John Graham Lake (1870 - 1935)

Ancestors

Biography

• Fact: Residence (1871) Downie, Perth, Ontario, Canada
• Fact: Residence (1881) Euphrasia, Grey, Ontario, Canada
• Fact: Immigration (1885)
• Fact: Immigration (1886)
• Fact: Residence (1900) ED 20 Sault Ste. Marie city Ward 2, Chippewa, Michigan, United States
• Fact: Immigration (Sep 1909) Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
• Fact: Immigration (1895-1924) Vermont, United States
• Fact: Residence (1920) Spokane, Spokane, Washington, United States
• Fact: Residence (1930) Multnomah, Oregon
• Fact: Immigration (1931) Eastport, Idaho, United States
• Fact: Burial (1935) Riverside Memorial Park, Spokane, Spokane, Washington, United States
• Fact: Residence Spokane, Spokane Co., Washington

Rev. Dr. JOHN GRAHAM LAKE

JOHN GRAHAM LAKE was born on March 18, 1870, at Saint Mary’s, St. Mary’s, Perth, Ontario, Canada. He was the son of JAMES M. LAKE and ELIZABETH ‘Betty Lou’ GRAHAM.

JOHN G. GRAHAM was twice married.

On February 5, 1892, at Millington, Kendall, Illinois, he married JANE ‘Jennie’ WALLACE STEPHENS born May 6, 1867, at Bracebridge, Muskoka, Ontario, Canada—she was the daughter of ALEXANDER STEPHENS and JESSIE WALKER.

Their children were

1. ALEXANDER JAMES LAKE (1893–1961)
2. HORACE HOUGHTON LAKE (1895–1970)
3. WALLACE HORACE LAKE (1895–Deceased)*
4. OTTO BRYAN LAKE (1897–1960)
5. EDNA JENNY LAKE FERGUSON (1899–1982)
6. IRENE MARGARET LAKE FREEMYER (1902–1992)
7. JOHN GRAHAM LAKE Jr. (1904–1972)
8. WALLACE STEPHENS LAKE (1907–1987)

(NOTE: * Either a twin to Horace Houghton, or Record misinterpretation for Horace Houghton Lake)

JOHN GRAHAM LAKE’S first wife ‘JENNEY’ WALLACE STEPHENS LAKE died on December 22, 1908, at Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa where her husband had a thriving ministry.

On November 27, 1913, at Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he married FLORENCE MYRTLE SWITZER born June 4, 1885, at Bellrock, South Frontenac, Frontenac, Ontario, Canada—she was the daughter of JOHN WESLEY SWITZER (1857-1932) and AGNES ADDIE BROOKS (1863-1944)

Their children were

1. Rev LIVINGSTONE GEIER or "Jack" LAKE (1915–2001)
2. GERTRUDE LAKE REIDT (1917–1983)
3. RODERICK STUART LAKE (1919–1937)
4. ELIZABETH LAKE (1924–Deceased)
5. ESTHER LAKE (1927–Deceased)

Reverend JOHN GRAHAM LAKE died on September 2, 1935, at Spokane, Spokane, Washington, and is buried in Riverside Memorial Park Cemetery; Spokane, Spokane, Washington https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38244776/john-graham-lake

_____________________________________

WHO WAS JOHN GRAHAM LAKE?

The question, one I can only offer an opinion on, should be one asked by anyone, actually everyone, who finds him within their research sights. Because there are two different pictures that emerge for him. One is remarkably negative, while the other is a rebuttal of that account.

Connecting these two seemingly unresolvable polar opposites are historical record sources, genealogies, and decerning preference. It's important to state here, that neither description is necessarily that held by this profile manager.

The first of two papers I’ve provided for review can be viewed in the Gallery Section as a pdf or you can attempt full-view of this material at: https://www.academia.edu/7005594/John_G_Lake_s_Formative_Years_1870_1908_The_Making_of_A_Con_Man The title basically sums-up the author’s (Barry Morton) perspective: JOHN G. LAKE’S FORMATIVE YEARS 1870–1908 ‘THE MAKING OF A CON MAN

The second paper, a direct refutation of the first can be viewed in the Gallery Section as a pdf or you can view the work in full at: http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1017-04992016000100006 It is titled JOHN G. LAKE AS A FRAUD, CON MAN AND FALSE PROPHET’: CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF A HISTORICAL EVALUATION OF LAKES MINISTRY sponsored by: Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae

In addition to these two perspectives is a text copy of a third work that is also critical of Morton's position on Lake. That text is included at the conclusion of Mortons work.

The one overarching position I’d recommend in approaching these materials, is one of complete neutrality by the reader. The first paper (Morton’s) sets forth the tone and tenor of the material in the introduction:

John G Lake’s Formative Years, 1870-1908: The Making of A Con Man (May 2014)

John G Lake ranks among the most influential religious con men of the twentieth century. After arriving in South Africa in 1908 with minimal experience and a disturbing past, he stimulated the growth of both large Pentecostal and Zionist movements that continue to flourish today. His willingness to train Africans in the dark arts of faith healing led to the transfer of these techniques to a new and troubling set of evangelists, who in time have built up multinational congregations numbering in the millions.

“This paper seeks to establish certain basic facts about Lake’s early life prior to his move in South Africa in 1908. The reasons for this are as follows: John G Lake, like his mentor John Alexander Dowie, was a master of both the big and small lie. His fairly extensive catalog of writings, most of it generated after his return to America in 1913, is a collection of banal religious dogma interspersed with as great a deliberate set of falsehoods as one could ever hope to find in writing.” Page 1.

And the second paper is equally direct in its goal as stated in the paper’s

ABSTRACT: both texts are provided below

“This article assesses the evaluation of John G. Lake, one of the founders of South African Pentecostalism, by some historians regarded as a fraud, con man and false prophet in terms of several elements of his life: his business concerns; his mission to Africa; ministry of Spirit baptism and divine healing; and some accusations made by Lake’s co-workers. The conclusion is reached that there are valid points of criticism against Lake’s ministry and concerns about his integrity, although it is also true that the specific historical evaluation is hampered by presuppositions that preclude any miracles and a seemingly preconceived notion of Lake as a fraud and scam, supported by an unbalanced utilization and unfair treatment of resources."

Under normal circumstances, neither of these papers or their conclusions would figure in my completion of a subject's Profile, precisely because one deals primarily and principally in an effort to present John G. Lake in a negative view (despite the author’s claim of concern only with the historicity of events), and the other presents a rebuttal of most of those claims seeking to defend Lake and his Ministry, although it does make some concessions to Morton’s criticism of Lake. Whether or not John Graham Lake was the con man described by Morton, or the misunderstood evangelist portrayed by the second paper has no bearing whatsoever on my genealogical purpose. The Morton Paper emphasizes that the family of John Graham Lake are not particularly important for his needs. I would disagree with that conclusion.

And as for Rev. JOHN GRAHAM LAKE the personality, one only need to Google his name for page upon page of contributed information.

What these two works, distilled down to their essential content are conversations of the secular and the sacred. This argument is as old as time and even most renewed examples is unresolvable, and the best one can hope for is to encounter each perspective with an open mind and then form some kind of opinion regarding the value of each. For my purposes, as already hinted at, neither work is requisite to this or any genealogical Profile. There is one exception that makes the first by Barry Morton both relevant and pertinent, and in the interest of fairness necessitates the second paper's position. Again, the two views are irrelevant for genealogical purposes, with one exception.

Morton makes a claim that is critical to discern the accuracy of because it deals with the identity of JOHN GRAHAM LAKE’S father: JAMES M LAKE.

Critical because, if there is evidence supporting his claim, the accurate identity for John G Lake becomes suspect at best. And this all hinges upon where James M Lake was born. If Morton is correct, and then John Graham Lake, in terms of genealogical relevance, becomes moot. If he is not able to substantiate his claim solidly, I need to present a counter for that. Morton’s claim is found on page 3 of his paper:

“John G Lake’s background and family are not particularly important in understanding either his personality or modus operandi. There is also less source material on him before 1895 than afterward, and it is hard to be certain about many of his earlier his activities. For some reason, though, many writings about Lake spend considerable time dealing with these matters. : My suspicion is that the provision of myriad mundane facts about Lake aims to provide verisimilitude to otherwise highly dubious narratives. Lake was born in 1870, in a small village named Avonbank a few miles from the small town of St. Mary’s, Ontario. His father, James Lake, was an immigrant from Scotland who worked for a farmer named James Graham. On 1862 James Lake married Graham’s daughter, Betsy, and the two would spend fifty-one years together. Betsy would bear fifteen children, of whom seven would survive infancy. John Graham Lake was at least the fourth born. His eldest sibling was his sister Maggie, while his older brother (also named John) died the year before his birth. This made John G Lake his father’s heir.”

Morton's understanding of the family genalogical dynamic mostly matches the Tree overview found in FamilySearch. Except that his research excludes three Ontario, Canada Censuses for the household John Graham grew up in. All of the named siblings appear exactly where Morton suggests they were. His knowledge of the death of John Graham's older brother also named John, displays his understanding of sibling relationships.

But there is a native implication of the problem found here.

Why James Lake’s father's birthplace is pivotal is because if he was born in Scotland, then John Graham Lake cannot be associated with the Lake genealogy he commonly is and is here. And that makes it critical to address Morton’s claim that James Lake was born in Scotland. The problem from a research standard is that while the claim is clear enough, the citation source for the information is not. In an attempt to resolve this, I have messaged the paper’s author, Barry Morton, asking for clarification. As is, the listed citation material cannot be assumed to support the statement. The Source material cited for this page is:

• US Census 1900 Michigan, Chippewa, Sault Ste Marie, Ward 02, District 0020, entry for John G Lake.
• Personal communication, Mary Smith (St Mary’s Museum), February 13 2014.
• US Census 1900 Michigan, Chippewa, Sault Ste Marie, Ward 02, District 0020, entry for Elizabeth Lake.
• Burpeau, God’s Showman , 23.
• St Mary’s Museum, Digital Photography Collection, 0285ph.
• US Census 1900 Michigan, Chippewa, Sault Ste Marie, Ward 02, District 0020, entry for James S Lake, lists the family’s immigration year as 1886. Based on John G Lake being photographed in St Mary’s High in 1886 or 1887, his father may have moved to Sault Ste Marie prior to the rest of the family. It is peculiar that Morton cites Burpeau, because as will be seen below, the men diverge precisely on the matter I have contested. More of that in a moment...

Review of the 1900 US Census does not provide useful categorical data per parents' birthplaces because it shows: Father's Birthplace: Michigan; Mother's Birthplace: Scotland. Only the mother's place of birth is correct and the fathers comport with neither Morton's nor my information (Gallery, 1900 U.S. Census, Sources, line 23) In fact after reviewing all the Census Records for JAMES LAKE I can find not a single instance where reported categorical data shows a birthplace (excepting the mention above) for him other than Ontario, Canada. This is with the review of the 1851, 1861, 1871, and 1881 Canada Censuses and the 1900 U.S Federal Census. So, while I await a response from Barry Morton, I continue to scan the available Record evidence for JAMES LAKE

The earliest Record for the entire family occurs with the 1851 Canada Census -

1851 CANADA CENSUS

(Canada West, Ontario)

Peel County

Caledon Township

Personal Census—District 2

Household of James Madison Lake

# Name—Occup—Birthplace—Rel—Age—Sex

48. Lake, James M., Laborer, U.S., None, 36, M

49. Lake, Irenia, Canada, Methodist, 30, F.

50. Lake, Andrew, Canada, None, 14, M.

01. Lake, Reuben, Canada, None, 13, M.

02. Lake, James, Canada, None, 11, M.

03. Lake, Elizabeth, Canada, None, 9, F.

04. Lake, Lydia M., Canada, None, 7, F.

05. Lake, John, Canada, None, 5, M.

06. Lake, Mary, Canada, None, 3, F.

NOTE: Household is enumerated over two pages

CANADA, ONTARIO CENSUS, 1861

Name:...................James Lake

Sex:..................................Male

Age:...........................20 years

Residence Date:.............1861

Residence: Downie, Perth, Ontario, Canada

Birth Date:......................1841

Birthplace:.............U Canada

Religion:............................U P

Event Type:................Census

Event Date:.....................1861

Event Place: Downie Township, Perth, Canada West, British Colonial America

Event Place (Original):.........Downie, Perth, Ontario, Canada

Line Number:.....................27

Sheet Number:...................44

No._Name__Occupation__Birthplace__Religion__Age__Marital

27. Lake, James, Labourer, Upper Canada, U.P., 20, Single

CANADA CENSUS, 1871

Downie Township, Perth County, Ontario, Canada

Name:................................James Lake

Sex:................................................Male

Age:...................................................29

Birthdate:.....................................1842

Birthplace:................Ontario, Canada

Marital Status:........................Married

Nationality:................................Scotch

Religion:............Canada Presbyterian

Event Type:..............................Census

Event Date:..................................1871

Place:.Downie, Perth, Ontario, Canada

Original:..........Downie, 03, South Perth, Ontario

Event Note:..03, Downie f, South Perth, Ontario

Subdistrict:.............................Downie

Subdistrict No.:.................................F

District No.:.....................................29

Household Identifier:....................95

House No.:......................................95

Line No.:..........................................18

Page:................................................29

Affiliate Film No.:....................C-9939

Other People on This Record

Name_______Sex__Age__Birthplace

Elizabeth Lake, F, 31, Scotland

Margaret Lake, F, 8, Ontario, Canada

Irinna Lake, F, 6, Ontario, Canada

John Lake, M, 1, Ontario, Canada

John G Lake Ministries

https://www.jglm.org/john-g-lake/

The alternative, if Morton is correct, would mean again that a fundamental problem exists in determining correct familial identities.

My evidence contradicts the information provided in Morton's paper. Again, I reached out to him and received a response stating it had been a while since he was involved with the Paper, however, his recall was he had culled information from Ancestry.com and the US Federal Census of 1900. My hope is that he will review the Record information I gave him and either be able to defend his conclusion that John Graham Lake's father was born in Scotland or amend his Paper accordingly. Unfortunately, I did not receive a response to my query.

UPDATE TO FOREGOING

After reviewing the appropriate Census and supporting Records, I can find nothing whatsoever to substantiate the claim that JAMES M LAKE was born in Scotland. It is, it would appear a fictitious claim and I have accordingly communicated such to the Author of the first paper listed. I did eventually receive a reply from Morton acknowledging the data I have presented, however, no assurance was expressed that his paper as published would be amended. And finally, the underlying cause for my concern is premised upon some of the allegations made by Moron concerning the "story" depicting how Lake's parents met and certain events that take place as a result of that meeting - not to mention that by departing from the more accepted genealogy would eliminate a genealogical connection between Lake and myself. So, the question I am left with concerning Morton's findings cautiously ask, if the intimate details of his families heritage and "story" is questionable, what else should be considered suspect?

There is however, a third Doctrinal Paper written by KEMP PENDLETON BURPEAU that presents a historical account of John Graham Lake's life and ministry that is mentioned above. Extracts from Burpeeau's Paper follow. One will find similar or repeated information on a variety of topics between Burpeau's and Morton's papers, however, it is the divergences that I am concerned with. One item where Burpeau's information is different from both Morotn's and vital records, concerns the given name of John Graham Lakes's mother. Burpeau identifies her as "Margaret" whereas Morton and the vital records I reviewed identify her as "Elizabeth".

South East Academic Libraries System (SEALS)

A HISTORICAL STUDY OF

JOHN GRAHAM LAKE AND

SOUTH AFRICAN/UNITED STATES PENTECOSTALISM

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

of RHODES UNIVERSITY

by KEMP PENDLETON BURPEAU

June 2002

CHAPTER TWO LAKE'S EARLY LIFE AND CAREER

An excerpt

Page 43, 44, 45,46 https://core.ac.uk/reader/145047690

John Lake was descended from British settlers in Canada. His father, James Lake, was born in 1841 in Downie Township, Perth County, Ontario. The 1861 Canadian census listed James Lake as a single twenty-year-old laborer working for a young farmer named John Graham, probably his future brother-in-law. The Graham family left maritime highland Scotland sometime between 1831 and the commencement of the American Civil War, settling in Perth County, Ontario. In March 1862 in Downie Township, James married Margaret (Betsy) Graham, born in 1840 in Kilberry, Scotland.

James and Margaret had an older son, also named John, who died at the age of five in April 1869. John Graham Lake was born on 18 March 1870 in St. Marys, Ontario. The 1871 census indicated the couple had three living children, Margaret, aged eight, lrinna, aged six, and John, aged one.

John's parents initially lived in the more rural agrarian village of Avonbank between the city of Stratford and the town of SI. Mary’s. The long established, largely Scottish Avonbank settlement centered around the Presbyterian Church. A temperance hall near the church provided the primary opportunity for social interaction through regular weekly gatherings and was utilized for meetings of the Farmers Club, music classes and political activity. John probably joined the association as did most young people of the community, pledging to abstain from alcohol. The citizens tended to be hardworking, committed to education, and willing to defer present enjoyment for a better future life for themselves and their children. By 1878 the family had relocated to St. Mary’s.

James operated a butcher shop in Market Square. During Lake's residency St. Mary’s was a picturesque but industrialized Victorian community. Situated on the Thames River, the town originated in 1839 as a venture of the Canada Company. The economy was based on textile, flour and grist mills, limestone mining and mortar, plaster, quicklime and cement production.

The Grand Trunk Railroad serviced the area. The Ontario of Lake's birth was Canada's most populous province and the center of Canadian Protestantism. In Canada Protestantism was a product of British and American influences together with its own unique developments. Methodists and Presbyterians predominated, but Anglicans and U.S. British organizations like the Salvation Army and Plymouth Brethren were well represented. Especially among Methodists and Presbyterians, but to a lesser extent even for Anglicans, a spirit-inspired religious revivalism was emphasized. A life-changing conversion experience was anticipated in most Canadian Protestant denominations although ecclesiastical traditions and liturgy were not repudiated. Perhaps more than in the U.S., "enthusiasm" and "establishment" were reconciled as Lake would later draw upon such ecumenical models and particularly seek to establish rapport with American Episcopalians and British and South African Anglicans.

Lake's parents were members of the "Scottish Kirk," which he called "an old Scotch Presbyterian Kirk, the Avonbank Church.

Lake himself attended the "little Scotch church" as a very young boy, still recalling in later life the "dreary old hymns" oriented toward death. The Presbyterian Church of Canada, known as the "Free Church," was noted for its pious observation of biblical ethics, with a plain, unobtrusive liturgy conducted in modest, simple church buildings. A North American evangelical social reform agenda was evident, with its particular concern about alcohol use, gambling and other vices.

The Church did not teach divine healing. His congregation was not greatly influenced by the charismatic orientation of American Midwestern Holiness doctrines of faith healing. The family left the Presbyterian Church when Lake was quite young, transferring to the Ontario Methodist Church. He declared himself an "ardent" Methodist as a youth. His basic religious training was obtained through Sunday school classes held in the small St. Mary’s Methodist Church. The instruction was characterized by an evangelical "old-time" Wesleyan ism with perfectionist aspirations, but charismatic practices were apparently not present. Lake was critical of the congregation's lack of knowledge of Holy Ghost baptism, stating, "In my early boyhood we worshipped in a little old church where the saints were having a hard time" attaining ultimate spiritual empowerment. Nevertheless, the participants did "open their hearts," sharing with other congregants various trials, temptations and victories. The group dynamics, guided by a class leader, furthered mutual counsel and consolation. Although lacking a strong charismatic emphasis, Lake claimed the experience afforded him "a great deal of soul development.

A picture of Lake as a teenager offers some insights into his personality. He was well-attired in a dark, conservatively cut business suit. He wore a tie of a distinctive but unflamboyant tartan pattern. The white shirt was crisply starched. Women found his grey eyes and intense, contemplative gaze compelling. His dark hair, worn above ear-length, was quite full on top in the then popular pompadour style. The overall appearance was one of middle-class conformity to the customary and traditional. The young Lake was devout, maintaining a prayer regimen even in his early teens. He appeared never to have sown wild oats or seriously departed from rigorous biblical ethics. Aside from the typical mischievous behavior of a boy, he was well-behaved. The youth fulfilled his commitment to "live a morally pure life" never using whisky, tobacco or undertaking any "unholy act in the moral sense. Nevertheless, Lake recalled his limited youthful willfulness in a manner reminiscent of Saint Augustine's agonizing over stolen pears. Even decades later, a mature Lake remembered a "proud heart" that had to "struggle like a drowning man until I was ready to cry 'Lord you save me.'" He conceded that as a youth he was "proud as Lucifer - every Lake I ever knew was." The Lord tried to "woo" him to the Christian life, but "I had turned to my own way instead. O the many, many times He had called when I did not heed, times long since forgotten by me." In retrospect, a remorseful Lake, perhaps unduly obsessed about childhood transgressions, asserted, "I was not even a Christian in the best sense of being a Christian.

He was "only a young Christian. He seemed destined for a religious life and began manifesting a mystical nature, an intimate interaction with the divine. He thankfully declared, "I found God as a boy. At the age 16, when still in Canada, Lake underwent what at that time he deemed to be a Holiness-type spirit baptism...

Burpeau expresses an equal understanding of John's parents (save the spelling of the mother's given name - which may have been Margaret) as does Morton, except he correctly locates James M Lake's birth in Ontario, not Scotland as alleged by Moront.

The following is from the paper of Barry Morton.

Barry Morton

34 Pages

1 File ▾

South Africa (History), Pentecostalism, Chicago History

Faith Healer, Michigan History

During his career as a faith healer, John G Lake constructed a falsified biography that served to both legitimize his leadership in the Pentecostal movement and to provide evidence of miracles that he effected. This paper, which focuses on his activities prior to his South African mission of 1908-13, shows that the vast majority of his early biography is mere fiction. He was never an ordained minister as he claimed, nor was he a successful businessman. Later on, after he became involved in a series of brutal killings in Zion, IL, in 1907, he was forced to reinvent himself after fleeing the area. In order to hide this sordid past, he invented a series of visions that allegedly called him to minister in Africa.

John G Lake’s Formative Years, 1870-1908:

The Making of A Con Man

(May 2014)

John G Lake ranks among the most influential religious con men of the twentieth century. After arriving in South Africa in 1908 with minimal experience and a disturbing past, he stimulated the growth of both large Pentecostal and Zionist movements that continue to flourish today. His willingness to train Africans in the dark arts of faith healing led to the transfer of these techniques to a new and troubling set of evangelists, who in time have built up multinational congregations numbering in the millions.

This paper seeks to establish certain basic facts about Lake’s early life prior to his move in South Africa in 1908. The reasons for this are as follows:

John G Lake, like his mentor John Alexander Dowie, was a master of both the big and small lie. His fairly extensive catalog of writings, most of it generated after his return to America in 1913, is a collection of banal religious dogma interspersed with as great a deliberate set of falsehoods as one could ever hope to find in writing. One turn-of-the-century debunker of John Alexander Dowie referred to the latter’s writings as “serial fiction.” The same could be said of practically anything written or preached by John G Lake.

Additionally, faith-healing disciples of Lake’s such as Gordon Lindsay and Wilford Reidt produced biographies of Lake that either perpetuated his old lies or produced new ones. These dubious writings have generally not been critically examined by religious scholars. Kent Bureau, for instance, did not cotton on to Lake’s basic con in his recent, sympathetic biography.

Another reason that new biographical information is needed is that most accounts of Lake contain a host of basic dating or factual errors. His own writings, filled with anachronistic falsehoods and dubious details, have contributed to the problem, but there is also a lot of sloppy research and writing about Lake in general. Because his life story continues to generate a large readership, it is worthwhile delving into mundane aspects of his background.

This paper is not a labor of love. Rather, it is a much-needed corrective to a host of misleading writings that many other faith healing con men have invoked in order to increase the charismatic nature of their healing ceremonies. Despite centuries of scientific studies showing that faith healing and prayer cannot cure any organic disease or condition, many people obviously seek out these quacks for treatment. The reality is that faith healers only trumpet invented successes and never mention the disastrous failures that attend their work.

Faith healing can cure psychosomatic diseases such as depression and anxiety, given the right circumstances that faith healers train themselves to create. The danger for the cured is that they will be pressured to become members of the faith healer’s cult and subject to intense exploitation thereafter. If my efforts in researching Lake’s past can convince a single person to avoid seeking out a faith-healing cure, then I would consider them worthwhile.

Figure 1 Lake at St Mary's High School, 2nd Row, 1st Left

Early Life and Move to Chicago

John G Lake’s background and family are not particularly important in understanding either his personality or modus operandi. There is also less source material on him before 1895 than afterward, and it is hard to be certain about many of his earlier his activities. For some reason, though, many writings about Lake spend considerable time dealing with these matters. My suspicion is that the provision of myriad mundane facts about Lake aims to provide verisimilitude to otherwise highly dubious narratives.

Lake was born in 1870, in a small village named Avonbank a few miles from the small town of St. Mary’s, Ontario. His father, James Lake, was an immigrant from Scotland who worked for a farmer named James Graham.

In 1862 James Lake married Graham’s daughter, Betsy, and the two would spend fifty-one years together. Betsy would bear fifteen children, of whom seven would survive infancy. John Graham Lake was at least the fourth born. His eldest sibling was his sister Maggie, while his older brother (also named John) died the year before his birth. This made John G Lake his father’s heir.

Sometime during the 1870s James Lake began to turn to self-employment. He rented stalls in the St. Mary’s market, and sold produce and meat there. By 1878 he had a permanent butcher’s shop in St. Mary’s, and it would appear that the family had moved to the town. A picture of St. Mary’s High School showing its “Senior Staff and Pupils” in the mid-1880s shows the young John G Lake—our first known picture of him (Figure 1). His attendance at the school would certainly indicate the family’s residence there.

In 1886 the Lakes moved from Ontario to the growing new center of Sault Ste Marie in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The explanation for the move can probably be laid down to the boom times in the Upper Peninsula fostered by the opening up of the Soo Locks. These locks, which connected Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, allowed large freighters to trawl upper Great Lakes. A huge logging boom also occurred, following which the entire Upper Peninsula was stripped of its massive forests in a huge burst of primitive accumulation. During the process, Sault Ste Marie grew and attracted new residents drawn to opportunities in transportation, shipping, trading, and logging.

As far as can be told the Lakes bought a house on Bingham Ave in central Sault Ste Marie soon after arrival (Figure 4). This three-story four-poster structure served as a butchery/produce shop on the ground floor, while the family lived in the second-floor and third-story attic.

John G Lake lived in Sault Ste Marie for only three years during his youth, and we have minimal information about his time there.

Apparently having finished his schooling in Canada, Lake did not attend further high school in Sault Ste Marie, and he is not mentioned as being part of graduating classes in the years following his family’s immigration. Some of his siblings, though, are frequently mentioned in newspaper lists of school honors in the 1890s. The young Lake, then, presumably went to work. We can assume he aided his father or else began employment as a carpenter, his profession until 1904.

There is very little qualitative information about the Lake family. Lake himself emphasized his family’s sickly nature and its piety, although his descriptions are not overly convincing. He claimed that the deaths of eight infants Lake children affected family morale greatly. “A strange train of sickness, resulting in death, had followed the family,” Lake recalled. Lake claimed to have suffered from serious constipation as a child and youth, while many of his siblings allegedly had serious ailments. This led to the Lakes turning to religion for comfort. According to Lake, his family was Presbyterian in his early years, and then became Methodists while in St Mary’s. He himself was apparently baptized as a Methodist as a fourteen-year-old.

Following this, the Lakes remained Methodists in Sault Ste Marie. Lake almost surely exaggerated the nature and impact of these issues. His “chronic constipation” was almost certainly an invention. Almost all faith healers (such as Charles Parham, Carrie Judd Montgomery, and Maria Woodworth-Etter) of Lake’s era claimed to have suffered from a severe childhood illness, as would all of Lake’s successors. So, his “chronic constipation” is more of a genre statement than an actual illness. His youthful piety cannot also be confirmed. There is really no independent evidence of the Lake family attending church, even though such newspapers such as the Sault Ste Marie News and Sault Ste Marie Democrat routinely reported on church news from the late 1880s to 1890s. The Lakes were clearly not active members of any Methodist or Presbyterian congregation in Sault Ste Marie. Based on an argument of silence, the most likely explanation is that they were very occasional churchgoers, at most.

One very rarely finds honesty in any of John G Lake’s writings, but a throw-away line in one of his later sermons would appear to explain a lot about his early years: “when I was a boy…I was surrounded by as vile a set of men as have ever lived.” As to what “vile” acts his family members were involved in, we cannot be sure. But this characterization of his family seems far more apt than one stressing their suffering and piety. What is clear is that John G Lake was set on becoming a religious con man from quite early on in adulthood, and the vast majority of his family members showed no compunction about assisting him in his deceptions.

