Pauline Hancock
Pauline Bailey Hancock (1903 – October 19, 1962) was the founder of the Church of Christ (Hancock) in Independence, Missouri in 1946, and was the first woman to found and lead a denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement. A former member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and then later the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), Hancock was excommunicated from the Temple Lot church in 1935, due to differences between her view of the Godhead and theirs. She later claimed a vision of Jesus Christ, who she claimed had told her to "go and teach," leading her to found her own church in 1946. She would lead this church until her death in 1962. Early life and Latter Day Saint heritage Pauline Bailey was a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now called the Community of Christ), whose father had been a minister of that denomination in Salt Lake City, Utah. She moved to Independence, Missouri in 1923 after marrying Silas Hancock. During the Supreme Directional Control controversy of the 1920s, she opposed President Frederick M. Smith's attempt to take "supreme directional control" over the RLDS church; she later transferred her membership to the Church of Christ (Temple Lot). In 1935, following the excommunication of her friend Apostle Samuel Wood of the Temple Lot church (who was expelled for believing in a modalistic view of the Godhead, a view Hancock supported), Hancock resigned from that organization. Seeing a vision Hancock later claimed to have had a vision in which God told her to "go and teach others." Her account of this vision is as follows: "I was reading in our living room, when all of a sudden I saw a marvelous vision. It seemed that I was taken to Jerusalem and I saw a man seated upon what looked like a stool. All around and about him, men were mocking, bowing and making fun of this individual.... I continued to watch as he was condemned to death and a crown of thorns was placed on his head.... I knew that there was nothing good in me except God had put it there.... I knew I had to have this Jesus or die.... I fell upon my knees and prayed to God through Jesus and His shed blood, to be forgiven of my sins.... When my prayer was finished, God baptized me with His own spirit and my soul was on fire with love towards God and mankind - I became a new creature.... God spoke to me then and said: 'Now go and teach all people what I have shown you - for I am the way.' I answered Him that I couldn't do that and He said, 'I will be with you.' I said, 'I am a woman and they won't receive me.' He said, 'I wasn't a woman and they didn't receive me - go teach and I'll be with you.' Blessed by the name of