Everything about Edna Rose Ritchings totally explained
Edna Rose Ritchings, was the symbolic maintainer of the
International Peace Mission movement. She was also known as
Sweet Angel in the movement, or as
Mrs. S. A. Divine or
Mother Divine because she's the widow of the movement's leader,
Father Divine. She assisted Father Divine, who claimed to be
God, in his declining years.
A
Canadian convert from
Vancouver, Ritchings was drawn to the movement in its decline in early
1940s while she was still in
high school. As many adherents of Father Divine did, she broke ties with her parents, and adopted a new name, "Sweet Angel". Moving to the then-headquarters of the movement in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she became one of Father Divine's personal secretaries. She proposed to him one day in the office by saying, "I want to marry you because I know you're God."
They were married in secret on
April 26,
1946 in
Washington D.C.. Ritchings was 21, and Father Divine about 65. The marriage was secret from even most followers until Ritchings'
visa expired in the summer of 1946 and Father Divine had to disclose it. The wedding date,
April 26, thereafter became a celebrated anniversary in the movement.
Father Divine claimed to his flock that Ritchings was the spirit of his first wife reborn. His first wife,
Peninniah (d.
1943), was also commonly called "
Mother Divine". Interestingly,
reincarnation hadn't previously been part of Father Divine's doctrine, indeed he'd said that the notion of an
afterlife was absurd.
To prove that it was a
chaste marriage in accordance with his teachings, Father Divine assigned a female disciple to be Ritching's constant companion.
Due to Father Divine's declining health, she presided over an increasing number of Peace Mission banquets. Upon his death in
1965, she became the official leader of the movement and continues to hold this position. The Movement has nearly dwindled to extinction because few new converts have joined, and Peace Mission doctrine forbids
sex.
Notably, Mother S. A. Divine fought an attempt by cult leader
Jim Jones to take over the movement in
1971. Jones based some of his doctrines on the
International Peace Mission movement, and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. He was only able to persuade one member to join his cult, the
Peoples Temple. The convert wrote Mother Divine trying to convince her that Jones was Father Divine until the infamous mass suicide in
Jonestown, Guyana in
1978.
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