Problematic details with Lake’s biography first appear in the 1888-90 period and appear to result from systematic deceptions on his part. According to the persona he later shaped as a faith healer, between 1888 and 1890 he attended a Methodist Episcopal Seminary in Newberry, MI. After being ordained, he was then offered a post in Pestigo, Wisconsin in 1891. However, Lake declined to accept the appointment, because by this point he had developed a strong belief in “divine healing”, and he felt that the Methodist church had abandoned the true precepts of John Wesley. Having declined to enter the ministry at this point, Lake moved to the new industrial suburb Harvey, Illinois on Chicago’s South Side, where he claimed to have founded Harvey’s first newspaper. All of this, though, is demonstrably false.

Lake did not attend seminary in Newberry, since no seminary of any kind existed there. Burpeau, Lake’s apologist biographer, has attempted to reconcile this problem by maintaining that Lake “participated in the Sunday School Institute conducted by the Newberry, Michigan Methodist Episcopal Church.” The local newspaper, the Newberry News, makes it clear, though, that Lake never attended the Sunday School Institute (which in any case lasted only 1 day!) in Newberry. He did not attend the event in November 1888, nor did he attend the subsequent Quarterly Conference afterwards, and nor was he associated with the church’s 9-week revival in March 1889. Nor is he listed as having attended or participated in any of the many church events and socials that were commonly reported on in the newspaper at any point between 1888 and 1890.

Lake, to put it simply, was not an ordained minister, although he wished to appear as one from his early 20s onwards. Burpeau also maintains that Lake took courses at Evanston’s Garrett Bible Institute in the late 1890s, even though the university has no records of his registration! This also could simply not be true, since Lake was a resident of Sault Ste Marie at the time. Moreover, Lake was listed in the 1900 Census as having less than ten years of formal education, meaning that he could not have attended seminary.

• Abstract - inserted and transcribed detail: jlph

UNITED STATES FEDERAL CENSUS, 1900

Sault Ste. Marie city Ward 2, Chippewa, Michigan

Image:……………………………….........65 of 76

Line…………………………………………….........23

Street:…………………………………….......Young

House #.................................................814

# of dwelling……………………….…...........483

Order of Visitation:……………….….........570

Name:………………………….........John G Lake

Sex:…………………………………………........Male

Age:……………………….……………………........30

Marital Status:……………………........Married

Race:……………………………………….......White

Years Married:……………………………...........8

Birth Date:……………………............Mar 1870

Birthplace:…………………...........Canada Eng

Marriage Year (Est):……………..............1892

Immigration Year:………………..............1885

Years in US:………………………………...........15

Naturalization:……..…………………….........NA

Occupation:…………………….........Carpenter

Time Unemployed:……………………............0

Years Educated:…………………………….......0*

Father's Birthplace:…………..........Michigan

Mother's Birthplace:………….........Scotland

Relationship to Head of Household:Head

Owned or Rented;……….........……………….O

Owned free or Mortgaged:………........…..M

Farm or House:…………………………….........H

Sheet Letter:………………………………...........A

Sheet Number:……………………………........33

Household____Role___Sex___Age____Birthplace

23. John G Lake—Head—Male—30—Canada Eng

24. Jennie W Lake—Wife—Female—33—Canada Eng

25. Alexander J Lake—Son—Male—7—Illinois

26. Wallace H Lake—Son—Male—5—Michigan

27. Otto B Lake—Son—Male—3—Michigan

28. Jennie E Lake—Daughter—Female—1—Michigan

29. John Darling—Boarder—Male—38—Canada Eng

Citation: "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M91B-6T6 : accessed 10 October 2022), John G Lake, Sault Ste. Marie city Ward 2, Chippewa, Michigan, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 20, sheet 33A, family 572, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,240,707.

NOTE This transcribed 1900 Census identifies the correct family, however, in keeping with the specific findings mentioned by Morton, there are some interesting consistencies and comparable questions I have following my review of the record.

1. The categorical data does reflect some of Morton's findings, but equally, it presents problems.
2. The personal, vital data for John Graham Lake is more or less consistent with earlier and later Censuses for him. Contending with Morton's findings from the 1900 Census, the record itself gives the birthplace of his father, as Michigan, not Scotland, an error either way. The record also identifies Lake's occupation as: Carpenter, there is no insinuation of his being a minister. Congruent with Morton's findings, the listed years in formal education shows, 0 years.
3. My issue with this or any Census is the preoccupation of many family researchers to provide too granular of detail when there are inbuilt weaknesses that must be accounted for, ie. "who" actually provided the categorical data? Was it the identified Head of Household or was it a spouse, which was a frequent occurrence? In the case of the latter, one would expect there to be variances in detail. At any rate, the record does not support Morotn's opinion that John's father: James M Lake, was born in Scotland - neither does it affirm Canada.

Another problem with Lake’s version of his decision to reject the Methodist appointment is that it is anachronistic. Lake claimed to have rejected Methodism because of its unwillingness to recognize “divine healing”—a practice that John Dowie and A.B. Simpson introduced to the Midwest after 1890.

Lake could not possibly have encountered Dowie or Simpson’s churches until moving to Chicago after allegedly rejecting his pastoral appointment. His story is thus both contradictory and anachronistic since Dowie only moved to the Chicago area in mid-1890 from California. Nor did Dowie even become well-known in Chicago until 1893. Interestingly, although Lake seems to have lived in Harvey from 1890 to 1896, he did not join the newly-formed First United Methodist Church that was started in 1890. This seems to be a strange omission for someone who was ostensibly recently ordained and was being offered a pastorship at this time.

We have very little independent information about Lake’s time in Harvey (Figure 2). It is clear that he moved there around 1890, as in July 1891 the Chicago Inter-Ocean lists him as on his way back to Sault Ste Marie for a vacation. Lake did not start the Harvey Citizen newspaper as he claimed. This newspaper was owned by the industrial consortium that founded and built Harvey, Il. The editor of this conservative paper was not Lake, but Lucy Gaston, the famed temperance and anti-smoking agitator.

Bearing in mind Lake’s claims to have converted to Christianity as a teenager, it is possible that he was attracted to the new suburb of Harvey by its evangelical ethos. The town was founded by a group of evangelical industrialists who developed it specifically as a dry, religious, pro-business town. Since Lake was definitely not a practicing Methodist while in Harvey, it is worth asking what religious group he was affiliated with at the time.

The best answer appears to be that he frequented meetings at an outpost of A.B. Simpson’s Christian and Missionary Alliance which held revival meetings in the Chicago suburbs from mid-1891 on.

Since Lake was clearly not a journalist, we can infer that he made his living in Harvey working in the construction trade.

Harvey was a planned industrial suburb and included a large residential section where Lake probably was involved in building new houses. In 1914, for instance, Lake said in a sermon that he had been a “builder” while in Harvey, and that he had considerable experience in roofing and foundation work. It would seem obvious that Lake, having picked up some construction skills in Sault Ste Marie after leaving high school, migrated to the Chicago area to take advantage of well-paying work to be found there.

Figure 2 Harvey Illinois

Another important non-event that allegedly took place around the time of Lake’s move to Harvey was his alleged healing by John Alexander Dowie. “I found myself like my brother, but worse crippled than he. When my legs drew out of shape and my body became distorted by the common curse of rheumatism…I went to John Alexander Dowie’s Divine Healing Home at 12th and Michigan Streets, and an old gray-headed man came and laid his hands on me and the power of God went through my being and made my leg straight.” This event, which allegedly took place around 1890 when Lake first went to Chicago, is once again anachronistic. Dowie did not establish a healing home in Chicago until the mid-1890s. In order to invent a dramatic healing for audiences that he had allegedly undergone, Lake in this case borrowed from Charles Parham, the man who converted him to Pentecostalism in 1907. Like Lake, Parham claimed to have been cured of rheumatism by faith alone as a young man, an experience he also likened to having electric power go through his body. This anachronistic account was in later life paired by lake with his aforementioned condition of “chronic constipation” “that almost killed me” “for nearly nine years”. According to Lake, he told God during these Harvey years in a prayer that he was “finished with the doctor and the devil” and was cured. Once again, the story is anachronistic and conflicts with his rheumatic affliction.

Lake’s marriage to Jennie Stevens certainly did occur in his Harvey years, although many writers on Lake get the details wrong. Jennie, like Lake of Scottish descent, was three years older than him. She had grown up in Newberry, MI, where her father seems to have been a rather unsuccessful farmer. By 1888 his wife and daughter no longer lived with him at his shack in Newberry but instead resided in Sault Ste Marie. They only visited the town occasionally, and he occasionally went to see them. Based on the 1900 census, it seems that the rest of the Stevens family resided two doors down from the Lakes on Bingham Ave, and that Lake met Jennie since she was a neighbor. Based on the absence of references in both Newberry and Sault Ste Marie newspaper reporting of church events, Jennie and her family were not active churchgoers. Hence Lake’s story of how he met his wife is definitely embellished:

When a young man, I stood in the aisle of the Methodist Church and was introduced to a young lady. As I touched her hand the marvelous moving of our natures was revealed.

Presently something from her soul, that subtle something that Christians know and recognize as spirit, her spirit passed to me…. she told me later that she had been in the habit of searching a young man’s spirit to know if he was pure; but, she said, “In your case, the strange thing was, that my spirit made no such search. I just knew it.

Following their marriage in Illinois in February 1892, the Lakes soon began to have children. By the time of Jennie’s death in 1908, they would have six and would adopt another. Jennie was commonly described as a woman with many incurable ailments by her husband, although his many conflicting statements about her health, along with her dubious testimony regarding miraculous cures that she had undergone, lead one to doubt that she had any ailments at all.

Lake maintained that she had tuberculosis and repeated paralysis in the mid-1890s, but these afflictions seem inconsistent with a woman delivering healthy children at the same time.

Moreover, the fact that Lake claimed to have cured his wife’s paralysis in 1898 through “divine healing” himself is a sure sign that she was not ill at all. Faith healers cannot cure those close to them and are only effective when dealing with strangers.

Jennie Lake was the perfect wife for Lake. A prim, quiet, ostensibly religious woman, she repeatedly was willing to testify on numerous occasions to miraculous healings that she never in fact experienced. From fairly early on in their marriage, Jennie was willing to support Lake’s various cons and never deviated from his own narratives.

How did John G Lake meet John Alexander Dowie?

It is highly doubtful that we will ever know how Lake and John Alexander Dowie (Figure 3) became acquainted. Lake’s story about travelling from the Soo to Chicago to have his rheumatic legs healed and straightened is the only version of their first meeting that exists, and, as we have seen, it could not possibly be true. There is no way of really knowing how the two met.

John Alexander Dowie was probably the most gifted faith healer of his era. Having quit the orthodox priesthood in his native Australia, he became an independent evangelist in the 1870s and began faith healing in 1882. His early career, like the rest of it, was always followed by controversy. He developed many enemies campaigning for temperance and for leading large anti-liquor processions. After moving to Sydney in 1878 he spent several years researching Spiritualism and developed a close friendship with an experienced con man named Holding.

During 1882 he initiated a new, public form of faith healing that went far beyond what had previously been seen in Europe and America. Using these spectacular new methods, he built up a large congregation at the Sackville Street Tabernacle, more dubious sides to his personality began to emerge. In front of a large audience, he inveigled the owner of the church’s property to sign away the rights over to himself. Not long afterward, the Tabernacle was destroyed under suspicious circumstances, with the insurance money enabling Dowie to pay off his large debts.

After being forced to leave Australia in haste, he formed the one-man organization, The International Divine Healing Association, and promoted it around the Pacific. Members of the association, which was extant from about 1886 to 1896, were expected to tithe. Paid-up members were eligible to send Dowie a message when they were sick, and he would pray for their Divine Healing in absentia. After developing a following in various locations, Dowie ended up in California in 1888. Moving around the state for about two years, he barnstormed and conducted numerous healings. Many of these healings were obviously staged, but Dowie was also able to cure many people afflicted with psychosomatic illnesses. In doing so, he enlarged the membership of the International Divine Healing Association and began to develop a reputation as a healer.

From early on in his career then, Dowie developed a successful formula. He moved around regularly with his entourage to maintain his charismatic image, always publicizing his successes and burying any news of his many healing failures. His ability to get his followers to tithe was a stroke of genius that should have kept him a wealthy man for his whole life. Dowie, unfortunately, was never able to stick to this winning formula. His undoubted megalomania and folie de grandeur always led him to ever-greater projects that ate up his funds. Over time he overpaid his underlings, overspent on grandiose religious structures and publishing ventures, and also maintained an expensive lifestyle for his family. Even at his height, when he was making almost $250,000 a year in tithing income, Dowie seems to have been short of cash.

In order to make up his cash shortfalls, Dowie almost inevitably ended up gouging his followers. After leaving Melbourne, he seems not to have perpetrated further insurance fraud. But by the early 1890s, he was buying up securities of bankrupt companies and selling them off to his followers as lucrative investments. Unfortunately for Dowie, two women whom he had defrauded in this way took him to court and successfully sued him.

In this aftermath of this legal and public relations defeat, Dowie moved to Chicago in 1890.

Figure 3 John Alexander Dowie, the founder of Zionist Christianity

Between mid-1890 and the opening of the World’s Fair, Dowie was often away from Chicago evangelizing. During this time he initially rented office space for his Association in the Pullman Building in Chicago, but in 1892 was based in the Evanston area. He listed his occupation as the editor of “The Laws of Healing”, a propagandistic broadsheet that promulgated his claims as a great healer.

Dowie’s reputation did not grow in the Chicago area until he rented a small building near the World’s Fair, which opened in 1893. At this location, he staged faith healings every day and attracted large crowds to his tabernacle. During this time he developed a large following and began to build churches and “healing homes” in various districts of Chicago. By the time he disbanded the IDHA in 1896 and founded the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion, he was thought to have 6-10,000 followers in Chicago, and many others across the globe.

How did Lake, then, meet Dowie? Lake claimed that “I knew him from the beginning,” which would seem to indicate that he encountered Dowie in his early Chicago days barnstorming the suburbs. If Lake indeed attended Christian and Missionary Alliance meetings after arriving in Chicago as alluded to earlier, his earliest contact with Dowie would have occurred in mid-1891, when Dowie and the Alliance conducted revivals together in the suburb of Western Springs. Dowie, though, fell out with the leader of the Alliance, A.B. Simpson, after a few meetings, and launched a vicious expose regarding Simpson’s use of a runaway convict in a fraudulent healing ceremony at one of them. Lake, though, is not mentioned as being one of Dowie’s early Chicago members in 1890-1, and nor is his healing mentioned in any of Dowie’s publications at this time. Given that Dowie publicized practically any successful healing he was responsible for, one could say with certainty that Lake was not healed by Dowie in in the early 1890s.

A potential key to the solution is the picture of the young Lake in the early 1890s, sitting on a porch wearing a priest’s outfit and holding a bible in his lap. Lake was not an ordained minister, but he clearly was willing to dress up as one and to have his photo taken as one. Hence, Lake had taken to impersonating a Priest while living in Chicago (in later life ne would twice arrested for impersonation). Did he do this on behalf of Dowie, or did he become attracted to Dowie after recognizing him as a fellow “religious adventurer”?  : Given that Dowie’s close friend in Australia, the aforementioned con man Holding, was known to impersonate clergymen, it is not far-fetched to assume that Dowie encouraged Lake along these lines. Another potential answer to the early Lake-Dowie relationship would seem to lie in a series of dubious healings that Dowie claimed to have undertaken from 1894-6. During these years a number of “Harvey” residents were healed in public ceremonies, yet it would seem that none of them were actual Harvey residents (or even real people for that matter).

The first of these “healings” involving a putative “Harvey” resident was that of an alleged “Civil War veteran” named “James Nichols”. Like almost all of the rest of the Harvey healed, Nichols cannot be found in local records, nor in modern databases. During the next two years “Mrs H Cowan”, “George W Madden”, “Lewis Breaw”, and “Captain Redman” were all healed as well. The only Harvey resident cured by Dowie who can be identified in the historical record was the famous Lucy Gaston, the editor of the Harvey Citizen and famed temperance advocate. It would seem, therefore, that Lake’s early role with Dowie was to supply him with individuals who could provide fake healing testimonies. After Lake returned to the Soo in 1896 there are no more claims of Harvey residents being healed in Dowie’s publications.

Lake claimed to have learned the art of faith healing from Dowie and nobody else: “Personally, I received my ministry in the gospel of healing though John Alexander Dowie, a man whom I have loved with all my soul.” If that is the case, it would appear that he got his start organizing false testimonials and by acting as an audience plant (such as by impersonating a minister) for him.

If these instances of Lake organizing fake testimonies for Dowie are inferred rather than proved, there can be no doubt that the majority of the Lake family ended up providing false healing testimonies for him later on. The first member of the Lake family to be cured by Dowie was not John, but his brother Fred. In 1895 the latter travelled to Chicago, and was miraculously “healed of hemorrhage of the gums, and joints strengthened” by Dowie.

This assistance would continue after Lake and his family left Harvey. In late 1896, after having left Chicago, Lake and his family members helped Dowie stage a “distant miracle” at a Chicago meeting. The “distant miracle” was one of Dowie’s favorite faith healing cons, and Lake himself would go on to use it many times and spread the technique in South Africa. In this case, Lake used his older sister, Maggie, to help Dowie effect the con. In this case, the deception involved a fake telegram, a messenger to take it to Dowie, and Maggie Lake to act as an audience plant. Just as Fred Lake was brought in from Sault Ste Marie to be healed, in this case, Maggie Lake journeyed south from her hometown to execute the con. It is worth quoting in full because it illustrates not only how the distant cure worked but exactly how the Lakes aided Dowie’s deceptions. The event is designed quite cleverly since another (unknown) spectacular healing of John G Lake himself is referred to in order to add further dramatic effect:

Last night I read to the assembled guests a little letter, which will illustrate to you what goes on at some of these meetings…. :: The guests having talked for some time in an informal manner… there came a telegram for me from Sault Ste Marie.

The telegram told of a sick child of a Mr. Lake who was dying, as was thought. I immediately called the attention of the guests to the case, and said, ‘Let us pray.’ "

Before I began to pray, however, my colleague Dr. Speicher, who is here on my left, said to me, ‘Doctor, the man who sends that telegram was in Zion Home, and was healed here.’

I did not remember the name, but when he recalled the nature of the case, I remembered what a marvelous healing he had received. Just as I was about to pray, it was added, ‘And his sister is here in this room.’

I turned to where the communication was made and saw a lady who was weeping bitterly, for her little nephew was the baby….’It is all right, we will pray for the baby and the baby will be healed.’

The telegram said that he was in a dying condition, so I prayed at once, but before I prayed with the guests, I said, ‘Please tell me all about the healing of your brother,’ and she told us a very remarkable story, which I will not go into now, but it was a very remarkable healing.

She left with her husband the following Tuesday for her home in Michigan, and yesterday I received this little letter, which I read to the guests last night:

‘Wyandotte, Michigan, 27 November, Dr. Dowie, I just received a letter from my sister telling of the healing of the baby for whom you prayed last Saturday night. The baby was healed immediately and was around playing that evening as if nothing had been the matter. As some of the guests inquired of me before I left, I thought it be well to write and you could tell them. Maggie Lake Otto.’

By 1896, then, Lake had enlisted his brother, sister, and even his infant son in order to provide false healing testimonies for Dowie. Many more were to follow.

Lake decided to leave Chicago in 1896 with his growing family, just as Dowie formed the new Christian Catholic Church. Lake’s explanation for moving back to Sault Ste Marie was that his wife had been “pronounced incurable of consumption,” and needed to move north to a different climate. This seems highly dubious on a number of levels. In the first place, Dowie preached that all sickness was caused by the Devil, so “incurable consumption” would indicate in Zionist terms that Jennie had lost her Christian faith! Additionally, the presence of Dowie as a formidable healer would mean that he had failed to cure her! Jennie Lake’s “consumption”, then, was probably a fiction and not the reason for the move. More logical explanations, such as the end of the construction boom in Harvey, would seem to be more germane, as would the growth of Sault Ste Marie following the completion of the new locks in 1895. Whatever the case was, after returning to Sault Ste Marie in 1896, Lake was busy using his construction skills on local projects there, and Jennie’s “consumption” is never mentioned again.

The Sault Ste Marie Sojourn, 1896-1901

For a five-year period, Lake pursued his career in his hometown as an independent “carpenter” and building contractor. Initially, he was distant from Dowie’s organization only helping him to stage a few fake miracles. In 1898, though, he rejoined Dowie and organized a Zionist chapter in Sault Ste Marie. He would run this small congregation for three years, before deciding to migrate to Dowie’s new urban utopia, Zion Illinois, in 1901. These years were the first in which Lake tried to pursue faith healing on his own, and he also began to draw in more of his family members as his accomplices.

In later years Lake would claim that on his return to the Soo, he started up the Sault Times newspaper and that he taught Sunday School classes for the Methodist church. Both of these claims are false, as local newspapers make clear.  : Lake’s ambition on arriving back in his hometown was clearly to establish himself as a builder. On first arriving home halfway through the year, he bought a house on Easterday Ave and spent more than $1000 upgrading it. Not long after he obtained “several important contracts” in his wife’s hometown of Newberry, which he completed in December. Lake sold the Easterday Ave residence, and in 1897 purchased a new house on Adams Ave, which he spent $800 upgrading that year despite the house being struck by lightning! In other words, Lake was purchasing houses, upgrading them, flipping them, and moving on. Lake did not try to make it big, and never advertised in newspapers or tendered for large government contracts. Today we would refer to him as a “house-flipper”, and he was listed in the 1900 census as a “carpenter”.

During 1898 the Lakes moved on to another residence, but in this year began a new Zionist chapter in Sault Ste Marie. After a year the congregation had twelve official members, with roughly twenty-five attendees a week. Meetings were held in the attic of the Lake family house on Bingham Ave (see picture below), and Lake’s first account of starting the church was published in Leaves of Healing in 1899. From the very beginning, the Sault Zionists were focused on faith healing. Some of these faith healings were conducted by Lake himself, while others were done by Dowie in absentia.

Baptisms and converts in Sault Ste Marie were few and far between. In order to get the ball rolling, Lake’s first claimed faith healing was his wife’s—the first of a string of such testimonies she gave on his behalf. In late April 1898, Jennie Lake was cured at a service after claiming “doctors” could not cure her of “heart trouble.” After Lake laid hands on her and the congregation prayed, she was miraculously healed. During this year Lake also used another of his baby sons, (this time Otto), to be the subject of a “distant cure” by Dowie in Zion. Otto, who was “dying”, was cured by Dowie after a telegram was sent to him.

1898 seems to have been a slow year for Lake and the new congregation, but in 1899 the pace of healings and baptisms picked up. Some local children were cured of “eye disease” and “scarlet fever”, and Jennie Lake also required faith healing attention again. In June she apparently developed a serious case of the skin disease erysipelas and was instantly cured by Dowie after Lake telegraphed him requesting prayer.

In August Lake helped effect a second dramatic faith cure. While visiting the local charity home in Sault Ste Marie in August, Lake found an orphan named Georgie Armor who was apparently both comatose and also “in convulsions”. Lake contacted Dowie, who prayed for the boy, and who awoke from his coma afterward. Several days later one Claude Stephens was also healed by Dowie after another telegram. Lake maintained in the Leaves of Healing that Armor’s healing caused considerable commotion in town. Once again, as in the case of the Harvey testimonials from the early 1890s, neither Armor nor Stephens is listed in any historical documents, and neither was counted in the 1900 census. Neither one seems to have ever existed! Lake also enlisted his sister Maggie to testify to another cure for Dowie. In 1900 she testified to having had “five cancers” that a number of doctors in Detroit had failed to find a cure for. : The Lakes brought her to Chicago, and took her into a Dowie service on a stretcher, and soon she “was utterly healed” and the tumors were expelled from her body by Dowie. Yet another of Lake’s sisters soon after seems to have contracted a hemophiliac-type problem relating “the issue of blood,” and was healed in absentia by Dowie after her heart had stopped beating. By 1900, then, seven of the Lakes had been miraculously cured by Dowie.

By 1900 Lake was becoming better known as a preacher in Sault Ste Marie, and “cited numerous cases of alleged healing in the county through faith.” He was not yet an official in Dowie’s church, although he was referred to as a “Conductor” in northern Michigan. He had pleaded in the Leaves of Healing for Dowie to send an official to organize the area, an eventuality that never occurred. A number of local doctors had petitioned versus “Illegal Practitioners” of medicine, but the Zionists did not attract a lot of comment until Jennie Lake was accidentally shot in the summer.

In July 1900 Jennie had ventured to Chicago with her husband when he was appointed a Deacon in the Zionist church. On this trip Dowie once again cured her (this time for “rheumatism”) and “new life poured through [her] bones.” Soon after their return, on August 2, she had gone to the home of a friend, Mrs. Samuel Richards, taking her son along. According to Jennie, Otto Lake pulled a revolver out of a drawer, and, thinking it was a toy, shot her in the back with it. The bullet passed through her back, just missing her spine, and lodged in her stomach just underneath the skin.

Subsequent events are not easy to unravel, despite the existence of several eyewitness and newspaper accounts. After being shot, Lake and some others took Jennie back to her home on Bingham Ave and refused to allow doctors to treat her. Once home, messages were sent to Dowie, and Mrs. Lake felt better after his in-absentia prayers. After falling asleep, she had a vision: “A Voice answered me saying, “This is God’s Holy Hill of Zion, and you are healed.” She felt better immediately and her fever passed.

Meanwhile, large groups of people had assembled on Bingham Ave (Figure 4), and their numbers increased following newspaper reports of the incident. “Mr. Lake believes that it is prayer alone that saved his wife.” Crowds continued to mill around the house, since the Lakes refused to let outsiders in, and public opinion was against Lake preventing a doctor to see her, “the head of the family is taking chances.” After a few days, the Lakes felt it was advisable to allow some outsiders in, but this action led to immediate relapses on Jennie’s part: “In my wife’s critical condition I found that when persons came near the sufferer who in their hearts even entertained a doubt of God’s power or willingness to heal, she was immediately injured….the presence of an unbeliever checked the healing.”

Figure 4 The Lake home on Bingham Ave, Sault Ste Marie, the site of the "vanishing bullet miracle"

Dowie sent one of his promising young officers, Daniel Bryant, from Wisconsin to help quell the situation. On arrival, Bryant found that Jennie Lake had relapsed, was “lame” and unable to move. Meanwhile, the bullet “had lodged just beneath the skin.” Just as disturbing, “an incensed doctor organized a gang of men, who, under his leadership, were to mob us last night, and smash up the furniture and destroy the literature in Zion’s little hall.” What happened next was a miracle. Bryant and Lake prayed relentlessly for Jennie and relayed requests for in absentia prayers back to Overseer Piper in Chicago. Then “in a few days, however, [the bullet] was gone.”

After the miraculous disappearance of the bullet, Jennie Lake improved rapidly, and was walking around Sault Ste Marie within a few weeks.

The “vanishing bullet miracle” was ascribed by Bryant and the Lakes in public testimonies to prayers by Overseer Piper back in Chicago. A far more logical explanation can be given—the Lakes lived on top of a butcher’s shop, and Lake’s father was a butcher. How difficult could it have been for the Bryant and the Lakes to obtain a sharp utensil and extract the bullet that lay just under her skin? When people asked Lake, “Where is the bullet?” he responded, “I don’t know where the bullet is, and I don’t care. God will look after it and attend to it.”

The vanishing bullet miracle calmed the crowds on Bingham Ave down and ended the controversy. Within a week Jennie was recuperating well. Bryant subsequently returned to the town several times before the end of the year, holding large services at Bingham Ave and other locations. Zionist baptisms increased, although the Sault Ste Marie congregation never grew particularly large. The controversy surrounding the incident seems to have hurt Lake’s reputation rather than enhanced it.

When he returned to give a lecture in early 1903, he received death threats stating “he would be given a chance to try again the efficacy of divine healing on bullet wounds”!

In 1901 Dowie opened his new utopian community at Zion, north of Chicago. This theocratic town was 100% owned by Dowie, who leased out residences to his congregation for 1,100 years. Lake ventured to Zion in May 1901 and purchased a lease on a property at Gabriel and 30th (Figure 5). He and his family took up residence there in late summer of 1901. They lived in a tiny house on this property for six years, although it is unclear whether Lake built it himself. By the time of their exit from Sault Ste Marie, the Zionists were becoming increasingly unpopular.

