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Pneuma 31 (2009) 242-263
Hymnody and Liturgy in the Azusa Street Revival,
1906-1908
Stephen Dove
University of Texas at Austin, Department of History 1 University Station B7000, Austin, Texas 78712-0220, USA
dove@mail.utexas.edu
Abstract
Participants in the Azusa Street Revival regularly emphasized the nonliturgical nature of their Spirit-led worship. This article argues, however, that while worshippers eschewed traditional devices such as lectionaries and set schedules, they did create their own, unique form of liturgy through hymnody. The liturgical functions served by music at Azusa Street included selecting Scripture readings, ordering services, and providing theological balance. To make this case, the author surveys references to music, singing, and hymn writing in the oficial publications of the revival and in later accounts of the revival recorded by participants. From these sources, the author identifi es three types of music used at Azusa Street: singing in the Spirit, new compositions written in a conventional style, and traditional hymns. The article further demonstrates how these genres served specifi c functions in the community, one of the most important of which was to emphasize the christological, as opposed to pneumatological, aspects of Pentecostal theology.
Keywords
Azusa Street Mission, hymnody, music, liturgy, singing in the Spirit, Christology
Early twentieth-century America was no stranger to revivals. From utopian communities to faith homes to an almost innumerable number of camp meet- ings, the landscape of the United States at the turn of the century was dotted with emerging religious movements. Despite this abundance of revival move- ments, however, one particular revival that began in Los Angeles in 1906 has been singled out by historians for its lasting impact, in both mythical and realistic terms, as the source of global Pentecostalism. The religious renewal at the downtown Apostolic Faith Mission, which became known as the Azusa Street Revival because of the mission’s address, gained near instant attention from the local press and from a number of religious observers around the
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/027209609X12470371387840
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world. While this attention was decidedly mixed, both the positive and nega- tive reviews quickly focused their attention on the participants’ practice of speaking in tongues, and in the intervening century the dominant focus of historians both inside and outside Pentecostalism has shifted little when it comes to describing what unfolded at Azusa Street. This concentration of pub- lic interest on a single facet of the revival should not be unanticipated, since first-person accounts from the mission overfl ow with discussions of glossolalia. The same records, however, also contain a signifi cant number of references to other, less investigated spiritual practices in the revival that, while not as unique to the movement, operated just as frequently and as powerfully as speaking in tongues.
In 2006, the centennial of the Azusa Street Revival provided an occasion for a surge of interest in the history of the small Los Angeles mission that served as the springboard for Pentecostalism around the world. In response, a num- ber of books and articles appeared that explored aspects of Azusa Street, rang- ing from the role of women and nonwhites in the revival to, of course, the practice of speaking in tongues.1 Surprisingly, however, this spate of interest did not produce a single study dedicated to the important role of hymnody or music in the revival, even though the original documents from the peak years of the revival, 1906 to 1908, refer to music more often than to any other com- munal practice.
This is not to say that scholars have completely ignored the use of music at Azusa Street, but its central role in the revival has barely been touched upon in broader works. In the most complete academic treatment of the revival to emerge during the centennial, Cecil M. Robeck provided a full chapter on worship at the mission. In this chapter, however, Robeck’s broad but thorough survey of the various elements of worship from preaching to prayer to speak- ing in tongues devoted only a scant few pages to what happened at the mission
1
Some of these publications include: Estrelda Alexander, The Women of Azusa Street (Cleve- land, OH: Pilgrim, 2005); Edith L. Blumhofer, “Azusa Street Revival,” The Christian Century 123, no. 5 (March 7, 2006): 20-22; Jack W. Hayford and S. David Moore, The Charismatic Century: The Enduring Impact of the Azusa Street Revival (New York: Warner Faith, 2006); Harold D. Hunter and Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., eds., The Azusa Street Revival and Its Legacy (Cleveland, TN: Pathway, 2006); Grant McClung, Azusa Street and Beyond: 100 Years of Commentary on the Global Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement (Gainesville: Bridge-Logos, 2006); Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal Movement (Nashville: Nelson Reference and Electronic, 2006); and Society for Pentecostal Theology: Memories of the Azusa Street Revival; Interrogations and Interpretations, 35th Annual Meeting at Fuller T eological Semi- nary, March 23-25, 2006 Parallel Session Papers (Pasadena: Society for Pentecostal Theology, 2006).
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with regard to hymns and music.2 Beyond this limited description, little attempt has been made by any scholars to examine the use and development of music in this important event.
What few discussions there are of music at Azusa Street tend to focus their explorations of the topic to the popularity of a single hymn, “The Comforter Has Come,” which Frank Bartleman identifi ed in 1906 as “possibly the [hymn] most sung” at the mission.3 Scholars often cite the prominence of this holiness hymn at Azusa Street worship as evidence of the emphasis the community placed on the Holy Spirit. This emphasis, in turn, leads many investigations away from further discussion of the implications of hymn choices at the mis- sion and instead toward this single hymn’s implication for the Spirit-fi lled practices of the Azusa faithful, especially speaking in tongues. Like these pop- ular treatments, Robeck also gives pride of place to “The Comforter Has Come,” but he is more careful to acknowledge the broad range of other hymns chosen and written by worshippers at Azusa Street.4
Robeck’s acknowledgement of these other hymn selections proves to be the tip of the iceberg in studying Azusa Street hymnody. A close inspection of the accounts and records of the participants in the revival reveals that music not only played an integral role at Azusa Street but also covered a range of theo- logical topics. The worshippers at Azusa Street left behind a relatively large number of references that outline their preferences in hymnody, and these references are especially prevalent in the revival’s oficial paper, The Apostolic Faith. In most cases, these documents contain only the lyrics of the hymns, although in a few instances we also are given clues to the musical setting of the hymns. When taken together, the various references to music in the Azusa Street Revival provide scholars with a richer perspective on the priorities, development, and theology of the revival, as well as insight into the function of music in the movement. Tese sources indicate that the role of music both paralleled common practices in contemporary mainline and Holiness groups and also provided signifi cant innovation and new directions when compared to these groups.
