentecostal piety.
This paper, therefore, interrogates Pentecostal piety's religio-cultural, -social, and -economic discourses within predominantly Black and women-led congregations in the early to mid-twentieth century. Specifically, it uses the “heavenly experience” story of Bishop Ida Bell Robinson, founder of the MSHCA, to elucidate the logics inherent to relationships articulated between religious authority, belief, and practice. I give special attention to (1) healing practices and resurrection claims as essential to what is believed rather than what is expressed, (2) how these experiences, practices, and rituals play significant roles in establishing ministerial validity and legitimacy, especially among women, and (3) how their significant role as producers of divine activity for revitalizing and growing existing (at times, fledgling) ministries.
I argue that piety—that which attests to how adherents have subversively used a distinct set of religio-cultural norms (Mahmood, 2011)—specifically, Pentecostal piety performed by Black Pentecostal women like Bishop Ida Bell Robinson, solidified them as trusted practitioners and producers of supernatural occurrences. Using the account of Robinson’s “heavenly experience” along with the revelatory and supernatural occurrences reported among her contemporaries, I will show that the culturally intelligible discursive practices entrusted to Black Pentecostal women at once fulfilled what the community believed to be God’s will while also subversively evading communal abjection through demonstrations of Pentecostal piety, via power. However, the notable consequence was institutional sustainability and growth, e.g., ministerial success.
Such was the case for Robinson’s contemporary, Mother Rosa Horn. Like many other charismatic religious figures, Horn’s vocation is embellished with fantastic stories that prove the validity of her calling, spiritual authority, and supernatural power. One famous account that first appeared in a 1934 article written in the Afro-American Baltimore newspaper includes her multiple near-death experiences. The Afro-American’s interview with Mother Horn, as she was publically known, was partly because of her ministry successes. By 1934, Mother Horn oversaw a ministry claiming thousands of people with extensions in five cities, including Philadelphia. She was a recognized charismatic figure who proffered miracles, healings, and even resurrections.
Finally, as the analytical lens, piety in this paper reveals Black Pentecostal women like Robinson and Horn as practitioners and producers of supernatural occurrences. My emphasis here is to show how Black Pentecostal women’s demonstration of Pentecostal piety—e.g., authority over sickness and death—went beyond the confines of the liturgy and worship to have practical importance. Indeed, “It affect[ed] the way people live[d] and order[ed] their lives; their sense of self and personhood; their understanding of authority and its proper relationship to individual desires and capacity; and distinct conceptions of human flourishing (Mahmood, 2011).” By assuming this role, Black Pentecostal women of the early to mid-twentieth century established themselves as legitimate and valid but, most importantly, critical to the tradition’s sustainability and growth while amassing success.
Healing practices, especially resurrection claims, are critical extensions of Pentecostal piety. As the analytical lens for this paper, I argue that piety—understood as that which attests to how adherents subversively use a distinct set of religio-cultural norms—specifically, Pentecostal piety performed by Black Pentecostal women like Bishop Ida Bell Robinson, solidified them as trusted practitioners and producers of supernatural occurrences. This paper uses the “heavenly experience” of Bishop Ida Bell Robinson, founder of the Mount Sinai Holy Church of America, to elucidate the logics inherent to relationships articulated between religious authority, belief, and practice. As such, it interrogates Pentecostal piety's religio-cultural, -social, and -economic discourses within predominantly Black and women-led congregations in the early to mid-twentieth century. This paper emphasizes how Black Pentecostal women’s demonstration of Pentecostal piety—e.g., authority over sickness and death—went beyond the confines of the liturgy and worship to have practical importance.