Closing Out The Church Age Pentecostals Face The Twenty First Century

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7

Closing

Out

the Church

Age:

Pentecostals Face the

Twenty-First Century

James R. Goff, Jr.*

A

perception

of

history

is valuable to life in the twentieth

century.

It guarantees

that a person will not live without

understanding

some of the mystery

of the

experience.

Yet for

people

of religious

faith,

a good his- torical

perspective

looms as a

dangerous commodity.

It

may

mean

a reevaluation of the foundations of one’s faith. And if faith is to be retained,

it requires

delving,

at least

briefly,

into the realms of

theology and

philosophy

to rationalize somehow the

supernatural

in what

history teaches us is, after all, a

very

natural world. To make that

journey

is infinitely

worthwhile; perhaps

it is where true faith

actually begins.

Even so,

it is understandable

why

it seems such a

dangerous journey,

and why

so

many

in

religious

America

approach

that

step only

with much “fear and

trembling.”

No

group

has

intrinsically

denied the historical

process any stronger than Pentecostals.

Despite

a genuine interest in history complete with the founding

of archives and the

chronicling

of important pioneers and their sacred stories, Pentecostals have

rejected

the

very

core of historicism- that events are caused

by

other events and that

something

occurs because of a myriad of influences and

experiences

that

preceded

it. Such a rejec- tion is not

surprising.

It would be difficult to

expect

that

many

Pente- costals-up

to the current

generation,

at least-have had

training

or inclination to learn the historical method. And to be fair, the

problem

is not one exclusive to Pentecostals, or even to Protestants, Christians, or religious

folk. Americans, in

general,

do not think

historically

nor understand

very

much about their

past.

Nevertheless,

there is

something

about the

experience

of Pentecostals that offers a

unique

twist to the

challenge

of

learning

to think histori- cally.

From its

infancy,

the movement was

radically

anti-historical as a result of its

message. Through

a mixture of restorationist

thought

and premillennial expectation,

Pentecostals believed themselves to be both the recreation of primitive

Christianity

and the

unique sign

of the end of human

history

as we know it.l 1

*James R. Goff is Assistant

Professor of History at

NC 28608.

Appalachian University, Boone,

State

lGrant Wacker has dealt most extensively with this problem of history among Pentecostals. See “Are the Golden Oldies Still Worth Playing? Reflections on His-

Pentecostals” Pneuma: The Journal

of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 8:2 (Fall 1986), 81-100 and “Playing for Keeps: The Primitivist tory Writing Among Early

Impulse

in Early Pentecostalism” in Richard T. Hughes, ed. The American

Quest

1

8

Pentecostalism

emerged early

in this

century

as a distinctly American institution. The collection of ideas which made

up

its

theological

core were bom in the

volatile, sometimes

confusing,

world of late nineteenth century religious

debate.

Independent emphases

included

bodily

health and

healing,

a life of holiness

through

a rigorous

personal

and ethical code,

a fascination with obscure

scriptural passages,

a

preoccupation with the

Spirit

and its

special anointing,

and millennialism. No

evange- list or organization could claim a monopoly on every piece of the diverse puzzle. Yet,

within the confines of the

free-wheeling

holiness move- ment,

all the above found a home.2

By

the last two decades of the nineteenth

century,

the American holi- ness movement had found a place within the dominant mainline Protes- tant denominations.

Yet, the movement

itself

displayed varying interpre- tations of what the

sanctification,

or

holiness, experience was

all about. Those

from

the

Wesleyan

tradition

argued

the

experience

was instanta- neous and

provided

the believer with a “second work of

grace”

subse- quent

to conversion. Holiness advocates from the Reformed tradition countered with an

interpretation

that stressed

progressive growth

with the intent of

empowering

adherents to

greater

Christian service. Both groups, however,

were convinced that a new manifestation of God’s Spirit

was

upon

them. When the

leadership

in mainline denominations took issue with the

theological

stances and excesses of some of the holi- ness

revivalists, massive schisms

ensued. The small holiness denomi- nations and

independent congregations

that resulted

provided

a fertile bed from which Pentecostalism drew its initial

strength.3

Although

the holiness movement embraced diverse

theological

inter- pretations

about

sanctification,

there had been a consensus within the revival that subscribed to biblical

literalism,

a conversion

experience, holiness in

daily living,

divine

healing

and the belief in a

coming millennium. Of these none

captured

the fascination of the

layman

more than the

expectation

of the

millennium,

an

anticipated

thousand

year period

of peace believed foretold in the book of the Revelation.4

,

for

the Primitive Church (LJrbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 196-219.

20n the complexity of the holiness movement, see Robert

Mapes Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited

(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 28-46 and Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States (Grand Rapids,

MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971), 13-54. For a more in-depth treatment of the holiness movement in Wesleyan circles, see Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century Metuchen, NJ and London: Scarecrow Press, 1980, and Charles Edwin Jones, Perfeclionist Persuasion: The Holiness Movement and American Methodism. 1867-1936 Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1974.

30n the break with mainline denominations and a sketch of the resulting holiness organizations,

see Timothy L. Smith, Called Unto Holiness (Kansas City: Nazarene Publishing House, 1962), 27-52.

4The core of millennial thought is traced to Revelation 20.

2

9

For much of the nineteenth

century,

holiness

people

were divided over the

specifics

of millennialism.

