Who Deserves The Namesake At Lee University?

I just finished my class at Tomlinson Memorial before heading to the Payne Center for some lunch. Then I'll be at the Platt Building for a group meeting before going back to Jernigan Hall.

Doesn't sound familiar?

Perhaps you don't recognize the names because they're the only Lee University presidents not to have anything on campus named after them.

A.J. Tomlinson, T.S. Payne, John C. Jernigan and R. L. Platt put a combined total of 14 years in to serving the Lee community and today they're mostly forgotten remnants of history.

In fact, F.J. Lee, the institution's second president, only served as president for one year. So why does Flavius Josephus get the honor of having the entire school named after him?

Well, Lee was an early pastor at what is now North Cleveland Church of God, second general overseer of the denomination and authored ten books.

So second general overseer and second university president.

Who was the first and why isn't Lee named after him?

The first general overseer of the Church of God, the founding pastor of North Cleveland Church of God, and Lee's first president was Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson. He served the college for four years.

So why skip over the founding father of the whole shebang?

Perhaps because he was impeached from his position due to financial mismanagement and went on to form the Church of God of Prophecy.

Here's the history:

Through his work with Cashwell, Tomlinson became the general moderator of a new ministry known as the Church of God. Tomlinson's success in the Church of God was unparalleled. By 1914, Tomlinson had been granted the power to appoint pastors. Further, the church conferred upon him the position of general overseer for life. Unfortunately, Tomlinson was stripped of this position in 1923, when allegations of financial mismanagement surfaced. After being impeached from the church, Tomlinson moved on to form another group, known as the Church of the God of Prophecy.

The impeachment was the result of lax financial bookkeeping on Tomlinson's part. One explanation often cited for financial discrepancies was that Tomlinson may have used church funds to support struggling pastors and churches and had, on many occasions, reappropriated money from otherwise-designated funds, causing shortfalls. Although there was no indication that Tomlinson used church funds for himself, there were many within the organization who felt that this type of imprudence was an indicator of serious flaws within the organizational structure of the church.

So if Tomlinson gets the boot because he couldn't hire a financial adviser, who's next in line?

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[From The Editor's Weblog: Who deserves the namesake? By Lee Clarion]