Here’s a recent, well done short video produced for Radnor Stuido 21 Public Access TV by someone who attended the annual Woodmont Trek held last Saturday (February 16, 2019).
NOTE: the questions raised by the visitor at the beginning are not in fact, as he asserts, without answers. Firstly, Woodmont was not purchased by a single wealthy Follower and donated to FATHER DIVINE. Woodmont was purchased collectively by Palace Mission Church and has since then always been collective Church property. FATHER and MOTHER DIVINE held no significant Personal property. The Peace Mission was built as a democratic cooperative comprised of six Church organizations (each of which once had many Extensions). Today, three of those six Churches remain operational. As always, each of them is governed in all practical, administrative matters by a democratically elected Board of Officers and Trustees, which for each of the three include standard offices of President, Vice-President, Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer. These Officers are elected by Church Members on an annual basis. The Churches’ operating budgets today are a legacy of past prudence, and when one considers the fact that the Peace Mission operated hundreds of successful businesses and owned or still owns prime real estate, there is really no “mystery” about funding. It was and remains true that the Peace Mission does not solicit or accept donations. Followers do not experience FATHER and MOTHER DIVINE as an absence, but as an Eternal Presence, and within a democratic economic cooperative governed by THEIR Mind and Spirit, there is no need for clergy or embodied spiritual leaders. The Peace Mission is egalitarian and does not recognize clergy. As it always was, the Peace Mission is truly a democracy under GOD, FATHER DIVINE. This Teaching has always proclaimed the EVER-PRESENCE and UNIVERSAL DIRECT ACCESSIBILITY of GOD, Who is the Source of All Guidance and the Answer to Every Problem.
In the NEW DAY excerpt below and the extended interview audio file below it, Miss Holy Love Dove tells of her experiences coming to FATHER DIVINE in the early 1930s, including an integrated bus trip across country and how FATHER’s Mind and Spirit met all obstacles along the way. Long before the Freedom Riders of the 1950s or the counter-cultural “Peace” buses of the 1960s, Members of the Peace Mission Movement were traveling across the continent in integrated red, white and blue buses emblazoned with FATHER’s Name and “PEACE! Out of One Blood God Made All People.” Among the many topics discussed by Miss Dove in the extended interview are her experiences as a so-called “disabled” person. After coming to FATHER in the early 30s, Miss Dove was a lifelong Follower, Rosebud and Personal Secretary to FATHER DIVINE. Her testimony is a very valuable historical treasure. 