Sharon Orphanage
The Sharon Orphanage in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, was the epicenter of the Latter Rain Movement, emerging from a Foursquare-connected orphanage and Bible school environment tied to Aimee Semple McPherson's Angelus Temple, Herrick Holt, George Hawtin, and the wider postwar healing revival world; through teachings on Joel's Army, restored ministries, prophetic authority, end-time restoration, and spiritual elites, the Sharon network helped launch doctrines later carried through William Branham and the Latter Rain revivals, while its connections to figures such as Hawtin also expose the troubling presence of British Israelism, Christian Identity, and racial hierarchy within streams that shaped restorationist Pentecostal and charismatic theology.
The Sharon Orphanage was the epicenter for the origins of the Latter Rain Movement. The operation was funded through Aimee Semple McPherson's Angeles Temple, and McPherson herself was head of the organization.[1] The orphanage was announced in October 1943,[2] around the same time that Roy E. Davis and William D. Upshaw's Ussher-Davis Orphanage was announced in Los Angeles.[3] Both the Sharon Orphanage and Ussher-Davis orphanage included schools intended to indoctrinate the children, and based upon the Christian Identity Doctrines of Wesley Swift that propagated through the leaders and people connected to McPherson's Foursquare Church cult,[4] it would appear that the white supremacy doctrines of Gerald Burton Winrod were the basis. The Sharon Orphanage created "Joel's Army",[5] based on Winrod's theology. The Latter Rain Movement that grew from the Sharon Orphanage revivals was spearheaded by William Branham.[6]
Among the men who worked with Holt to establish the Sharon Orphanage was Rev. George R. Hawtin, a frequent speaker at the Foursquare Elim tabernacle[7] who was strongly supportive of and that hosted Aimee Semple McPherson.[8] Hawtin was a strong supporter of Wesley Swift's Christian Identity doctrine, so much so that he published books on the subject. Hawtin's book, 'The Living Creature: Origin of the Negro', got him in quite a bit of trouble in later years when Holt was exposed as a racist. Hawtin helped establish the religious views of the orphanage and bible school, producing students trained in the Christian Identity doctrine and End of Days theology.
George Hawtin of Battleford, Sask., issued a written apology for distributing the 40-page booklet after a complaint about it to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission. Entitled 'The Living Creature: Origin of the Negro', the booklet says God created a superior race of whites who are meant to rule. Blacks were created 'in God's wisdom' to serve whites, it says. [9]