This article seeks to fi ll this gap left in scholarship about the Azusa Street Revival by examining the hymn references found in the publications of the
2
Robeck, Azusa Street Mission, 144-49.
3
Frank Bartleman, Azusa Street (South Plainfi eld, NJ: Bridge, 1980), 57. For examples of this focus, see McClung, Azusa Street and Beyond, 238, and Larry E. Martin, The Life and Ministry of William J. Seymour: A History of the Azusa Street Revival (Joplin, MO: Christian Life Books, 1999), 179.
4
Robeck, Azusa Street Mission, 145-46.
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Apostolic Faith Mission as well as in the recorded remembrances of the reviv- al’s participants. This examination demonstrates that while Holy Spirit-themed hymns like “The Comforter Has Come” were certainly popular at the height of the revival, they were by no means the only or even the most prominent hymns sung and written by those at Azusa Street. Instead, this survey of Azusa Street hymnody from 1906 to 1908 demonstrates that the music utilized at Azusa Street points to multiple theological priorities that were much broader than a singular focus on Holy Spirit baptism.5
Music and Liturgy
Before turning our attention to the specifi c hymns used in the Azusa Street Revival, it will be benefi cial to consider the larger question of what we can expect to learn from hymns in general. T ere is no shortage of references to church music throughout the scriptures and church history. From the Psalms of the Old Testament to Paul’s commendation in Ephesians and Colossians for the faithful to join in hymn singing, we fi nd evidence of the value placed on music in both Jewish and Christian worship. Likewise, from the first century up through modern Christian communities, church history is replete with examples of the signifi cance of music as a tool for developing both theology and practice. The types of hymns used in each of these eras diff ered greatly, but the presence of some type of hymnody is a common thread connecting them all. In each case, hymns were not used as stand-alone products, but rather they operated in the service of a liturgy. T at is to say that throughout the history of Christian worship, hymns have been written and sung to serve a function in the ordering of church worship. T ey operate as a concrete outlet for expressing the more abstract ideas that defi ne both Christian belief and Chris- tian community.6
The claim that music is intimately tied to liturgy may seem to separate a movement like the Azusa Street Revival from traditional categorizations of church music. Tese worshippers, after all, were ones who claimed they had
5
Although worship at the Apostolic Faith Mission on Azusa Street continued until 1931, these dates were chosen as limits for this study because they represent the peak years of the revival. The revival began on April 9, 1906 and moved to Azusa Street on April 15. The revival began to dwindle around the summer of 1908 when a disagreement between parties created a rift in the movement. For more details concerning possible explanations for this rift, see Robeck, Azusa Street Mission, 281f.
6
Nicholas P. Wolstertorff , “T inking about Church Music,” in Music in Christian Worship: At the Service of the Liturgy, ed. Charlotte Kroeker(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005), 5.
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no liturgy or even any human ability to set an order of service but instead depended only on the guidance of the Holy Spirit in matters of organization both great and small.7 As will be demonstrated in this article, however, that very same anti-liturgical stance in the traditional meaning of the term created a unique liturgical experience at Azusa Street that was refl ected in both the development and the use of hymns in the revival. The idea that hymnody and liturgy are thoroughly intertwined in the Christian worship experience does not necessarily favor a high-church order. Rather, the connection of hymnody to liturgy refl ects the idea that Christian worship demands a response to musi- cal expression (even if that response is ultimately the rejection of music) and that this response through hymns is not independent of liturgy but instead stands in service of the liturgical and theological choices of the community.8
The musical choices of each worshiping congregation speak deeply about its shared experience of communal faith. As church musicologist Paul Wester- meyer has noted, “The faith of a community comes to life in its music- making. In music, the faith and life of a people take fl esh.”
9
This was no less true for the Azusa Street worshippers than it was for medieval monastic communities or than it continues to be for contemporary mainline denomina- tions. Although early Pentecostals at Azusa Street had their own unique expressions of spirituality that breathed life into their faith, most notably glos- solalia, they also took part in more traditional practices like singing hymns. And while the first of these two outward expressions has received much atten- tion with regard to the Azusa Street Revival, the second, as noted above, has been much less examined. It is to the specifi c use of hymns at Azusa Street that we now turn our attention.
Azusa Street and Opposition to Formal Liturgy
Liturgy was not a term that many Azusa Street participants would have used to describe their worship experiences or its ordering. Frank Bartleman, an itinerant evangelist who by his own accounts was a near-ubiquitous presence at the Azusa Street meetings, summed up the early Pentecostal feelings about liturgy succinctly when he proudly boasted, “We had no human programme,” and “No subjects or sermons were announced ahead of time, and no special
7
The Apostolic Faith (California), June-September 1907, 3; A.C. Valdez, Sr., Fire on Azusa Street (Costa Mesa, CA: Gift Publications, 1980), 5, 73; Bartleman, Azusa Street, 59.
8
Wolstertorff , “T inking,” 11.
9
Paul Westermeyer, Te Deum: The Church and Music (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 5.
