Pentecostalism and The 20th CenturyThe Fire Returns

A History of Christian Doctrine, Vol. 1-3 by David Bernard

The Holiness MovementThere was a strong call to go back to the doctrines and practices of the apostles in the New Testament church. In describing this desire, the adjective Pentecostal became common, and a rallying cry was, Back to Pentecost. Some leaders began to press for the restoration of spiritual gifts, including prophecy, healing, and miracles. A minority of Holiness people, including the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, began to seek for the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire as a third crisis experience, but again not associating it with tongues.

Three Works of Grace?The Baptism of the Holy Ghost originally thought of as a third work of graceThe common testimony of early Pentecostals was, Thank God, I am saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost.

Charles Parham and the Topeka Outpouring

Founder and director of Bethel Bible School on Stone Avenue in a building named Stones Folly in Topeka, Kansas. He was an independent preacher associated with the Holiness movement.

Stones Folly

Research at Stones FollyHe asked his students to research the bible to see what was the evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. They all agreed that the initial evidence was speaking in another language.They all began to seek God for this third crisis experience.

The Pentecostal Movement(January 1, 1901)In a prayer meeting Agnes Ozman asked Parham to lay hands on her that she might receive the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues. When he did, she began to speak in tongues. It is said that Agnes Ozman spoke in Chinese for three days straight. She couldn't speak in English at all. Several other students soon received the same experience, and on January 3 Parham himself along with many others also received the Holy Ghost with the sign of speaking in tongues.

The Apostolic Faith MovementParham called his new group the Apostolic Faith movement, and he published a periodical called The Apostolic Faith. The group conducted meetings in Kansas and Missouri but did not grow rapidly at first. A significant breakthrough came in the fall of 1903 in Galena, Kansas. A woman from the town was almost completely blind from an eye disease. After she was instantly healed in one of Parhams services in Eldorado Springs, Missouri, she invited him to conduct meetings in Galena. There, more than eight hundred people were baptized in water, many hundreds received the Holy Ghost, and at least one thousand people testified that they were healed.

The Apostolic FaithFrom Kansas and Missouri to:Orchard TexasHoustonSan AntonioZion City IllinoisBy 1906 it was 13,000 strongBy 1908 it was 25,000 people

Charles Parhams Significance

In Houston he started a bible school after an outpouring and one of his students (informally) was William Seymour.The Revival in Galena Missouri affected the life of an atheist named Howard Goss who would go on to be one of the founders of the Assemblies of God and the first Superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church.

William Seymour and theAzusa Street RevivalWilliam Seymour (1870-1922)Student of Parham

William Seymour and theAzusa Street RevivalSeymour was a Holiness Preacher from Louisiana living in Houston. After hearing Parhams teaching he went to Los Angeles to pursue a ministerial position.His first sermon at the church was about the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the initial evidence of speaking tongues.The pastor and congregation were offended and she locked Seymour out the church.

William Seymour and theAzusa Street RevivalHe continued services in the homes of two sympathetic families: first in the home of Edward Lee, where he stayed, and then in the Asberry home on Bonnie Brae Street.

Bonnie Brae Street House

Before Azusa: Bonnie Brae StreetAt Edward Lees home they held a 10-day fast, specifically seeking the Holy Spirit. A few days into it, Lee received the Holy Spirit while getting prayed over for healing. God also healed him.Seymour went to the Bonnie Brae St. service that night and shared the news and the Holy Ghost fell and many more were filled.

Bonnie Brae StreetSeymour's future wife, Jennie Evans Moore, received another special gift that night. She had never played the piano, but that night she was praying, playing the piano and singing in a language that was not her native language. She was a pianist until her death.

The Fear of GodThe house was filled for several days, with masses of people jamming the yard and Bonnie Brae Street. A young person came to the porch and prophesied about the great San Francisco earthquake in which 452 people died. The earthquake happened a few days later.This brought the fear of God and general curiosity. Eventually too many people thronged the porch, the porch caved in, and they had to find a larger place. That's when they moved to Azusa Street.

Azusa Street Mission

Azusa Street MissionThe small group rented an old, two-story building on Azusa Street in downtown Los Angeles and began services on April 14. The Azusa Street Mission held services daily for three years, from 1906 to 1909. Many miracles, healings, and baptisms of the Holy Spirit occurred. There were documented accounts of the dead being raised. The meetings were characterized by spontaneous, demonstrative worship and strong moves of the Spirit.They were racially integrated, an amazing development in that segregated, prejudiced time. Frank Bartleman (1871-1936), a Holiness evangelist and the foremost chronicler of the revival, wrote, The color line was washed away in the blood. Blacks and whites, men and women, served in public leadership and ministry roles.

Azusa Street Leaders

Significance of AzusaEven though Pentecostalism started with Parham, it was Azusa Street that broadcast it to the world.In September 1906, Seymour began publishing the news of the revival in a paper called The Apostolic FaithMissionaries, ministers, and lay members from across the United States and around the world flocked to Los Angeles, received the Holy Spirit, and carried the message everywhere. Many who could not attend nevertheless read the news of the revival and sought and received the same experience for themselves.

The Decline of Parham and SeymourParham came to Azusa Street and didnt like what he saw even though he admitted that people were being filled with the spirit.He felt the service was too demonstrative, too overly influenced by blacks and rife with false manifestations.Aside from racial issues, there is some speculation that territorial issues affected his opinions.

The Decline of Parham and SeymourParham was arrested on a moral charge, but the charges were dropped.This forever crippled his reputation. He was sidelined from the leadership of the movement that started with him.There still is a group left in Baxter Springs, Kansas named the Apostolic Faith.