The local newspaper began running stories unfavorable to Zionists as well as editorializing against them. In Lake’s absence, his schoolteacher sister Clara was appointed the local Evangelist in 1902, and she led the group until it petered out a few years later.

Lake’s Years in Zion, 1901-7

Lake never rose to a prominent position in the Zionist church, and remained a Deacon until Dowie’s demise in 1905. As Zion City’s utopian promise faded into bankruptcy and Dowie’s disgrace, Lake sought employment outside the city. Eventually, he would become an early convert to Pentecostalism, before the threat of mob violence once again led him to leave for greener pastures.

Lake talked very little about his time in Zion. What he says is neither revealing nor true:

In 1901, I joined the Dowie Institution and moved to Zion City with the object of becoming a student and teacher of Divine Healing. I remained there until 1904. I was made manager of Dowie’s Building Department. During that year we put through our office business amounting to $100,000 per month, or $1,200,000 a year. We issued 1200 building contracts.

Lake was never in charge of the Building Department, and was a mere employee in it, described as “a pretty good B[uilding] & M[aintenance] man” by some former colleagues. One of the reasons for Lake’s lack of progression is that he seems to have got into an argument with Dowie, which was unacceptable to the latter since he cultivated an atmosphere of near-complete sycophancy.

According to Lake’s recollections, Dowie admonished him, “at present, you are an operator, not a constructor.” During this period of time, Dowie often complained of “the lack of competent, spiritual, and practical men for heads of Departments,” and does not seem to have considered Lake to be of sufficient leadership material.

Figure 5 The Lake home in Zion, IL

In 1902 Lake was considered worth giving some evangelical duties to, and he began proselyting for Dowie in southern Wisconsin. At various times he was in small towns such as Kenosha and Racine, not far from Zion, and it would seem likely that he undertook this work on weekends, taking the train north. Working with some future Pentecostals such as Cyrus Fockler and Fred Bosworth, Lake reported no miraculous healings and very few converts and baptisms from these efforts. : Nor do his activities seem to have generated any coverage in the Wisconsin Press.

In short, Lake was not particularly successful at this second attempt at evangelism.

It is at this time that we have our first independent description of his preaching style, which he had only been working on for a few years. Several years of preaching for Dowie had clearly moved Lake some way towards realizing the bombastic, domineering speaking style he aspired to cultivate on the pulpit. Now bearded and attired in his trademark black suit, it was clear that his persona was crafted:

Mr. Lake was very earnest and when warmed up to his work of exploiting Dowie’s doctrines on the humbug of medicine, he became positively vindictive…. His face was not illumined with the fire which is usually an accompaniment to martyrdom…. His enthusiasm was apparently a cloak to be donned and doffed at will. The writer judged that Lake was reciting a well-learned lesson, with his foot on the loud pedal at all times. : At no time did he appear to be possessed by a divine mission.

Although Lake later maintained he left Zion in 1904, this does not seem to be the case as he remained a resident until late 1907. In late 1904 he did become a victim of the shambolic financial situation of Zion, when wages were slashed across the board twice, and Dowie began to lay off his employees in the face of bankruptcy proceedings. By this time millions of dollars his congregation was forced to deposit into his pseudo-bank were unaccounted for. Dowie, who had declared himself first the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah, and then the “First Apostle” of the entire Christian World, was losing both his grip on reality and on Zion City.

With so many problems paying his employees, in 1904 Dowie gave permission to Zion City residents to seek employment elsewhere as long as they deposited their wages in his unregistered bank. The building of a new trolley from Zion to the main rail line made commuting an option for the first time, and Lake seems to have taken the opportunity to use the Zion-Waukegan trolley to seek new work there. By 1906 he was selling land and insurance in Waukegan for a local speculator and entrepreneur named E.V. Orvis, working out of a modest office space in downtown Waukegan (Figure 6). Just as in Sault Ste Marie, Lake was a small-time operator, running small advertisements for his services in the local newspapers. In addition, to hawking Orvis’s properties, Lake also sold fire and life insurance for the People’s Life Assurance Society. As an evangelist, Lake maintained that he had founded People’s Life Assurance himself with the backing of an array of Chicago’s leading industrialists. In fact it was a small company founded by other people. Lake, then, was living as a small-town insurance salesman after his job with Dowie ended. He does not appear to have been a particular success, unlike his patron, E.V. Orvis, whose presence graced the society and business pages of the local papers on a very regular basis.

After establishing this new career, Lake entered into a new and volatile period of his religious life in which he emerged as a religious leader in his own right for the first time. Between late 1906 and 1907, Lake was associated with and came to co-lead, the Pentecostal “Parhamite” sect in Zion.

Because of the dramatic and lurid events that occurred there, Lake and other Parhamites such as F.F. Bosworth did their best thereafter to minimize any knowledge of their involvement with it.

Figure 6 Lake's office in Waukegan, IL

The Parhamite sect had its origins in the dissolution of the Dowie empire. After having the courts seize his bankrupt empire in 1904, Dowie spent much of the remainder of his life outside of the United States. Increasingly senile and losing followers and the tithes that he relied on to finance his lavish lifestyle, he lost touch with both material and financial reality.

His carnal relations with younger female members of his entourage were exposed, as were the unaccounted-for millions of dollars looted from the unregistered Zion Bank. Beginning with the removal of his deputy, Charles Speicher, in January 1906, Dowie and the Zionists were to feature regularly in most of the nation’s newspapers for the next year. This was due to the tragicomic decline of the organization, along with the unbridled fight for power that continued with each new sign of the leader’s demise. During April, a leading Zionist, W.G. Voliva, led an open revolt and seized control of the organization. In doing so, a vast expose of Dowie was made public.

Misappropriations, mistresses, and a whole other host of abuses were laid open in order to discredit Dowie and legitimize Voliva. When Dowie finally returned to Zion, he ended up being humiliated in court. In short, the affairs of the Zionists became tabloid fodder, and the church a laughing stock across the entire world. Once Dowie was removed from the scene in mid-1906, the internecine squabbles between Voliva and other pretenders to the Zionist crown would further keep the church in public view for another year.

To say that Dowie’s followers were discouraged would be an understatement. Lake’s close friend, F.F. Bosworth, noted in the lugubrious language of Pentecostalism, “the time was at hand, when, as a Christian, he was to wake up to the utter falsity of the claims which were even then developing in the mind and purpose of the mistaken, tho really great leader of Zion City, and to decline to have further association with so misguided a man.”

Into this morass stepped Charles Parham, the originator of the Pentecostal faith. Parham, whose followers had found the gift of glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, had sparked a new Pentecostal movement that was to sweep the Christian world following the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles in 1906. Parham and most other early Pentecostals preached that speaking in tongues was evidence of an individual’s “baptism in the holy ghost”. Moreover, the recovery of speaking tongues was interpreted to mean that the world was reverting to the apostolic stage of Christianity found in the Book of Acts, and that the Second Coming of Jesus was imminent. On a broader level, Pentecostalism privileged religious ecstasy, feeling, prophecy, and testimony over Scripture, and hence appealed largely to marginalized workers and urban migrants across the world. Faith Healing and other “Signs and Miracles” played a crucial role in convincing Christians to join this movement.

I have come to save the people of Zion from the selfishness and bigotry of their leaders…. Four months ago, I saw Zion City in a vision, and troubles of its peoples were made clear to me. ‘Arise and go to Zion and take up the burden of an oppressed people,’ a voice said to me. I am here and will bring you out of all your difficulties if you will trust in me.

The reported crowd of some three hundred people enthusiastically received this message in Zion: “the fervor aroused at the Parham meetings is said by those who have attended to surpass the old-time camp meetings.”

Unfortunately, those who gave Parham their trust found that this association would only dramatically increase their “difficulties” thereafter. John G Lake was one of the early followers of Parham, as was Bosworth and a number of other prominent Zionists. By late 1906 Lake, Bosworth, and others were preaching and speaking in tongues on the street corners of Waukegan, and in early 1907 Lake made the newspapers when he spoke in tongues at a Parhamite meeting.

Lake was not initially in a leadership position amongst the Parhamites. Parham himself was resident in Zion for several months, based in a large, brazier-heated tent that he erected in the face of Voliva’s refusal to allow him to use worship facilities in Zion. In late January 1907, however, the municipal water tower collapsed and fell on the tent, and Parham vacated the city, saying he did not want to be seen as “a Dowie”, but as only “one man in the movement”. Despite this hasty and permanent departure, Parham’s followers continued to pay him tithes and to show considerable resiliency in the face of opposition they encountered in Zion City from the Voliva faction during a time of “divisive strife” in Zion.

Tom Hezmalhalch (Figure 7), who arrived in Zion from Azusa Street not long after Parham’s departure, seems to have played a considerable role in stabilizing the group. Although his weakness for the pleasures of the flesh had disgraced him in Azusa Street circles, Hezmalhalch was able to get William Seymour to visit Zion City and to otherwise keep the group connected to the burgeoning Pentecostal movement.

Lake himself rose in prominence within the group over the course of the year, and by summer was leading services and was generally considered (along with Hezmalhalch) as the unofficial leader.

Figure 7 Zion Il 1907, Glenn Cook, F F Bosworth, Tom Hezmalhalch (back row) William Seymour, John G Lake

Lake’s increasing prominence within the Parhamite sect coincided with the group’s descent into a collective frenzy of insanity, demon possession, and murder. The trigger for the Parhamites’ implosion was the July arrest of Charles Parham in Texas for soliciting sex from a teenage boy in Texas. These charges appeared to confirm rumors about the latter’s ‘heinous sins” that Seymour’s Midwestern deputy, Glenn Cook, had warned the Parhamites about, and which would ruin his reputation in Pentecostal quarters thereafter. Parham’s fall, which came in the aftermath of John Alexander Dowie’s long slide into disgrace, meant that his followers had seen two cherished leaders exposed as frauds in quick succession. In the meantime, Zion City’s economy was struggling and most of the Parhamites were in financial straits. To make matters worse, the Parhamites’ biggest enemy, W.G. Voliva, was tightening his grip on Zion City’s theocratic structures. In the face of these setbacks, the Parhamites evidently viewed the source of their problems as being diabolical. In the weeks following Parham’s downfall, nine (seven women and two boys) Parhamites would be possessed by demons.

As the frenzy continued the Parhamites met practically daily for long, emotional services: “insanity becomes common, ravings of lunatics are heard on every hand, adulteries are committed.” Both the Parhamites and the Voliva faction had been preaching about the imminence of the “end times” since early in 1907, which undoubtedly contributed to a heightened atmosphere. Meanwhile, Voliva and the mainstream church members in Zion City were relentless in their attacks on the Parhamites, calling them “intoxicated,” “demon-inspired,” “a fanatical set,” “an abomination,” and a “barbarian horde.” Denunciations of the new “Tongues Church” were a regular feature of sermons and newspapers. Meanwhile lurid descriptions of the Parhamite services, which featured excessive “emotionalism”, including dancing, jumping, waving hands, “insane ecstasies”, shouting, rolling on the floor, spasms, trances, and visions, were accompanied by warnings from Voliva that this behavior “would lead to demon-possession.”

To deal with these possessions the Parhamites fell back on Dowie’s teachings, which maintained that insanity and mental illness were caused by Satanic forces that had invaded and taken control of an individual’s body and mind. They also relied on Dowie’s old exorcism techniques, which relied on prayer to invoke God’s assistance, combined with the use of physical force to expel the demon from the body. The possessed individual would be tied up and restrained, while the healer would then use physical force to twist the demon slowly out of the body, limb by limb. These attempts could last for days at a time, and typically the afflicted individual would also be denied all food, water, and comforts in order to induce the demons to exit the body.

These exorcism methods ultimately led to the deaths of three sect members. Hezmalhalch and Lake did not conduct the sessions themselves, apparently because they felt they lacked the “necessary spiritual power”. Referring back to this period several years later, Lake recalled that he and Hezmalhalch “had been praying for greater power for the healing of the sick and the casting out of demons at this time.” Instead, Harold Mitchell, who was a regular attendee of their services, had a vision “in which Mitchell was ordered to quit work and devote his time to casting out demons from the sick.” Because the Zion City undertaker was a Parhamite, the three corpses were not officially registered with the State coroner. Many unnatural deaths did not get reported as such—as had been going on throughout Dowie’s tenure in Zion City.

In the case that brought the Parhamites to national attention, Mitchell and four others held down a possessed, bed-ridden woman named Letitia Greenhaulgh in her bedroom against her husband’s wishes, and during a marathon exorcism eventually killed her after breaking her arms, legs, and neck while trying to force the demon out of her. Over the next few days, lurid photographs of both the accused and of Greenhaulgh’s mangled corpse were published in newspapers across America and evoked extensive outrage. Her son’s eyewitness account makes for difficult reading:

Mitchell took her by the hand…and pulled her arm away from the body. She screamed, oh, she screamed terribly. I jumped forward. Mitchell held me back,a nd put his hand over my mother’s mouth and stopped her cries. He said, “of course, I shall not hurt her. Those cries are not her cries. That is the screaming of the demons and the devils as they leave her. She is all right…. Mitchell and his wife again drew near to my mother. They took her arms and drew them out straight. There was a crackling sound. I found out afterwards that they broke the bones. They did the same with her legs. They pulled at her head. They pinched and worked with her flesh. She groaned and cried out. : They said she would be all right. Then mother seemed to become quiet. She looked at me. She said, “I was in hell. I am in heaven now.” I thought she meant she was getting better….

When she said that they started working on her with renewed vigor.

Two other deaths soon surfaced, although they were never prosecuted due to lack of sufficient evidence given the Zion coroner’s cover-up. One involved a 15-year girl named Bertha Young, apparently also exorcized by Mitchell. A third involved a teenage boy, Frank Crowe, whose healers were never apparently determined:

The boy suffered from typhoid fever, but his parents, who were Parhamites, are alleged to have denied him medical attendance. Instead, he was subjected to the treatment of “driving out devils” and the “gift of tongues”. Those who were at his bedside when he died assert that he cried piteously for water, which was refused, the fanatics telling him that the Lord would provide water. They are also said to have thrust their fingers down his throat to reach “the devils that were tormenting him.” When death put an end to his torture, it is alleged that his tongue was found to have been slit as though with a knife.

Could this latter healing have involved Lake?

There is a cryptic passage in Lake’s later writings where he and fellow Perhamite Cyrus Fockler at this time treated a boy with “typhoid fever,” although in this case Lake claimed to have succeeded.

Because Lake and Hezmalhalch were not directly implicated in the exorcisms, they were not prosecuted by the authorities. But neither of the two showed misgivings about what had occurred. : Three days after the Greenhaulgh killing, Lake did denounce Mitchell at Zion City in somewhat muted terms. Even so, he remained obsessed with demon-possession in months following the Greenhaulgh tragedy. Immediately after decamping from Zion City he went on a long fast.

According to his own testimony on the fifth day the voice of God came to him and told him that “from thenceforth you shall cast out demons.” Soon after this, Lake claims to have cast out a demon successfully in Indianapolis. In early 1908 he was boasting to newspaper reporters about his power to “heal the insane,” maintaining that “insanity is a kind of demon--a ‘nutty’ demon.”

If the state authorities did not hold Lake and Hezmalhalch responsible for the exorcism deaths, the local population of the Zion City area did. W.G. Voliva, the town’s theocratic mayor, demanded that all the “Wizards and Necromancers of Hell” be “driven from Zion.” Further declaring that “Parham, Tom [Hezmalhalch], Lake” were “responsible in a greater or less degree” for the Greenhaulgh outrage, Voliva declared that “the time has now come for these religious fanatics to cease forever proclaiming their hellish doctrine and to forever quit our town…. they have put themselves outside the rights of citizens. They are enemies of sane mankind, though claiming to be religious….They must move on.” Secular voices were no less harsh: “it is too much to expect Lake County people to stand anymore for the Parhamites of Zion City, which these ferocious fanatics are said to belong to, and the entire sect should be driven out of Zion City and out of Illinois without mercy.”

In the face of these threats Lake and Hezmalhalch moved quickly to Indianapolis, while the rest of the Parhamites scattered too. Within a month, newspapers reported that “you cannot find a Parhamite in town anymore.”

Only one Parhamite was left in Zion in the aftermath of the killings. Harold Mitchell, who was convicted of manslaughter in November 1907 for Greenhaulgh’s death, was freed on a technicality early the next year. Given that the Greenhaulghs had fled Zion for Wisconsin and could not be found, Mitchell was let free due to the lack of witnesses against him. He would also receive legal assistance from Voliva, was given a job at the church-owned Zion Lace Factory, where he would work until his death in 1931 (when he was buried near John Alexander Dowie).

Despite the nation-wide outrage over the killings, the main reprisal for Lake and the Parhamites was their impoverishment at being forced to leave Zion. Because they had signed 1,100 year leases on their property, they effectively forfeited their houses.

All the Parhamites, including Lake, Hezmalhalch, and Bosworth, covered up their involvement in the gruesome events of September 1907, which have only come to light recently.

Sojourn In Indianapolis: October 1907-April 1908

If Lake’s stay in Indianapolis was short, it was nevertheless a decisive moment in his preaching career. Any sane person caught up in the events that shook the Parhamites in the fall of 1907 would have given up the faith and sought a new career.

Not John G Lake. Instead, his response was to forge forward, craft a new mystique about himself, and establish himself as a leading figure in the Pentecostal movement. While doing these things, Lake also raised funds for the first Pentecostal missionary expedition to South Africa.

One his group left for Africa in April 1908, he gave up his leadership of the Indianapolis Pentecostal community.

Indianapolis was probably chosen as a source of refuge because it was the center of Midwestern Pentecostalism. Glenn Cook, an Azusa St Revival veteran and close associate of William Seymour, was the Indianapolis Apostolic Faith Mission leader.

He had visited the Parhamites in Zion with Seymour (Figure 7) and had also received Hezmalhalch in Indianapolis over the summer of 1907. Beginning early in 1907, Cook had built up a small but growing following of Pentecostals known locally as the “Gliggy Bluks”, a nickname derived from their speaking in tongues. The group received extensive press attention in its early period and was generally derided both for its new theology and for its non-racial ethos. “The Gliggy Bluks do not draw the color line and negroes frequently mingle with white women freely,” complained the establishment press.

While we do not know much about the early activities of the exiled Parhamites, it is clear that Lake and Hezmalhalch befriended a recent Pentecostal convert named J.O. Lehmann, who had recently graduated from Levi Lupton’s small missionary academy in Ohio, and who had moved to Indianapolis after graduating. Not long after the runaway Parhamites arrived, though, Lake ascended to the leadership of the local Apostolic Faith Mission. Cook, apparently blessed with a short temper, was jailed in November after assaulting a member of the Pentecostal band who was trying to collect money owed him. In the aftermath of this incident, Seymour seems to have elevated Lake, who by next January was listed as “Pastor” of the Apostolic Faith Mission in the city directory.

From then until the departure for Africa in April, “Brother Lake and Brother Tom [were] the leaders of the Gliggy Bluks.” Bosworth, meanwhile, decided to move on, and eventually became a faith-healing revival preacher in Texas.

Lake’s elevation to a position of formal religious leadership for the first time led him to craft a new, devious biography for himself that would hide his Parhamite past. The first part of this new biography was his personal calling, which he maintained had occurred earlier in 1907. A key part of this narrative was Lake’s alleged decision to leave Dowie and Zion in 1904 in order to start a business career. His protégé Gordon Lindsey has summarized the rest of the story:

In 1904 he moved to Chicago and bought a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade. At the time he handled Jim Hill’s Western Canadian land and made a personal friend of this great railroad man and financier. The first day Lake opened his office he made $2500 on a real estate deal, and at the end of one year and nine months, he had $100,000 in the bank, real estate amounting to $90,000 and also a $30,000 paid up life insurance policy.

Representing the Chicago Board of Trade he met Harriman and Ryan and others who were celebrated financiers. He was employed by Ryan to form a trust of three of the nation’s largest insurance companies. Appointed manager of agencies he was offered by the company a guarantee of $50,000 a year to continue in this business.

Despite this amazing success, Lake claimed to have been perpetually felt himself to be “disobedient” to God, refusing to take up life as a preacher of the Gospel. After receiving the Gift of Tongues and Baptism in the Holy Ghost he had a vision, in which “a Voice began to talk to me out of that light” and to remind him again of his “disobedience.” Soon after, he was called by a friend to heal a lady who had been suffering from “inflammatory rheumatism” for over ten years.

After praying for the woman, she was healed miraculously. In light of Letitia Greenhaulgh’s experience, the description of this imagined event is enlightening: “He took the crippled hand, that had been set for so many years. The clenched hands opened, and the joints began to work, first the fingers, then the hand and wrist, then the elbow and shoulder.”

Following this experience, Lake “could not follow successfully the ordinary pursuits of life and business.” He soon quit, and “disposed of my estate and distributed my funds in a manner I believed to be in the best interests of the Kingdom of God, and made myself wholly dependent upon God for the support of myself and my family, and abandoned myself to the preaching of Jesus.” Not long afterwards, he went on an extended fast, and prayed for the power “to cast out demons.” The Holy Spirit then appeared to him, saying, “from henceforth thou shalt cast out demons,” which he began to do within days.

It goes without saying that Lake’s story bore little relation to actual events that transpired in Waukegan and Zion between 1904 and 1907.

An additional feature of Lake’s new persona was his newly-derived “calling” to go to Africa. William Bryant, Lake’s old boss in the Zionist church, had been sent to South Africa by Dowie in 1904. In a couple of years, he had developed the Zionists’ biggest foreign congregation there. Although most members of the church were impoverished African peasants, Bryant had also organized many successful tithes-paying white congregations on the Rand, including Krugersdorp, which was called “one of the most profitable centers” in the entire church. During the period from 1904 on Bryant’s region reported far more baptisms than any other section of the church, and was clearly the most successful. Following Dowie’s demise, Bryant had emerged as a minor contender to the Zionist leadership, but was eclipsed by his hated rival W. G. Voliva. This defeat prompted Bryant to pull his South African congregations out of the Zionist church. But rather than remaining in South Africa, Bryant decided to relocate to California. As a result an existing, profitable, leaderless organization was thus ripe for the taking.

Lake clearly decided to try and take it over, although, being penniless, he lacked the means to get there with an entourage.

Lake’s divine calling to go to South Africa, as usual contained two notable elements: lots of small details meant to convince; and plenty of dubious logic to make his leadership role ineluctable:

I went to Indianapolis, Indiana for a 10-day visit with Bro. Tom [Hezmalhalch] who was preaching there. Then I assisted with the services and work.

While visiting the home of a Bro. Osborne…the Spirit of the Lord came upon me and God talked to me concerning Africa….for years I had felt that one day God would send me to Africa, but never possessing what I regarded as the Divine Equipment necessary for a successful Christian worker. I had banished the thought and stifled the voice within…. God gave me at this time a spiritual vision of Africa, especially of the Zion work there—so accurate, that when I arrived in Africa 14 months later, I found it correct in every detail.

Not long later after this alleged incident, Lake went to pray with “Bro. Pearse” back in Zion City:

As we knelt to pray, my soul was in such anguish I felt myself being overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, then commenced the most vivid spiritual experience of my life….Oh how he showed me His love for me. He showed me the lost world, dying souls, the sick and suffering, saying “all this I did for thee, what hast thou done for me?” until my heart broke and, in anguish, I cried and told him I would go all the way with Him even unto death….Then the Spirit said, Will You Go? I said, “Yes Lord, any place, anywhere. But, Oh Jesus, the burden must be yours, the responsibility is yours. Then came a series of different visions of different cities came before me: first, Zion City, IL, where the Glory of God overshadowed the old Dr. Dowie tabernacle in Shiloh Park as a heavenly light….

Then he showed me the downtown district of the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, and the same illumination of God’s glory…. Then, Johannesburg, South Africa, and a wonderful illumination of God’s glory lighting up the whole land…. Again, I heard the voice, “Will you go?” “Yes, yes,” I cried, “if you will prepare and equip me and go with me.”…..”Lord, I will go. I’ll go at once.”

[As an aside, it is worth noting that Lake’s two sets of visions, both of which happened soon after the other, were inherently contradictory. In the first place, he was told by the Holy Spirit to give away all his possessions and to become a preacher. Not long afterward, he is told to go evangelize in Africa, but of course, he is now forced to beg for money. How Pentecostal scholars and layman have failed to see through this problem is beyond me.]

Once again, Lake skillfully hid his personal own personal agenda in these visions. According to his rendition, he is merely acceding to divine will in his actions, and his own desires to seek fame and fortune as a “religious adventurer” are conveniently obscured. By early 1908 he was clearly communicating with Bryant, who seems to have inserted him as his heir-apparent prior to his own departure in April.

During late 1907 Lake pushed forward his agenda to launch a South Africa mission and got the go-ahead from Seymour. In January 1908 Seymour publicized an upcoming convention in Indianapolis where the evangelizing group would be organized and funded and directed all donations to Lake’s address. From late January to early February, the conference met. Attendance was not that strong, some keynote speakers failed to arrive, but the attendees maintained that “the power is greatly in evidence. Once the conference began, it was clear that the core of the missionary party was to consist of Hezmalhalch, Lake, and Lehmann. Lake explained to the attendees that the party was planning on “specializing just now on the art of healing….

Brother Tom and I have just returned from Zion City…. Now, Tom and I, when we went up there, didn’t have very much of the power of healing, and as the people up there expect you to deliver the goods, we had to work mighty hard….Now we are doing much healing.”

One of the highlights of the convention was the alleged glossolalic outburst of one Sister Starratt in Zulu. Lehmann, who had preached among Ndebele mine workers in Rhodesia, maintained that her uttering of “Toola Lop” (which he rendered as “cease talking”) was a divine intervention to make a dissenting speaker shut up.

Not very much money was raised at the convention itself.

However, after it was over, a donation was made, apparently by Los Angeles-based George Studd, the wealthiest man in the Pentecostal community. Lake’s version of events was the following:

One day during the following February my preaching partner said to me, “John, how much will it cost to take our party to Johannesburg, South Africa?” I replied, “Two thousand dollars.”

He said, “If we are going to Africa in the Spring, it is time you and I were praying for the money.” I said, “I have been praying for the money ever since New Year. I have not heard from the Lord or anyone else concerning it.” He added, “Never mind, let’s pray again.” A few days later he returned from the post office and threw out on the table four $500 drafts saying, “John, there is the answer. Jesus has sent it. We are going to Africa.”

We do not know how from any source other than this how much money the Lake party actually received, although we can be sure that “God opened the way for them to go, supplying their fares.” The amount of the money, though is important. If the Lake party indeed received $2000 (which I doubt) then they were guilty of a number of scams on their trip to Africa. If they received far less (as is more likely), than once more another of Lake’s “miracles” is rendered mundane.

The money seems to have come well after the conference, in early March, because soon after this the relevant passport applications were made. Lake, a British colonial citizen, appeared as a witness for Hezmalhalch and Lehman.

The party of seventeen eventually obtained tickets for $25 each (which included meals), following which they had, he claimed, only several dollars left. Unlike Dowie, who always travelled first-class on the oceans, the Lakes booked their passage in 3rd Class. They received an enthusiastic send-off from a large group of Gliggy Bluk supporters in Indianapolis, and were also given tributes from the Pentecostal establishment. “May God send the ‘Latter Rain’ in a deluge over that land.” On the course of their travels, the Lakes claimed to be out of cash from the beginning. As a result of this alleged penury, Lake was able to convince other passengers to buy his sister a train ticket to her hometown and to pay for the party’s laundry bills. Lake was also successful in getting another large bill paid off by an unwary mark:

I knew that just as soon as we arrived at Capetown there would be dock fees and transfer accounts and hotel bills, etc, right away. Mrs. Lake and I held the matter steadfast before the Lord, and before we left the ship, while it was yet at the docks at Capetown, before the gang planks were put down, a passenger touched me on the shoulder and called me to one side. He handed me an American Express order for $200, saying, ‘Boy, the Lord told me to give you that, and He has been telling that for the last two and a half weeks.’ It paid all my expenses and landed us in Johannesburg.

The evidence suggests the following. If the Lake party received $2000 then they managed to scam a number of unwary voyagers on their trip into giving them more money. Lake, who was to be well funded for several years following his arrival in South Africa, was to routinely plead poverty and beg for money in the Pentecostal press. It is certainly conceivable they had the money. If, on the other hand, they received far less, the initial miracle was highly unspectacular and exaggerated.

To conclude, it is worth examining the wreckage the Lake party left behind in Indianapolis. Just as when they left Zion some six months earlier, some human beings had been destroyed—never to be mentioned again. Before Lake assumed command in Indianapolis, faith healing was not a prominent feature of the “Gliggy Bluks”, and there is no indication of any kind that this group adhered to the Dowieite proscription against modern medicine. But with Lake’s arrival this changed, and his preaching on “the humbug of medicine,” and his denunciatory attacks on “doctors, drugs, and devils,” began. Faith healing took the place of medical treatment, and soon Lake boasted at the convention:

“Now we are doing much healing.”