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speakers for such an hour.”10 The editors of the mission’s oficial publication, The Apostolic Faith , were not quite as direct as Bartleman, but neither did they shrink totally from making similar claims. In the paper’s November 1906 edi- tion, the lead article reports that a “rush of mighty wind from heaven” was present at the revival precisely because the meetings were being run “in the very opposite of those conditions that are usually thought necessary for a big revival.” In other words, the leaders at Azusa Street ran their services without a set order of service. The writer goes on to explain that, unlike the typical “big revivals” of the time, those at Azusa Street had no instruments, no choir, no collections, and no advertisements.11 One month later, an unnamed writer, probably the editor of the paper, added song books to the list of unneeded liturgical instruments, explaining that God provided the right song at the right time.12 This set the revival in stark contrast to the established churches in Los Angeles, whose orders of service probably bore much resemblance to the one from First Congregational Church published in the Los Angeles Herald on April 22, 1906. On that Sunday, the paper reported that the morning service began with an organ prelude followed by a children’s processional, a choir response, a congregational hymn, the off ertory song, and fi nally a postlude. This was the type of carefully planned and advertised service to which those at Azusa Street purposefully set themselves in contrast.13
The descriptions of Azusa Street worship without a traditional liturgical order are supported further by accounts of how the services at the mission actually did unfold. Participants in the revival often recalled services running “all night” or losing track of time so that when they left the morning services the sun was already going down. One newspaper report referred to residents living near the mission as the “sleepless ones.”14 A planned liturgy with six carefully chosen hymns like the service at First Congregational Church would hardly have accommodated such a worship schedule. Lawrence Catley, who was twelve years old when he and his family began attending the Azusa Street Revival, recalled later that in most services Pastor William Seymour would simply open a Bible on the wooden bench that served as an altar, and then
10
Bartleman, Azusa Street, 57, 58.
11
The Apostolic Faith (California), November 1906, 1.
12
The Apostolic Faith (California), December 1906, 2.
13
“Church Music,” Los Angeles Herald, April 22, 1906, 2:5.
14
The Apostolic Faith (California), September 1906, 1; The Apostolic Faith (California), Febru- ary-March 1907, 2; The Apostolic Faith (California), May 1907, p. 1; Bartleman, Azusa Street, 54, 58; Valdez, Fire on Azusa Street, 9; “Rolling and Diving Fanatics ‘Confess,’” Los Angeles Daily Times, June 23, 1906, 1:7.
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worshippers would come forward as the Holy Spirit led them to preach and give testimonies. This open forum style of worship would continue unabated for hours, in some cases all night long. Catley recalled that the streetcar lines stopped running at midnight, and so if the evening service continued pass twelve o’clock, the worshippers would just extend their meeting until the lines opened again the next morning.15
The Azusa Street faithful called on numerous examples like this to demon- strate that their worship was directed by the Holy Spirit and thus had no human-imposed order or liturgy; and it was true that the free-fl owing, mal- leable worship at Azusa Street did not resemble the organized orders of service in contemporary mainline and even Holiness congregations. Even so, this dif- ferent method of organization did not represent a complete shedding of lit- urgy as some Azusa participants might have imagined. Instead, it created a new and unique liturgical style. This new liturgy did not resemble the carefully fi xed and programmed services of other churches that Azusa Street worship- pers viewed as stifl ing the Spirit, but the new liturgy did serve at least one of the same purposes as those more fi xed orders of worship. The Azusa liturgy, like all liturgies, embodied the action of proclaiming the central beliefs of the community.16 Since the Pentecostal theology at Azusa Street was treading new ground, it is little surprise that the liturgy there also ventured into new terri- tory. Likewise, since music making is one of the central ways in which Chris- tian communities incorporate practical expression into liturgy, it is also not surprising that the Azusa Street liturgy called for new ways of both using and creating music for the worship service.
New Hymnody at Azusa Street: Singing in the Spirit
One of the more signifi cant and often cited innovations of the Azusa Street Revival in the realm of hymnody was the practice of singing in the Spirit. Of the more than 130 references to hymns or singing reported in The Apostolic Faith newspaper, at least eighty-four are of people singing in the Spirit, a prac- tice that went by several names, including “singing in tongues” and “the heav- enly anthem.” The reported frequency of this practice despite its unique nature is not surprising. In keeping with the liturgical claim that worshippers at Azusa Street did not need human organization, singing in the Spirit was a practice
15
Lawrence Catley, interview by Vinson Synan, Leonard Lovett, et al., May 1974, transcript by Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., Society for Pentecostal Theology.
16
Wolterstorff , “T inking,” 9.
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that could only be attributed to intervention by the Holy Ghost and not to any planning or human eff ort. Like speaking in tongues, singing in the Spirit usually was associated with the singer having received baptism in the Holy Spirit, and this meant that the expression often occurred spontaneously in the service, whether practiced by a lone vocalist or the congregation as a whole. As described by A.W. Orwig, an eyewitness to and participant in the revival, “It was not a something that could be repeated at will, but [was] supernaturally given for each special occasion and was one of the most indisputable evidences of the presence of the power of God.”17 Reporters outside the movement also provided accounts of activity that was probably singing in the Spirit, although the conclusions they drew about the practice were decidedly more negative. In 1906, the Los Angeles Daily Times reported on a group of the Azusa Street faithful worshipping in Monrovia. In that meeting, “[a] half score of sisters were singing a variety of hallelujah hymns in at least three languages,” while in other corners of the room a group of men spoke in tongues, and at the altar yet others lay prostrate.18 The title of this report, “A ‘Holiness’ Rampage,” makes it clear that the reporter was much less sympathetic to the practice than was Orwig, and yet both accounts shared at least two observations in com- mon. First, both described the practice of singing in the Spirit as unpredict- able, and second, both determined that the practice was not explainable in terms of human logic. In form, then, singing in the Spirit was the quintessen- tial expression of the free liturgy of Azusa Street in that it appeared to be unplanned and untraceable to human origins.
The signifi cance of this form has not escaped the notice of Pentecostal historians. Robeck makes connections between the practice and the so-called “Negro chants” of slaves in the antebellum South, and he also off ers anecdotal evidence of the eff ect the singing had on hearers.