Name ChangeSince Parham coined the term Apostolic Faith, many people (perhaps trying to distance themselves from him) started referring to themselves as Pentecostal instead of Apostolic.The term Apostolic would later be used mainly by Oneness Pentecostals (like us).

Seymours DemiseFlorence Crawford (1872-1936), an Azusa Street member in 1906, started the Apostolic Faith Mission in Portland, Oregon, in 1908 as a rival organization to Seymours. She took Seymours mailing list, thereby shutting down his paper, and she started her own paper, also called The Apostolic Faith.

Seymours DemiseSeymours struggles with Parham, Crawford, and William Durham (discussed in chapter 2) eroded his leadership role.The revival at Azusa Street dwindled in 1909Most of the whites left the mission, and in 1915 Seymour changed the constitution of the church to specify that a person of color must always be the leader. He also moved away from the doctrine of tongues as the initial evidence of the Holy Spirit, holding that tongues did not always come immediately, although it was still expected as a sign that would follow Holy Spirit baptism.

Opposition and PersecutionHoliness groups and Fundamentalists (and others) typically forced them out, denounced them. Calling them:Holy Rollersof the devilthe last vomit of Satanemphatically not of Godwicked and adulterousanti-Christiansensual and devilish

Pentecostal workers were: threatenedBeatenshot attarred and feathered. They were pelted with rocks and with rotten fruit, vegetables, and eggs. Tents ropes were slashed; tents and buildings were set afire. Howard Goss explained:

The FinishedWork ControversyWilliam Durham

William DurhamIn Chicago, shortly after the great Azusa Street revival, a prominent Baptist minister named William H. Durham (1873-1912) began to question whether sanctification was actually a separate experience. He had a conversion experience in 1898. Because of Holiness teaching, for three years he sought for a definite experience of sanctification.In 1901, he had an experience that he identified as sanctification, and he began to teach sanctification as a second work of grace.

Durhams ExperienceMany of the members of Durhams North Avenue Mission received the Holy Ghost under Parhams ministry in nearby Zion, Illinois. In early 1907 he visited the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles and received the Holy Ghost on March 2.He questioned all of his previous experiences.

Durhams Conclusions1. The baptism of the Holy Ghost was different from the experiences that he had identified as conversion and sanctification.2. He realized that he could not simply claim the baptism of the Holy Ghost as did the Holiness people who equated it with entire sanctification3. Speaking in tongues was invariably the initialevidence of this experience.

From Three Works of Grace to TwoHe taught that there was no second work known as sanctification. The Baptism of the Holy Ghost was the Second WorkInstead, sanctification is an integral part of conversion and an ongoing process. To be holy, we do not need to seek a second work of grace, but we simply need to appropriate the benefits of the finished work of Calvary.

The Controversy EruptsHe preaches at a Pentecostal Convention in Chicago in 1910 and convinces Howard Goss of the Finished Work Doctrine.He preaches at the Azusa Street Mission while Seymour is away and the revival returns.Seymour did not approve and he locked Durham out of the Mission.Seymour started his own services at Seventh and Los Angeles Streets, and the revival continued.

Those Who RejectedThe groups who rejected the Finished Work message and continued to teach three crisis experiences included the Apostolic Faith groups of Charles ParhamWilliam SeymourFlorence CrawfordThe Pentecostal Holiness ChurchThe Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) and its later offshoot, the Church of God of ProphecyThe Church of God in Christ.

Those Who AcceptedThe Pentecostal groups that accepted the Finished Work: The Assemblies of God The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. Including the United Pentecostal Church International The Pentecostal Assemblies of the World

The Outcome of the ControversyWhy did the Finished Work message gain such widespread acceptance?1. as the Pentecostal revival exploded, many converts came directly from a life of sin without claiming a prior experience of sanctification. 2. many of the men who became leaders in the Pentecostal movement after 1910 did not come from a Wesleyan-Holiness background. 3. The Finished Work position has the stronger biblical support. Holiness people had equated entire sanctification with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but when early Pentecostals differentiated the two, there were no clear examples in the New Testament of people receiving sanctification as a distinct, instantaneous work.

The Jesus NameControversy

The Worldwide Camp Meeting,Arroyo Seco, 1913

Pentecostalism was the message of Robert E. McAlister (1880-1953), a Canadian preacher who had received the Holy Spirit at Azusa Street in 1906. Speaking at a baptismal service, he explained that single immersion in Jesus Name was the proper mode for baptism, not triple immersion as some people practiced.

Frank Ewart and the Oneness of GodAnother man who was deeply impressed by McAlisters message was Frank J. Ewart (1876-1947)He started a work in Los Angeles with McAllister and John Cook.

Frank Ewart and the Oneness of God

Ewart pitched a tent and began meetings in Belvedere, California, just outside Los Angeles.He preached his first message out of Acts 2:38Ewart was rebaptized in the name of Jesus Christ.Then Ewart baptized Cook in the name of Jesus Christ, and Cook baptized Ewart. This action was the decisive step in starting Oneness Pentecostalism as a distinct movement.

The Spread of the Jesus Name MessageMany missionaries and preachers came to the meetings and were rebaptized in Jesus name. Even more significantly, Ewarts periodical, Meat in Due Season, carried the Jesus Name message and reports of the revival far and wide. Missionaries to China, Japan, and India were soon baptized in Jesus name. During this revival, Ewart endured much opposition from local church people as well as from a gang of hoodlums. The latter threatened him and his wife on numerous occasions, planted stink bombs in the services, and even burned down the tent. The town constable did nothing to protect them, but the persecution ended when the gang leader was converted.