It would appear that many of his followers took Lake’s preaching to heart quickly.

In the case of Indianapolis, the victim of Lake’s preaching was nine-year-old Freddie Davis, the son of an African-American “Gliggy Bluk” who fractured his thigh a week before the outset of the Africa convention. After Freddie fell off a coal wagon and suffered the fracture, his mother, “Mrs. Galloway denied the boy a physician, saying the children gathered about that Christ would heal him…. his mother and numerous followers have held repeated prayers for the child, but the leg refused to adjust itself.” Under cross-examination, Mrs Galloway explained why she had not called a doctor:

“Because Jesus Christ is his healer,” she answered indignantly.

“But the leg hurts him,” insisted the humane inspector.”

“No, it doesn’t if he just thinks it doesn’t,” she added.

“But suppose you cut your finger off. What would you do about that?”

“Stick it back on and Jesus would heal it. It’s all imagination.”

“What’s imagination?”

“Why this hurting business. Nothing hurts if your heart’s right and you don’t think it hurts.”

Unfortunately for Freddie Davis, it failed to work. X-rays soon showed that his fractured thigh bones had fused in such a way as to render him crippled for life. His mother was eventually fined and sentenced to jail for neglect, while Davis spent the rest of his life on crutches.

As he left on his historic evangelizing mission for Africa, John G Lake was well aware that faith healing had no chance of curing organic conditions such as broken limbs. He had no compunctions, though, about preaching that they could, no matter how damaging the results would be.

(I should insert mention here at the conclusion of Morten's paper a factoid concerning Frederick, John Graham's younger brother.... Although the claim of miraculous healing of his gum condition may have been sensationalized propaganda, what is certain is that he did indeed suffer from a severe case of gum and/or teeth disease (although never diagnosed early that we have). His death certificate clearly denotes his cause of death resulted from a "hemorrhage of the teeth". So whatever the exact condition, it must have been terrible in order to have been Fred's cause of death.) So, again, while the claim of miraculous healing was inaccurate, Fred did indeed suffer from a disease of the mouth or gums/teeth. One that took his life on 18 October 1898, at Sault Ste. Marie, Chippewa, Michigan. As for his elder sister "Maggie" cause of death... she died in 1915 from post-diphtheria paralysis, with a contributing factor of Cardiac dilation. While there is no mention of a life-long disease, she could have sought healing for her paralysis if indeed she'd come down with Diphtheria infection at a time when John was performing his healing events. As for the nephew supposedly healed by Lake, I have no information per to exact identity of the person and so offer no comment) jlphawn

From the second paper mentioned:

STUDIA HISTORIAE ECCLESIASTICAE

On-line version ISSN 2412-4265

Print version ISSN 1017-0499

Studia Hist. Ecc. vol.42 n.1 Pretoria 2016

http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2412-4265/2016/1134

ARTICLES

'John G. Lake as a fraud, con man and false prophet'

critical assessment of a historical evaluation of Lake's ministry

Marius Nel

Research Unit of the Faculty of Theology North-West University

nel.marius1atgmaildotcom

ABSTRACT

This article assesses the evaluation of John G. Lake, one of the founders of South African Pentecostalism, by some historians regarded as a fraud, con man, and false prophet in terms of several elements of his life: his business concerns; his mission to Africa; ministry of Spirit baptism and divine healing; and some accusations made by Lake's co-workers. The conclusion is reached that there are valid points of criticism against Lake's ministry and concerns about his integrity, although it is also true that the specific historical evaluation is hampered by presuppositions that preclude any miracles and a seemingly preconceived notion of Lake as a fraud and scam, supported by an unbalanced utilization and unfair treatment of resources.

Keywords: John G. Lake; fraud; falsification; Pentecostalism; divine healing; missions

INTRODUCTION

The Pentecostal movement started from humble beginnings in 1901 and 1906 and developed into perhaps the most significant religious movement in the twentieth century, with a growth rate of 52 000 a day or 19 million a year, as estimated by David Barrett (1998, 50).1 In 1993 the number of Pentecostals and charismatics exceeded 420 million people (Synan 2006, 1) and in 2006 the number exceeded 580 million (Blumhofer 2006, 21), making Pentecostalism the fastest growing branch of Christianity worldwide (Turnage 2003, 6). McGee (2012, 35) calculates that at the current rate of growth, there will be 1 billion Pentecostals by 2025, with most of them living in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (McGee 2012, 35), presenting the southward swing of the Christian centre of gravity (Anderson, A.H. 2003, 1). 2The movement started with classical Pentecostals in Parham's Bible School and at Azusa Street; was perpetuated in the charismatic renewal of the 1960s with Dennis Bennett, Kevin Ranaghan, and Kathryn Kuhlman in Van Nuys, California, only a few kilometers north of Azusa Street (Harper 2008, 108; Tickle 2012, 67-69); and invigorated by the third-wave neo-charismatic movement headed by Peter Wagner and John Wimber (Gabriel, 2012, 150-154; Synan 2001, 177-232).3

The international Pentecostal movement originated in a black church in Azusa Street, Los Angeles, led by William Seymour,4 son of African slaves (Anderson, R.M. 1979, 60; Anderson, A.H. 2012b, 186) where fifteen hundred people were estimated to have been in attendance on any given Sunday (Letson 2007, 115). Azusa Street was a church with mostly black people, although many white people attended the church led by an unpretentious black man (Lovett 1975, 136)5 who was earlier made to suffer the ignominy of sitting outside the classroom door of the Charles Parham's Bible school in Houston (Anderson, A.H. 1997, 2). People flocked to Azusa Street to 'receive the Spirit',6 and they left with the message of 'Pentecost' and an evangelistic zeal to share it with the world, reaching more than 50 nations within two years (1906-1908) (MacRobert 1988, 56, 81).

John G. Lake7 visited at Azusa Street in 1907 with Seymour and other Pentecostal leaders (Lake 1981, 32),8 and he led a party consisting of Thomas Hezmalhalch,9J.C. Lehman10 and others (Synan 2006, 6) with the purpose to bring the message of 'Pentecost' to South Africa. He revisited Azusa Street on at least one further occasion to report to Seymour about the progress of the Pentecostal mission he had led in South Africa (Anderson, A.H. 1997, 3; Lake 1981, 32). When Lake left South Africa in 1913, never to return, his legacy was two Pentecostal groups in South Africa, the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (AFM of SA) and the Zion Apostolic Church (Anderson, A.H. 2007, 7; Synan 1997, 138).11 Today a large segment of Christians in South Africa belong to the Pentecostalist tradition (Anderson, A.H. 2000, 14; 2001, 27; Nel 2005, 202-203) with half of them adherents of the Zionist/ Pentecostalist legacy of Lake (Morton 2012a, 98).

In this article the negative evaluation of John G. Lake and his ministry by some historians, as represented by Barry Morton, is presented and discussed.

Barry Morton is associated with Unisa's History Department where he is busy with post-doctoral studies and serves as a research fellow. His interest is concerned with Botswana and southern African history, and he wrote articles on Zionism and the Zionist churches; John G. Lake as one of the founders of the Pentecostal tradition in South Africa; Botswana history and the evolution of women's property rights in colonial Botswana; as well as some issues in Indiana history in conjunction with Elizabeth Morton. In his historical assessment of Lake he represents a smaller school of thinking linked with Murray (1999), Hitchens (2009), and websites like http://letusreason.org. :: In their evaluation of Lake they warn that not much historical research on Lake and the Pentecostal and Zionist movement has been done, despite the fact that it was by far the most successful southern African religious movement of the twentieth century (Morton 2012a, 98).12 Where historical research was done about the development and diffusion of the Pentecostal tradition in southern Africa, Morton (2012a, 99) claims, it occurred from a Pentecostal or Evangelical perspective, and academics treated it with 'kid gloves'.13 Lake is seen as divinely inspired, directly sent by God to southern Africa, orchestrating massive healing campaigns using the laying on of hands to cure various diseases and infirmities, and performing other miracles such as resurrecting the dead.14 Lake's legacy in the AFM and the African Pentecostal churches is evaluated as 'innately positive developments' (Landau 2010, 184). In the process of advocating Pentecostals' own agenda, John G. Lake is not seen for what he in fact was, a con man 'who consciously used deception both to gain tithe-paying adherents, and to defraud and control them once they were in his organization' (Morton 2012a, 99). Morton (2012a, 100) concludes that the centre of Lake's religious activities consisted of consciously deceiving people (Morton 2012a, 100). This conclusion implies that Lake's activities 'seriously call into question' (Morton 2012a, 100) the characterization of the Pentecostal and Zionist movement that Lake founded and make a mockery of its allegedly divine inspiration. The arguments will now be investigated in terms of different aspects of Lake's life and ministry.

LAKE'S LIFE BEFORE HIS MISSION TO SOUTH AFRICA

Lake's son-in-law, Wilford Reidt, wrote a biography of Lake where he mentions that Lake studied successfully for the ministry in the Methodist Church, allowing him to be appointed as pastor of a church in Peshtigo, Wisconsin.15 Shortly after entering ministry he decided to exchange it for a business venture when he founded a newspaper, The Harvey Citizen. He also set up a successful real estate business and helped found another paper, The Soo Times. In 1901, Lake moved to Zion City,16 John Alexander Dowie's utopia,17 where he was in charge of the church's construction department (Lake 1994, 89, 269; Liardon 1999, 10; Reidt 1989, 14-16). In 1904 he bought a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade and handled a railroad magnate, Jim Hill's Western Canadian land (Reidt 1989, 14). Lake was also employed to form a trust of three large insurance companies and served as manager of the trust (Reidt 1989, 15). Although Lake was involved in part-time ministry he concluded that he was called to get into full-time ministry. Late in 1907 he disposed of his possessions and used the money to meet the need of others (Reidt 1989, 16; Copeland (1994, xix-xx).18

Morton (2012a, 102) describes Lake's alleged sacrifice to abandon a business career earning him a good income in order to enter the full-time ministry19 as a myth that he used in order to legitimate his ministry and create a religious aura that 'stirred up a sense of awe and wonder amongst credulous audiences'.20 Lake's claims about his business career and prosperity are false, argues Morton (2012a, 103), with evidence showing that he had only small contracts and did not even bid on public contracts nor advertise his contracting company in any newspapers. His real-estate activities did not include ownership of any large buildings but consisted of buying dilapidated properties that he fixed and sold for a profit. He also was not involved in any way in any newspaper that he claimed to have founded. And Lake did not supervise construction endeavours in Zion City, but was appointed as a repairman in the department (Morton 2014b, 18). To prove his points Morton utilizes newspapers of the time as well as the church directories published regularly in Zion Banner from 1901 to 1906. Lake claimed to have moved to Chicago in 1904 where he quickly became a millionaire and purchased a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade. However, Morton is of the opinion that Lake remained in Zion City until 1907 although he quit his job as a repairman in 1905 and worked as a salesman for a local real estate speculator in a nearby town, Waukegan, while also marketing fire and life insurance. A biographer of Lake, Burpeau (2004, 57), acknowledges that no evidence outside of Lake's own assertions has been found to verify that Lake was involved in business or industrial circles in Chicago. Instead of being a wealthy man, Lake was an insurance salesman, concludes Morton (2012a, 104). Morton's use of available resources is limited to a few newspaper articles to prove that Lake exaggerated or lied about his business ventures. No primary research was done to find data from available banks and local authorities and Morton's conclusion is based on a lack of any mentioning of Lake in available newspapers. However, as will be ascertained at a later stage, Lake was prone to exaggerate and it might be the case that his involvement in certain business ventures might have been limited.21 However, to conclude that Lake's reference to a lucrative business career that he abandoned in obedience to God's voice is a myth, and that Lake used to legitimise his leadership role in the Pentecostal fray, is to read into a lack of data too much.

LAKE'S LIFE IN ZION CITY

Morton (2012a, 104) alleges that Lake who settled in Zion City in order to acquaint himself better with the doctrine and practice of divine healing, fled in 1907 from Zion City after his 'involvement in highly unsavoury affairs' and that he used his story of a direct communication and revelation from the Spirit to depart for Africa in order to justify his leaving of Zion City as a means to remove attention from the 'real facts'. What occurred, according to Morton, is that Lake became embroiled in the polarisation that occurred in Zion City after the death of Dowie, and the resulting split of his church into various factions. Charles Parham resided intermittently in Zion City in late 1906 and he used the opportunity to preach his Pentecostal message of speaking in tongues as initial evidence for being baptised in the Spirit (Friesen 2009, 45; Hudson 2008, 149). Approximately 3 500 Zionists joined his faction as a result of the revival services that he held in 1906, and they were baptised with the Spirit, with Lake and Hezmalhalch as prominent members (Parham 1930, 148-160, 171-177). 'From Zion came a host of almost 500 preachers who entered the ranks of the Pentecostal movement, chief of whom was John G. Lake' (Synan 1997, 138). Parham left Zion City and never returned when a water tower collapsed and destroyed his revival tent.22 His followers experienced opposition from Dowie's successor, W.G. Voliva. Tom Hezmalhalch, one of the leaders of the Pentecostal followers in Zion City, invited William Seymour to visit the city (Morton 2012a, 105). Parham's followers continued to support him financially and they stayed loyal to him, even in the face of opposition from the other inhabitants of Zion City. The Parhamites' services were characterised by an 'apparent descent into a collective frenzy of insanity, demon possession, and murder' (Morton 2012a, 106). Morton connects it to Parham's arrest in Texas for the alleged soliciting of sex from a teenager that confirmed rumours that had been circulating about Parham's pederastic tendencies. Morton does not provide any evidence of these charges against Parham, although he admits that Goff's (1988, 137-138, 224-225) research did not yield any proven facts about the charges.23 In this period nine Parhamites, seven women and two boys, were 'possessed by demons' (Morton 2012a, 106), an observation that Morton gets from a local newspaper that published over many years the most negative information about Zion City, Indianapolis News (22 September 1907, 3).24 Voliva called the Parhamites 'intoxicated', 'demon-inspired', 'a fanatical sect', 'an abomination' and a 'barbarian horde' (Zion Herald, 2 August 1907, 1). That the Parhamites became demon-possessed and insane was a charge laid by Voliva and utilised by Morton to prove that Lake became part of an unstable group.

The Parhamites ministered to what they perceived to be demon-possessed persons.25 At times they used physical force to expel the demon from the body, leading to the death of two persons, although Morton (2012a, 107) admits that Lake and Hezmalhalch were not involved. Because the undertaker was a Parhamite he did not register the deaths as unnatural. As evidence of these deaths Morton quotes from the Chicago Tribune of 24 May 1900, 3 June 1900, and 9 June 1900. However, these deaths should have occurred in Morton's chronology in 1907 when he claims that Lake and Hezmalhalch fled from Zion City due to possible prosecution resulting from these deaths, although it is clear that they were not involved with any of the cases. Morton also refers to the case of Letitia Greenhaulgh who died during an exorcism rite; although Lake was not involved with this case either. It was reported widely in the American press. Morton's contention that Lake did not leave Zion City in response to divine calling but to escape popular justice, is not reflected by the available facts but by a biased reading of the facts.

LAKE'S MISSIONARY TOUR TO SOUTHERN AFRICA

26

Again, Morton (2012a, 100) finds in the narratives describing the missionary party's coming to southern Africa 'fraud and misrepresentation' that were 'central to the early spread' of Pentecostalism and Zionism in South Africa. Morton does not make a proper distinction or differentiation between the origins of Zionism in South Africa, with Johannes Büchler as well as Daniel Bryant and other missionaries sent to the continent by Dowie in 1904 and Pieter L. Le Roux's contribution (Wessels 1992, 372-374), and the eventual establishment of a Zionist branch of the AFM from some of these black Zionist assemblies - and in time also the African Pentecostal churches (Burger 1987, 109-110).27

Eventually, Hezmalhalch and Lake would leave for South Africa with 17 members including three other missionaries.28 Their tour was financed by contributions from believers in the USA.

However, Morton (2012a, 102) argues that Lake told fellow passengers and the wider Pentecostal community of his mission and that he desperately needed funds to complete it. He concludes that Lake defrauded the steamship company and even stole existing funds, but does not provide any evidence at all for the assertions. In this way he implies that the coming of the missionaries to South Africa was based on and driven by dishonesty and fraudulence, throwing their missionary endeavours as well the result of their work in a bad light.

Morton (2012a, 109) contends that Lake and Bryant had dealings even before Bryant decided to leave South Africa. Bryant was one of Dowie's missionaries to South Africa and he had developed the biggest foreign Zionist congregation in Doornfontein, Johannesburg as well as in other cities (Oosthuizen 1987, 14-18; Sundkler 1976, 34-41). Bryant contended for Zionist leadership when Dowie died and when he was succeeded by his hated rival Voliva, Bryant and his South African congregations left the Zionist church (Morton 2012a, 109). When Bryant returned to California, Lake and Hezmalhalch were invited to take the services at his church in Doornfontein, and when the AFM was founded, these three Zionist assemblies became the first AFM assemblies (Burger 1987, 173; 1997, 184).29 Lake and Bryant cooperated in several projects when they were both mid-level officials of Dowie's church, and Morton argues that they orchestrated a take-over of the Johannesburg assembly, although Lake never mentioned it and no other source refers to it (Burger 1987, 168). Morton's (2012a, 109) contention, 'Everything points to a carefully-orchestrated move to South Africa, rather than an impulsive, divinely-inspired one', does not hold water as it is based on abstractions without any facts to support it.

LAKE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Morton (2012a, 109) states that Lake (as well as the early leadership of the AFM) made himself guilty of fraudulent and lying behaviour in order to attract members to their church that would pay tithes.30 The ultimate goal of their missionary work was to generate money for private enrichment.31 To succeed in the goal it was necessary for Lake to create a 'fictitious religious persona' that he crafted for himself, and he utilized an array of deceptions. 'Even in the event that Lake was a fervent Pentecostal at heart, nevertheless conscious deception lay at the centre of the religious activities of which he took charge' (Morton 2012a, 100).32 Another supposition that Morton (2012a, 100, 102, 109) uses is that Lake learned from John Alexander Dowie's original Zionist church, in the decade prior to his South African mission, the roguery and knavery that would characterise his ministry.33 He refers specifically to the utilisation of false testimonies34 about miraculous faith healing cures,35 the claim of raising the dead by which the divine healer proposed to have demonstrated his spiritual power, and the technique of precognition, consisting of the assistance of another person that would predict the imminent arrival of strangers with unusual powers.

Lake's advertising promised that people attending the meetings will be baptized in the Spirit with signs following and that the sick will experience miraculous healings (cf. broadsheets reprinted in Liardon 1999, 43), creating an expectation of miracles.36 Morton (2012a, 110) allows for placebo cures from psychosomatic illnesses ('often-times spectacular') to have occurred.37 Nevertheless, the other 'signs and wonders' were staged (Morton 2012a, 110).38 The reason why Morton does not accept that real healings could have taken place, is his acceptance of a scientific worldview that does not allow for any supernatural phenomena to occur outside the accepted system of indictable cause and effect (cf. Ehrman and Licona 2009; Lataster 2013, 31).39 For this reason, Morton views it as a scam when Lake decorated the altar of his Johannesburg Tabernacle with crutches and therapeutic devices supposedly discarded by the formerly disabled40 or when he demonstrated healing by the crippled person walking on-stage, as was the claim of 'distant miracles' with people being cured as far away as England and Iowa.41 Lake also claimed that several resurrections took place. Maggie Truter, the stepdaughter of a former minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, R.H. van de Wall, who joined the AFM and later became its general secretary, was ill in July 1909. When she died Lake prayed for her and she was restored to life (diary of Lake, 6 December 1910).42 Later, Maggie's mother described the event without referring to Lake, leading Morton (2012a, 112) to conclude that Lake was not involved in the miracle healing. However, in her account, she does not refer to any minister by name and the inference is that Lake may have been a part of the team ministering to the daughter. Similar resurrections occurred during an expedition to the Waterberg region in May/June 1909 when Lake and Elias Letwaba visited the area (as reported in The Apostolic Faith, November/ December 1909, 11).43

Lastly, Morton claims that Lake utilised precognition, which proved particularly successful in rural areas.44 In one such case, the mother of the chief of a village dreamt that white men would visit the region at a certain date and time and that they should be received because they represent the Lord. The lady would announce what she perceived as a message of the Lord. When the missionaries arrived they would be met with great expectations and their message accepted (Blake 2005, 92-93). Morton's (2012a, 113) judgment is that these events were arranged by the missionaries and that it did not occur in fact, a supposition that is not supported by available facts.

When miracles take place, there is always the danger that expectations will reach such a pitch that human factors of ecstasy and mass suggestion may somehow enter the picture.

The early AFM did experience its problems and reacted to it on the highest level (De Wet 1989, 77). Already on 22 January 1909 the Executive Council, the newly found church's highest controlling body, read a letter from a brother Schneiderman that states his reasons for having dissociated himself from the church. He points out that 'a great deal of very sad exaggerations in cases of healing had been made; that messages had been given not by God, etc., and that the Name of God was dishonoured thereby' (Burger and Nel 2008, 58). After a lengthy discussion the Council concluded that 'there was only too much truth in the letter', and resolved 'in future to use the utmost caution and to do all in our power with the help of God to eliminate from the work whatsoever was not of God; and to admit to the public that many mistakes had been made, even if such a confession cost humiliation' (Minutes of the Executive Council, 22 January 1909). It is true that the early AFM suffered from deficiencies and imperfections, although an attitude of honourableness and sincerity seems to be present (Burger and Nel 2008, 58).

The emphasis on divine healing as a part of the atonement led during the first decades to rejection of medical help in any form (Dayton 1987, 129). To trust in medicine or other help prescribed by doctors was even seen as a form of unbelief and sin, 'to lean on the arm of the flesh' (Burger 1987, 180; cf. Cartledge 2008, 128). Members of the church would often witness that they had not been to a doctor for many years. It is deeply tragic and not justifiable in any way that some people, including children, suffered and even died due to the lack of medical help. For instance, in 1917 a couple of the AFM Krugersdorp under the leadership of Eva Stuart was charged because they had refused medical help for their child who was underage. The child died and the state claimed that the child could have been saved if the parents had allowed hospitalisation and medical care. The Botha couple was found guilty on the charge of culpable homicide and willful neglect of the child and was given a fine. On 14 December 1917, the Executive Council of the AFM appealed but lost its case (Nel 1996, 249).45 At the General Council in 1918, where representatives of all assemblies met annually, the church called on all its members to sign a petition addressed to the government asking for an amendment in the Children's Protection Act (1913) which would make provision for 'granting exemption from use of medicines, etc. to those who belong to a recognised religious body against whose faith it is to use medicines' (Nel 1996, 249). Members were at the same time requested to donate toward meeting the costs of a 105 pounds of the Appeal Court case. The reason for the rejection of medical help is formulated in a remark in the Minutes of the Workers' Conference of 2 April 1931:

It was pointed out that Divine Healing excludes the use of medicine and that we should take a strong stand against those who made a habit of the practice... Several testified to the power of God in healing their bodies because they put their entire trust in Him (Nel 1996, 250).46

ACCUSATIONS OF CO-WORKERS AGAINST LAKE

Morton (2012a, 114) refers to complaints about and accusations against Lake from South African co-workers that 'led to the secession of many white Pentecostals from the AFM'. :: However, the many secessions reported are not documented by Morton except for a reference to Burpeau (2004, 120-124). It is true that there were some accusations but these did not lead to secessions of groups leaving the AFM. The first accusation that Morton discusses is the 'propaganda' that Lake published in America witnessing about incredible events that were occurring in South Africa with 'desperate pleas for money'. When other missionaries from America arrived they found that Lake's Pentecostal campaign was based on false reports and they sent 'very disquieting reports' back to America and Europe about Lake. Morton (2012a, 114) acknowledges that none of these reports or letters were published and none of them are extant.

No record of these missionaries or their disappointment with the 'Pentecostal campaign' in South Africa exists in records kept by the AFM in their books of minutes of meetings or their monthly magazine, leading to the conclusion that the assertion is a result of Morton's prejudice against the Pentecostal revival that originated in the work of the missionary company of which Lake was a member.

Another accusation was that Lake misappropriated funds that belonged to the AFM donated by Pentecostals in the USA and elsewhere. Only Lake and his party had access to cash, according to Morton (2012a, 114). However, the minutes of the meetings in the early AFM indicate that the church elected a treasurer and secretary at its earliest meetings and that individuals did not have access to money without the knowledge of the rest of the executive (Burger and Nel 2008, 44). It is true that the workers in assemblies earned little; however, it is also true that Lake, Hezmalhalch and the other American missionaries earned very little (Burger 1987, 181). Morton (2012a, 115) refers to 'Lake's penchant for deceit' that led him to install his brother-in-law as AFM treasurer, a remark that betrays the historian's prejudiced evaluation of Lake's character without providing the necessary evidence for such a sweeping statement47; '...there are grounds for believing that Lake and his party made use of the vast majority of available funding for their own benefit' (Morton 2012a, 115), another remark that is not documented in terms of any resources.48 Morton (2013b, 15) admits that the AFM executive and the Executive Council exonerated Lake of these charges, but argues that Lake 'controlled' the executive. However, Lake was not even the chairperson; Hezmalhalch served as president and chairperson and Lake was elected to serve as vice-president (Burger and Nel 2008, 35). Morton (2013b, 15) also states that a large portion of the white membership seceded from the AFM when the church did not act against Lake, which is factually not true (Burger 1987, 204). 'There are very good grounds for believing that the charges laid against him were true', a statement that Morton (2013b, 15) documents by referring to his discussion in Morton (2012a, 114-15) where he also does not refer to any resources or provide any documentation. A last statement that Morton (2013b, 15) makes is that Lake was arrested following his return to the United States and sued for using his 'undue influence' to sell worthless securities to members of his congregation, and again the historian does not provide any evidence of such a court case and its outcome.

Other accusations stated by Morton (2012a, 115) are that Lake acted dictatorially in the same tradition as Dowie ('a second Dowie'),49 that he exaggerated the scope and nature of his Pentecostal campaign (as stated above), and that Lake was a 'con man', 'an untrue man', who used occult powers in his activities. These last accusations were made by George Bowie and are quoted in the Rand Daily Mail of 18 November 1910 and 24 November 1910. However, the newspaper reported about the quibble between Bowie and Lake, and presented Bowie's opinion that is accepted by Morton as facts in order to discredit Lake.50

Morton (2012a, 115) also refers to Lake's 'close friendships with spiritualist con men' and his alleged communication with his dead wife via séance that 'created rumblings in AFM circles'. Instead of cultivating friendship with spiritualists and hypnotists, Lake at several instances confronted them in public and humiliated their supposed powers (Lindsay, 1972, 28). Morton also does not provide any documentation for the 'rumblings in AFM circles' and no such documentation exists.

After his wife's death several accusations against Lake were made of conducting adulterous relationships with women in his congregation (Burger and Nel 2008, 42). Morton (2012a, 115) is correct in stating that the leadership of the AFM investigated these rumours and accusations against Lake. The results of the investigations were noted in minutes of the AFM and Lake was exonerated on all counts (Burger and Nel 2008, 48).

Morton's (2012a, 115) contention is that as a result of these accusations Lake lost significant support when many Pentecostal newspapers refused to print witnesses about healings from his office, and many white members of the AFM left to join other Pentecostal churches.51 This also led to Lake forcing Hezmalhalch and Lehman to leave the AFM. None of these remarks are documented by Morton in any way, an unacceptable practice of making conclusions without any proof.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Lake's labours led to the establishment in South Africa of the Pentecostal movement, and specifically of the AFM of SA with 1.4 million members in South Africa and currently established in 29 countries of the world52 as well as African Pentecostal Churches, with somewhere between a third and a half of all southern African Christians now being members of these churches (Morton 2013a, 1).53 Morton (2012a, 115-116) claims that his analysis of historical sources demonstrates that Lake was a religious fraud, and that much of his sources had purposefully not been used by sympathetic religious historians to Lake's case before. As was shown, Morton utilises sources from newspapers that were critical about Dowie and newspaper reports about the opinion of Bowie when he left Lake. In most instances statements are not substantiated by any historical references. In this way the historian discredits Lake as well as the churches that flow from his work, as demonstrated by the way Morton (2012a, 116) ends his article, with a reference from the atheist journalist Christopher Hitchens (2009, 165) that such a story about the founder of a religious movement demonstrates what happens when a plain racket turns into a serious religion before our eyes.