19
Grant Wacker, while some- what skeptical of the provenance and prevalence of the practice, nonetheless notes that the genre itself served as a means of regularizing early Pentecostal worship.20 What is missing in both of these treatments of singing in the Spirit, however, is an examination of the content of singing in tongues. In most cases reported from Azusa Street, the historical record does not leave us any indica- tion of the content of episodes of singing in the Spirit, and in some cases there
17
A.W. Orwig, “Azusa Street Scenes,” in The Apostolic Faith Restored , ed. Bennett Freeman Lawrence (St. Louis: The Gospel Publishing House, 1916), 79-80.
18
“A ‘Holiness’ Rampage,” Los Angeles Daily Times, July 11, 1906, 2:6.
19
Robeck, Azusa Street Mission, 149-53.
20
Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 110.
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may have been no words to be interpreted, since the heavenly music was made up of “sound” but not “language.”
21
This is not universally the case, however.
In most of the surviving references to singing in the Spirit, the reporter merely notes that a brother or sister sang in tongues. In some cases, the observ- ers attached to their reports general descriptors that varied from “blessed and beautiful,” as described from within the movement, to “pandemonium break[ing] loose,” as described from the outside.22 Tese generic observations on singing in the Spirit provide little clue to content, but there are a smaller number of cases in which further description is given. In twenty of the eighty- four cases of singing in the Spirit reported in The Apostolic Faith , the reporter either identifi ed the song by the title of an existing hymn, presumably identifi – able because of the melody, or off ered a translation of the message by someone who claimed to have the gift of interpretation of tongues.
The fact that singing in the Spirit was often identifi ed with content indi- cates that the importance of this practice extended beyond matters of form only. The message was not conveyed entirely through the medium. Frank Bartleman suggested that singing in the Spirit was so specifi c to its context that the message of each instance was unrepeatable. “[Singing in the Spirit] was mostly in known tunes,” he reported, “but the words were chosen by the Holy Ghost.”23 In the pages of The Apostolic Faith , reporters recorded eleven instances of singing in the Spirit in which an interpretation was made that did not seem to correspond to a known hymn. The titles or first lines of these compositions were: “Awake Not My Beloved,” “Glory to God in the Highest,” “Hosanna to the Son of David,” “I Am Coming Soon,” “Jesus Is Calling,” “Jesus Is Coming,” “T ere Is a Time Coming,” “With One Accord,” “O Jesus, T ou Wonderful Saviour,” “Oh, Pour Out Your Hearts Before Him,” and “Oh, See How the King Comes in Triumph.” Like the uninterpreted instances of singing in tongues, these eleven examples functioned as a sign of Holy Spirit baptism. The addition of the element of interpretation, however, also provides clues to other functions these hymns may have served in the Azusa Street lit- urgy and in other revival meetings that sprang from Azusa Street.
The January 1907 edition of The Apostolic Faith ran an article entitled “The Heavenly Anthem” that provided three distinct examples of singing in the Spirit from the previous month, all with interpretations. Signifi cantly, all three
21
Bartleman, Azusa Street, 56.
22
The Apostolic Faith (California), January 1907, 1. “Weird Babel of Tongues,” Los Angeles Daily Times, April 18, 1906, 2:1.
23
Quoted in Martin, William J. Seymour, 187.
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translations (the first three in the list above) were based on, if not taken directly from, the pages of Scripture. Because of this content, these songs played a role in connecting the liturgy of the meetings to the authority of the Bible, and, of much importance to the worshippers, the authority for selecting these pas- sages rested in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.24
This source for the choice of Scripture was important because, in keeping with the Spirit-directed nature of the Azusa meetings, there was no lectionary to direct the focus of each gathering. Early Pentecostals, of course, were not the first churches to eschew lectionaries, but unlike other Protestant leaders whose churches had moved away from the lectionary, Pastor William Seymour did not typically fi ll the lectionary’s role by selecting a focus passage himself. With little exception, participants in the revival acknowledged Seymour’s role as the pastor of the Azusa Street mission, and he preached regularly. It is appar- ent, however, that his role in the pulpit was not the focus of most services, and much more attention was paid to individual testimonies and even to visiting preachers. As such, it appears that Seymour did not determine the theme and focus of all, or even most, meetings.25
As Lawrence Catley’s reminiscence of Seymour laying an open Bible on the bench pulpit indicates, the written word of the scriptures was central to the Azusa Street community. Making decisions about how to use that word, how- ever, was a practice that worshippers had to navigate in new ways because of the theological innovations of Azusa Street. Singing in the Spirit was one of the tools used to meet that need. The first two songs recorded in the January 1907 article appear to come from the same service on Sunday night, Decem- ber 9, 1906. The anonymous reporter relates that first “a sister sang in the Gujerathi language of India the first four verses of the 8th chapter of Solo- mon’s Song.” The writer then appends the title “Awake My Beloved” to this anthem. Later in the service, another member sang a hymn in tongues, and the interpreter of that language told the congregation it was the words from Matthew 21:9, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.”
In this short account, we fi nd a worship service with no intentionally directed structure that nonetheless produces related Old Testament and New Testament readings, much as one might expect from a high-church service using a lectionary. While we must be careful not to infer too much from this brief and isolated report, it is not dificult to posit how these two texts were
24
The Apostolic Faith (California), January 1907, 3. 25
The Apostolic Faith (California), November 1906, 1.
