A Look Back: The Way of the Cross Church of Christ

When Robert C. Lawson began to evangelize Washington, D.C., he had both a profound impact and mixed success. His apostolic gift was such that establishing a mission was all but a given. Elder Lawson, no niggard with pulpit work, sent at least one other preacher down to continue the work, and among those who were turned to the Apostolic Pentecostal message was one Henry Chauncey Brooks, a North Carolinian recently come up after the death of his father. This was in 1925.

Not long after his conversion, Brooks was called the ministry but was not affiliated with any Pentecostal organization.Though he had accepted Jesus'-name soteriology, Brooks retained membership in a Baptist church; he was ultimately disfellowshiped due to his newly espoused doctrinal views.

Brooks and a group of believers attempted to found an independent Pentecostal congregation. Before the group could get established, the building they met in was sold from under them. All but a few of that initial congregation disintegrated, with a core group continuing to meet in saints' homes for prayer and worship. When they reestablished themselves as a congregation with an edifice, the words of a hymn they had often sung, "I must go home by the way of the cross," furnished their new name, Way of the Cross Church of Christ (WOTC).

All this while, Brooks was looking for an organization with which to fellowship, but were turned down by all but the newly reorganized Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, led by now Bishop Lawson. Lawson chartered the church and recognized Brooks as its pastor.

Even then, Lawson had also sent one of his own elders to pastor the small mission that his evangelistic work had birthed. Smallwood Williams, a young preacher, had taken charge of a work that, though in its infancy, was firmly established enough to support Williams financially. Like Brooks, many were Southerners migrating north. Newcomers to Washington responded favorably to Williams' sermons and augmented his street meeting with spirituals sung in the old rural tradition. As one might imagine, the combination of good singing and good preaching attracted a lot of attention.

Over time, Williams' congregation grew and grew. Whatever Lawson had originally named it, Williams rechristened it as the Bible Way Church. The jewel of Lawson's efforts in the Mid-Atlantic, Bible Way became the hub of the movement in the Maryland and Virginia area, rising at times to national prominence. Bishop Lawson did much to encourage this strategically planted church, being as it was in the nation's capital.

While Williams' work was growing rather rapidly, Brooks's church was also growing. His patient, kind pastoral manner contributed to a loyal, stable congregation. Along with Williams and Samuel Kelsey of the Temple Church of God in Christ, H.C. Brooks is one of the Pentecostal fathers of the Distric of Columbia. Brooks and his small independent had survived eviction and denominational rejection, and were now aligned with one of the most respected names in Pentecost.

It is important at this point to mention that, though the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ was an organization, the churches themselves exercised a great deal of independence and self-governance. The largest churches, though loyal to Lawson, necessarily exercised a de facto autocephaly, making the best decisions they could for the health and progress of the movement locally. Smaller parishes, whether birthed from the larger churches or not, had a client relationship with the largest local church. This relationship, more less, still holds.

This understanding is helpful in making sense of the still unclear disagreement that led to Brooks's exit from Lawson's organization. Not long after Sherrod Johnson left, taking with him an episcopal title and several churches, Lawson thought it would be a good idea to consolidate the work in Washington. Goes this version of the Way of the Cross separation, Lawson brought up the possibility of merging Brooks's church with Williams' church. It is no leap to infer that Lawson seemed to think one church was well on its way, and the other one, not so much. Indeed, the bishop had little compunction about showing favor to his more well educated ministers. We have no way of knowing what Brooks read into this plan, but it is only reasonable that Brooks and his membership, having worked so hard thus far, would not want to fold tent and come under an unfamiliar pavilion just because someone thought it was a good idea.

Nonetheless, Lawson continued pushing for the consolidation of the two ministries. Brooks had nothing against Williams, but his congregation and Williams' congregation were of different dynamics. Rather than go through with this proposed merger, Brooks pulled out of the organization in 1933, and the church reestablished its independence. Eventually other ministries would be birthed from Brooks's ministry, and Way of the Cross Church of Christ, chartered by Lawson, became the mother church of an organization. Today Way of the Cross Church of Christ International thrives and enjoys amicable fellowship with the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Bible Way churches.

This version of the WOTC separation reveals what people saw in Lawson as his autocratic tendencies. Not long before, Lawson had changed the title of "bishop" to "overseer" as a preventative measure against young men becoming conceited. Now he was telling a seasoned preacher in the 30s to submit his ministry and membership to a young man in his 20s. The older preacher had founded his church; the younger preacher had been given his church. One was a rural-born self-starter; the other was academic, raised in the city.

But none of this seemed to matter to Lawson. A forceful, type-A personality, Lawson was a naturally self-confident man of action, never without an argument to justify his decisions. Lawson's soul-winning efforts were served by these characteristics; his leadership, not so much. Bishop Lawson did not always seriously entertain the notion of someone else having a valid perspective that was not somehow similar to his own.

In fact, in a 1958 article (reprinted in For the Defense of the Gospel) recounting separations in the Pentecostal movement, Lawson brings up Brooks, now bishop of his own movement. In Lawson's version of the story, some 25 years in retrospect, Brooks is pegged as one of a generation of young preachers who wanted to be called a bishop and would use any reason to separate from their parent organization and realize this goal.  Brooks left, according to Lawson, because he was not asked to speak in "the national convention." Lawson tilted at this alleged pettiness by asserting that he was not aware that Brook "had the, or a, message." ("'The' message" refers to the practice among early Pentecostals of yielding the floor when a preacher seemed to be particularly gifted to bring forth "the" God-ordained message for the hour, in this case a message for the 1929 convention.) Lawson's index of rogues also included Sherrod Johnson, another unnamed minister of raw episcopal ambition, and Randolf Carr, whose departure from the Church of God in Christ struck Lawson as suspect.

In a way, it was an utter lack of self-doubt that seems to have handicapped Lawson. His preaching was second to none; his doctrine was sound through and through; his ability to organize and delegate was unquestionable. People flocked to his church yearly to report on the affairs of churches he and his ministers had founded, and though Pentecost as a whole was disparaged, Lawson and his movement were embraced in media and respected in the street. Why would anyone want to leave? A disagreement? Lawson was not one to avoid conflict; welcomed it, even, especially when he knew he was right. His ministers admired his backbone, until they found themselves in opposition to him.

All told, the WOTC split was a fairly quiet incident, yet it continued a pattern of resolving conflict through separation. The unfortunate result of this pattern is that Pentecostals of later generations knew little else. Further, some would mistakenly interpret what at the time might have been a more or less dry, technical separation as indicative of a much meatier disagreement, even when there was none. In this case, the WOTC split is almost negligible in its impact. Brooks's doctrine afterwards was essentially the same as Lawson's doctrine: water baptism by immersion in Jesus' name, baptism in the Holy Ghost with signs following, modesty of dress, and no women preachers. Though no longer aligned with Lawson's organization, Brooks remained committed to Lawson's principles. From his Washington pulpit, Brooks, too, began to evangelize by way of radio. As with the mother church, WOTC's national growth has been steady, stable, and largely unaffected by Brooks's separation from Lawson.

There are those who are under the mistaken impression that these splits were necessary and inevitable. Some laud Williams' decision as unavoidable in the face of Lawson's unbearably difficult managerial style. We know this is not true, not least of all because Williams, by all accounts, was Lawson's favored son. In addition to this, there is another thriving group whose separation and development involved no conflict at all. In our next article, we'll look back at an often overlooked Lawsonite group with deep roots in the Pentecostal movement: the Progressive Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ.