Pneumatikos Publications

Book Review by Rev. Paul A. Hughes, M.Div.

Fields White Unto Harvest: Charles F. Parharn and the Missionary Origins of Pentecostalism

by James R. Goff, Jr. (Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansas, 1988); paperback, $12; hardcover $22; 263 pages. Dr. Goff is a member of the Pentecostal Holiness Church and a history professor at Appalachian State University.

Originally published in Paraclete 24 (Summer 1990):31-32.

Charles F. Parham is best known as the leader of the Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas, at the time of the Pentecostal outbreak in 1901. Few major works have been written on Parham's life since Charles Shumway's scathing Boston University dissertation, "A Critical History of Glossolalia," was published in 1919. Shumway maintained that "tongues-speaking" was a mere psychological phenomenon which appealed to individuals lacking spiritual understanding.

Born to respectable Kansas farmers in 1873, the capable, well-read, and charismatic young Parham rose to national attention as the recognized leader of the Apostolic Faith movement, only to fall from grace a few years later in the wake of a sex scandal. Fields White Unto Harvest is by far the most objective and well-documented sourcebook available on Parham's life. Goff, though sympathetic with both Parham and Pentecostalism, believes that "faith is never helped by sentimental history."

The remainder of this article is now included in:

Christ in Us: The Exalted Christ and the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

How does the Holy Spirit indwell the believer, and why should one seek that experience? In this collection of articles based on over twenty years' personal experience as well as academic study, the author relates Spirit Baptism and spiritual gifts to their source, the exalted Jesus Christ. He describes this Exaltation of Christ and constructs a theory of how the Holy Spirit indwells the believer, drawing from psychology and medical science as well as Scripture. Finally, he proposes a new Theology of Exaltation that sees the whole sweep of church history as the ongoing glorification of Christ and Redemption of the world.

ISBN 978-0-6151-3840-4 paperback, 192 pp., 6 x 9 in., with index and appendices.

God's Trombone Books by Paul Hughes


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