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likely understood together in the Azusa Street community. Preaching at the mission, especially the preaching of Seymour, relied heavily on expounding the “types” of Christ in the Old Testament.26 The Azusa Street papers do not record a sermon by Seymour on typology from the Song of Songs. But The Apostolic Faith does record one other instance, in song, of a typological inter- pretation of Song of Songs, and this connection is readily made in other sources that share biblical theology with the movement, most notably in the Old Testament commentary of John Wesley, the patriarch of the Holiness movement who was highly esteemed at Azusa Street.27 In this interpretation, the male character of Song of Songs represents Christ, and the female charac- ter represents the church. In the early verses of chapter eight, sung in the Spirit at the December meeting, the female character expresses her desire to pro- claim publicly her love for the male character. In the New Testament passage sung and interpreted at the same service, the Azusa Street worshippers heard a corresponding public proclamation of love for Christ, this time lifted up by the crowds in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Tese two passages selected by means of songs sung in the Spirit could not have integrated better with the theology of the Azusa Street congregation if the leaders had written them into a standard lectionary.
The third instance of an interpreted song in tongues from this account occurred during “an all day meeting on Christmas.” In this case, the writer reported that the congregation sang Christmas carols in tongues. T is worship service started when an unnamed individual began by singing a song in tongues that was later interpreted as being Luke 2:14. In this case, the singing did not function as a lectionary to choose the Scripture for the service but instead off ered a bridge between the Scripture already read and a time of meditation and praise. The reporter notes that the carol session “followed the reading of the Scriptures” and that “it began with one voice . . . and a chorus of voices joined in.” T ere was no regular song leader at Azusa Street, but this report records an instance in which a song leader was chosen, at least for the moment, based on the presence of music thought to be given by the Holy Spirit. The singing of this hymn in tongues served as a marker in the service that signaled the appropriate time to move from the public reading of Scripture to public worship through music.
26
The Apostolic Faith (California), December 1906, 1, 4; The Apostolic Faith (California), April 1907, 3; The Apostolic Faith (California), June to September 1907, 2.
27
The Apostolic Faith (California), May 1907, 3; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (Bristol: W. Pine, 1765; repr., Salem, OH: Schmul, 1975), 3:1944; The Apostolic Faith (California), October 1906, 1; The Apostolic Faith (California), November 1906, 4.
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In the other eight cases of singing in tongues in which an interpretation is provided but the content does not match existing hymns, even more liturgical functions are represented.28 As with all instances of singing in the Spirit, those who sang and listened to these choruses interpreted their occurrence as a sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit. T at baptism was not usually an end in itself, however, but rather functioned as a means to a greater, and generally more practical, use. In two cases reported in The Apostolic Faith , these interpreted songs served as exhortations, either appended to preaching or standing in the stead of preaching.
In January 1907, Florence Crawford, who left from the Azusa Street mis- sion to spread the Pentecostal message in the Pacifi c Northwest, reported back to Los Angeles about the ministry of her nine-year-old daughter Mildred. In one service, Mildred began to sing in tongues, and then the girl interpreted her own hymn as saying, “Jesus is calling you. Jesus is calling, O sinner, come home. Glory to His name, O sinner, come home.”29 As she sang this song, young Mildred rose and began to preach, using her hymn sung in the Spirit as an introduction to a sermon on the imminent return of Christ to judge world. The eff ect of all of this was that the congregation was “silenced like death.”
30
Clearly, this style of hymn — singing in tongues as part of an exhortation — had profound use and eff ect in early Pentecostal meetings. In this case, it not only quieted but perhaps even shocked a crowd of adults to the point where they were in rapt attention to a preacher who was herself not even a teenager. Mildred Crawford was not the only preacher associated with Azusa Street who incorporated hymns into her sermons in this manner. A worshipper named Alberta Hall wrote to Los Angeles in 1907 to report her experience in a San Jose mission that was started by an evangelist from Azusa Street. When she received her baptism in the Holy Spirit, the once timid Hall received a new boldness and found herself unexpectedly singing messages in tongues in front of the congregation. In this particular instance, her message resembled what might fairly be called a fi re and brimstone sermon, except that it was put to
28
The Apostolic Faith (California), September 1906, 4; The Apostolic Faith (California), Janu- ary 1907, 1; The Apostolic Faith (California), February-March 1907, 8; The Apostolic Faith (Cali- fornia), January 1908, 2.
29
The structure of this hymn bears a resemblance to the chorus of “Softly and Tenderly,” the 1880 hymn written by Will L. T ompson and often used in the services of Dwight L. Moody. It is probable that Mildred Crawford had heard this hymn before, and it likely infl uenced her experience here. Her rendition of the chorus defi nitely has its own character, however, especially when taken together with the implied tone of her subsequent message.
30
The Apostolic Faith (California), January 1907, 1.
12
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“heavenly” music. Hall’s song, like Crawford’s, warned of the impending return of Jesus, but unlike Crawford, it appears that Hall’s message was com- pletely contained in her song. It was not an introduction to the exhortation but the actual exhortation itself.31
New Hymnody at Azusa Street in Conventional Styles
Original hymns composed by those connected to Azusa Street were not only limited to examples sung in the Spirit. T ese worshippers developed new hymnody in a more traditional style as well. In the pages of The Apostolic Faith , we fi nd references to nineteen hymns created either by worshippers at Azusa Street or by travelers from other places who had direct or indirect contact with Azusa Street, usually as a result of a short visit to Los Angeles. Such references may be divided into two types: first, four titles or short excerpts of songs included in longer testimonial articles, and second, fi fteen entries of the full text of songs or metrical poems printed with little or no contextual informa- tion about their use in services.