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1 'The Pentecostal movement is by far the largest and most important religious movement to originate...This explosive growth has forced the Christian world to pay increasing attention to the entire movement and to attempt to discover the root cause of this growth' (Synan 2006, 1). Pate (1991, 243) estimated that the Majority World mission movement was growing at five times the rate of Western missions, resulting in half of the world's Christians living in developing, poor countries.

2 There are approximately 2.18 billion Christians in the world, but Christianity in the West experiences a demise, with Europe's population being 66.3% Christian in 1910 and 25.9% in 2013. In South Africa, the Dutch Reformed Church reported membership losses of over 20 000 people in just one year (2012) (Joubert 2013, 114). Christianity grew in sub-Saharan Africa from 9% in 1910 to 63% in 2010 (Joubert 2013, 114-115).

3 Cp. Cox 1995, 20, 23-25, 34-42.

4 Seymour was a Holiness preacher before he attended Parham's Bible School in Houston, Texas in 1905 (Hammonds 2009, 6).

5 'Such radicality and revolutionary nature of the revival both repulsed and fascinated its critics, both secular and Christian' (Tan-Chow 2007, 45).

6 'The services (at Azusa Street) centered on baptism of the Holy Spirit and did not involve prayer, singing or sermons in the usual sense' (Hammonds 2009, 7). After 1909 the church went into decline and by 1914 the membership was almost entirely black (Synan 1971, 116).

7 Lake was born at St. Mary's, Ontario Canada, on 18 March 1870 (Susanto and Theron 2008, 173). He died in Spokane on 16 September 1935 (Synan 1997, 138).

8 Lake (1981, 19) met Seymour for the first time in 1907, and then commented that Seymour had 'more of God in his life than any man I had ever met'.

9 Hezmalhalch (1847-1934) was born in England and was 60 years of age when he arrived in South Africa.

10 Lehman had visited South Africa before, as a missionary to the Zulus for five years (Synan 2006, 6). Lehman founded the Pentecostal Holiness Church in South Africa in 1913.

11 Lake viewed himself as being an emissary of Seymour's Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission, which placed less stress on divine healing and more on the Holy Spirit. Generally speaking, Lake's African followers were more sympathetic to his Zionist ethos, and his white followers to his Pentecostalism (Morton 2013b, 13).

12 However, Morton's bibliographies in his articles betray that he is not knowledgeable about the many works reflecting research into the origins and development of the Pentecostal and Zionist traditions in southern Africa. Scholars like A.H. Anderson (1991, 1992, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2007), Asamoah-Gyadu (2002, 2013a, 2013b), Berglund (1976), Burger (1987, 1997), Burger and Nel (2008), Comaroff (1985), Daneel (1971), De Wet (1989), Liardon (1996, 1999), Lindsay (1972), Oosthuizen (1987), Reidt (1989), Sundkler (1976), and Synan (1971, 1997, 2001, 2006) should be mentioned. Lindsay worked with John G. Lake's evangelistic campaigns and, during 1948, with William Branham (Bundy 1990, 341).

13 Morton (2014b, 1) warns that his work about Lake is 'not a labor of love;' rather, it is a 'much-needed corrective to a host of misleading writings that many other faith healing con men have invoked in order to increase the charismatic nature of their healing ceremonies.' Morton (2014b, 4) finds in Lake's own writings and sermons 'rarely any honesty', a remark that he does not motivate in any way.

14 Lake (among others) 'prioritized seeking for spectacular displays of celestial powers - signs and wonders, healing, and deliverance from sinful habits and satanic bondage' (McGee 1997, 329). The numerous healings were viewed as confirmation that God's Word was true, his power was evidently on the missionary efforts, and the result was that many were persuaded to become Christians (Anderson, A.H. 2003, 6). At the turn of the previous century, most mainline or traditional churches in South Africa did not minister healing (Susanto and Theron 2008, 170). Specifically within the Reformed tradition, the ministry of healing was not expected and even denied. The development of divine healing became one of the hallmarks of early Pentecostalism (Hollenweger 1997, 18-19), becoming an attractive drawcard that drew new adherents, serving to appeal to people across cultural boundaries (Botha 2007, 311). While Western Pentecostalism probably does not grant healing such a prominent role as in earlier times, in the Majority World the existence of disease and evil affects most people and requires real action from the church as well (Anderson, A.H. 2003, 6). For a discussion of the importance of healing, healing movements and ministers of healing in Pentecostal circles, cf. Burgess and McGee (1988, 350-374).

15 Morton (2012b, 82) makes the assertion that the Methodist seminary that Reidt referred to had never in fact existed, without providing any proof. Fact of the matter is that Lake (or Reidt) never mentioned the name of the seminary, illustrating Morton's biased interpretation of Lake. Morton (2014b, 5) is also convinced that Lake was, 'to put it simply', not an ordained minister, 'although he wished to appear as one from his early 20s onwards.' No proof of the assertion is provided by the historian.

16 In 1886, at the age of 16, Lake saw how somebody close to him, probably his 22-year old brother, was healed, leading Lake to trust God for healing him from his own chronic constipation, and the resultant resolution not to make use of any medicine (Lake 1968, 5). Morton (2014b, 4) opines that Lake's chronic constipation 'was almost certainly an invention, without providing any documentation for his opinion. By 1896, Lake's wife was diagnosed with consumption, and subsequently became paralysed. On 28 April 1898, Lake with the support of friends from Dowie's church, offered up prayers for the healing of his wife from tuberculosis (Synan 2006, 6). Cf. Morton (2014b, 15-17) for a negative critical discussion of her healing. Lake became convinced of God's healing powers and moved in 1901 to Zion City in order to study divine healing (Susanto and Theron 2008, 174). He served as an elder in the Zion Catholic Apostolic Church until 1904 (Morton 2014b, 18 asserts that he never rose to a prominent position in the Zionist church but remained a deacon until Dowie's demise in 1905). Morton (2013a, 1) calls Dowie's Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion 'essentially a criminal organization', based on what he describes as the economic strategies of the major Zionist churches. Morton (2013b, 9) concedes that Dowie's revenue came from a 'legitimate source', tithing. The economic strategy after Dowie's death went through two distinct phases, with at the beginning a small, core following and using their contributions to obtain agricultural land and creating a self-sufficient agrarianism, followed from the 1950s by a pragmatic period with large-scale membership increases and the utilisation of capitalist practices by promoting business formation among their members and forming their largely unskilled members into a kind of 'labor aristocracy' (Morton, 2013a, 12). These practices allowed the Zionist leaders like J.G. Shembe, Solomon Lion, Christina Nku, Edward Lekganyane, and Daniel Nkonyane to drive large fleets of chauffeured automobiles, go to universities, travel around the world, and dress themselves and their entourage in expensive attire. They live in large and prestigious residences, have considerable agricultural and business holdings, which they manage with the help of white lawyers (Morton 2013a, 8-9). Because their church funding is Mobutuist in nature, bitter disputes tend to be fought over succession by the leaders' children (Morton 2013a, 9). Morton's allegations about the Zionist church deserve to be investigated further.

17 Dowie opened his new utopian community at Zion, north of Chicago, in 1901. Dowie owned the city and leased out residences to his congregation. Lake purchased a lease in May 1901 (Morton 2014b, 18).

18 In her biography of Lake, Copeland obviously relies heavily on Reidt for her facts.

19 Lake grounded his decision to abandon his business ventures in order to give all his attention to the ministry in the examples of George Muller and Hudson Taylor (Tannenberg 1999, 12). Lake interpreted the rediscovery of the charismata or pneumatikoi as the restoration to the Church of the absolutely vital component that characterised the early Church and that would provide the missionary thrust that would result in an unprecedented 'harvest of souls' before the Parousia (Allen 2007, 119; Land 1993, 6). Pentecostals share a restorationist primitivist drive (Klaus 2006, 2). Lake's mission was biblical, passionate, in the power of the Spirit, Christo-centric, and urgent, according to Klaus (2006, 3-4).

20 Morton (2012b, 73) argues that although Isaiah Shembe credited only one man for his religious development, William Leshega who had Shembe ordained as a preacher in the African Native Baptist Church, Shembe was directly impacted by Zionist ideas and individuals. The narratives of Shembe's early life and calling, as recorded in the 'Book of the Birth of Isaiah Shembe' and other documents, are shaped along the same lines as Lake's (Morton 2012b, 79, 88) and created Moseslike legends (Morton 2013a, 1). It is from Lake that Shembe also learned how to orchestrate religious fraud while they worked together in the Free State in 1910. 'Lake and his coterie at the helm of the AFM were all consummate con men who relied to some extent on assistants and placemen to aid them in conducting fraudulent faith healings and other cons' (Morton 2012b, 79). To prove his point that Lake placed assistants within the audience to provide him with information and to facilitate false healings, Morton refers to the assertions he made in another article (Morton 2012a, 109-114), where he also does not use any form of documentation. These conclusions are based on a methodology that is dubious and unacceptable.

21 Lake was not the only one prone to exaggerate. Anderson, R.M. (1979, 94) provides an example of such exaggerations in early Pentecostal editors' refusal to print reports about purported divine healings without substantive proof; usually the testimony of some Pentecostal whose word the editor in question was willing to accept. Donald Gee was involved in the Pentecostal movement for 40 years and remarked that the small number of definite miracles of healing compared to the great numbers who were prayed for, made him sad (Gee 1928, 13).

22 Voliva refused Dowie permission to use any of the worship facilities in Zion (Morton 2014b, 23).

23 Synan (1971, 99-100, n. 12) notes that while most Pentecostal writers acknowledge that Parham was partly responsible for formulating early Pentecostal doctrine, none of them accepted him as the 'father' of the movement; questions about his later personal ethics led to his place in Pentecostal history to be de-emphasized.

24 Another source that Morton uses is the Zion Herald, a newspaper published by the Voliva faction that opposed the Parhamites in the leadership struggle that characterized the period after the demise of Dowie and providing negative publicity about the Parham faction.

25 Cf. Thomas 2010, 296-299 for a discussion of the Pentecostals' perception of demons as a source of infirmity.

26 Lake's missionary group was not the first to bring the Pentecostal message to South Africa. According to McGee (2007, 1), the earliest-known Pentecostal missionaries came to South Africa in 1904. Mary Johnson, Augusta Johnson and Ida Anderson left America for Africa in October 1904 and worked in Pondo Land (Thompson 1937, 8).

27 Anderson (2012a, 30) explains that there are clear affinities and common historical and theological origins shared by African and classic Pentecostals, but the passing of time and the proliferation of African Initiated Churches (AICs) have accentuated the differences. In spite of their historical connection to classical Pentecostalism, these churches differ in many respects from classical Pentecostal churches, for instance, in the use of healing symbolism, forms of government and hierarchical structures of leadership, the wearing of distinctive uniforms, and different approaches to African religions and culture (Anderson 2012a, 30-31). Cox (1995, 246) emphasizes the importance of 'African expressions of the worldwide

Pentecostal movement' (cf. Asamoah-Gyadu 2013b, 144)

28 McGee (2012, 36-37) refers to the diligence of these early Pentecostal missionaries and the challenges that they faced.

29 Comaroff (1985, 11) calls the ministry of Lake's evangelical team the 'second evangelization' to emphasise the link between Dowie's missionary enterprises in South Africa and Lake's continuation (De Wet,1989, 34)

30 Fact is that Lake served as a champion of the poor and possessed, argues Anderson, A.H. (2003, 3), and the AFM grew exponentially amongst the dispossessed African and poor white Afrikaner victims of the defeat of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) (De Wet 1989, 39)

31 The implication is that Lake and his missionary community were not interested in spreading the gospel, or witnessing to their experience of the baptism with the Spirit, but that their only interest was in personal enrichment. However, early Pentecostals viewed the baptism with the Spirit as empowerment for witness, and when all have heard then the end would come (Lewis 2001, 2). When the minutes of early meetings of the AFM are studied, it becomes clear that the early AFM represented poor people and that the church handled small amounts of money, leading to small remuneration of employees, including its leadership (Burger and Nel 2008, 60-61). In the same way, Morton (2012b, 91) states that 'obtaining money was Shembe's primary motivation', an allegation that is based on a psychological analysis of the person without providing any proof or evidence, and that links Shembe and Lake in the sense that Shembe used Lake as a model for his own ministry. 'The history of Shembe and his dynastic successors offer grounds for believing him to be an opportunist who created the Nazarite Church primarily for his own and his family's interest.' The wholesale generalisation about the history of the church is not discussed in terms of documenting any evidence that proves that the Shembe family was enriched unfairly.

32 Morton (2012a, 100), however, admits that it is impossible to tell whether Lake himself believed in the religious messages that he propagated.

33 'He [Lake] also made use of the full panoply of Dowieite tricks, ranging through all variations of the "fake cripple", the "distant miracle", the "supernatural showdown", and healing those afflicted by cancer through "tumor extraction"' (Morton 2013b, 14). Morton (2015, 13-16) lists 'categories of deception in public healing ceremonies': false testimony, fake cripple, epileptic eruption, distant cure, tumour extraction, and supernatural showdowns. In the same way, Lake taught his South African followers such as Edward Lion, E.H. Mahon, Engenas Lekganyane, and Isaiah Sheme how to become adept at staging 'miracles' (Morton 2012b, 85; 2014a, 44). These lessons included that one should pray for healing at the start of the service, in order that the signs and wonders would catch the attention of the crowd and increase their vulnerability to placebo cures. A 'fake cripple' or paralysed in a wheelchair, the dumb, deaf, or blind are then prayed for, healed, and then able to demonstrate to the crowd their new ability to run around, speak, hear, or see. Or a 'devil-possessed' person would be brought in chains or in some similarly dramatic condition, the devils would be cast out, and sanity restored to the afflicted. A third method is the so-called 'distant miracle', where the preacher persuaded the crowd that their prayers would lead to a miracle somewhere else, as when Lake claimed that his prayers led to the Queen of the Netherlands to become pregnant (Lindsay 1972, 245-246). A final example is prayer for the dead, with Lake claiming to have experienced five dead people being restored to life during his stay in South Africa (Blake 2005, 160-161). It is clear that Morton does not allow for any of these 'healings' to have occurred at all.

34 'Many of these (miracles) can be proved to be complete fabrications' (Morton 2013b, 14). He gives two examples of such 'fabrications': that Lake was involved in Maggie Truter's resurrection (discussed elsewhere in the article), and the successes of Lake's evangelical expedition to the Limpopo region in 1909 with Elias Letwaba. However, Letwaba testified to these miracles (Chandomba 2007, 21). Morton (2014b, 12) asserts that Lake's function in Dowie's healing services was to organise false testimonials about healings and to act as an audience plant (such as by impersonating a minister) for Dowie. For this reason, 'there can be no doubt that the majority of the Lake family ended up by providing false healing testimonies for him [Lake] later on' (Morton 2014b, 12). Again, Morton does not document any of his assertions, indicating his lack of a valid historical method.

35 It should be noted that Dowie as well as Lake preferred for specific reasons not to refer to 'faith healing' but to 'divine healing' in order to emphasise that healing is not dependent on the minister or sick person's faith, but is a divine prerogative (Nel 2006, 266). Morton (2012b, 89) states with conviction that Shembe also used false testimonies to impress crowds; without providing any evidence of such false testimonies or how they were preserved. Morton's prejudiced sceptical view of miraculous healing disqualifies him to allow for any such miracles to occur; unfortunately he does not think it necessary to document his allegations.

36 Susanto and Theron (2008, 175) show how it was divine love for the suffering that worked through Lake and made his ministry effective because it allowed him to identify with the afflicted and to feel in a physical manner the same pain as the sufferers did. His faith led to a compassionate love toward the sick and faith that they could be helped (Susanto and Theron 2008, 179).

37 'Using their prophetic mystique to best advantage, they (faith healers) used the placebo effect to heal credulous devotees afflicted with psychosomatic illnesses and then turned them into their first followers' (Morton 2013a, 1). It is true that first converts joined the movement due to divine healing and various miracles (Anderson, A.H. 1992, 43; Daneel 1970, 16; Vilikazi, Mthethwa and Mpanza 1986, 45). 'Faith healing can cure psychosomatic diseases such as depression and anxiety, given the right circumstances that faith healers train themselves to create' (Morton 2014b, 2). The danger for the cured is that they will be exploited by the faith healer and his cult. Morton (2014b, 2) motivates his research in Lake by stating his desire to convince, if only even a single person, to avoid seeking out a faith healing cure.

38 According to Morton (2012b, 83-85), faith healers have to master two different skills in order to be successful. Firstly they must be able to create an atmosphere in which people would be gullible enough to accept placebo cures. A large percentage of illness is psychosomatic, and faith healers could cause instant cures to these diseases if they know how to utilize people's credulity. The correct setting consists of a large, expectant, emotional crowd free of sceptics. The atmosphere is created by invented testimonies about the way the faith healers were called. Secondly, the faith healer must look out for individuals susceptible to a placebo cure. It is crucial that the candidate does not know the faith healer, except by reputation. It is a fact that faith healers lose their ability to cure when people know them for any period of time. Morton's psychological analysis of the healing event is informed by his presupposition that no divine healings can occur, against the background of a scientific worldview that does not allow for any events to occur that cannot be explained according to cause and effect. He (Morton 2014b, 1-2) refers to centuries of scientific studies that faith healing and prayer cannot cure any organic disease or condition; still, he complains, many people keep on seeking out quacks for treatment.

39 Morton (2012a) refers to Lake in the title of his paper as 'The devil who heals', a remark that Lake himself made during his stay in South Africa. At one stage, Lake in Liardon (2005, 173) defended himself against accusations that healings which occurred during his meetings were not divine. Some people asserted that he was possessed of a devil and that people got saved and healed through diabolical powers: 'They now openly say it is the devil who heals.' It seems as though Morton would ascribe Lake's healing powers to evil forces. Jesus was accused in the same manner (Matt 12:24; Luk 11:15).

40 Dowie (Morton 2013b, 6) as well as Shembe placed used and discarded crutches all over the altar of their churches as Lake did. In the same way Shembe regularly used the once-crippled teenager Peter Mnqayi, whose ability to walk was 'allegedly' restored after Shembe's prayers (Hexham and Oosthuizen 1994, 41). Morton (2012b, 87) describes the 'primary effect' to be to make credulous audiences believe that the healer can render the crippled back to a state of physical prowess.

41 During 1911 there were 2 032 cases of confirmed healings in the AFM, as published in the church magazine, Comforter (February 1912, 5). The church required proof of healing from the leader of the local assembly. The official church magazine published, right from its inception, a number of testimonies by people who were healed (Burger and Nel 2008, 56), a practice that was continued for many years. Botha (2007, 309) argues that Pentecostals' innovative use of media from its earliest days is one of the reasons for its success (see also Kalu 2008, 139).

42 Morton (2012a, 112) judges that Lake's '"diary" appears to have existed in part for him to invent various miracles and events that he could use in sermons and publications'. While it is true that Lake referred in later publications and sermons to the events that occurred in South Africa, Morton's judgment of Lake's diary entries as 'inventions' is a value judgment that does not do justice to the task of the historian and demonstrates the unwillingness of the historian to accept the validity of any miracles.

43 This is not the place to argue the historical validity of the so-called miracles that presumably took place in Lake's ministry. At most, the sources can be quoted that described these events while it must be remembered that they were written by believers who expected 'supernatural interventions' and in that sense were prejudiced towards the value of people's witnesses to healing and Lake's supposed ministry of healing.

44 Cf. Alvarsson's (2007, 184-187) critical discussion of divination among Pentecostals and their questioning of it as magic, when it is not entirely from a biblical or quasi-biblical context.

45 Several other similar cases were heard in courts, as late as 1932 when parents in Port Elizabeth were also fined (Nel 1996, 249).

46 Lake also emphasized the need to live a healthy life. For instance, he forbade his followers the use of tobacco and alcohol, and also the eating of pork. It is also important to follow the guidelines provided in the Bible for healthy living (Nel 2014, 4). Dowie had already emphasised these taboos, and modern-day Zionists follow the same injunctions (Morton 2013b, 5-6).

47 The treasurer of the first Executive Council was H.M. Turney, about whom very little is known. He resigned, however, after six months and on 25 February 1910 Peter Moffat, John G. Lake's brother-in-law, was elected as new treasurer (Minutes of the Executive Council, 25 February 1909). From the minutes it is clear that the bookkeeping was transparent.

48 The donations for Lake's work came mostly from the Upper Room Mission in Los Angeles, led by George B. Studd. After giving due consideration to letters and reports about possible misuse of funds, the Upper Room Mission who supported Lake's work in South Africa made the following statement about the money sent (inter alia $2,200 sent over from April to November 1910) to Lake: 'We sent it to Brother Lake with no conditions attached (except that it was not to be used for buying land, for building, or for secular education), because we had every confidence in his integrity and his ability to administer the money wisely and well for the work there. We have even greater confidence in him today, and if we had 1,000 dollars in our hands now, we would be very glad to send it to him. We have received a report of how the monies have been expended from the treasurer of the Apostolic Faith Mission in Johannesburg, Mr Peter Moffat, and we were perfectly satisfied that the funds have been well and carefully spent' (Minutes of the Committee, :: The Upper Room, November 1910, 2). Before this decision, Lake wrote to the Upper Room Mission explaining the AFM's modus operandi with regard to contributions received: 'We have a strong council of competent men over our work - men who can deal with any situation. The council appointed a treasurer to take charge of the monies connected with the local work.

Offerings sent to me personally from overseas, or in my care, are administered by me, after advising with the brethren at hand, especially Brother Van de Wall. The treasurer's books include both the monies received locally for the support of the general work here, and they are open to inspection at any time' (Minutes of the Committee, The Upper Room, November 1910, 2).

49 Cf. Garrard's (2009, 90-91) accurate assessment of the dangers of leadership in the Pentecostal community where leadership, is built on perceptions of anointing, leading to difficulties in the building of trust between the leaders and congregations. Johns (2007, 131-136) discusses the effects of dictatorial leadership on Pentecostal congregations.

50 George Bowie was born in 1860 in Scotland and experienced the baptism of the Spirit in 1907. He joined the Bethel Pentecostal Assembly and they sent him to South Africa where he arrived in April 1910. He called his missionary endeavour the Pentecostal Mission ('Pinkster Zending' in Afrikaans) (Du Plessis 1984, 84). Eleazar Jenkins, a missionary from Wales, joined the church, as well as Archibald Cooper who left the AFM when he was not elected on the first Executive Council in May 1909. George Bowie did not have any relations with the AFM as such and his work was not the product of any schism from the AFM. Bowie became involved with the discord between Lake and Hezmalhalch (Burger 1987, 202-204). The causative factors of the discord are to be found in the personality differences and different approaches to the ministry between Lake and Hezmalhalch. Lake, although so much younger than Hezmalhalch, was the more prominent, the stronger leader with his dynamic personality and sensational ministry. If it had been Lake who was elected as first president of the AFM in 1909, the problems could possibly have been avoided. What needs to be considered was that the younger Lake with his individualism, his greater dynamism and aspirations, came too strongly to the foreground, attracted too much prominence and perhaps he took the initiative once too often. It would be only human for the older man to feel uncertain of himself under these circumstances, and even threatened. Against this background it then happened that certain people came to the fore with various rumours and complaints against Lake. These complaints and allegations were not started by Hezmalhalch, but he was influenced by them and he sided with the instigators of this campaign against Lake. All available evidence indicates that the allegations were false and that the inciters were simply malicious, as argued above. The persons who started the rumours were not AFM members. Prominent among them were George Bowie, Archibald Cooper and W.P Gillis (sometimes spelled 'Gillies') (Burger and Nel 2008, 43). No members of the AFM left to join the Pentecostal Mission except Cooper who started his own work for 18 months before he joined the Pentecostal Mission. Bowie's remarks about Lake came about when he involved himself with the disagreement between Lake and Hezmalhalch. Hezmalhalch did not join Bowie's church but returned to the USA. The name of the Pentecostal Mission was eventually changed to the Full Gospel Church in 1921 (Du Plessis 1984, 84).

51 After his return to the United States in 1912, Lake's ministry led to the formation of healing homes in Spokane, Washington and Portland, Oregon before he died in 1935 (Synan 2006, 6).

52 http://www.afm-ags.org/ (accessed on 6 June 2015).

53 The Zion Christian Church (ZCC) claimed by 1993 to have six million members, making it South Africa's largest Christian denomination (Synan 1997, 138). The church consists of the main ZCC star church and the splinter group Saint Engenas ZCC (Lukhaimane 1980, 1). In its annual Easter conference at Zion near Polokwane, the church gathers upwards of two million worshippers, the largest annual gathering of Christians on earth (Synan 2006, 6). Other churches include the St. John's Apostolic Faith Healing Church, the Masowe Apostles, and the Nazarites, all vibrant multinational enterprises known for their 'exuberant forms of sacred dress', 'massive annual gatherings', and 'noise-polluting all-night worship services' (Morton 2013b, 1).

Creative Commons License All the contents of this journal, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License

The Church History Society of Southern Africa

Research Institute for Theology and Religion

University of South Africa

P O Box 392, Pretoria, Gauteng, ZA, 0003,

Tel: +27 12 429 4309

christina.landman2atgmaildotcom

Citation:

Nel, Marius. (2016). 'John G. Lake as a fraud, con man and false prophet': critical assessment of a historical evaluation of Lake's ministry. Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 42(1), 1-24.

https://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2412-4265/2016/1134

The following material challenges the authenticity of John Graham Lake as a Minister of the Gospel, and as a healer.

THE MESSED UP CHURCH

https://www.themessedupchurch.com/blog/3-early-newspaper-articles-that-proving-that-john-g-lake-was-a-fraud

John Graham Lake (1870-1935) was a leader in the early Pentecostal movement. In 1914 he started “The Divine Healing Institute,” as well as opening up what he called “healing rooms.” He ran these “healing rooms” from 1915-1920. He was a “faith healer” and Pastor of The Church of Portland.

In 1999 Cal Pierce reopened Lake’s “healing rooms” in Spokane, Washington.

Lake was convicted of “Blue Sky Fraud,” which landed him and his son Otto in jail. He used his church as a platform to sell stock to his parishioners from his mining schemes, even swindling $1000.00 from one couple.

“Reading John G. Lake furthered my quest along the way. His insights into the Spirit-filled life are the greatest I have seen anywhere. His insights and stories ruined me.”

— Bill Johnson "The Essential Guide to Healing"

“...So I visited their bookstores and picked up literature written by or about men like John G. Lake, William Branham, F. F. Bosworth, John Alexander Dowie, and so on. Their writings may not have convinced me that they had great theological insight, but they did convince me that they were not frauds.”

— Excerpt From: John Wimber. “Power Evangelism.” iBooks.

But John G. Lake didn’t just steal people’s money-he pretended to heal them, too. There is no evidence that any of the healings claimed by Lake were genuine. For example, a newspaper article called “Miracles Not Seen” reported that most of the people who did receive healing seemed to be hypochondriacs, while others with crutches and wheelchairs received no healing at all.

From: https://www.themessedupchurch.com/blog/3-early-newspaper-articles-that-proving-that-john-g-lake-was-a-fraud

In the following video I present 3 newspaper articles proving that Lake was nothing more than a fraud. I put links to the original articles in the YouTube description.

For more research on this topic:

John G Lake’s Formative Years, 1870-1908: The Making of A Con Man by Barry Morton

'John G. Lake as a fraud, con man and false prophet': critical assessment of a historical evaluation of Lake's ministry

http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1017-04992016000100006

Marius Nel

Research Unit of the Faculty of Theology North-West University : nel.marius1atgmaildotcom

ABSTRACT

This article assesses the evaluation of John G. Lake, one of the founders of South African Pentecostalism, by some historians regarded as a fraud, con man and false prophet in terms of several elements of his life: his business concerns; his mission to Africa; ministry of Spirit baptism and divine healing; and some accusations made by Lake's co-workers. The conclusion is reached that there are valid points of criticism against Lake's ministry and concerns about his integrity, although it is also true that the specific historical evaluation is hampered by presuppositions that preclude any miracles and a seemingly preconceived notion of Lake as a fraud and scam, supported by an unbalanced utilisation and unfair treatment of resources.

Keywords: John G. Lake; fraud; falsification; Pentecostalism; divine healing; missions

INTRODUCTION

The Pentecostal movement started from humble beginnings in 1901 and 1906 and developed into perhaps the most significant religious movement in the twentieth century, with a growth rate of 52 000 a day or 19 million a year, as estimated by David Barrett (1998, 50).1 In 1993 the number of Pentecostals and charismatics exceeded 420 million people (Synan 2006, 1) and in 2006 the number exceeded 580 million (Blumhofer 2006, 21), making Pentecostalism the fastest growing branch of Christianity worldwide (Turnage 2003, 6). McGee (2012, 35) calculates that at the current rate of growth, there will be 1 billion Pentecostals by 2025, with most of them living in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (McGee 2012, 35), presenting the southward swing of the Christian centre of gravity (Anderson, A.H. 2003, 1).2The movement started with classical Pentecostals in Parham's Bible School and at Azusa Street; was perpetuated in the charismatic renewal of the 1960s with Dennis Bennett, Kevin Ranaghan, and Kathryn Kuhlman in Van Nuys, California, only a few kilometres north of Azusa Street (Harper 2008, 108; Tickle 2012, 67-69); and invigorated by the third-wave neo-charismatic movement headed by Peter Wagner and John Wimber (Gabriel, 2012, 150-154; Synan 2001, 177-232).3

The international Pentecostal movement originated in a black church in Azusa Street, Los Angeles, led by William Seymour,4 son of African slaves (Anderson, R.M. 1979, 60; Anderson, A.H. 2012b, 186) where fifteen hundred people were estimated to have been in attendance on any given Sunday (Letson 2007, 115). Azusa Street was a church with mostly black people, although many white people attended the church led by an unpretentious black man (Lovett 1975, 136)5 who was earlier made to suffer the ignominy of sitting outside the classroom door of the Charles Parham's Bible school in Houston (Anderson, A.H. 1997, 2).

People flocked to Azusa Street to 'receive the Spirit',6 and they left with the message of 'Pentecost' and an evangelistic zeal to share it with the world, reaching more than 50 nations within two years (1906-1908) (MacRobert 1988, 56, 81).

John G. Lake7 visited at Azusa Street in 1907 with Seymour and other Pentecostal leaders (Lake 1981, 32),8 and he led a party consisting of Thomas Hezmalhalch,9J.C. Lehman10 and others (Synan 2006, 6) with the purpose to bring the message of 'Pentecost' to South Africa. He revisited Azusa Street on at least one further occasion to report to Seymour about the progress of the Pentecostal mission he had led in South Africa (Anderson, A.H. 1997, 3; Lake 1981, 32). When Lake left South Africa in 1913, never to return, his legacy was two Pentecostal groups in South Africa, the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (AFM of SA) and the Zion Apostolic Church (Anderson, A.H. 2007, 7; Synan 1997, 138).11 Today a large segment of Christians in South Africa belong to the Pentecostalist tradition (Anderson, A.H. 2000, 14; 2001, 27; Nel 2005, 202-203) with half of them adherents of the Zionist/ Pentecostalist legacy of Lake (Morton 2012a, 98).

In this article the negative evaluation of John G. Lake and his ministry by some historians, as represented by Barry Morton, is presented and discussed.

Barry Morton is associated with Unisa's History Department where he is busy with post-doctoral studies and serves as a research fellow. His interest is concerned with Botswana and southern African history, and he wrote articles on Zionism and the Zionist churches; John G. Lake as one of the founders of the Pentecostal tradition in South Africa; Botswana history and the evolution of women's property rights in colonial Botswana; as well as some issues in Indiana history in conjunction with Elizabeth Morton. In his historical assessment of Lake he represents a smaller school of thinking linked with Murray (1999), Hitchens (2009), and websites like http://letusreason.org. In their evaluation of Lake they warn that not much historical research on Lake and the Pentecostal and Zionist movement has been done, despite the fact that it was by far the most successful southern African religious movement of the twentieth century (Morton 2012a, 98).12 Where historical research was done about the development and diffusion of the Pentecostal tradition in southern Africa, Morton (2012a, 99) claims, it occurred from a Pentecostal or Evangelical perspective, and academics treated it with 'kid gloves'.13 Lake is seen as divinely inspired, directly sent by God to southern Africa, orchestrating massive healing campaigns using the laying on of hands to cure various diseases and infirmities, and performing other miracles such as resurrecting the dead.14 Lake's legacy in the AFM and the African Pentecostal churches is evaluated as 'innately positive developments' (Landau 2010, 184). In the process of advocating Pentecostals' own agenda, John G. Lake is not seen for what he in fact was, a con man 'who consciously used deception both to gain tithe-paying adherents, and to defraud and control them once they were in his organization' (Morton 2012a, 99). Morton (2012a, 100) concludes that the centre of Lake's religious activities consisted of consciously deceiving people (Morton 2012a, 100). This conclusion implies that Lake's activities 'seriously call into question' (Morton 2012a, 100) the characterisation of the Pentecostal and Zionist movement that Lake founded and make a mockery of its allegedly divine inspiration. The arguments will now be investigated in terms of different aspects of Lake's life and ministry.

LAKE'S LIFE BEFORE HIS MISSION TO SOUTH AFRICA

Lake's son-in-law, Wilford Reidt, wrote a biography of Lake where he mentions that Lake studied successfully for the ministry in the Methodist Church, allowing him to be appointed as pastor of a church in Peshtigo, Wisconsin.15 Shortly after entering ministry he decided to exchange it for a business venture when he founded a newspaper, The Harvey Citizen. He also set up a successful real estate business and helped found another paper, The Soo Times. In 1901, Lake moved to Zion City,16 John Alexander Dowie's utopia,17 where he was in charge of the church's construction department (Lake 1994, 89, 269; Liardon 1999, 10; Reidt 1989, 14-16). In 1904 he bought a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade and handled a railroad magnate, Jim Hill's Western Canadian land (Reidt 1989, 14). Lake was also employed to form a trust of three large insurance companies and served as manager of the trust (Reidt 1989, 15). Although Lake was involved in part-time ministry he concluded that he was called to get into full-time ministry. Late in 1907 he disposed of his possessions and used the money to meet the need of others (Reidt 1989, 16; Copeland (1994, xix-xx).18

Morton (2012a, 102) describes Lake's alleged sacrifice to abandon a business career earning him a good income in order to enter the full-time ministry19 as a myth that he used in order to legitimate his ministry and create a religious aura that 'stirred up a sense of awe and wonder amongst credulous audiences'.20 Lake's claims about his business career and prosperity are false, argues Morton (2012a, 103), with evidence showing that he had only small contracts and did not even bid on public contracts nor advertise his contracting company in any newspapers. His real-estate activities did not include ownership of any large buildings but consisted of buying dilapidated properties that he fixed and sold for a profit. He also was not involved in any way in any newspaper that he claimed to have founded. And Lake did not supervise construction endeavours in Zion City, but was appointed as a repairman in the department (Morton 2014b, 18). To prove his points Morton utilises newspapers of the time as well as the church directories published regularly in Zion Banner from 1901 to 1906. Lake claimed to have moved to Chicago in 1904 where he quickly became a millionaire and purchased a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade. However, Morton is of the opinion that Lake remained in Zion City until 1907 although he quit his job as repairman in 1905 and worked as a salesman for a local real estate speculator in a nearby town, Waukegan, while also marketing fire and life insurance. A biographer of Lake, Burpeau (2004, 57), acknowledges that no evidence outside of Lake's own assertions has been found to verify that Lake was involved in business or industrial circles in Chicago. Instead of being a wealthy man, Lake was an insurance salesman, concludes Morton (2012a, 104).

Morton's use of available resources is limited to a few newspaper articles to prove that Lake exaggerated or lied about his business ventures. No primary research was done to find data from available banks and local authorities and Morton's conclusion is based on a lack of any mentioning of Lake in available newspapers. However, as will be ascertained at a later stage, Lake was prone to exaggerate and it might be the case that his involvement in certain business ventures might have been limited.21 However, to conclude that Lake's reference to a lucrative business career that he abandoned in obedience to God's voice is a myth, and that Lake used to legitimise his leadership role in the Pentecostal fray, is to read into a lack of data too much.

LAKE'S LIFE IN ZION CITY

Morton (2012a, 104) alleges that Lake who settled in Zion City in order to acquaint himself better with the doctrine and practice of divine healing, fled in 1907 from Zion City after his 'involvement in highly unsavoury affairs' and that he used his story of a direct communication and revelation from the Spirit to depart for Africa in order to justify his leaving of Zion City as a means to remove attention from the 'real facts'. What occurred, according to Morton, is that Lake became embroiled in the polarisation that occurred in Zion City after the death of Dowie, and the resulting split of his church into various factions. Charles Parham resided intermittently in Zion City in late 1906 and he used the opportunity to preach his Pentecostal message of speaking in tongues as initial evidence for being baptised in the Spirit (Friesen 2009, 45; Hudson 2008, 149). : Approximately 3500 Zionists joined his faction as a result of the revival services that he held in 1906, and they were baptised with the Spirit, with Lake and Hezmalhalch as prominent members (Parham 1930, 148-160, 171-177). 'From Zion came a host of almost 500 preachers who entered the ranks of the Pentecostal movement, chief of whom was John G. Lake' (Synan 1997, 138). Parham left Zion City and never returned when a water tower collapsed and destroyed his revival tent.22 His followers experienced opposition from Dowie's successor, W.G. Voliva. Tom Hezmalhalch, one of the leaders of the Pentecostal followers in Zion City, invited William Seymour to visit the city (Morton 2012a, 105). Parham's followers continued to support him financially and they stayed loyal to him, even in the face of opposition from the other inhabitants of Zion City. The Parhamites' services were characterised by an 'apparent descent into a collective frenzy of insanity, demon possession, and murder' (Morton 2012a, 106). Morton connects it to Parham's arrest in Texas for the alleged soliciting of sex from a teenager that confirmed rumours that had been circulating about Parham's pederastic tendencies. Morton does not provide any evidence of these charges against Parham, although he admits that Goff's (1988, 137-138, 224-225) research did not yield any proven facts about the charges.23 In this period nine Parhamites, seven women and two boys, were 'possessed by demons' (Morton 2012a, 106), an observation that Morton gets from a local newspaper that published over many years the most negative information about Zion City, Indianapolis News (22 September 1907, 3).24 Voliva called the Parhamites 'intoxicated', 'demon-inspired', 'a fanatical sect', 'an abomination' and a 'barbarian horde' (Zion Herald, 2 August 1907, 1). That the Parhamites became demon-possessed and insane was a charge laid by Voliva and utilised by Morton to prove that Lake became part of an unstable group.

The Parhamites ministered to what they perceived to be demon-possessed persons.25 At times they used physical force to expel the demon from the body, leading to the death of two persons, although Morton (2012a, 107) admits that Lake and Hezmalhalch were not involved. Because the undertaker was a Parhamite he did not register the deaths as unnatural. As evidence of these deaths Morton quotes from the Chicago Tribune of 24 May 1900, 3 June 1900, and 9 June 1900. However, these deaths should have occurred in Morton's chronology in 1907 when he claims that Lake and Hezmalhalch fled from Zion City due to possible prosecution resulting from these deaths, although it is clear that they were not involved with any of the cases. Morton also refers to the case of Letitia Greenhaulgh who died during an exorcism rite; although Lake was not involved with this case either. It was reported widely in the American press. Morton's contention that Lake did not leave Zion City in response to divine calling but to escape popular justice, is not reflected by the available facts but by a biased reading of the facts.

LAKE'S MISSIONARY TOUR TO SOUTHERN AFRICA

Again, Morton (2012a, 100) finds in the narratives describing the missionary party's coming to southern Africa 'fraud and misrepresentation' that were 'central to the early spread' of Pentecostalism and Zionism in South Africa. Morton does not make a proper distinction or differentiation between the origins of Zionism in South Africa, with Johannes Büchler as well as Daniel Bryant and other missionaries sent to the continent by Dowie in 1904 and Pieter L. Le Roux's contribution (Wessels 1992, 372-374), and the eventual establishment of a Zionist branch of the AFM from some of these black Zionist assemblies - and in time also the African Pentecostal churches (Burger 1987, 109-110).27

Eventually, Hezmalhalch and Lake would leave for South Africa with 17 members including three other missionaries.28 Their tour was financed by contributions from believers in the USA. However, Morton (2012a, 102) argues that Lake told fellow passengers and the wider Pentecostal community of his mission and that he desperately needed funds to complete it. He concludes that Lake defrauded the steamship company and even stole existing funds, but does not provide any evidence at all for the assertions. In this way he implies that the coming of the missionaries to South Africa was based on and driven by dishonesty and fraudulence, throwing their missionary endeavours as well the result of their work in a bad light.

Morton (2012a, 109) contends that Lake and Bryant had dealings even before Bryant decided to leave South Africa. Bryant was one of Dowie's missionaries to South Africa and he had developed the biggest foreign Zionist congregation in Doornfontein, Johannesburg as well as in other cities (Oosthuizen 1987, 14-18; Sundkler 1976, 34-41). Bryant contended for Zionist leadership when Dowie died and when he was succeeded by his hated rival Voliva, Bryant and his South African congregations left the Zionist church (Morton 2012a, 109). When Bryant returned to California, Lake and Hezmalhalch were invited to take the services at his church in Doornfontein, and when the AFM was founded, these three Zionist assemblies became the first AFM assemblies (Burger 1987, 173; 1997, 184).29 Lake and Bryant cooperated in several projects when they were both mid-level officials of Dowie's church, and Morton argues that they orchestrated a take-over of the Johannesburg assembly, although Lake never mentioned it and no other source refers to it (Burger 1987, 168). Morton's (2012a, 109) contention, 'Everything points to a carefully-orchestrated move to South Africa, rather than an impulsive, divinely-inspired one', does not hold water as it is based on abstractions without any facts to support it.

LAKE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Morton (2012a, 109) states that Lake (as well as the early leadership of the AFM) made himself guilty of fraudulent and lying behaviour in order to attract members to their church that would pay tithes.30 The ultimate goal of their missionary work was to generate money for private enrichment.31 To succeed in the goal it was necessary for Lake to create a 'fictitious religious persona' that he crafted for himself, and he utilised an array of deceptions. 'Even in the event that Lake was a fervent Pentecostal at heart, nevertheless conscious deception lay at the centre of the religious activities of which he took charge' (Morton 2012a, 100).32 Another supposition that Morton (2012a, 100, 102, 109) uses is that Lake learned from John Alexander Dowie's original Zionist church, in the decade prior to his South African mission, the roguery and knavery that would characterise his ministry.33 He refers specifically to the utilisation of false testimonies34 about miraculous faith healing cures,35 the claim of raising the dead by which the divine healer proposed to have demonstrated his spiritual power, and the technique of precognition, consisting of the assistance of another person that would predict the imminent arrival of strangers with unusual powers.

Lake's advertising promised that people attending the meetings will be baptised in the Spirit with signs following and that the sick will experience miraculous healings (cf. broadsheets reprinted in Liardon 1999, 43), creating an expectation of miracles.36 Morton (2012a, 110) allows for placebo cures from psychosomatic illnesses ('often-times spectacular') to have occurred.37

Nevertheless, the other 'signs and wonders' were staged (Morton 2012a, 110).38 The reason why Morton does not accept that real healings could have taken place, is his acceptance of a scientific worldview that does not allow for any supernatural phenomena to occur outside the accepted system of indictable cause and effect (cf. Ehrman and Licona 2009; Lataster 2013, 31).39 For this reason, Morton views it as a scam when Lake decorated the altar of his Johannesburg Tabernacle with crutches and therapeutic devices supposedly discarded by the formerly disabled40 or when he demonstrated healing by the crippled person walking on-stage, as was the claim of 'distant miracles' with people being cured as far away as England and Iowa.41 Lake also claimed that several resurrections took place. Maggie Truter, the stepdaughter of a former minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, R.H. van de Wall, who joined the AFM and later became its general secretary, was ill in July 1909. When she died Lake prayed for her and she was restored to life (diary of Lake, 6 December 1910).42 Later, Maggie's mother described the event without referring to Lake, leading Morton (2012a, 112) to conclude that Lake was not involved in the miracle healing. However, in her account she does not refer to any minister by name and the inference is that Lake may have been a part of the team ministering to the daughter.

Similar resurrections occurred during an expedition to the Waterberg region in May/June 1909 when Lake and Elias Letwaba visited the area (as reported in The Apostolic Faith, November/ December 1909, 11).43

Lastly, Morton claims that Lake utilised precognition, which proved particularly successful in rural areas.44 In one such case, the mother of the chief of a village dreamt that white men would visit the region at a certain date and time and that they should be received because they represent the Lord. The lady would announce what she perceived as a message of the Lord. When the missionaries arrived they would be met with great expectations and their message accepted (Blake 2005, 92-93). Morton's (2012a, 113) judgment is that these events were arranged by the missionaries and that it did not occur in fact, a supposition that is not supported by available facts.

When miracles take place, there is always the danger that expectations will reach such a pitch that human factors of ecstasy and mass suggestion may somehow enter the picture. The early AFM did experience its problems and reacted to it on the highest level (De Wet 1989, 77). Already on 22 January 1909 the Executive Council, the newly found church's highest controlling body, read a letter from a brother Schneiderman that states his reasons for having dissociated himself from the church. He points out that 'a great deal of very sad exaggerations in cases of healing had been made; that messages had been given not by God, etc., and that the Name of God was dishonoured thereby' (Burger and Nel 2008, 58). After a lengthy discussion the Council concluded that 'there was only too much truth in the letter', and resolved 'in future to use the utmost caution and to do all in our power with the help of God to eliminate from the work whatsoever was not of God; and to admit to the public that many mistakes had been made, even if such a confession cost humiliation' (Minutes of the Executive Council, 22 January 1909). It is true that the early AFM suffered from deficiencies and imperfections, although an attitude of honourableness and sincerity seems to be present (Burger and Nel 2008, 58).

The emphasis on divine healing as a part of the atonement led during the first decades to rejection of medical help in any form (Dayton 1987, 129). To trust in medicine or other help prescribed by doctors was even seen as a form of unbelief and sin, 'to lean on the arm of the flesh' (Burger 1987, 180; cf. Cartledge 2008, 128). Members of the church would often witness that they had not been to a doctor for many years. It is deeply tragic and not justifiable in any way that some people, including children, suffered and even died due to the lack of medical help. For instance, in 1917 a couple of the AFM Krugersdorp under the leadership of Eva Stuart was charged because they had refused medical help for their child who was under age. The child died and the state claimed that the child could have been saved if the parents had allowed hospitalisation and medical care. The Botha couple was found guilty on the charge of culpable homicide and wilful neglect of the child and was given a fine. On 14 December 1917 the Executive Council of the AFM appealed but lost its case (Nel 1996, 249).45 At the General Council in 1918, where representatives of all assemblies met annually, the church called on all its members to sign a petition addressed to the government asking for an amendment in the Children's Protection Act (1913) which would make provision for 'granting exemption from use of medicines, etc. to those who belong to a recognised religious body against whose faith it is to use medicines' (Nel 1996, 249). Members were at the same time requested to donate toward meeting the costs of a 105 pounds of the Appeal Court case. The reason for the rejection of medical help is formulated in a remark in the Minutes of the Workers' Conference of 2 April 1931:

It was pointed out that Divine Healing excludes the use of medicine and that we should take a strong stand against those who made a habit of the practice... Several testified to the power of God in healing their bodies because they put their entire trust in Him (Nel 1996, 250).46

ACCUSATIONS OF CO-WORKERS AGAINST LAKE

Morton (2012a, 114) refers to complaints about and accusations against Lake from South African co-workers that 'led to the secession of many white Pentecostals from the AFM'. However, the many secessions reported are not documented by Morton except for a reference to Burpeau (2004, 120-124). It is true that there were some accusations but these did not lead to secessions of groups leaving the AFM. The first accusation that Morton discusses is the 'propaganda' that Lake published in America witnessing about incredible events that were occurring in South Africa with 'desperate pleas for money'. When other missionaries from America arrived they found that Lake's Pentecostal campaign was based on false reports and they sent 'very disquieting reports' back to America and Europe about Lake. Morton (2012a, 114) acknowledges that none of these reports or letters were published and none of them are extant. No record of these missionaries or their disappointment with the 'Pentecostal campaign' in South Africa exists in records kept by the AFM in their books of minutes of meetings or their monthly magazine, leading to the conclusion that the assertion is a result of Morton's prejudice against the Pentecostal revival that originated in the work of the missionary company of which Lake was a member.

Another accusation was that Lake misappropriated funds that belonged to the AFM donated by Pentecostals in the USA and elsewhere. Only Lake and his party had access to cash, according to Morton (2012a, 114). However, the minutes of the meetings in the early AFM indicate that the church elected a treasurer and secretary at its earliest meetings and that individuals did not have access to money without the knowledge of the rest of the executive (Burger and Nel 2008, 44). It is true that the workers in assemblies earned little; however, it is also true that Lake, Hezmalhalch and the other American missionaries earned very little (Burger 1987, 181). Morton (2012a, 115) refers to 'Lake's penchant for deceit' that led him to install his brother-in-law as AFM treasurer, a remark that betrays the historian's prejudiced evaluation of Lake's character without providing the necessary evidence for such a sweeping statement47; '...there are grounds for believing that Lake and his party made use of the vast majority of available funding for their own benefit' (Morton 2012a, 115), another remark that is not documented in terms of any resources.48 Morton (2013b, 15) admits that the AFM executive and the Executive Council exonerated Lake of these charges, but argues that Lake 'controlled' the executive. However, Lake was not even the chairperson; Hezmalhalch served as president and chairperson and Lake was elected to serve as vice-president (Burger and Nel 2008, 35). Morton (2013b, 15) also states that a large portion of the white membership seceded from the AFM when the church did not act against Lake, which is factually not true (Burger 1987, 204). 'There are very good grounds for believing that the charges laid against him were true', a statement that Morton (2013b, 15) documents by referring to his discussion in Morton (2012a, 114-15) where he also does not refer to any resources or provide any documentation. A last statement that Morton (2013b, 15) makes is that Lake was arrested following his return to the United States and sued for using his 'undue influence' to sell worthless securities to members of his congregation, and again the historian does not provide any evidence of such a court case and its outcome.

Other accusations stated by Morton (2012a, 115) are that Lake acted dictatorially in the same tradition as Dowie ('a second Dowie'),49 that he exaggerated the scope and nature of his Pentecostal campaign (as stated above), and that Lake was a 'con man', 'an untrue man', who used occult powers in his activities. These last accusations were made by George Bowie and are quoted in the Rand Daily Mail of 18 November 1910 and 24 November 1910. However, the newspaper reported about the quibble between Bowie and Lake, and presented Bowie's opinion that is accepted by Morton as facts in order to discredit Lake.50

Morton (2012a, 115) also refers to Lake's 'close friendships with spiritualist con men' and his alleged communication with his dead wife via séance that 'created rumblings in AFM circles'. Instead of cultivating friendship with spiritualists and hypnotists, Lake at several instances confronted them in public and humiliated their supposed powers (Lindsay, 1972, 28). Morton also does not provide any documentation for the 'rumblings in AFM circles' and no such documentation exists.

After his wife's death several accusations against Lake were made of conducting adulterous relationships with women in his congregation (Burger and Nel 2008, 42). Morton (2012a, 115) is correct in stating that the leadership of the AFM investigated these rumours and accusations against Lake. The results of the investigations were noted in minutes of the AFM and Lake was exonerated on all counts (Burger and Nel 2008, 48).

Morton's (2012a, 115) contention is that as a result of these accusations Lake lost significant support when many Pentecostal newspapers refused to print witnesses about healings from his office, and many white members of the AFM left to join other Pentecostal churches.51 This also led to Lake forcing Hezmalhalch and Lehman to leave the AFM. None of these remarks are documented by Morton in any way, an unacceptable practice of making conclusions without any proof.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Lake's labours led to the establishment in South Africa of the Pentecostal movement, and specifically of the AFM of SA with 1.4 million members in South Africa and currently established in 29 countries of the world52 as well as African Pentecostal Churches, with somewhere between a third and a half of all southern African Christians now being members of these churches (Morton 2013a, 1).53 Morton (2012a, 115-116) claims that his analysis of historical sources demonstrates that Lake was a religious fraud, and that much of his sources had purposefully not been used by sympathetic religious historians to Lake's case before. As was shown, Morton utilises sources from newspapers that were critical about Dowie and newspaper reports about the opinion of Bowie when he left Lake. In most instances statements are not substantiated by any historical references. In this way the historian discredits Lake as well as the churches that flow from his work, as demonstrated by the way Morton (2012a, 116) ends his article, with a reference from the atheist journalist Christopher Hitchens (2009, 165) that such a story about the founder of a religious movement demonstrates what happens when a plain racket turns into a serious religion before our eyes.

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Morton, B. 2013a. Turning Zionists into workers: An exploration of the economic strategies of the major Zionist churches during the second evangelization. Paper presented at the 24th biennial conference of the Southern African Historical Society, University of Botswana, Gaborone, 27-29 June 2013, 1-14. https://www.academia.edu/6779054/Turning_Zionists_into_Workers An_Exploration_of_the_Economic_ Strategies_of_the_Major_Zionist_Churches_during_the_Second_Evangelization (accessed on 23 May 2015). [ Links ]

Morton, B. 2013b. The big con: John Alexander Dowie and the spread of Zionist Christianity in Southern Africa Paper. Paper presented at the University of Leiden, African Studies Center, 20 June 2013, 1-17. https://www.academia.edu/6779053/The_Big_Con_John_Alexander_Dowie_and_the Spread of_Zionist_Christianity in_ Southern _Africa (accessed on 23 May 2015). [ Links ]

Morton, B. 2014a. The rebellion from below and the origins of early Zionist Christianity. African Historical Review 46(20): 25-47. DOI: 10.1080/17532523.2014.943924, 25-47.

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(accessed on 23 May 2015). [ Links ]

Morton, B. 2014b. John G Lake's formative years, 1870-1908:

The making of a con man, 1-34.

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Morton, B. 2015. John Alexander Dowie and the invention of modern faith healing, 188289. Paper presented at Muckleneuk Campus, Unisa, 11 June 2015, 1-17.

https://www.academia.edu/12444505/John_Alexander_Dowie_and_the_Invention _of_Modern_Faith_Healing_1882-89 (accessed on 23 May 2015). [ Links ]

Murray, C. 1999. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: Resistance and abuse in the life of Solomon Lion. Journal of Religion in South Africa 29(3): 341-386. [ Links ]

Nel, M. 1996. Eva Stuart: Woman pioneer in the Pentecostal movement. In Digging up our foremothers: Stories of women in Africa. Edited by C. Landman, 243-257. Pretoria: Unisa Press. [ Links ]

Nel, M. 2005. P.L. le Roux, Dutch Reformed missionary, Zionist preacher and leader of the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa, and the origin of some of the African Independent Churches in Southern Africa. Part 1. Ned Geref Teologiese Tydskrif46(1-2): 200-208. [ Links ]

Nel, M. 2006. Vergelyking tussen die genesingsteologie van John G Lake en Hannes Jonker. Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 32(1): 263-284. [ Links ]

Nel, M. 2014. Implikasies van ontwikkelings in die leerstelling van goddelike genesing binne die Pinksterbeweging. In die Skriflig 48(1), Art. #1792, 9 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ids.v48i1.1792 . [ Links ]

Oosthuizen, C.G, 1987. The birth of Christian Zionism in South Africa. Kwa-Dlangezwa: University of Zululand. [ Links ]

Parham, S. 1930. The life of Charles F. Parham: Founder of the Apostolic Faith Movement. Baxter Springs: Apostolic Faith Bible College. [ Links ]

Pate, L.D. 1991. Pentecostal missions from the two-thirds world. In Called and empowered: Global mission in Pentecostal perspective. Edited by M.A. Dempster, B.D. Klaus and D. Petersen, 242-248. Peabody: Hendrickson. [Links]

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1. 'The Pentecostal movement is by far the largest and most important religious movement to originate...This explosive growth has forced the Christian world to pay increasing attention to the entire movement and to attempt to discover the root cause of this growth' (Synan 2006, 1). Pate (1991, 243) estimated that the Majority World mission movement was growing at five times the rate of Western missions, resulting in half of the world's Christians living in developing, poor countries.

2. There are approximately 2.18 billion Christians in the world, but Christianity in the West experiences a demise, with Europe's population being 66.3% Christian in 1910 and 25.9% in 2013. In South Africa, the Dutch Reformed Church reported membership losses of over 20 000 people in just one year (2012) (Joubert 2013, 114). Christianity grew in sub-Saharan Africa from 9% in 1910 to 63% in 2010 (Joubert 2013, 114-115).

3. Cp. Cox 1995, 20, 23-25, 34-42.

4. Seymour was a Holiness preacher before he attended Parham's Bible School in Houston, Texas in 1905 (Hammonds 2009, 6).

5. 'Such radicality and revolutionary nature of the revival both repulsed and fascinated its critics, both secular and Christian' (Tan-Chow 2007, 45).