Drawing

on the

euphoric

confidence in America as a new nation,

many by mid-century espoused postmillennial- ism.

Seeing

themselves and their

age

on the threshold of Christian evan- gelization

and industrial

progress, they predicted

the soon arrival of the millennium. The thousand

year period

of progress and

harmony

would usher in an even more

exciting era; immediately upon

its conclusion, Jesus would return in the

anticipated

Second

Coming

to rule

personally over an earth in which the final

vestiges

of evil were eliminated. The

age of reform, the

ending

of

slavery,

the

push

for Christian missionaries, and the

growing power

of American

military

and

industry

abroad all figured

into the postmillennial formula.5

For some Americans, however, the world seemed to be

getting

worse, not better. In addition, the contentions of the

postmillennialists required a spiritualizing of scripture at a time when

many

favored a literal

reading of the text. This biblical literalism became the bastion of conservative American

evangelicals

in an

age

rocked

by

modern ideas in science and theology.6

And the fact of the matter was that

prophetic scriptural pas- sages

like those in Daniel and

Revelation,

if interpreted literally, seemed to

point

to a cataclysmic end with a millennium introduced

by

divine forces outside the natural order. The best known of the

early premillen- nialists was William Miller.

Though

Miller’s

dating

schemes for a return of Christ in the mid-1840s

temporarily

discredited the

premillennial wing, growing pessimism

in the latter decades of the

century

allowed for its resurgence

The new

premillennialists

were a bit more careful about date

setting and their scheme was also more detailed than Miller’s had been. The Second

Coming

would

dramatically interrupt history;

in a sudden un- precedented

event,

Christ would snatch

away

the Christians who were awaiting

His return.

Following

this

“rapture,”

a period of

grave

tribula- tion would befall those left on the earth as the forces of evil were unleashed. Christ would then intervene

again,

this time

completing

the Second

Coming by personally returning

to defeat the evil forces that had taken over creation. That victorious

appearing

would

signal

the arrival of the millennium itself.8

5The dynamics of the

postmillennial

vision are

elaborately treated in Robert A

Handy’s

Christian America 2nd ed. (London, et al.: Oxford University Press, 1984).

Weber has correctly pointed out that premillennialism is essentially a biblistic movement. See 6Timothy

Living

in the Shadow

of the

Second 2nd ed. (Chicago

and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), 36-38,

Coming

230.

7A

complete

discussion of premillennialism in this early period is found in J. F. C. Harrison, The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism. 1780-1850 New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,

1979. For a quick synopsis of Miller’s datings,

see Weber, 15-16.

8For a view which downplays the significance of premillenni?lism among Pentc- costals, see Donald W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Metuchen, NJ

3

10

Popularized ferences on biblical Coming

the

prophecy,

opposed

Northfield con-

Second

after 1875

through Dwight

L.

Moody’s

the belief in a

premillennial

came to be an integral part of the

popular evangelical

culture of

late nineteenth

century.9

The issue was

particularly important

to those who became Pentecostals since the arrival of “spiritual

power,”

as

to “temporal authority”

(i.e.

that

brought

about

by

the

church), was central to their

very

existence. As late as 1924,

George

F. Taylor, a holiness turned Pentecostal editor from eastern North

Carolina,

felt compelled

to

press

the issue

by asking

his readers “Are

you

a Pre or a Post?” He followed with his own

profession,

Premillennialist from head to foot, in and out, and all about.”10

Originally published of dispensational scriptural

gained

admitting

“I am a

works available to early

Pentecostals,

complete

Of all the holiness

premillennial

William Blackstone’s Jesus Is

Coming

was

among

the most

popular.

in

1898, the work

contained a detailed

description

premillennialism

with charts and

long

lists of

references. Albert E.

Robinson,

then an official in the Fire- Baptized

Holiness Church, recounted that, as a young man, he had been fearful of the

subject

of Christ’s return.

Through

a visiting layman, he

access to Blackstone’s book and

ultimately

became convinced of a more

hopeful

view.

The result of that night’s conversation was that I started on a study of the

of the Lord in a way I had never known before, and the Bible

became a new Books 1

coming

Douglas Watson,

holiness

camp meetings throughout

Another influential author available to Pentecostal readers was

George

editor of the holiness

magazine

rapture theory

that came to be

accepted by many

lennial view.I2 In The Bridehood Christ” as

Living

Words. At

the nation, he

preached

a

partial

as the

proper premil- Saints,

Watson defined the “bride of

… a chosen company of souls, of both Jews and Gentiles, united in one body of true spiritual Israelites, in whom there is no guile, and also that this elect

company

is taken out from the great body of the saved of

and London: Scarecrow Press, 1987/Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1987), 143-171.

90n

Moody’s pivotal role, see George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and Ameri- can Culture

(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 32-39.

10George

F. Taylor, The Rainbow

(Franklin Springs,

GA: Advocate

Press, 1924), 56. l

lA. E. Robinson, A Layman and the Book 4th ed.