For these first four examples that the editors provided with context, we can establish a clear understanding of how the Azusa Street community used these hymns in their worship. The first two instances of these original hymns occurred in November 1906 and January 1907 and share a common purpose. In the 1906 occurrence, one “Brother Burke” from Anaheim, California reports that he was pleading with God for baptism in the Holy Spirit when he began to sing the line, “The power, the power, the Pentecostal power, is just the same today.” He continued to repeat this line of song until the Holy Spirit switched his singing to a more familiar tune, “The Comforter Has Come,” presumably marking his baptism in the Spirit.32 In the 1907 example, Myrtle Shideler, a missionary on her way to Liberia, provided a lengthy account of her “full tes- timony” — a term with theological signifi cance that indicated her allegiance to the Pentecostal Movement and its emphasis on the “full gospel” of Holy Spirit baptism in addition to the justifi cation and sanctifi cation preached in other churches — before leaving for the mission fi eld. At one point in her testimony, Shideler described herself on her knees at a service in New York praying for God’s power when God placed a refrain on her heart and lips: “Jesus’ blood covers me, I was blind but, hallelujah, now I see.”33 Like Burke,
31
The Apostolic Faith (California), February-March 1907, 4. 32
The Apostolic Faith (California), November 1906, 3. 33
The Apostolic Faith (California), January 1907, 3.
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Shideler sang the new chorus she heard from God and only then experienced the baptism in the Spirit for which she had been longing.
Tese two testimonies demonstrate how the Azusa Street faithful used orig- inal hymns, attributed to the Holy Spirit, as a way to prepare for Holy Spirit baptism. In a way, the singing of these choruses functioned similarly to Charles Finney’s “anxious bench” or the altar prayers of twentieth-century evangelistic rallies. Hymns served as a fi nal step in a sequence of practices for those seeking religious awakening. Considering this similar use of the hymns in both accounts above, it is noteworthy that the contents of the two hymns represented here are not more uniform. In Burke’s case, his hymn clearly demonstrates a focus on Pentecost, an event in church history dominated by the Holy Spirit. Shideler’s attention, on the other hand, is directed squarely on the crucifi xion and, in turn, on Jesus.
Tese divergent focuses, and the fact that they both received sanction from the Azusa Street leadership by being published, point to an important theo- logical underpinning of the revival. In a movement that is often identifi ed primarily by its commitment to speaking in tongues as a sign of Holy Spirit baptism, neither the sign of baptism nor even the baptism itself was the pri- mary focus of the movement’s theology. The Holy Spirit was defi nitely impor- tant to these worshippers, and the so-called third Person of the Trinity was emphasized and elevated in early Pentecostal centers like Azusa Street in new ways. The leaders at Azusa Street, however, were quick to point to redemption through Jesus, and not the Holy Spirit, as the focus of their message. In Janu- ary 1907, an unidentifi ed writer, likely William Seymour, exhorted his read- ers, “We do not have time to preach anything else but Christ. The Holy Spirit has not time to magnify anything else but the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”34 If Burke’s hymn represented the movement’s renewal of taking the Holy Spirit seriously, then Shideler’s served as a reminder that the baptism provided by the Holy Spirit still operated in service to a larger purpose, the proclamation of a christocentric gospel.
The integration of a theological emphasis on the Holy Spirit with an unwav- ering commitment to the centrality of the cross is also well represented in the fi fteen new songs and metrical poems whose full text appears in The Apostolic Faith. Of these fi fteen original hymns, only one appeared with an indication of the music that was to accompany it. This priority on preserving the text of hymns used at the mission over preserving the music refl ects the liturgical
34
The Apostolic Faith (California), January 1907, 2. See also Bartleman, Azusa Street, 54 for evidence of the mission’s “great emphasis” on the blood.
14
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priorities discussed above in a congregation that advertised itself by claiming, “Many times we do not need these songbooks.”35 From the testimonies of participants, it is obvious that these hymns were sung in the services and thus had some type of musical meter and structure. The manner of their preserva- tion, however, indicates that while the melodic nature of the hymns was not understood negatively, neither was it understood as terribly important, at least when compared to the importance of the message contained in the lyrics. And in those lyrics of songs written from the early years of Azusa Street, we fi nd a defi nite twofold focus on the Holy Spirit and Jesus.
What may be surprising to many is that while this focus is twofold, it is certainly not balanced, at least in the amount of space dedicated to each of these two Persons of the Trinity. Of these fi fteen hymns, eleven focus on Chris- tology, three focus on pneumatology, and one provides a strikingly balanced praise of all three members of the Godhead. Also of note is that of the three hymns dedicated to matters of the Holy Spirit, two allocate at least some of their space to expounding on the role of Jesus in the salvation experience. On the other hand, of the eleven christological hymns, none makes any allusion to the Holy Spirit.
While we cannot be sure how, or even if, all of these hymns were used in services at Azusa Street, we do know that the editors of The Apostolic Faith thought enough of them to include them in the mission’s oficial publication. T erefore, we can expect that they off er insight into the theology of the move- ment with a diff erent nuance from that provided by other media such as sermons and testimonies. If we continue with an understanding of hymns as operating in service of a larger liturgy, then these hymns written by Azusa Street participants may be understood as a type of counterbalance to other elements in the service.
When reading accounts of services at Azusa Street or at other missions planted by missionaries from this Los Angeles gathering, it is impossible to miss the focus on the Holy Spirit and especially the emphasis on speaking in tongues as a sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit. Each edition of The Apostolic Faith printed letter after letter of testimony from people whose personal sto- ries revolved around the power of the Holy Spirit. If we take the four-page April 1907 edition as a representative sample — chosen because it chronicles events that occurred near the halfway point of the most active years of the revival — we fi nd that forty-four of the fi fty-seven articles, testimonies, and sermons printed that month contain references to Holy Spirit baptism. If this
35
The Apostolic Faith (California), December 1906, 2.
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proportion is even close to what was found in typical services, which were reportedly dominated by impromptu testimonies and sermons, then we would expect one of two things to be true.36 Either (1) the theology of the commu- nity was disproportionately weighted toward an emphasis on the Holy Spirit, or (2) some other liturgical element was used to bring a sense of balance to the services.