6. 'The services (at Azusa Street) centered on baptism of the Holy Spirit and did not involve prayer, singing or sermons in the usual sense' (Hammonds 2009, 7). After 1909 the church went into decline and by 1914 the membership was almost entirely black (Synan 1971, 116).

7. Lake was born at St. Mary's, Ontario Canada, on 18 March 1870 (Susanto and Theron 2008, 173). He died in Spokane on 16 September 1935 (Synan 1997, 138).

8. Lake (1981, 19) met Seymour for the first time in 1907, and then commented that Seymour had 'more of God in his life than any man I had ever met'.

9. Hezmalhalch (1847-1934) was born in England and was 60 years of age when he arrived in South Africa.

10. Lehman had visited South Africa before, as a missionary to the Zulus for five years (Synan 2006, 6). Lehman founded the Pentecostal Holiness Church in South Africa in 1913.

11. Lake viewed himself as being an emissary of Seymour's Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission, which placed less stress on divine healing and more on the Holy Spirit. Generally speaking, Lake's African followers were more sympathetic to his Zionist ethos, and his white followers to his Pentecostalism (Morton 2013b, 13).

12. However, Morton's bibliographies in his articles betray that he is not knowledgeable about the many works reflecting research into the origins and development of the Pentecostal and Zionist traditions in southern Africa. Scholars like A.H. Anderson (1991, 1992, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2007), Asamoah-Gyadu (2002, 2013a, 2013b), Berglund (1976), Burger (1987, 1997), Burger and Nel (2008), Comaroff (1985), Daneel (1971), De Wet (1989), Liardon (1996, 1999), Lindsay (1972), Oosthuizen (1987), Reidt (1989), Sundkler (1976), and Synan (1971, 1997, 2001, 2006) should be mentioned. Lindsay worked with John G. Lake's evangelistic campaigns and, during 1948, with William Branham (Bundy 1990, 341).

13. Morton (2014b, 1) warns that his work about Lake is 'not a labor of love;' rather, it is a 'much-needed corrective to a host of misleading writings that many other faith healing con men have invoked in order to increase the charismatic nature of their healing ceremonies.' Morton (2014b, 4) finds in Lake's own writings and sermons 'rarely any honesty', a remark that he does not motivate in any way.

14. Lake (among others) 'prioritized seeking for spectacular displays of celestial powers - signs and wonders, healing, and deliverance from sinful habits and satanic bondage' (McGee 1997, 329). The numerous healings were viewed as confirmation that God's Word was true, his power was evidently on the missionary efforts, and the result was that many were persuaded to become Christians (Anderson, A.H. 2003, 6). At the turn of the previous century, most mainline or traditional churches in South Africa did not minister healing (Susanto and Theron 2008, 170). Specifically within the Reformed tradition the ministry of healing was not expected, and even denied. The development of divine healing became one of the hallmarks of early Pentecostalism (Hollenweger 1997, 18-19), becoming an attractive drawcard that drew new adherents, serving to appeal to people across cultural boundaries (Botha 2007, 311). While Western Pentecostalism probably does not grant healing such a prominent role as in earlier times, in the Majority World the existence of disease and evil affects most people and requires real action from the church as well (Anderson, A.H. 2003, 6). For a discussion of the importance of healing, healing movements and ministers of healing in Pentecostal circles, cf. Burgess and McGee (1988, 350-374).

15. Morton (2012b, 82) makes the assertion that the Methodist seminary that Reidt referred to had never in fact existed, without providing any proof. Fact of the matter is that Lake (or Reidt) never mentioned the name of the seminary, illustrating Morton's biased interpretation of Lake. Morton (2014b, 5) is also convinced that Lake was, 'to put it simply', not an ordained minister, 'although he wished to appear as one from his early 20s onwards.' No proof of the assertion is provided by the historian.

16. In 1886, at the age of 16, Lake saw how somebody close to him, probably his 22-year old brother, was healed, leading Lake to trust God for healing him from his own chronic constipation, and the resultant resolution not to make use of any medicine (Lake 1968, 5). Morton (2014b, 4) opines that Lake's chronic constipation 'was almost certainly an invention', without providing any documentation for his opinion. By 1896, Lake's wife was diagnosed with consumption, and subsequently became paralysed. : On 28 April 1898, Lake with the support of friends from Dowie's church, offered up prayers for the healing of his wife from tuberculosis (Synan 2006, 6). Cf. Morton (2014b, 15-17) for a negative critical discussion of her healing. Lake became convinced of God's healing powers and moved in 1901 to Zion City in order to study divine healing (Susanto and Theron 2008, 174). He served as an elder in the Zion Catholic Apostolic Church until 1904 (Morton 2014b, 18 asserts that he never rose to a prominent position in the Zionist church but remained a deacon until Dowie's demise in 1905). Morton (2013a, 1) calls Dowie's Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion 'essentially a criminal organization', based on what he describes as the economic strategies of the major Zionist churches. Morton (2013b, 9) concedes that Dowie's revenue came from a 'legitimate source', tithing. The economic strategy after Dowie's death went through two distinct phases, with at the beginning a small, core following and using their contributions to obtain agricultural land and creating a self-sufficient agrarianism, followed from the 1950s by a pragmatic period with large-scale membership increases and the utilisation of capitalist practices by promoting business formation among their members and forming their largely unskilled members into a kind of 'labor aristocracy' (Morton, 2013a, 12). These practices allowed the Zionist leaders like J.G. Shembe, Solomon Lion, Christina Nku, Edward Lekganyane, and Daniel Nkonyane to drive large fleets of chauffeured automobiles, go to universities, travel around the world, and dress themselves and their entourage in expensive attire. They live in large and prestigious residences, have considerable agricultural and business holdings, which they manage with the help of white lawyers (Morton 2013a, 8-9).

Because their church funding is Mobutuist in nature, bitter disputes tend to be fought over succession by the leaders' children (Morton 2013a, 9). Morton's allegations about the Zionist church deserve to be investigated further.

17. Dowie opened his new utopian community at Zion, north of Chicago, in 1901. Dowie owned the city and leased out residences to his congregation. Lake purchased a lease in May 1901 (Morton 2014b, 18).

18. In her biography of Lake, Copeland obviously relies heavily on Reidt for her facts.

19. Lake grounded his decision to abandon his business ventures in order to give all his attention to the ministry in the examples of George Muller and Hudson Taylor (Tannenberg 1999, 12). Lake interpreted the rediscovery of the charismata or pneumatikoi as the restoration to the Church of the absolutely vital component that characterised the early Church and that would provide the missionary thrust that would result in an unprecedented 'harvest of souls' before the parousia (Allen 2007, 119; Land 1993, 6).

Pentecostals share a restorationist primitivist drive (Klaus 2006, 2). Lake's mission was biblical, passionate, in the power of the Spirit, Christo-centric, and urgent, according to Klaus (2006, 3-4).

20. Morton (2012b, 73) argues that although Isaiah Shembe credited only one man for his religious development, William Leshega who had Shembe ordained as a preacher in the African Native Baptist Church, Shembe was directly impacted by Zionist ideas and individuals. The narratives of Shembe's early life and calling, as recorded in the 'Book of the Birth of Isaiah Shembe' and other documents, are shaped along the same lines as Lake's (Morton 2012b, 79, 88) and created Moseslike legends (Morton 2013a, 1). It is from Lake that Shembe also learned how to orchestrate religious fraud while they worked together in the Free State in 1910. 'Lake and his coterie at the helm of the AFM were all consummate con men who relied to some extent on assistants and placemen to aid them in conducting fraudulent faith healings and other cons' (Morton 2012b, 79). To prove his point that Lake placed assistants within the audience to provide him with information and to facilitate false healings, Morton refers to the assertions he made in another article (Morton 2012a, 109-114), where he also does not use any form of documentation. These conclusions are based on a methodology that is dubious and unacceptable.

21. Lake was not the only one prone to exaggerate. Anderson, R.M. (1979, 94) provides an example of such exaggerations in early Pentecostal editors' refusal to print reports about purported divine healings without substantive proof; usually the testimony of some Pentecostal whose word the editor in question was willing to accept. Donald Gee was involved in the Pentecostal movement for 40 years and remarked that the small number of definite miracles of healing compared to the great numbers who were prayed for, made him sad (Gee 1928, 13).

22. Voliva refused Dowie permission to use any of the worship facilities in Zion (Morton 2014b, 23).

23. Synan (1971, 99-100, n. 12) notes that while most Pentecostal writers acknowledge that Parham was partly responsible for formulating early Pentecostal doctrine, none of them accepted him as the 'father' of the movement; questions about his later personal ethics led to his place in Pentecostal history to be de-emphasised.

24. Another source that Morton uses is the Zion Herald, a newspaper published by the Voliva faction that opposed the Parhamites in the leadership struggle that characterised the period after the demise of Dowie and providing negative publicity about the Parham faction.

25. Cf. Thomas 2010, 296-299 for a discussion of the Pentecostals' perception of demons as a source of infirmity.

26. Lake's missionary group was not the first to bring the Pentecostal message to South Africa. According to McGee (2007, 1), the earliest-known Pentecostal missionaries came to South Africa in 1904. Mary Johnson, Augusta Johnson and Ida Anderson left America for Africa in October 1904 and worked in Pondo Land (Thompson 1937, 8).

27. Anderson (2012a, 30) explains that there are clear affinities and common historical and theological origins shared by African and classic Pentecostals, but the passing of time and the proliferation of African Initiated Churches (AICs) have accentuated the differences. In spite of their historical connection to classical Pentecostalism, these churches differ in many respects from classical Pentecostal churches, for instance, in the use of healing symbolism, forms of government and hierarchical structures of leadership, the wearing of distinctive uniforms, and different approaches to African religions and culture (Anderson 2012a, 30-31). Cox (1995, 246) emphasises the importance of 'African expressions of the worldwide Pentecostal movement' (cf. Asamoah-Gyadu 2013b, 144)

28. McGee (2012, 36-37) refers to the diligence of these early Pentecostal missionaries and the challenges that they faced.

29 Comaroff (1985, 11) calls the ministry of Lake's evangelical team the 'second evangelization' to emphasise the link between Dowie's missionary enterprises in South Africa and Lake's continuation (De Wet,1989, 34)

30. Fact is that Lake served as a champion of the poor and possessed, argues Anderson, A.H. (2003, 3), and the AFM grew exponentially amongst the dispossessed African and poor white Afrikaner victims of the defeat of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) (De Wet 1989, 39)

31. The implication is that Lake and his missionary community were not interested in spreading the gospel, or witnessing to their experience of the baptism with the Spirit, but that their only interest was in personal enrichment. However, early Pentecostals viewed the baptism with the Spirit as empowerment for witness, and when all have heard then the end would come (Lewis 2001, 2). : When the minutes of early meetings of the AFM are studied, it becomes clear that the early AFM represented poor people and that the church handled small amounts of money, leading to small remuneration of employees, including its leadership (Burger and Nel 2008, 60-61). In the same way, Morton (2012b, 91) states that 'obtaining money was Shembe's primary motivation', an allegation that is based on a psychological analysis of the person without providing any proof or evidence, and that links Shembe and Lake in the sense that Shembe used Lake as a model for his own ministry. 'The history of Shembe and his dynastic successors offer grounds for believing him to be an opportunist who created the Nazarite Church primarily for his own and his family's interest.'

The wholesale generalisation about the history of the church is not discussed in terms of documenting any evidence that proves that the Shembe family was enriched unfairly.

32. Morton (2012a, 100), however, admits that it is impossible to tell whether Lake himself believed in the religious messages that he propagated.

33. 'He [Lake] also made use of the full panoply of Dowieite tricks, ranging through all variations of the "fake cripple", the "distant miracle", the "supernatural showdown", and healing those afflicted by cancer through "tumor extraction"' (Morton 2013b, 14). Morton (2015, 13-16) lists 'categories of deception in public healing ceremonies': false testimony, fake cripple, epileptic eruption, distant cure, tumour extraction, and supernatural showdowns. In the same way, Lake taught his South African followers such as Edward Lion, E.H. Mahon, Engenas Lekganyane, and Isaiah Sheme how to become adept at staging 'miracles' (Morton 2012b, 85; 2014a, 44). These lessons included that one should pray for healing at the start of the service, in order that the signs and wonders would catch the attention of the crowd and increase their vulnerability to placebo cures. A 'fake cripple' or paralysed in a wheelchair, the dumb, deaf, or blind are then prayed for, healed, and then able to demonstrate to the crowd their new ability to run around, speak, hear, or see. Or a 'devil-possessed' person would be brought in chains or in some similarly dramatic condition, the devils would be cast out, and sanity restored to the afflicted. A third method is the so-called 'distant miracle', where the preacher persuaded the crowd that their prayers would lead to a miracle somewhere else, as when Lake claimed that his prayers led to the Queen of the Netherlands to become pregnant (Lindsay 1972, 245-246). A final example is prayer for the dead, with Lake claiming to have experienced five dead people being restored to life during his stay in South Africa (Blake 2005, 160-161). It is clear that Morton does not allow for any of these 'healings' to have occurred at all.

34. 'Many of these (miracles) can be proved to be complete fabrications' (Morton 2013b, 14). He gives two examples of such 'fabrications': that Lake was involved in Maggie Truter's resurrection (discussed elsewhere in the article), and the successes of Lake's evangelical expedition to the Limpopo region in 1909 with Elias Letwaba. However, Letwaba testified to these miracles (Chandomba 2007, 21). Morton (2014b, 12) asserts that Lake's function in Dowie's healing services was to organise false testimonials about healings and to act as an audience plant (such as by impersonating a minister) for Dowie. For this reason, 'there can be no doubt that the majority of the Lake family ended up by providing false healing testimonies for him [Lake] later on' (Morton 2014b, 12). Again, Morton does not document any of his assertions, indicating his lack of a valid historical method.

35. It should be noted that Dowie as well as Lake, had specific reasons not to refer to 'faith healing' but to 'divine healing' in order to emphasise that healing is not dependent on the minister or sick person's faith, but is a divine prerogative (Nel 2006, 266).

Morton (2012b, 89) states with conviction that Shembe also used false testimonies to impress crowds; without providing any evidence of such false testimonies or how they were preserved.

Morton's prejudiced sceptical view of miraculous healing disqualifies him to allow for any such miracles to occur; unfortunately he does not think it necessary to document his allegations.

36. Susanto and Theron (2008, 175) show how it was divine love for the suffering that worked through Lake and made his ministry effective because it allowed him to identify with the afflicted and to feel in a physical manner the same pain as the sufferers did. His faith led to a compassionate love toward the sick and faith that they could be helped (Susanto and Theron 2008, 179).

37. 'Using their prophetic mystique to best advantage, they (faith healers) used the placebo effect to heal credulous devotees afflicted with psychosomatic illnesses and then turned them into their first followers' (Morton 2013a, 1). It is true that first converts joined the movement due to divine healing and various miracles (Anderson, A.H. 1992, 43; Daneel 1970, 16; Vilikazi, Mthethwa and Mpanza 1986, 45). 'Faith healing can cure psychosomatic diseases such as depression and anxiety, given the right circumstances that faith healers train themselves to create' (Morton 2014b, 2). The danger for the cured is that they will be exploited by the faith healer and his cult. Morton (2014b, 2) motivates his research in Lake by stating his desire to convince, if only even a single person, to avoid seeking out a faith healing cure.

38. According to Morton (2012b, 83-85), faith healers have to master two different skills in order to be successful. Firstly they must be able to create an atmosphere in which people would be gullible enough to accept placebo cures. A large percentage of illness is psychosomatic, and faith healers could cause instant cures to these diseases if they know how to utilise people's credulity. The correct setting consists of a large, expectant, emotional crowd free of sceptics. The atmosphere is created by invented testimonies about the way the faith healers were called. Secondly, the faith healer must look out for individuals susceptible to a placebo cure.

It is crucial that the candidate does not know the faith healer, except by reputation. It is a fact that faith healers lose their ability to cure when people know them for any period of time. Morton's psychological analysis of the healing event is informed by his presupposition that no divine healings can occur, against the background of a scientific worldview that does not allow for any events to occur that cannot be explained according to cause and effect. He (Morton 2014b, 1-2) refers to centuries of scientific studies that faith healing and prayer cannot cure any organic disease or condition; still, he complains, many people keep on seeking out quacks for treatment.

39. Morton (2012a) refers to Lake in the title of his paper as 'The devil who heals', a remark that Lake himself made during his stay in South Africa. At one stage, Lake in Liardon (2005, 173) defended himself against accusations that healings which occurred during his meetings were not divine. Some people asserted that he was possessed of a devil and that people got saved and healed through diabolical powers: 'They now openly say it is the devil who heals.' It seems as though Morton would ascribe Lake's healing powers to evil forces. Jesus was accused in the same manner (Matt 12:24; Luk 11:15).

40. Dowie (Morton 2013b, 6) as well as Shembe placed used and discarded crutches all over the altar of their churches as Lake did.

In the same way Shembe regularly used the once-crippled teenager Peter Mnqayi, whose ability to walk was 'allegedly' restored after Shembe's prayers (Hexham and Oosthuizen 1994, 41). Morton (2012b, 87) describes the 'primary effect' to be to make credulous audiences believe that the healer can render the crippled back to a state of physical prowess.

41. During 1911 there were 2 032 cases of confirmed healings in the AFM, as published in the church magazine, Comforter (February 1912, 5). The church required proof of healing from the leader of the local assembly. The official church magazine published, right from its inception, a number of testimonies by people who were healed (Burger and Nel 2008, 56), a practice that was continued for many years. Botha (2007, 309) argues that Pentecostals' innovative use of media from its earliest days is one of the reasons for its success (see also Kalu 2008, 139).

42. Morton (2012a, 112) judges that Lake's '"diary" appears to have existed in part for him to invent various miracles and events that he could use in sermons and publications'. While it is true that Lake referred in later publications and sermons to the events that occurred in South Africa, Morton's judgment of Lake's diary entries as 'inventions' is a value judgment that does not do justice to the task of the historian and demonstrates the unwillingness of the historian to accept the validity of any miracles.

43. This is not the place to argue the historical validity of the so-called miracles that presumably took place in Lake's ministry.

At most, the sources can be quoted that described these events while it must be remembered that they were written by believers who expected 'supernatural interventions' and in that sense were prejudiced towards the value of people's witnesses to healing and Lake's supposed ministry of healing.

44. Cf. Alvarsson's (2007, 184-187) critical discussion of divination among Pentecostals and their questioning of it as magic, when it is not entirely from a biblical or quasi-biblical context.

45. Several other similar cases were heard in courts, as late as 1932 when parents in Port Elizabeth were also fined (Nel 1996, 249).

46. Lake also emphasised the need to live a healthy life. For instance, he forbade his followers the use of tobacco and alcohol, and also the eating of pork. It is also important to follow the guidelines provided in the Bible for healthy living (Nel 2014, 4). Dowie had already emphasised these taboos, and modern-day Zionists follow the same injunctions (Morton 2013b, 5-6).

47. The treasurer of the first Executive Council was H.M. Turney, about whom very little is known. He resigned, however, after six months and on 25 February 1910 Peter Moffat, John G. Lake's brother-in-law, was elected as new treasurer (Minutes of the Executive Council, 25 February 1909). From the minutes it is clear that the bookkeeping was transparent.

48. The donations for Lake's work came mostly from the Upper Room Mission in Los Angeles, led by George B. Studd. After giving due consideration to letters and reports about possible misuse of funds, the Upper Room Mission who supported Lake's work in South Africa made the following statement about the money sent (inter alia $2,200 sent over from April to November 1910) to Lake: 'We sent it to Brother Lake with no conditions attached (except that it was not to be used for buying land, for building, or for secular education), because we had every confidence in his integrity and his ability to administer the money wisely and well for the work there. We have even greater confidence in him today, and if we had 1,000 dollars in our hands now, we would be very glad to send it to him. We have received a report of how the monies have been expended from the treasurer of the Apostolic Faith Mission in Johannesburg, Mr Peter Moffat, and we were perfectly satisfied that the funds have been well and carefully spent' (Minutes of the Committee, The Upper Room, November 1910, 2). Before this decision, Lake wrote to the Upper Room Mission explaining the AFM's modus operandi with regard to contributions received: 'We have a strong council of competent men over our work - men who can deal with any situation. The council appointed a treasurer to take charge of the monies connected with the local work. Offerings sent to me personally from overseas, or in my care, are administered by me, after advising with the brethren at hand, especially Brother Van de Wall. : The treasurer's books include both the monies received locally for the support of the general work here, and they are open to inspection at any time' (Minutes of the Committee, The Upper Room, November 1910, 2).

49. Cf. Garrard's (2009, 90-91) accurate assessment of the dangers of leadership in the Pentecostal community where leadership, is built on perceptions of anointing, leading to difficulties in the building of trust between the leaders and congregations. Johns (2007, 131-136) discusses the effects of dictatorial leadership on Pentecostal congregations.

50. George Bowie was born in 1860 in Scotland and experienced the baptism of the Spirit in 1907. He joined the Bethel Pentecostal Assembly and they sent him to South Africa where he arrived in April 1910. He called his missionary endeavour the Pentecostal Mission ('Pinkster Zending' in Afrikaans) (Du Plessis 1984, 84).

Eleazar Jenkins, a missionary from Wales, joined the church, as well as Archibald Cooper who left the AFM when he was not elected on the first Executive Council in May 1909. George Bowie did not have any relations with the AFM as such and his work was not the product of any schism from the AFM. Bowie became involved with the discord between Lake and Hezmalhalch (Burger 1987, 202-204). The causative factors of the discord are to be found in the personality differences and different approaches to the ministry between Lake and Hezmalhalch. Lake, although so much younger than Hezmalhalch, was the more prominent, the stronger leader with his dynamic personality and sensational ministry. If it had been Lake who was elected as first president of the AFM in 1909, the problems could possibly have been avoided. What needs to be considered was that the younger Lake with his individualism, his greater dynamism and aspirations, came too strongly to the foreground, attracted too much prominence and perhaps he took the initiative once too often. It would be only human for the older man to feel uncertain of himself under these circumstances, and even threatened. Against this background it then happened that certain people came to the fore with various rumours and complaints against Lake. These complaints and allegations were not started by Hezmalhalch, but he was influenced by them and he sided with the instigators of this campaign against Lake. All available evidence indicates that the allegations were false and that the inciters were simply malicious, as argued above. The persons who started the rumours were not AFM members. Prominent among them were George Bowie, Archibald Cooper and W.P Gillis (sometimes spelled 'Gillies') (Burger and Nel 2008, 43). No members of the AFM left to join the Pentecostal Mission except Cooper who started his own work for 18 months before he joined the Pentecostal Mission. Bowie's remarks about Lake came about when he involved himself with the disagreement between Lake and Hezmalhalch. Hezmalhalch did not join Bowie's church but returned to the USA. The name of the Pentecostal Mission was eventually changed to the Full Gospel Church in 1921 (Du Plessis 1984, 84).

51. After his return to the United States in 1912, Lake's ministry led to the formation of healing homes in Spokane, Washington and Portland, Oregon before he died in 1935 (Synan 2006, 6).

52. http://www.afm-ags.org/ (accessed on 6 June 2015).

53. The Zion Christian Church (ZCC) claimed by 1993 to have six million members, making it South Africa's largest Christian denomination (Synan 1997, 138). The church consists of the main ZCC star church and the splinter group Saint Engenas ZCC (Lukhaimane 1980, 1). In its annual Easter conference at Zion near Polokwane, the church gathers upwards of two million worshippers, the largest annual gathering of Christians on earth (Synan 2006, 6). Other churches include the St. John's Apostolic Faith Healing Church, the Masowe Apostles, and the Nazarites, all vibrant multinational enterprises known for their 'exuberant forms of sacred dress', 'massive annual gatherings', and 'noise-polluting all-night worship services' (Morton 2013b, 1).

The Church History Society of Southern Africa: Research Institute for

Theology and Religion, University of

South Africa,: P O Box 392, Pretoria, Gauteng, ZA, 0003,: Tel: +27 12 429 4309

A few more brief bios from neutral and religiously oriented sites:

THE PORTLAND VISION

https://revivalinportlandoregon.org/john-g-lake-prophecy/

In May, 1920, John G. Lake moved to Portland, Oregon to start and oversee another Apostolic Church. During this time he had the following vision:

Church at Portland: “To my amazement, on approaching the building, high in the atmosphere a half a mile or more, I discerned millions of demons, organized as a modern army. There were those who apparently acted as shock troops. They would charge with great ferocity, followed by a wave, and yet another wave, and yet another wave. After a little while I observed there operated a restraining influence that constituted a barrier through which they could not force themselves. With all the ingenuity of humans at war, this multitude of demons seemed to endeavor to break the barrier or to go further, but were utterly restrained. In amazement, I said to the angel, “What does it mean?” He said to me, “Such is the care of God for those that strive in unselfishness for His best.”

I discerned the heart of the angel was overburdened. In answer to this the angel said, “Human selfishness and human pride have consumed and dissipated the very glory and heavenly power that God once gave from heaven to this movement as you have beheld tonight.”

We were now at the foot of the pathway again. He took a step or two away, and in a sort of despair my heart cried out, “Angel, these are struggling for want of an ideal. What constitutes real Pentecost? What ideal should be held before the minds of men as the will of God exhibited through a movement like this?”

During all this time I had carried my Bible in my hand. Reaching for the Bible, he opened to the Book of Acts, ran his finger down over the second page, that portion where the Spirit of God came down from Heaven. Proceeding through the Book of Acts to its great outstanding revelations and phenomena, he said, “This is Pentecost as God gave it through the heart of Jesus. Strive for this. Contend for this. Teach the people to pray for this. For this, and this alone, will meet the necessity of the human heart, and this alone will have the power to overcome the forces of darkness.” When the angel was departing he said, “Pray. Pray. Pray.

Teach the people to pray. Prayer and prayer alone, much prayer, persistent prayer, is the door of entrance into the heart of God.”

From the link below are some pictures of the path he walked and the house he lived in. We have also included the vision he had while walking on this path at Mt. Tabor Park in Portland, Oregon. Included are the eight basic principles he lived his life by.

Click on the link below to the prophecy and photo’s of where he lived in Portland.

http://rhm-net.org/resources/john_g_lake.htm

WIKIPEDIA BIOGRAPHIES

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Lake

Also see 2.: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38244776/john-graham-lake

John Graham Lake (March 18, 1870–September 16, 1935) was a Canadian-American leader in the Pentecostal movement that began in the early 20th century, and is known as a faith healer, missionary, and with Thomas Hezmalhalch, co-founder of the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa. Through his 1908–19 African missionary work, Lake played a decisive role in the spread of Pentecostalism in South Africa, the most successful southern African religious movement of the 20th century.[1]: 98 [2]: 34  After completing his missionary work in Africa, Lake evangelized for 20 years, primarily along the west coast of the United States setting up "healing rooms" and healing campaigns, and establishing churches. Lake was influenced by the healing ministry of John Alexander Dowie and the ministry of Charles Parham.[3]

Early life and career

Lake was born in St. Marys, Ontario, Canada and moved to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan with his family in 1886.[4] He was born into a large family of 16 siblings (eight of whom died young).[5] He graduated from high school in St Mary's shortly before the move to Michigan, and claimed to have been ordained into the Methodist ministry at the age of twenty-one.[4]

However, his seminary attendance has never been confirmed [6]: 53  and census records cannot confirm even ten years' education.[7] Lake, then, may have had no formal theological training.

Lake moved to a suburb of Chicago, Harvey, in 1890, where he worked as a roofer and construction worker before returning to his hometown in 1896. According to Lake, he became an industrious businessman and started two newspapers, the Harvey Citizen in Harvey, Illinois and the Soo Times in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan,[4] before beginning a successful career in real estate, and later, becoming a millionaire in life insurance dealings. Historian Barry Morton found no evidence that Lake ever owned the two newspapers, citing sources which indicate the Harvey Citizen was founded by the Harvey township,[8] and the Soo Times was started by George A. Ferris and owned by Ferris & Scott Publishers.[1]: 103 [9]: 394 [10]

Morton further alleges that Lake exaggerated his business career, and that "clear evidence" shows Lake instead worked as a small-scale contractor, roofer and "house-flipper".[1]: 103  In the 1900 Census, Lake's occupation is listed as "carpenter".[7] In February 1893, Lake married Jennie Stevens of Newberry, Michigan, and the two had six children and adopted another before her death in 1908. During the 1890s Lake and many members of his family began appearing regularly in Dowie's services, where attendees were purportedly healed and allegedly brought back from death's door. In 1898 Lake opened a small chapter of Dowie's Christian Catholic Church in Sault Ste Marie and held meetings in the attic of his parents' home. In 1901 he relocated his family to Zion, Illinois, where he worked in the theocratic town's construction department.