(Washington, DC: By the Author, 1950), 97.

quent

l2Wa?n had also influenced Robinson. His magazine was initially advertised in The Way of Faith (August 22, 1901), 8. In addition to his writing, Watson was a fre-

revival speaker for the small holiness denominations. He spoke in 1900, 1901, 1903, and 1904 at the Falcon Camp Meeting (Falcon, NC), an annual event hosted

the Holiness Church of North Carolina. See W. Eddie Morris, The Vine and the Branches Franklin Springs, GA: Advocate Press, 1981.

by

4

11

mankind, and is not the entire body, and also it is a company who have

marks upon them of Christlikeness, and who are conformed to

Jesus in various points more than the mass of those who are saved, and

special

furthermore it is a company who are especially to share the royalty with

Christ in His coming kingdom.13

Drawing

from biblical

typology,

Watson reasoned that as God had gotten

Eve from Adam’s

ribcage,

so he would

rapture

a part of the

body to create a “spiritual Eve” or bride. Other Christians would

simply

wait for the resurrection of the

body during

which

differing

ranks of saints would ascend to heaven in a specified order. 14 The obvious result

of

a partial rapture theory

was to set certain

requirements

that one must meet to gain entry into the select bridal

group.

While it is probable that most holiness adherents viewed sanctification as the central

requirement,

it was not until the Pentecostal movement

changed

the course of holiness denominations that a specific badge for bridal identification came to the forefront. This

sealing

of one’s

place

in Christ’s

ordering

of saints was the Pentecostal

baptism

in the

Spirit.

Beginning

with a student revival in

Topeka,

Kansas that

erupted

on New Year’s

Day 1901,

Pentecostalism

proclaimed

a new

spiritual expe- rience associated with

speaking

in

tongues.

Charles Fox

Parham,

an itinerant faith healer,

preacher,

and Bible teacher, was the first to con- nect

tongue speaking

with the

experience

known as the

baptism

of the Holy Spirit.

Parham

interpreted glossolalia

as a sign of the endtime and as the crucial evidence that one had received

Spirit baptism. Specifically, the

experience

served as the seal to determine the Bride of Christ. In addition,

Parham theorized that the

tongues

were

given

to the last

gen- eration as a missions tool.

Understanding

them to be actual

foreign

lan- guages,

or

xenoglossa,

he concluded that

recipients

of Holy Spirit

bap- tism would soon circle the

globe

and

preach

under miraculous

power. Parham’s

explanation

seemed as exciting to his followers as it sounded incredulous to everyone else.

.

The Holy Ghost knows all the languages of the world, and all we have to do is to yield ourselves wholly to God and the Holy Ghost and will

power

be us so that we can have such control of our vocal chords, that we can enter given

any country on earth and talk and understand The

language.

time 5 is now at hand when we should all receive this

gift

of tongues.1

l3George

D. Watson, The Bridehood Saints

(Cincinnati,

OH: Office God’s Revivalist, n.d.), 1. The existence of a separate bride is also found in Charles J. T. Bohm, The Second Coming of Christ and His Kingdom in Visible

D. Hobbs and

Glory (Glasgow:

Co., 1902). Bohm was a minister in the Catholic Apostolic Church, a holiness organization in Great Britain.

l4Watson, The Bridehood Saints, 4 and 55.

15Kansas City Times (February 4, 1901) 3. For an in-depth treatment of the mis- sion tongues concept, see my Fields White Unto Harvest (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1988), 15-16, 72-75.

5

12

William J.

Seymour,

a black holiness minister and a

disciple

of Parham,

opened

a series of services in Los

Angeles

in April 1906 in a small mission on Azusa Street. From there in what turned into a

three year revival,

the doctrine of the

baptism

of the

Holy Spirit

as evidenced by tongues spread

first

among

the small holiness denominations and congregations

of America and then

literally

around the

globe.16 Early converts tended to come from the ranks of the

Methodists, independent Baptists,

and

Presbyterians although

a few

Catholics, Quakers, Disci- ples

of Christ,

Congregationalists,

and Lutherans were also involved. In the aftermath of the

revival,

some of the

independent

holiness denomi- nations added a Pentecostal statement to their

discipline;

new converts who found themselves in denominations or churches hostile to the movement

separated

and joined independent Pentecostal missions The Pentecostal

apostles

from Azusa Street

spread

not

only

the mes- sage

of their new

experience

but also the

proclamation

that Christ’s return was at hand.

Though

it had been a

part

of their

past religious tradition, the

appeal

now carried with it a sense of

urgency

that had been absent since the

days

of William Miller. For the Pentecostals of 1906-

1908, Christ’s

coming

was considered imminent because

they

them- selves were the

sign

of the end time.

Almost from the

start, the Azusa Street

revival

represented

an empha- sis on the Second

Coming

that had been absent from the holiness movement. The first issue of the Apostolic

Faith,

a journal published

by the Azusa Street

Mission, proclaimed

that

“many

are the

prophesies spoken

in unknown

tongues

and

many

the visions that God is

giving concerning

His soon

coming.”18

The idea was

frequently expressed through

the

concept

of the “latter rain.”

Drawing

from the

analogy

of Palestinian seasonal

rains,

Pentecostals theorized that as the first Pente- cost

(Acts 2)

had watered the

newly-planted

seeds of

apostolic

Chris- tianity

so this latter

pentecost (1906)

had fallen to ripen Christ’s

crop

for harvest

(i.e.

the

bride).

G. F.

Taylor expressed

the

theory clearly

in The Spirit

and the Bride, one of the earliest

publications coming

from within the Pentecostal

camp.

