"Bringing Perfection in These Different Places": Father Divine's Vernacular Architecture of Intention

• Published in: Folklore (London) 2004-04, Vol.115 (1), p.3-26
• Main Author: Primiano, Leonard Norman
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anthropology; Architecture; Baker, George; Banquets; Church fathers; Colloquial language; Culture; Divinity; Ethnology; Father Divine; Folklore; Habitat, housing, architecture; Historic preservation; History; Material culture; Morphological source materials; Peace movements; Peacefulness; Perfection; Recycling; Recycling (Waste, etc.); Religion; Religious buildings; Religious communities; Religious congregations; Renovation & restoration; Residential buildings; Space; Symbolism; Technology; Theology; U.S.A; Utopian communities; Vernacular architecture; Wood buildings
• ISSN: 0015-587X; 1469-8315
• DOI: 10.1080/0015587042000192501

The Peace Mission Movement, an American intentional religious community founded by the Revd M. J. Divine, also known as "Father Divine," expressed through an intentional use of architecture their own quest for a utopian perfection of consciousness in America. What is especially significant about this expression of perfection is that they did not seek it by building environments of their own creation. Instead, the movement and its leader created a unique religious vernacular architecture not by architectural design, but by a spiritualised appropriation of existing spaces. Through purchasing, restoring, re-using, and preserving many different types of American domestic and commercial structures, Father Divine and his followers developed a theology of material culture and historic preservation that expressed a major theological perspective of their belief system-to spiritualise the material and to materialise the spiritual-all in the service of God and for the transformation of human nature.