After massive retrenchments affected ever-bankrupt Zion City,[11] Lake found new employment around 1905. He later claimed that he maintained relationships with many of the leading figures of his day including railroad tycoon James Jerome Hill, Cecil Rhodes, Mahatma Gandhi, Arthur Conan Doyle, and others.[12][13] When he began his preaching career he claimed to have walked away from a $50,000 year salary (around $1.25 million in 2007 US dollars[14]), as well as his seat on the Chicago Board of Trade. Lake's biographer, Burpeau, reported no evidence outside of Lake's own assertions that Lake was connected to these wealthy financiers and industrialists.[6] According to Morton, contemporary records show Lake never left Zion City at the time Lake was said to be making his name in Chicago; he instead worked in nearby Waukegan as an "ordinary, small-town insurance salesman". Lake does not appear in contemporary newspapers until 1907 where he gave an account of his experience of speaking in tongues.[1]: 105  In 1907 Lake was converted to Pentecostalism when Charles Parham staged a tent revival in Zion in an attempt to woo Dowie's supporters. After Parham's departure a group of several hundred "Parhamites" remained in Zion, led by Thomas Hezmalhalch—a recent arrival from the Azusa Street Revival. : As 1907 wore on, Lake grew in stature among this group, and was usually listed as co-leader. After Parham's arrest for reports of sodomy and pedophilia in the summer of 1907,[15] the Parhamites descended into disorganization. Believing that many had been possessed by demons, a number of brutal exorcisms began, in which at least two deaths occurred.[16][17] [invalid, non-working citation links] In the face of arrests and potential mob violence, the Parhamites were forced to flee en masse from Illinois. Lake and Hezmalhalch left for Indianapolis. Once there, they raised $2000 to finance a Pentecostal mission to South Africa.

Missionary work in Africa

With Thomas Hezmalhalch, Lake founded the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (AFM) in 1908 and carried on missionary work from 1908 to 1913. Lake and Hezmalhalch would appear to be the first Pentecostal missionaries to South Africa, and introduced speaking in tongues. Many of those who joined their church had previously been Zionists allied to Dowie's organization who believed in faith healing. Morton writes,[1]: 98  "Lake was instrumental in spreading this fusion of Zionism/Pentecotalismas that is unique to southern Africa... about half of southern African Christians today [2012] are adherents of it... Lake played a decisive role in the spreading of this 'second evangelization'." Lake's movement attracted many of the early Zionists led by Pieter L. Le Roux of Wakkerstroom.[18]: 15  Due to the segregationist impulses of the AFM's white membership,[19] the majority of its African members eventually seceded, forming many different Zionist Christian sects.[citation needed]

Just six months after Lake's arrival in South Africa, his first wife, Jennie, died on December 22, 1908.[3] He referred to the death of his wife as “Satan’s masterstroke”. He continued his work in Africa for another four years, raising his seven children with the help of his sister Irene.[3]

Lake's ministry in South Africa was not without controversy. Morton wrote[1]: 114–15  that Lake was accused of: misappropriating the AFM's funds, particularly that funds did not flow to poor rural areas but was eventually disproved. The healings that occurred under his ministry were documented thoroughly. He also wrote that "an analysis of the missionary that was full of blatant lies. " [1]: 98  Marius Nel takes a different position, and mentions a "seemingly preconceived notion of Lake as a fraud and scam, supported by an unbalanced utilisation and unfair treatment of resources"[20]

Later life and religious work

Lake returned to America on February 1, 1913, and married Florence Switzer in September 1913.[3] Lake's comment [citation needed] on this second marriage was, "Men in these days consider themselves to be happily married once. I have been especially blessed in that I have been happily married twice." From this marriage five children were born.

After a year of itinerant preaching, Lake relocated to Spokane, WA by July 1914 and began ministering in "The Church of Truth". : He started an organization called The Divine Healing Institute and opened what he called "Lake's Divine Healing Rooms". Lake ran the "healing rooms" from 1915 until May 1920, at which time he moved to Portland, Oregon, for a similar ministry that lasted for another five years. He continued to found churches and "healing rooms" down the California coast and eventually to Houston, TX in 1927, before finally returning to Spokane in 1931. : Upon his return to Spokane he purchased an old church and began his final church and healing room.[3]

In 1935, Lake suffered a serious stroke [21] and died on September 16, 1935,[3] at age 65.

References

• Morton, Barry (2012). "'The Devil Who Heals': Fraud and Falsification in the Evangelical Career of John G Lake, Missionary to South Africa 1908–1913" (PDF). African Historical Review. 44 (2): 98–118. doi:10.1080/17532523.2012.739752. S2CID 162869997.
• Miller, Denzil R. (2005). From Azusa to Africa to the Nations (PDF). Springfield, MO: Assemblies of God World Missions: Africa Office, Acts in Africa Initiative. ISBN 1-8911-1034-9.
• "About John G. Lake". John G. Lake Ministries. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
• Lindsay, Gordon, ed. (1997). John G. Lake–Apostle to Africa. Christ for the Nations, Inc. ISBN 978-0899850115.
• B. Morton, "John G Lake's Formative Years 1870-1908", May 2014.
• Burpeau, Kemp Pendleton (2004). God's Showman: A Historical Study of John G. Lake and South Africa/American Pentecostalism. Oslo: Refleks Publishing. ISBN 978-82-996599-2-5.
• US Census 1900, Michigan, Chippewa, Sault Ste Marie, Ward 02, District 0020, Ancestry.com
• The Town of Harvey, Illinois: Manufacturing Suburb of Chicago aged two years. Harvey, Illinois: Harvey Land Association. 1892.
• N. W. Ayer & Son's American Newspaper Annual: containing a Catalogue of American Newspapers, a List of All Newspapers of the United States and Canada, 1898, Volume 1. N. W. Ayer & Son. 1898.
• Sault Ste Marie News. March 6, 1896. Template:Cite news: Missing or empty|title= (help)
• Chicago Inter-Ocean. February 7, 1904. Template:Cite news: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• Copeland, Kenneth (1995). John G. Lake: His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith. Ft. Worth: Kenneth Copeland Publications. p. 89. ISBN 9780881149623.
• Reidt, W. (1989). John G. Lake: A Man Without Compromise. Springfield, MO: Harrison House. p. 15. ISBN 978-0892743162.
• Officer, Lawrence H. and Williamson, Samuel H. (2013). "Purchasing Power of Money in the United States from 1774 to Present". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
• "Chicago Tribune 21 Sep 1907, page 1".
• "Confesses death is due to devil cure". Indianapolis Star. September 21, 1907. Laboring under a religious frenzy and believing their manipulations would drive out the devils and bring health to Mrs. Letitia Greenhaulgh, aged 64 years and a cripple for twenty years, five members of the sect of Parhamites are under arrest at Zion City, accused of torturing...
• "Tortured in rite of fanatics; dies". Chicago Daily Tribune. September 21, 1907. p. 1.
• Chandomba, Lyton (2007). The History of Apostolic Faith Mission and Other Pentecostal Missions in South Africa. Authorhouse. ISBN 978-1425997397.
• de Wet, Christiaan R. (1989). The Apostolic Faith Mission in Africa, 1908-1960: A Case Study in Church Growth in a Segregated Society (Ph.D.). University of Cape Town. p. Chapters 3–4.
• Marius Nel: 'John G. Lake as a fraud, con man and false prophet': critical assessment of a historical evaluation of Lake's ministry‘. In: Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 2016, 42
• Liardon, Roberts, ed. (1996). God's Generals: Why They Succeeded and Why Some Failed. Whitaker House. ISBN 978-1880089477.

Further reading

• Lake, John G. (2005). Liardon, Roberts (ed.). John G. Lake Anthology: The Complete Collection of His Life Teachings. Whitaker House. p. 992. ISBN 978-0-88368-568-6.
• Lindsay, Gordon (1952). Sketches from the Life and Ministry of John G. Lake. Shreveport, LA: Voice of Healing Publishing Company. p. 116.
• Lake, John G. (1995). Copeland, Kenneth (ed.). John G. Lake: His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith. Kenneth Copeland Publications. ISBN 9780881149623.
• Liardon, Roberts, ed. (1996). God's Generals: Why They Succeeded and Why Some Failed. Whitaker House. ISBN 978-1880089477.

External links

• Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Graham Lake.
• John G. Lake Ministries
• Healing Rooms Ministries archive of John G. Lake writings
• John G Lake dot Org
• The Collected Works of John G Lake on Amazon Kindle

________________________________

John Graham Lake (March 18, 1870–September 16, 1935), usually known as John G. Lake, was a businessman who became known for his ministry as a missionary and faith healer. : He was influenced by the healing ministry of John Alexander Dowie, and he received the baptism of the Holy Spirit in 1907 in the wake of the Azusa Street Revival.

Lake was originally from Ontario, Canada. He was from a large family, which was continually affected with illness, and his memory of childhood was that there was always someone in the house either sick, dying or dead. At the age of twenty-one, he became a Methodist minister; however, he chose to enter the business world instead of accepting a church ministry. Lake was a very industrious businessman and started two newspapers before beginning a very successful career in real estate.

Early in his career, Lake's wife, whom he deeply loved, fell ill with a life threatening illness.

Taking the radical step of taking her to see John Alexander Dowie in April 1898. Dowie had a reputation as a faith healer; he was the founder of Zion, Illinois. Lake's wife recovered, and he was drawn into Dowie's movement, which altered the direction of Lake's life and ministry.

Lake maintained relationships with many of the leading figures of his day including railroad tycoon James Jerome Hill, Cecil Rhodes, Mahatma Gandhi, Arthur Conan Doyle, and others.

By the time he left for the mission field he walked away from a $50,000 year salary (around 1.25 million in 2007 dollars[1]), as well as his seat on the Chicago Board of Trade.

With Thomas Hezmalhalch he founded the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa in 1908, which attracted many of the early Zionists led by Pieter L. le Roux of Wakkerstroom. Le Roux took over the leadership of the Apostolic Faith Mission when Lake returned to America, and Le Roux led it for 30 years.

Just six months after Lake's arrival in South Africa, his first wife, Jennie, died on December 22, 1908. The probable cause was malnutrition. Lake returned to America on February 1, 1913, and married Florence Switzer on November 27, 1913.[2] Lake's comment on this second marriage was, "Men in these days consider themselves to be happily married once. I have been especially blessed in that I have been happily married twice."

From this marriage five children were born.

Lake eventually became an elder in the church. It was here that he began to practice "divine healing". From 1915 to 1920, Lake ran "Healing Rooms," a healing center in Spokane, Washington. In 1920, he moved to Portland, Oregon, for a similar ministry that lasted for a few years. He later on returned to Spokane and practiced his healing ministry until his death. In 1935, Lake suffered a serious stroke and died a fortnight later, on September 16, 1935, at age 65.

Lake's history has served as a guide to other ministries, such as Curry R. Blake's "John G. Lake Ministries," based in Edgewater CO, and Healing Rooms Ministries, led by Cal Pierce, headquartered in Spokane, Washington.

In 1987, Wilford Reidt (the son-in-law of Lake) and his wife, Gertrude (Lake's daughter) passed the leadership of their ministry to Curry R. Blake. Blake was named the General Overseer of the International Apostolic Council, an organization founded by John G. Lake in 1914. Today, the ministry establishes "John G. Lake Healing Rooms" and trains Christians in divine healing.

In 1999, the Healing Rooms in Spokane, Washington were opened, which are not affiliated with John G. Lake Ministries. The Healing Rooms place an emphasis on not only serving the city of Spokane, but in duplicating the ministry of healing globally, with currently 1,026 Healing Rooms in 45 nations.

Find A Grave Biography used from Wikipedia

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

The viewpoints concerning John Graham Lake represent an array of perspectives arriving at different conclusions. Was he, as Barry Morton presents, a consequential con man, or was he a gifted Missionary, Preacher, and man of faith? I believe that an objective reader will clearly understand that much personal bias comes into play when either vilifying or supporting the character and lifetime of John Graham Lake. For my express reasons, acknowledging either perspective is not really pertinent. I inserted a couple of historical facts at the conclusion of Morten's piece, but beyond that I have restrained myself from temptation to engage the materials.

As a family researcher, my goal is to provide as much historical record evidence for an individual as can be located so to offer a historical footprint on that life. The historical record bears out the activity of Lake insofar is concerned with timeframe and relative locations. When it comes to motivations and whether or not he was a legitimate healer is where the mess begins. In the case of John Graham Lake, the plethora of published and available online material makes impossible any decisive conclusions, because and precisely so, he was a man invested in religious works and seeming wonders. Simply Googling his name will underscore that. Whatever perspective one arrives at, invariably, it will express a secular or sacred bias. I personally am less compelled or impressed with the various perspectives because as is anticipated, what is factual, is likewise interpreted differently according to bias. My problem with the material provided by Barry Morton, is that there are some fundamental conclusions arrived at which are not supported critically, considering his is a methodical deconstruction of Lake’s life and opinion on his motives. One area I was persistent in attempting to receive an answer to, was the matter contended by Morton, that John Graham Lake’s biological father (James M Lake) was born in Scotland.

None of the record sources I have reviewed supports that finding. And Morton was ultimately somewhat evasive concerning the source(s) he researched in the matter. And the matter of Lake’s paternity is of crucial importance, because if as Morton concludes Lake’s father was actually born in Scotland—then the genealogical material that identifies the father, himself being a son of James Madison Lake (John Graham’s grandfather, who was born in New York), are pointedly incorrect and thus throw into chaos the abundant record evidence showing otherwise. Furthermore, Morton’s work expressly dismisses any merit concerning his familial background. If that’s true, then why the emphasis and purported detail identifying Lake’s father as a Scottish native who fell in love with his employer’s daughter? Because all of the elder Lake’s children were born in Ontario, Canada, including Lake’s father, James M. And to the contrary, if Lake’s father was indeed born in Canada as the record would have, then Morton’s research is at question.

Again, in my attempts to resolve his methodology, the best I received appears to have relied upon second, and third-person memory or testimonials. When asked for specific record or narrative evidence, Morton quoted Census findings among record sources. I’ve already mentioned my caution when using Census categorical data as a pristine repository for accuracy.

And the problem in reliance upon testimonial details would be that by the time for such representations to have taken occurred. Lake himself, would have been variously well-known for his ministry and its reports of faith-healing miracles, and thus any recounts of his background cannot be excluded from bias, thereby passively influencing the demeaner of recounted reports concerning him. It would largely depend upon the nature of the reporter, were they a person of some religious character, or strictly secular with a poor view of things sacred?

For someone of Lake’s relative fame, trying to untangle factual historicity from embellished lore becomes even more daunting than if he was of more obscure origins and little-known surrounding events. Either perspective has long since been the formed outcome of 1.) A strictly secular vantage that dismisses any claim extending from Lake’s involvement with the Pentecostal movement as a healer and founder, and 2.) those opinions formed and concluded upon the basis of his achievements purportedly related to his evangelistic prose and effect as a healer, one that does not rely upon historical evidence.

These together virtually nullify any rendering of a harmonious viewpoint upon the man and person. One area however that Morton does appear to derive from historical evidence pertains to Lakes's formal education. While I could find nothing to support a formal religious background, I must also allow for the fact that many in the field of faith healing do not possess a academic foundation. That said, not withstanding, is the fact that Lakes's Washington state vital statistics record of death does indeed identify him by the title of "Rev. Doc". Curious.

It's a problem frequently encountered with research of someone of notable fame, particularly when that fame depends upon the merits of faith-healing, producing an inherent bias either for or against. Morton’s perspective is laid-out from the start. I’m just not at all convinced that his explanation or source citations are adequate for the weight of his final thesis. In the end, John Graham Lake could be described as a man of peculiar and untestable qualities. The nature and conditions of his life’s timeframe notwithstanding, the granular aspects of his more private person and critical evaluation of his reputation remain open and subject to question and interpretation.

There were three objectives behind the many foregoing texts

1. Establish the country of origin for Lake's father
2. Establish the year Lake's family immigrated from St. Mary's, Perth County, Ontario, Canada for Sault Ste. Marie, Chippewa County, Michigan, U.S.
3. Provide countering academic perspectives regarding John Graham Lake, his motis operandii as a religious figure, and his personal historical timeline.

The establishment of Downie, Perth County, Ontario, Canada as the birthplace of Lake's father, James M Lake, was important because it is the contention of Barry Morton that James M Lake was a native of Scotland as was his wife, Margaret Elizabeth Graham. That one seemingly insignificant matter would deprive John Graham Lake of his Canadian ancestry and importantly would have removed John Graham Lake from my family Tree. Through Census and textual data, this objective was reasonably met.

The establishment of a personal, historical, timeline bears upon DNA evidence pointing to John Graham Lake as the maternal great-grandfather of the claimant. The child he fathered is not mentioned or known to the bevy of biographers and authors alike who fail to mention the existence of a previously unknown (and presumably) illegitimate son. The claim is further complicated by the fact that at the time of the birth, Lake was only 16 years old, and the child's conception is presumed to have taken place at Manhattan, New York. Some distance from the Lake family residence at Sault Ste. Marie, Chippewa County, Michigan. More scrutiny of the DNA report will need to be done before said claim can be accepted as conclusive.

An important underlying premise to the texts provided in this profile, was the presentation of different findings of biographers and authors concerning in sum, the integrity and authenticity of Lake's renown Ministry. Whether it be pro or con, researchers have expressed strong opinions and conclusions concerning the man, and Minister, John Graham Lake.

Following are two links to video presentations on Lake that tend to follow the perspective of Barry Morton, who has concluded Lake was in essence, a con man.

https://william-branham.org/site/video/all/66d0ea56-fbf0-4b90-8359-25a69d7c0bdc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDcmpkhbekc

A few biographies by Link

John G Lake Ministries

https://www.jglm.org/john-g-lake/

Biography of John G. LakeBiography of John G. Lake

A Man of Healing

https://healingrooms.com/about/johnGLake/?show=biography

Biography of John G. LakeBiography of John G. Lake

A Man of Healing

https://healingrooms.com/about/johnGLake/?show=biography

John G. Lake was known as God's "Apostle to Africa". Born in Canada in 1870, his family soon relocated to the United States, where he grew up. His healing and preaching ministry spanned the years 1898 (when he saw his wife instantly healed under the ministry of John Alexander Dowie) until his death in 1935.

Zion Christian Ministries

Biography of John G Lake

The life and Ministry of John G Lake

https://www.zionchristianministry.com/publications/books-by-shawn/the-life-and-ministry-of-john-lake/

Wikipedia--John Graham Lake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Lake

John Graham Lake page on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/dlcfunza/photos/a.1905906829657913/2545144532400803/?type=3

'John G. Lake as a fraud, con man and false prophet': critical assessment of a historical evaluation of Lake's ministry

http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1017-04992016000100006

Marius Nel

Research Unit of the Faculty of Theology North-West University

nel.marius1atgmaildotcom

 : https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/145047690.pdf

A HISTORICAL STUDY OF JOHN GRAHAM LAKE AND

SOUTH AFRICAN/UNITED STATES PENTECOSTALISM

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY of Rhodes University by KEMP PENDLETON

BURPEAU

June 2002

Chapter 2

Page 43

LAKE’S EARLY LIFE AND CAREER

An Excerpt

John Lake was descended from British settlers in Canada. His father, James Lake, was bom in 1841 in Downie Township, Perth County, Ontario. The 1861 Canadian Census listed James Lake as a single twenty-year-old laborer working for a young farmer named John Graham, probably his future brother-in-law. The Graham family left maritime highland Scotland sometime between 1831 and the commencement of the American Civil War, settling in Perth County, Ontario. In March 1862 in Downie Township, James married Margaret (Betsy) Graham, born in 1840 in Kilberry,

Scotland. James and Margaret had an older son, also named John, who died at the age of five in April 1869. John Graham Lake was born on 18 March 1870 in St. Mary’s, Ontario. The 1871 Canada Census indicated the couple had three living children, Margaret, aged eight, lrinna, aged six, and John, aged one. John's parents initially lived in the more rural agrarian village of Avonbank between the city of Stratford and the town of St. Mary’s. The long established, largely Scottish Avonbank settlement centered around the Presbyterian Church. A temperance hall near the church provided the primary opportunity for social interaction through regular weekly gatherings and was utilized for meetings of the Farmers Club, music classes and political activity. John probably joined the association as did most young people of the community, pledging to abstain from alcohol. The citizens tended to be hardworking, committed to education, and willing to defer present enjoyment for a better future life for themselves and their children. 1

By 1878 the family had relocated to SI. Marys. James operated a butcher shop in Market Square. During Lake's residency St. Marys was a picturesque but industrialized Victorian community. Situated on the Thames River, the town originated in 1839 as a venture of the Canada Company. The economy was based on textile, flour and grist mills, limestone mining and mortar, plaster, quicklime and cement production. The Grand Trunk Railroad serviced the area.2

The Ontario of Lake's birth was Canada's most populous province and the center of Canadian Protestantism. In Canada Protestantism was a product of British and American influences together with its own unique developments. Methodists and Presbyterians predominated, but Anglicans and U.S.British organizations like he Salvation Army and Plymouth Brethren were well represented.

Especially among Methodists and Presbyterians, but to a lesser extent even for Anglicans, a spirit-inspired religious revivalism was emphasized. A life-changing conversion experience was anticipated in most Canadian Protestant denominations although ecclesiastical traditions and liturgy were not repudiated. Perhaps more than in the U.S., "enthusiasm" and "establishment" were reconciled a Lake would later draw upon such ecumenical models and particularly seek to establish rapport with American Episcopalians and British and South African Anglicans4

Lake's parents were members of the "Scottish Kirk," which he called "an old Scotch Presbyterian Kirk, the Avonbank Church."

Lake himself attended the "little Scotch church" as a very young boy, still recalling in later life the "dreary old hymns" oriented toward death.6 The Presbyterian Church of Canada, known as the "Free Church ," was noted for its pious observation of biblical ethics, with a plain, unobtrusive liturgy conducted in modest, simple church buildings. A North American evangelical social reform agenda was evident, with its particular concern about

alcohol use, gambling and other vices. The Church did not teach divine healing.7

His congregation was not greatly influenced by the charismatic orientation of American Midwestern Holiness doctrines of faith healing.

The family left the Presbyterian Church when Lake was quite young, transferring to the Ontario Methodist Church. He declared himself an "ardent" Methodist as a youth8 His basic religious training was obtained through Sunday school classes held in the small St. Marys Methodist Church. The instruction was characterized by an evangelical "old-time" Wesleyanism with perfectionist aspirations, but charismatic practices were apparently not present. 9 Lake was critical of the congregation's lack of knowledge of Holy Ghost baptism, stating, "In my early boyhood we worshipped in a little old church where the saints were having a hard time" attaining ultimate spiritual empowerment. 10

Nevertheless, the participants did "open their hearts," sharing with other congregants various trials, temptations and victories.

The group dynamics, guided by a class leader, furthered mutual counsel and consolation. Although lacking a strong charismatic emphasis, Lake claimed the experience afforded him "a great deal of soul development.,,11

A picture of Lake as a teenager offers some insights into his personality. He was well-attired in a dark, conservatively cut business suit. He wore a tie of a distinctive but unflamboyant tartan pattem. The white shirt was crisply starched.

Women found his grey eyes and intense, contemplative gaze compelling. His dark hair, worn above ear-length, was quite full on top in the then popular pompadour style. The overall appearance was one of middle-class conformity to the customary and traditional. 12

The young Lake was devout, maintaining a prayer regimen even in his early teens. He appeared never to have sown wild oats or seriously departed from rigorous biblical ethics. Aside from the typical mischievous behavior of a boy, he was well-behaved. The youth fulfilled his commitment to "live a morally pure life" never using whisky, tobacco or undertaking any "unholy act in the moral sense.,,13 Nevertheless, Lake recalled his limited youthful wilfulness in a manner reminiscent of Saint Augustine's agonizing over stolen pears. Even decades later, a mature Lake remembered a "proud heart" that had to "struggle like a drowning man until I was ready to cry 'Lord you save me.'" He conceded that as a youth he was "proud as Lucifer - every Lake I ever knew was."14 The Lord tried to "woo" him to the Christian life, but "I had turned to my own way instead. 0 the many, many times He had called when I did not heed, times long since forgotten by me."15In retrospect, a remorseful Lake, perhaps unduly obsessed about childhood transgressions, asserted, "I was not even a Christian in the best sense of being a Christian.,,16 He was "only a young Christian .,,17

He seemed destined for a religious life and began manifesting a mystical nature, an intimate interaction with the divine. He thankfully declared, "I found God as a boy.,,18 At the age 16, when still in Canada, Lake underwent what at that time he deemed to be a Holiness-type spirit baptism.19 He had just witnessed the illness and death of a girl acquaintance whose deathbed vision and recitation of God's glory inspired in him a new consciousness of the divine20 He recognized the transitory nature of life and the presence of a loving God in a believer's heart as demonstrated by the dying girt He then repented and prayed, and felt God came into his soul, bringing salvation from sin. He knelt and poured out his heart, asking God to take "possession" of his life and nature. He declared:

Christ was born in my soul. Such a joy of God possessed my heart that the leaves of the trees seemed to dance for months following, and the birds sang a new song and the angels of God witnessed of the glory of heaven in my heart21

A contact with the Salvation Army also contributed to Lake's initial conversion experience and may help account for his adult ministerial concern for street people, drug addicts, and other socially and economically marginalized individuals.

Following this experience in June 1884, he was water baptized at the Central Methodist Church, St. Marys, Ontario, which he joined shortly before the family relocated to Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan in 1886. 22

JOHN G. LAKE

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/John_Graham_Lake

Lake was born in St. Marys, Ontario, Canada and moved to Sault Ste. Marie,

Michigan with his family in 1886. 1.

Lindsay, Gordon, ed. (1997). John G. Lake–Apostle to Africa. Christ for the Nations, Inc. ISBN 978-0899850115

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• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38244776/john-graham-lake
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Lake
• http://www.jglm.org/who-is-jglm/
• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 07 February 2023, 02:16), entry for Rev. Dr. John Graham Lake (PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:LH6L-PD4 ); contributed by various users.
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38244776/john-graham-lake
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Lake
• http://www.jglm.org/who-is-jglm/
• John Graham Lake, from Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=john+graham+lake&newwindow=1&sxsrf=ALiCzsaoOcQyxgNPPzD95-DeVOGiNfhM0g%3A1665400842784&source=hp&ei=CgBEY76fLcW30PEP-PeS-As&iflsig=AJiK0e8AAAAAY0QOGtoGT2aaxKA4slD_bieqrtO_Fz7F&gs_ssp=eJzj4tTP1TdIykiqKjBg9BLIys_IU0gvSsxIzFXIScxOBQCKrgms&oq=john+gr&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6uAEB-AEBGgIYAioCCAEyBRAuGJECMgUQLhiRAjIFEC4YkQIyCxAuGLEDGIMBGJECMgsQLhiABBixAxiDATIFEAAYkQIyCxAuGIAEGLEDGIMBMgUQABiABDILEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEyCxAuGIAEGLEDGNQCwgIEECMYJ8ICDhAuGIAEGLEDGIMBGNQCwgILEC4YsQMYgwEY1ALCAhEQLhiABBixAxiDARjHARjRA8ICCBAuGLEDGIMBwgIEEC4YQ8ICBBAAGEPCAgoQLhixAxjUAhhDwgILEC4YxwEYrwEYkQLCAgsQLhiABBjHARjRA8ICCBAuGJECGIsDwgIIEAAYkQIYiwPCAggQABiABBixA8ICCBAuGIAEGLEDSJwyUABYoQtwAHgAyAEAkAEAmAF4oAGLBaoBAzUuMg&sclient=gws-wiz
• The Missionary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qJOKmIahKY
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• "Michigan Obituaries, 1820-2006," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QGPY-LGQR : 1 April 2020), John G Lake for sister, Mrs Margaret Otto, 1915; citing , Obituary, Grand Rapids Public Library, Michigan; FHL microfilm 1,513,012.
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• "Texas Birth Certificates, 1903-1935," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VHZY-1W6 : 1 March 2021), John G Lake for Esther Lake, 06 Mar 1927; citing Houston, Harris, Texas, United States, certificate 18306, Texas Department of Health, Austin; FHL microfilm 2,240,240.
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• "California, County Marriages, 1850-1952," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K8N5-8QN : 9 March 2021), John G Lake for Wallace Stephen Lake and Mae Alice Bacher, 04 May 1929; citing Los Angeles, California, United States, county courthouses, California; FHL microfilm 2,074,759.
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