Since the latter rain had come

specifically

“to

ripen the fruit” and “not to

bring up seed,” Taylor

noted that “we need not expect many

sinners saved in Christendom these

days.” Nevertheless, the latter rain was a much

larger

rain than the former and

brought

with it a dual mission. While it was

primarily

to prepare the bride of

Christ, the latter rain also offered relief to those lands in which the first shower had

1()On Seymour, see Douglas J. Nelson, “For Such A Time As This: The Story of Bishop William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival” Ph.D. diss., University of Birmingham, England, 1981.

17four an analysis of the major leaders of the early Pentecostal movement and their former religious affiliation, see Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited, 98-113.

18Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) 1:1 (September 1906), 1. Subsequent issues of this journal are filled with numerous editorials and testimonials of the imminent return of Christ.

6

13

not fallen. Thus

Taylor

could conclude

quite optimistically that, despite the untouched Christian

establishment,

“I am

expecting

millions of souls saved, sanctified,

and filled with

[the] Holy Spirit

on foreign fields.”19 An

emphasis

on missions had been a constant in the holiness denomi- nations. Live Coals. a periodical issued

by

the Fire

Baptized

Holiness Church, contained

a report under

“Foreign

Missions” on the first

page of each issue. An article in

May

of 1906

expressed

the denomination’s position

as follows:

The church exists only for the extending of the Kingdom of God upon earth,

the evangelization of the world. To make Christ known and to gather

in the souls He died to save, is the greatest of all works in the light

of etemity.20

However,

the missions thrust that

spread

from Azusa Street

clearly

out- stripped any

effort that had

preceded

it. With

reports coming

from as far away

as India,

many

of the

early

Pentecostals somehow reached

beyond their modest means to travel to new lands as

apostles

of the end times. Just months after the outbreak of revival in Los

Angeles,

the

Apostolic Faith

reported

that

“many

are

speaking

in new

tongues,

and some are on their

way

to the

foreign fields,

with the

gift

of the

language.”21

In December 1907, the

Bridegroom’s Messenger.

a new Pentecostal

peri- odical based in Atlanta, informed its readers that

many people

were selling

their

possessions

and

going “wholly

in the service of God” some as far

away

as China

“speaking

in tongues and others

understanding

and believing

on God as they did on the

day

of Pentecost….”22

While these

early

zealots

predictably

failed in their

attempt

to evange- lize

through tongues,

the fervor with which

they

hit the trail demon- strates the

degree

to which millenarian

expectations

dominated their milieu.

Virtually

all of the first Pentecostals

interpreted

their

glossolalic utterances as xenoglossa, believing that

they

had

miraculously spoken

a known

foreign language.

Parham remembered that with his first

experi- ence “there came a slight twist in

my throat,

a glory fell over me and I began

to

worship

God in the Sweedish

[sic] tongue,

which later changed

to other

languages

and continued so until the

morning.”23

19George F. Taylor, The Spirit and the Bride (Dunn, NC: By the Author, 1907), 96.

20Live Coals (Royston, GA) 4 (May 16 1906), 1. Although this issue was lished the month after the

pub-

the

beginning

of the Azusa Street

revival, the report is unblemished since

Fire-Baptized Church was not affected by Azusa Street until early

1907.

21Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) 1:1 (September 1906), 1.

22Bridegroom’s Messenger (Atlanta)

1 (December 1907), 1. Almost all Pente- costal journals from this period contain such accounts. For an example, see Faith

Apostolic

(Los Angeles) 1:6 (February-March 1907), 1. Also Apostolic Faith (Portland, OR)

#18 (June 1909), 3.

23Apostolic

Faith

(Baxter Springs, KS) 2 (July 1926), 2-3. Also reprinted

in Sarah E. Parham, Life of Charles F. Parham

(Joplin, MO: Tri-State Printing Co.,

7

14

G. F.

Taylor explained

to his readers that

seemingly

indiscernible

glos- solalia was

probably

one of the “thousands of languages in the jungle of the dark lands …”.24 Thus the new

gift

took on a utilitarian function. It would

help

facilitate the

spread

of the revival that demonstrated

by

its arrival the

beginning

of the end.25

Pentecostals

initially

believed that these

languages

could also be com- municated

through writing (i.e. glossographia).

Nickels J. Holmes remembered a student at his Bible school in Greenville, South Carolina who wrote in tongues and then had the

message interpreted by mail from a woman who had the

corresponding gift

of

interpretation.

The

message she returned is

significant precisely

because it represents the

missionary spirit

that

pervaded

the first few

years

of Pentecostal

development.

Make haste to carry my Gospel to famishing souls. What is done must

be done quickly. Continue to go on in my warfare…. Go on in battle for

your God, ever watching,

ever hoping for your Lord’s return to earth

again.26

The exact number of Pentecostal missionaries who traveled abroad expecting

to

preach

in

tongues

is unknown. Charles

Shumway,

a student at the

University

of Southern California who wrote a detailed thesis on the

tongues phenomenon, reported

in 1914 that the number was

“appalling”

and

“very great.”