We have seen above that the leaders at Azusa Street were adamant that their community was not a cult of the Holy Spirit that discarded the centrality of Christ, and so the second option becomes much more viable than the first. If we are to judge by the inverse nature of the subject matter found in the hymns, more heavily weighted toward Christology than pneumatology, then we may conclude that hymns were most likely the liturgical element that provided bal- ance to these other elements of the service. In this capacity, hymns like these written by Azusa Street participants were probably used as one means of mov- ing people from receiving the power of the Holy Spirit to using it.
An unsigned article in the October 1906 edition of The Apostolic Faith , apparently an excerpt from a sermon and possibly preached by Seymour, com- pared the “morning” Pentecost of Acts 2 to the “evening” Pentecost being experienced at Azusa Street. The message of the sermon was not that the group gathered together should rejoice in having found an ultimate understanding of faith, however. Rather, the message urged the congregation toward what should come next. “And as it was in the morning, so it shall be in the evening,” the writer exhorts. “This is the last evangelistic call.” The Holy Spirit baptism had returned in order to draw people to Jesus before time ran out.37
In 1912, A.W. Orwig corroborated that Seymour urged the congregation toward this evangelistic view of Holy Spirit baptism. “In the first year of the work in Los Angeles,” Orwig wrote, “I heard W.J. Seymour, an acknowledged leader, say, ‘Now, don’t go from this meeting and talk about tongues, but try to get people saved.’ ” Even at the time of the revival, Orwig reported that detractors condemned the Azusa Street Revival, falsely, he claimed, for teaching nothing beyond speaking in tongues. Orwig, however, was adamant that salvation, not tongues, was at the heart of the ministry at Azusa Street. “Bro. Seymour con- stantly exalted the atoning work of Christ and the Word of God, and very
36
The Apostolic Faith (California), September 1906, 1. The Apostolic Faith (California), November 1906, 1. Bartleman, Azusa Street, 59.
37
The Apostolic Faith (California), October 1906, 3.
16
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earnestly insisted on thorough conversion, holiness of heart and life and the fullness of the Holy Spirit.”38
Pentecostal missiologist Grant McClung has described this focus at Azusa Street, especially in the person of William Seymour, as launching not just a theological movement focused on the Holy Spirit but also a new global “mis- siological paradigm” that was “integrated with an eschatological urgency.”39 It may be too much to attribute this new paradigm entirely to the Pentecostal Movement when contemporary evangelical and fundamentalist Christians were also developing eschatologically driven mission programs. Seymour and his Azusa Street congregation, however, certainly organized their faith around that paradigm and infused it with an unparalleled focus on the Holy Spirit. This claim of a primary concern for eschatologically driven evangelism is fur- ther supported by a survey of the titles of the fi fteen original hymn texts pre- served in the mission’s paper. Eight of these hymns carry the following titles: “A Message Concerning Christ’s Coming,” “Jesus Is Coming,” “When Jesus Comes,” “Hark! The Moments T ey Are Passing!” “The Warfare, The Rapture, and Afterwards,” “The Signs of the Times,” “The First Resurrection,” and “Jesus Is Coming” (diff erent from the first hymn by the same title). And even some that do not carry titles that obviously point to the imminent return of Christ — including “Song of Prayer,” “Jesus Talking to His Bride,” and “Press Toward the Mark” — make clear the urgent nature of the task of evangelism. It is clear from the focus of these hymns that getting caught up in the raptur- ous joy of Holy Spirit baptism was not the end goal for the Azusa Street wor- shipper. Rather, the goal was helping others to get caught up in the rapture itself.40
Traditional Hymnody at Azusa Street
The Pentecostals of Azusa Street did not have to rely only on their own creativ- ity for hymns that would help crystallize their experience and refi ne their
38
Orwig, “Azusa Street Scenes,” 86. Italics in original.
39
Grant McClung, “Try to Get People Saved: Azusa ‘Street Missiology,’ ” in Azusa Street and Beyond: 100 Years of Commentary on the Global Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement, ed. Grant McClung, (Gainesville: Bridge-Logos, 2006), 3-4.
40
David William Faupel applies this theological paradigm to Pentecostalism as a whole and concludes that an eschatological focus became the driving force behind the growth of Pentecos- talism throughout the twentieth century. David W. Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel: The Signifi – cance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal T ought (Shefield, UK: Shefield Academic Press, 1996).
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theology. Despite their claim not to need songbooks, they did utilize a number of stalwart hymns from the Wesleyan Holiness tradition through which many of the Azusa Street faithful traced their spiritual heritage. Although it has become common to identify “The Comforter Has Come” as the theme song of the Azusa Street Revival, the actual selection of hymns used by the worship- pers was quite diverse.
As was noted in the introduction, “The Comforter Has Come” — a holi- ness hymn written in 1890 — did play an important role in the meetings. Both Frank Bartleman and a reporter in The Apostolic Faith recall it being sung at most meetings, and with fi ve total references in the thirteen editions of The Apostolic Faith published from Los Angeles it is easily the most cited hymn from Azusa Street. Most certainly “The Comforter Has Come” was important at the mission because of its focus on the real and personal presence of the Holy Spirit; however, scholars have overlooked that in the reference from the mission’s newspaper used to validate its primacy, this hymn was listed along with two others as being sung every day. T ose other hymns were “Heavenly Sunlight” and “Under the Blood.”
