20th century religion
A01=David Cady
Author_David Cady
authoritarianism
C. T. Pratt
Category=QRAM6
Category=QRM
Category=QRMB
Category=QRMB8
Category=QRVS
Category=QRYX9
charismatic leadership
Charlie Pratt
church governance
church history
Church of God of the Union Assembly
community resilience
cults in America
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
faith and power
family conflict
family leadership
financial struggles
historical investigation
holiness movement
interviews
Jesse Junior
Jesse Pratt
members' experiences
miracles
organizational change
Pentecostal sect
power dynamics
religious obedience
religious transformation
sect evolution
spiritual authority
spiritual struggle
succession crisis
Product details
- ISBN 9781621905080
- Weight: 625g
- Dimensions: 160 x 233mm
- Publication Date: 29 May 2019
- Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Based on extensive interviews with mostly former cult members, this book chronicles the history of the Church of God of Union Assembly from its beginning around World War I up to recent times. Founded by a charismatic, unlettered leader, C. T. Pratt, who forcefully broke away from the Holiness COG organization, the church eventually found its home base in Dalton, Georgia. It grew steadily at first and then more rapidly as the great Depression ravaged workers in the mostly rural area of north Georgia. The group set up communal living practices and spread branches of the church across the country, recruiting among the most displaced with a message of social uplift and anti-capitalism, even as its religious practices became increasingly authoritarian and exploitative. If C. T. Pratt exhibited some characteristics of a violent cult leader, his son, who took over the church as his father suffered from ill-health, took these tendencies to a new level that eventually caught the attention of secular authorities. His son, in turn, was even worse--and placed the church on the path to financial ruin. Amazingly, the church survived its three authoritarian leaders and still exists