Of three hundred

responses

he received to

questionnaires

about the

attempted

use of the

missionary xenoglossa,

one third came from overseas.27

Many

of those who did

go reported failure, and,

the most successful of the

early

travelers were former missionaries

who, already

trained in the

languages

and customs of another

nation,

simply incorporated

Pentecostal doctrine and

practice into an existing ministry. In a few

years,

Pentecostal

organizations

were warning against “traveling, sight-seeing experimenting

missionaries” and

endorsing

more conventional methods of training.28 To their

credit, most

accepted

their failure and reassessed their

theology.

Pentecostals continued to

believe, however,

that the revival was the

signal

of the end time.

They

also remained convinced that the Pentecostal

baptism

allowed for

greater missionary

zeal and thus fostered a more effective missions

1930; Reprint ed., Birmingham, AL: Commercial Printing Co., 1977 and New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985).

24Taylor, Spirit and Bride, 51. Also see 35, 62-63, and 102-105.

25For

examples

of Pentecostal claims to xenoglossa, see

Ralph

W. Harris, Spoken by

the Spirit

(Springfield,

MO: Gospel Publishing House,

1973). See also Upper

Room (Los Angeles) 1:1 (June

1909), 6-7.

26Nickels J. Holmes and Lucy Simpson Holmes, Life Sketches and Sermons (Royston,

GA: Press of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, 1920), 181.

27Charles W.

Shumway,

“A

Study of

‘The Gift of Tongues,”‘ (A.B. Thesis, University

of Southern California, 1914), 42 and 180-81. See also L. Grant

Jr., “Salvation Shock Troops” in Harold B. Smith, ed. Pentecostals From the Inside Out (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1990), 81-90.

McClung,

28Word and Witness (Malvern, AR) 9 (Oct. 20, 1913), 3.

8

15

campaign.

In addition to the

missionary fervor,

the Pentecostal move- ment

brought

a distinct element to the

requirements

for

membership

in the bride of Christ.

Clearly present

in the works of Parham as well as the

pages

of the

Apostolic

Faith from Azusa Street, this idea was expressed

most

succinctly

in Taylor’s The

Spirit

and the Bride

through an

interpretation

of the

parable

of the ten

virgins (Matthew 25).

The bridegroom

had

already

come and taken the bride

(i.e.

those with the Spirit baptism).

The

virgins, Taylor argued,

were those Christians who were left. In order to go out and meet the

bridegroom, they

had to get oil (interpreted

as the

Holy Spirit).

The five foolish

virgins

felt

they

did not need more oil and thus lost the

light

from their

lamps

before the bride- groom

returned for them.29 The

explanation,

then, was that the baptism served as the central

ingredient separating

the bride from the rest of the church. The result was a “superiority complex” that Pentecostals have had some

difficulty disassociating

themselves from even to the

present day.

Elitism

was,

in some

respects,

a necessary

part

of Taylor’s

justifica- tion for the Pentecostal movement. Since Pentecostals believed it to be the will of God for all to receive the

blessing,

it followed that

recipients had exercised

superior

obedience.

Taylor

could not resist

noting,

“I know it to be a fact that the most

pious

and

deeply spiritual people

of the land … have been the first to receive their Pentecost …”30 It was a problem

Pentecostals had inherited from their

days

in the holiness movement.

Writing

in March

1906, immediately before the outbreak of the Pentecostal revival, a holiness woman from

Georgia

described her personal

alienation from

family

members once she had “turned

against sin.” Her additional remarks reveal much about the attitude taken toward the more

prominent

denominations of the

day.

Pray earnestly for our prayer meeting, as the devil is trying to keep us saints from

having power because we will not go

and with the

other churches. If the devil could get us to go back it

partake

would be as

as he would

good

want, but by the grace of God I mean to go on because I

know this is the way from earth to glory.31

.

Similarly,

Iowan

evangelist Benjamin

H. Irwin

displayed

his disdain for fellow denominations when in 1899 he

smugly

noted that “there were a few

professions

in the

meeting.

One

Campbellite

woman

actually got saved.”32 What the holiness denominations had

proclaimed

in word and deed,

the Pentecostals institutionalized in theology.

Despite

the

problems

of

early

twentieth

century “P.R.,”

Pentecostals forged

on with their own

understanding

of what God was

doing

and

29Taylor, Spirit

and Bride, 96. See also Apostolic Faith

(Los Angeles)

1:5 (January 1907), 2 and 1:10 (September 1907), 4.

3°Taylor, Spirit and Bride, 43. See also p. 63.

31Üve Coals (Royston, GA) 4 (March 28, 1906), 4.

32Live Coals of Fire (Lincoln, NB) 1 (October 13, 1899), 3.

9

16

why.

And

they

were often rewarded

by

their

opposition

for the

unique- ness of their

message. Though

not

eloquently written,

Dan

York,

an early

Pentecostal

preacher

in

Oklahoma, adequately

demonstrated the kind of anger the new

evangelists

could

provoke

in their

peers.

This was in the days when our comrades were tested in so

We were

many ways.

whipped, sandbagged, poured slop water on us, egged, blew beer foam in our

faces, threw snakes on us, and threw rocks and pieces of

fence post at me while I was preaching.33

Most of the resentment aimed at Pentecostals reflected a distaste for their

worship style.