41
“Heavenly Sunlight,” which was written in 1899 and set to music by the same composer as “The Comforter Has Come,” focuses on the faithfulness of Jesus in guiding the believer through life. It is not as easy to identify what hymn is referred to with the title “Under the Blood,” since no early Pentecostal or Holiness hymn known by that exact title is extant. The name seems to indi- cate, however, that the hymn was concerned primarily with atonement through the death of Christ. If we consider that worshippers probably sang all three of these hymns at each meeting, then a fuller picture of the Azusa Street meetings emerges, and we again fi nd that music brings a theological balance to the mis- sion through its role in the liturgy.
Tese hymns were not the only pre-existing hymns sung at the mission, either. In all, sixteen hymns were referenced by name in copies of The Apostolic Faith, and most of these were written in the late nineteenth century and pub- lished in Holiness hymnals.42 A November 1906 article also reported, “Often one will rise and sing a familiar song in a new tongue,” indicating that many other Holiness hymns may have been incorporated into worship at Azusa Street, their content identifi ed among the congregation not by the words
41
Bartleman, Azusa Street, 57. The Apostolic Faith (California), November 1906, 1.
42
Nine of the sixteen hymns were printed in 1897 in The Young People’s Hymnal , published by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. W.D. Kirkland, James Atkins, and William J. Kirkpat- rick, eds., The Young People’s Hymnal (Nashville: Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1897).
18
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themselves but by the tune of the song.43 Evangelist A.C. Valdez, Sr., who attended the Azusa Street Revival as a teenager, recalled that “we used to break out in songs about Jesus and the Holy Spirit: ‘Fill Me Now,’ ‘Joy Unspeakable,’ and ‘Love Lifted Me.’ Praise about the cleansing and precious blood of Jesus would just spring from our mouths.”44 His recollection of these three hymns, which are not referenced in The Apostolic Faith , reinforces the idea that the worshippers at Azusa Street drew on a rather broad selection of Holiness hymns and that these hymns were not exclusively focused on pneu- matological concerns.
Like hymns written within the Azusa Street community, these existing hymns served specifi c functions in services ranging from general praise
45
to accompaniment for tarrying46 to music played at a funeral.
47
In most of these cases, the eff ective function of the hymn is clearly communicated through the testimony of an individual, but the intended function must be inferred. In one instance from May 1907, however, the revival’s oficial publication preserves a transcript of a large portion of a single service at Azusa Street, and the reader can observe how Seymour used a well-known hymn for a specifi c transitional purpose in the liturgy.
From the evening service on May 1, 1907, the editor off ers several snippets from the testimony portion of the sermon connected by section breaks to indicate that other events also transpired between these episodes. The fi nal tes- timony of a “young colored sister” exhorting in tongues, however, fl ows with- out pause or break into Seymour’s sermon, which is introduced as follows:
Bro. W.J. Seymour then started the congregation singing: Jesus, Jesus, how I trust T ee,
How I’ve proved T ee o’er and o’er;
Jesus, Jesus, blessed Jesus,
Oh, for grace to trust T ee more.
He then said . . .
And the text of Seymour’s sermon follows.48 Whether Seymour was following a schedule or felt himself infl uenced by the Holy Spirit, he clearly inserted a hymn — one that most if not all of those in attendance would know — as a
43
The Apostolic Faith (California), November 1906, 1. 44
Valdez, Fire on Azusa Street, 9.
45
The Apostolic Faith (California), October 1907-January 1908, 3. 46
The Apostolic Faith (California), February-March 1907, 8. 47
The Apostolic Faith (California), November 1906, 3. 48
The Apostolic Faith (California), April 1907, 2.
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means of transitioning the service from one element to the next. T is common hymn was used to gather together the minds of the congregation from the more free-fl owing testimony time to focus corporately on a specifi c event in the service, the sermon. While the worshippers at Azusa Street may have prided themselves on their submission to the movement of the Spirit rather than to human overseers when it came to their worship, they demonstrated again that whatever their motivating power, they continued to use hymns as a means of organizing the liturgy they used.
Conclusion: The Final Eff ects of Azusa Street Hymnody
In 1913, fi ve years after the revival at Azusa Street had begun to subside, thou- sands of worshippers from missions and churches that traced their lineage back to Azusa Street gathered on the northeast edge of Los Angeles for the Apostolic Faith Worldwide Camp Meeting. For this meeting, which is best known as the site where Trinitarian and Oneness Pentecostals initiated their split from one another, a hymnal was printed to be used in the various services. This hymnal, titled The Best of All , contained many of the Holiness hymns that worshippers had sung in the heyday of Azusa Street, located just six miles south of the campground. What is especially notable about this hymnal, how- ever, is not the several hymns it contained in common with the records from Azusa Street; rather, what is most interesting are two things it did not contain. First, it published none of the original music produced, either in English or interpreted from tongues, by the participants in the revival, and second, it did not contain the reported anthem of the revival, “The Comforter Has Come.”49
While notable, the absence of these songs is not surprising. By 1913, the Pentecostal Movement had blossomed into something much diff erent from the revival at 312 Azusa Street that served as the catalyst of its global growth. Because of this, the use of hymns could not have remained the same. T ose uses had to develop along with the liturgical and theological needs of the movement. Just as the unique situation of the Azusa Street Revival called for unique and innovative applications of hymnody, so too did subsequent changes in Pentecostalism require further innovations and changes.
49
The Best of All (Los Angeles: Unknown, [1913]). An abridged version was also passed out at the meeting: Special Song Souvenir, Apostolic Faith World-Wide Camp-Meeting (Los Angeles: Fred G. Pitt, [1913]).
20
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Despite this seemingly quick passing away of Azusa Street hymnody, the way hymns were composed and used at the time continues to speak volumes about the revival, its organization, and its theology. Without a thorough understanding of how hymns were used at the revival we will not be able to understand the revival itself. Music reveals something about Azusa Street that preaching, testimonies, and other means of communication cannot. T rough the music of Azusa Street, we are able to see “the faith and life of a people take fl esh.”
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