With antics reminiscent of the Cane

Ridge Camp Meeting

in

Kentucky

in

1801, worshipers

enroute to the

baptism experi- ence were described

by unsympathetic

onlookers as “barking like

dogs” and

“hooting

like owls.” Charles

Shumway,

was

clearly

turned off

by such antics. He described

attending

a Pentecostal service where

“pande- monium was loose”:

Men and women, colored, white, and mulattoes, were

“in tongues.” A man in the center of the room had hold talking excitedly of the in

front of his chair and seemed to be in of an old-fashioned post

Peter

possession

_

Cartwright camp-meeting case of the jerks. He was muttering

and

mumbling

most of the time, but at intervals would raise his voice to a

veritable shriek. About sixty or seventy out of the three hundred

were

present

thus “possessed of the Spirit” and each was apparently seeking to

make enough noise to be heard above the general din. 4

Shumway

found it almost humorous when one of the band defended the actions

by noting,

“God’s

got

a crowd o’ folks here that’s willin’ to let him make fools of ’em if he wants to.”35 A reporter for the Los

Angeles Times attended a service at Azusa Street in 1906 and

appeared

more sur- prised

that “after the

sermon, the seemed normal social- izing speaking

of everyday lifer

people

enough,

and

But,

of

course,

the

early

Pentecostals were “normal

enough.” They were as normal, at least, as any

people

who claim to experience God

or, more

precisely,

dare to believe that the natural and

supernatural

occa- sionally

cross

paths.

Their

worship style

differed from the mainstream in

part

because their

message

was

unique.

It was more than a routine visit from on

high,

and it was more than the divine manifestations which were

currently being

visited on their

generation.

It was more because they sincerely

believed that

they

were

experiencing

both the first and the last, a re-creation of the

worship practices enjoyed by

the first Christians on the

Day

of Pentecost and a signal that the end of

history

had finally

33Dan and Dollie

York, Life Events of Dan

and Dollie York (n.p.,

1951, Pentecostal Holiness Archives, Oklahoma City, OK), 6.

34Shumway, “A Study of ‘The Gift of Tongues’,”

67.

35Shumway, “A Study of ‘The Gift of Tongues’,”

68.

36″Azusa Street ‘Church’

Quite Uncommon,”

Los Angeles Times Special ed. (April 18, 1906), 1.

10

17

come.

Early

Pentecostals were excited, to

say

the least, that

they

had been chosen for such a dramatic

sequence

of events.

There was more to this fervent belief than met the

eye.

Pentecostals imagined

that

they

were immune to history, that

they

could

suddenly

in- herit the

spirit

and milieu of the

early

church almost two thousand

years later. The idea was not

indefensible; given

their belief in the

supernatu- ral,

Pentecostals could have

simply

asserted that all rules of natural law and historical causation were now

suspended.

God was

evoking

new laws and new rules. But, in

general,

it is fair to say that

they

entered into their new era without so

philosophical

an

explanation. Rather, they simply

assumed that the

presence

of charismata-specifically speaking in tongues-was evidence

enough

for their claims.

Converts to the new millenarian movement did, however, take several different

approaches

in justifying those claims. One

was, ironically,

an appeal

to

history.

Pentecostals

recognized

that a link with the

past

was one

way

of establishing their

authenticity.

As

early

as

1907,

an article in the

Bridegroom’s Messenger highlighted

evidences of

glossolalia

from the second

century

work of Irenaeus and the Reformation records of persecuted groups

like the Camisards to the

fairly

recent revival

experi- ences of renowned

evangelist

Charles Grandison

Finney.37

In

1939, Pentecostal

missionary

William H. Turner

published

a detailed account of such occurrences in an effort “to

prove

that Pentecost … is not a new doctrine of religious manifestation but has

always

recurred in the church when

people

have

earnestly sought

for the

infilling

of the

Holy Spirit

While the

approach

used

history,

it was

clearly

not historical. No effort was made to connect the various

episodes

of

glossolalia

with

any kind of historical

linkage;

more

importantly,

no problem was seen in the absence of such links. Turner assumed that

tongue speech equaled tongue speech,

no

questions

asked. From our

perspective,

however there is a problem and the existence of

glossolalia by

various

groups, including

non-Christian ones, is

interesting

and of

sociological signifi-

37Bridegroom’s Messenger (Atlanta) 1 (December 1907), 2. A similar, less ambitious, treatment is found in Upper Room

though

(Los

7. See

Angeles) 1:1 (June also Frank J. 1909), 6-

Ewart, The Phenomenon of Pentecost (St. Louis: Pentecostal Publishing House, 1947), 23-29. Ironically,

Charles Shumway offered the same argument categorizing (the)

Pentecostals with others that had emerged “no less than twenty

different times during the Christian era” (p. 1).

not

Shumway’s motive, however, was to lend the movement credibility. See especially Shumway, “A Study of ‘The Gift of Tongues’,” 74-152.

38William H. Turner, Pentecost and

Tongues 2nd ed. (Franklin Springs, GA: Advocate Press, 1968), v. The quote is from the preface to the first edition which was published by Shanghai

Modem Publishing Co., Shanghai, China, 1939. For exam- ples

of much better researched modern attempts to shed light on the same see

question,

Stanley

M.

Burgess,

The Spirit and the Church:

Antiquity (Peabody,

MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1984) and Erich Nestler, “Was Montanism a Pneuma 6

Heresy?”

(Spring 1984), 67-78.

11

18

cance but creates no historical thread from which to hang the

emergence of twentieth

century

Pentecostalism.

Another tactic taken

by early

Pentecostals was less linear in its approach

to

history. Though history theoretically

moved from

point

to point following

the Creator’s

plan, many

saw

history

as a series of epicycles

in which God allowed human

beings

to fail and then worked hard to ensure that

they

would succeed.

Again,

there was some

justifi- cation for the view. It was

certainly

consistent with the

cycle

of rupture, repentance,

and

redemption

found in the Old Testament. In

addition,

it seemed to fit with the whole drama of human existence as

explained

in the Genesis account. For reasons which

only

He could

know, God had allowed the church to lose its

fervor, demonstrated by the loss of charismatic

gifts.

But in time, there had come

redemption.

Less than two decades

ago,

one Pentecostal editor

explained

it this

way:

For several centuries now Christendom had been making a gradual recov-

ery

from the depths of Roman apostasy that had been its home for better

than a thousand

years.

But as … [recipients] burst forth

speaking

in

tongues

on that cold New Year’s

morning, a full recovery was in the

making.39

Pentecostals who chose the

epicycle approach

had the

advantage

of drawing

on a long standing antagonism within Protestantism toward the pre-Reformation

Church. Their

argument,

if taken

seriously by

their peers,

would have

placed

them in the tradition of

progressive

reform within the Christian faith. The October 1906

Apostolic

Faith

portrayed Pentecostals in a long line of distinguished company.

God has from time to time raised up men to bring back the truth to the church. He raised up Luther to bring back to the world the doctrine of justification by

faith. He raised up another reformer in John Weslcy to establish Bible holiness in the church. Then he raised up Dr. [Charles] Cullis who brought back to the world the wonderful doctrine of divine healing.

Now He is

bringing

back the Pentecostal

Baptism

to the church.40

The view was also

staunchly supported

in G. F.

Taylor’s theological defense of Pentecostalism. The

Spirit

and the Bride

proudly

declared:

We are coming back to God, to the theory of the Spirit dispensation. The

Bible has been our chart for direction, but by the Spirit it is unfolding,

returning

to apostolic light.41

The result was a

heightened

awareness of the

coming

millennium. Pentecostals reasoned that the recurrence of

spiritual gifts

would close

39″Publisher’s Note” in Frank J. Ewart, The Phenomenon of Pentecost Rev. ed. (Hazelwood,

MO: Word Aflame Press, 1975), 7. The best evidence suggests that the initial revival outbreak in Topeka actually occurred on the evening of January 1, 1901, rather than the morning. Cf. Goff, Fields White Unto Harvest, 66-71.

40The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) 1:2 (October 1906), 1.

4 l Taylor, Spirit and Bride, 99.

12

19

would follow. With one

epicycle complete, history cosmic time line.

A third defense that oftentimes

out the church

age

and a new

dispensation

would launch into another one on God’s

early

advocates

postulated

They

also

proclaimed

spread

and loose

organization

appeared

was

implicitly

a denial of

history.

In what Grant Wacker has labeled the “sacred meteor

theme,”

that the revival had arrived

simultaneously around the world

apart

from the normal mode of historical causation.

that the movement had no natural founder, an argument

made

stronger by early disputes

over

leadership

and the

rapid

that characterized the initial decade. As a result,

“the

long history

of the church was not so much

evil,”

Wacker asserts, “as

simply

irrelevant.”42 It was this sense of

“historylessness”

the

optimism

of the

early pioneers.

Thus in 1946 G. H.

Montgomery confidently explained

to a

meeting

of his

city’s Protestant

pastors

that “the Pentecostal movement dates its

origin

with

of the

Holy

Ghost at about 9

A.M., May 28,

A.D.

that most characterized

the

outpouring

30. “43

This brand of Pentecostal others, though contemporaries

prove

haphazard organization

disappointment ably

was not meant to exclude

history.

The

missionaries,

despite

the

early

were remark-

landmarkism

no doubt had a hard time

taking

it

any other

way.

Pentecostals

simply

assumed that events would

ultimately

them

right.

With an

optimism

that seemed

limitless, they

carried their

torch,

confident that all would soon see the

light.

Much of their optimism lay

in this belief that the movement transcended

and the movement’s

rapid spread

to different lands and cultures reinforced the belief that some kind of Divine Plan was

coming together.

And Pentecostal

in the failure of

missionary xenoglossa,

successful. With few

governing agencies

and lean

budgets, they nevertheless

spread

the Pentecostal fire.44

because of the lack of organization,

default,

Pentecostalism was allowed to

adapt

It became the

religion

of the

people

wherever its mes-

The

free-wheeling

nature of the movement was

proudly

the Apostolic Faith

early

in 1908.

Probably

worship patterns. sage spread. proclaimed by

the movement

grew. By itself to local culture and

42Wacker, “Playing for Keeps,” 201. See also “Golden Oldies,” 86. For of Pentecostal histories which stress the “simultaneous

examples

eruption” theory, see Charles W.

Conn, Like A Mighty Army (Cleveland, TN: Church of God Publishing House, 1955), xix and John L. Sherrill, They Speak With Other Tongues (New York: Pillar Books, 1964), 44-46.

43G. H. Montgomery, “The Origin and Development of the Pentecostal Move- ment” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate (Franklin Springs, GA) 30 (March 14,1946), 3.

44The best source for information on Pentecostal missions is L. Grant McClung, Jr., ed. Azusa Street and Beyond South Plainfield, NJ: Bridge Publishing, Inc., 1986.

13

20

There is no man at the head of this movement. God Himself is in the earth. We are on the

speaking

verge of the greatest miracle the world has ever seen …45

‘

No

analysis

of Pentecostalism would be

complete

without some note on the

amazing

success of the movement worldwide.

Despite

its some- what humble

origins

less than a century ago, statistician David Barrett suggests

that the movement

today

numbers over 175 million of the world’s citizens.

By combining

those adherents with the charismatic movement,

made

up

of mainline Protestants and Catholics who have accepted

much of the Pentecostal

message,

Barrett’s

figure

balloons to over 300

million,

a

whopping twenty-one percent

of

organized global Christianity.46

Statistics is a tricky game and it is difficult to know in a movement as amorphous

as Pentecostalism who

belongs

in the same boxcar. Knowing

who is who is not made much clearer

by

the fact that Barrett subdivides his statistics into an almost comical list which includes

“pre- Pentecostals,

quasi-Pentecostals, indigenous

Pentecostals,

isolated radio Pentecostals, post-Pentecostals,

postcharismatics, crypto-charismatics, radiofFV charismatics, and

independent

charismatics.”4?

Nevertheless, Barrett’s statistics

are

revealing

on another score. His findings suggest

that

seventy-one percent

of all Pentecostal-charismatics are non-white and

sixty-six percent

are from Third World

countries, evidence that the movement’s

emphasis

on worldwide missions did indeed characterize its

growth pattern.

The statistics also

suggest

that Pentecostalism has

grown

best

among populations

that have little diffi- culty merging

the natural world with that of the

supernatural.

And that is where the view of

history

becomes

important.

The tremen- dous

growth

rate of Pentecostals in the twentieth

century

was built

upon the twin

pillars of primitivism

and millenarianism. Convinced that

they represented

a reincarnation of the

early church,

Pentecostals

spread

a message

that affirmed the

presence

of the

supernatural

in the twentieth century

world of complex politics and international economics.

Equally important

was the

urgency

with which

they

set about to propagate their message,

an

urgency

which drew its life from the belief that the Second Coming

was imminent. In between those two

pillars,

there

simply existed no room for the historical method. At

best,

such reflection would

45 Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) 1:11 (October-January 1908), 1.

46David B. Barrett, “Global Statistics” in Stanley M. Burgess and

Gary

B. McGee, eds., Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand MI: Zondervan

Rapids,

Publishing House, 1988), 810-830. Barrett’s earlier statistics in 1980 had

suggested a more modest figure of 62 million. The dramatic rise would reflect both growth over the last decade and a failure to count all Third World groups in 1980. Cf. David B. Barrel ed., World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford, et al.: Oxford University Press, 1982), 838.

47Barrett, “Global Statistics,” 811.

‘

14

21

be a waste of time; at worst, it would mute the

message

of the movement and

destroy

its central core.

Yet

history

has a way of

catching

even those who refuse its

message. Walter

Hollenweger,

a historian of the movement’s

global impact,

noted as early as 1972 that “as social conditions

improve

the fervent

expecta- tion of the imminent second

coming disappears.

It is still

taught

in theory,

but is no

longer

a matter of experience. Pension funds are set

up for

pastors,

and

building

and

training programmes

which take

years

to complete

are carried out.”48 That Pentecostals

deny Hollenweger’s assertion does not make it any less true.

Barrett’s statistical revelations

suggest

that the

process

continues to unfold. The

early phenomenal growth

rate of Pentecostals

dropped by the late 1980s to a respectable five

percent per year;

charismatics contin- ued to

grow

at the

slightly higher

rate of seven

percent per year.49 Though

not an

insignificant

rate of

growth,

concern for the loss of the original

vision has been

expressed by

some

thoughtful

Pentecostals. Grant

McClung’s

work on Pentecostal missions

suggested

some

prob- lems that needed to be addressed as the movement enters into its second century.

Concerned over the rise in social status of American Pente- costals and their denominations,

McClung

warned that “the inherent danger

of

moving

out of the ‘social cellar,’ … is that

pentecostals

will move

away

from the masses of winnable and

receptive people.”50 Somewhere in that

perceptive

observation is the

problem

of

history. McClung,

more than most Pentecostals, understands that

problem.

It is an old one and all

groups

and all human

experiences

are altered

by

it. Smart historians know that it is foolish to make assertions of inevitabil- ity.

The human

experience,

if

anything,

has

suggested

that

possibilities and

potentialities

are limitless. Few could have

predicted

the dramatic rise of Pentecostalism over the

present century,

and it is equally uncer- tain what the movement

might

become over the course of the next. What is

certain, however,

is that the movement will continue to

change

and adapt.

That is the nature of the historical

process. Thus,

it seems a bit more than

just

a trite comment to observe that the

process

of

history

is always

a matter of time.

48Walter J. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals

(Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Pub- lishing House, 1972 reprinted by Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1988), 417.

49Barrett, “Global Statistics,” 811.

5°Mcclung,

Azusa Street and Beyond, 142.

15