SITE DISCLOSURES
The concept that I Thessalonians 5:23 speaks of "entire sanctification," a gift which can be received from God as a one-time post-salvation blessing was first suggested in one of John Wesley's tracts in 1766 and was a theme, albeit a relatively minor one, in the Methodist tradition from that point forward. The first to equate this "second blessing" with the baptism of the Holy Spirit was apparently Wesley's disciple John Fletcher, in 1771. Fletcher also associated this experience with the bestowal of power for service. For the next century there was always at least a minority of Methodists who believed in and were actively seeking entire sanctification and some among these who believed that this experience was the same as the baptism of the Holy Spirit and would be accompanied by manifestation of miraculous power.
Moreover, among those who received this teaching and, therefore, expected miraculous manifestations, miraculous things did, in fact, happen on a number of occasions between 1771 and 1901. The most common miraculous manifestation during this period was healing, not tongues. In some instances, healings occurred without tongues being in evidence at all, as was true in Charles Mason's meetings in Jackson, Mississippi in 1896 and in the Church of God in Christ before 1907. In others, such as the movement started by Edward Irving in Scotland in 1830, healing, other charismata and tongues were seen together.
This "Holiness Movement" appealed mostly to Methodists, but was not confined to them. Irving was pastor of Regent Square Presbyterian Church in Port Glasgow, Scotland, prior to preaching the baptism of the Holy Spirit and most of those who followed him were Presbyterians. When the movement began to grow in earnest in the U.S. about 1865, it was at first welcomed by most of the major denominations because of its emphasis on holy living and renewal of the church from within. Major leaders in the movement came not only from the Methodists, but from the Quakers, the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians and various Baptist denominations, and even some Catholics became a part of it (though without their denomination's blessing). The friendly relationship between the Holiness Movement and the established denominations started to sour about 1880, partly due to doctrinal shifts within the movement and partly because a few of its leaders had given up on renewal of the existing churches and started to found their own groups. This poisoning of relationships led to the Holiness factions in most established denominations being disfellowshipped between 1880 and 1900.
The interaction of revival movements and of Wesleyan teaching with the race issue in the United States is also critical to the history of the Pentecostal revival and should not be ignored. The Wesley brothers were both abolitionists, and their movement produced some of the great egalitarian abolitionist leaders, both in Britain and in America (for example William Wilberforce, Gilbert Haven, LaRay Sunderland and Anthony Bewley). Indeed, Charles Finney, the most famous revivalist of the Second Great Awakening, arose out of the Wesleyan tradition, opposed slavery, and wrote a very powerful argument that regeneration and the decision to oppress one's brothers cannot coexist (see Finney's Systematic Theology, chap. 17). But their movement also produced churches in America that restricted black worshippers to the balcony or some other carefully segregated area, where they could watch white people worship but not participate. The formation of separate denominations in which black people could participate (because there were no simply no white people involved in them at all) was undoubtedly the best solution available in the early 19th Century, given the stubborn racism of white church leaders and state legislators. Such divisions into separate "white" and "black" denominations therefore occurred among the Methodists and most of the other mainline denominations.
However, even the white branch of the Methodist movement was divided over slavery. The Wesleyan Methodists (now called just "Wesleyans") in 1843, and the Free Methodists in 1860, separated from the white Methodist mainstream in large part because the denominational bodies of the larger denomination either tolerated or actively defended slavery. To be sure, a doctrinal split was beginning to develop over the meaning and means of sanctification — the underlying question being whether sanctification is best characterized as a progressive becoming like Christ or as a "second blessing" experience of entire sanctification — but this difference wouldn't likely have created an organizational schism as early as 1843 in the absence of the slavery issue. (In fact, the two positions on the sanctification issue are, in theory at least, reconcilable as complementary halves of the same truth). Following a position similar to that of Finney, and probably influenced by him, first the Wesleyans and then the Free Methodists insisted that no one who has yielded fully to God and been sanctified by Him could possibly own slaves or defend slavery.
Finney's revival in New York, the Wesleyans and Free Methodists were the beginning of the "Holiness" Movement. As previously noted, except for the two abolitionist Methodist denominations that formed before the Civil War, this development occurred at first mostly within established denominations, leading to the disfellowshipping of the members of the movement from the mainline bodies only after 1880. These displaced saints, of course, founded new churches and new denominational organizations. Initially, the tendency was for each group of Holiness people who were thrown out of any given mainline denomination to form their own little denomination, which carried over its own set of pet doctrines from the denomination from which it had been ejected. Moreover, in addition to the divisions based upon denomination-of-origin, there were divisions based upon exactly what the content of the "second blessing" was, there being three major theories: 1) sinless perfection; 2) inability to sin intentionally; or 3) inability to sin with or in the human spirit. (In fact, God's work of sanctification grows gradually within us rather than being "dumped" whole on us from the outside, as is more fully discussed in God is King, on another site.) Furthermore, there were divisions over whether this "second blessing" should be equated with the baptism of the Holy Spirit and, if so, whether the charismata should be expected to follow. Finally, the people involved in these new denominational groups had recent experience with being disfellowshipped because of doctrine, and were sometimes not hesitant to disassociate themselves from others whose doctrine they believed to err even on fairly minor points.
What's ironic about this development is that, while the earliest of these groups were initially composed of abolitionists who separated from the Methodist mainstream over the slavery issue, for the most part these groups (the Wesleyans and Free Methodists included) formed segregated churches. In some of these groups, the result was ultimately the formation of separate black denominational groups, like the original (1893) Church of God in Christ. In others, such as the Church of the Nazarene (important in the story of the Azusa Street revival), the result was separate black congregations within the denomination. But very seldom did the teaching of the "Holiness" position lead to the formation of integrated congregations.
This combination of Holiness teaching with an organization-level decision to excuse racism led to an absurd result: an emphasis on adherence to church rules of morality and on waiting on God for "entire sanctification" experiences instead of a growing relationship with God as shown by conformity to His will. Many in these groups appeared to take the attitude, essentially that, "As long as I don't drink, smoke, cuss or chew, and I've had the defining sanctification 'experience,' it's OK if I'm still a racist!" (Of course, this teaching completely ignored the unquestionable fact that our reconciliation to each other into one Body in Christ is at the very heart of the Gospel). In spite of this organization-level decision to tolerate racism, many of the Holiness groups were open to the miraculous and to the operation of the gifts of the Spirit. So, miracles started to happen and, particularly after the late 1880s, some of the gifts, most notably healing, started to manifest fairly regularly in these groups.
The net result of all of this was initially a rather large array of mostly small denominational groups, independent congregations and independent teachers which were often at variance over relatively small points and were additionally divided along racial lines. Many of these differences were later worked out, and a good deal of consolidation of Holiness groups had occurred by 1920 or 1930. However, Charles Parham and William Seymour, the most important personalities in the events which led to the Azusa Street revival and the modern Pentecostal movement, acted before this consolidation set in, in a milieu which was markedly divisive.
Charles Parham was a Wesleyan Methodist minister who generally believed that the Wesleyans (who were no slouches!) were too lax morally and did not emphasize "entire sanctification," healings and miracles enough. He had broken away from the Wesleyan Methodist denominational organization as an independent to pursue the full implications of the sanctification doctrine. Like most in the Holiness Movement, he viewed the "second blessing" as conferring both sanctification and charismatic power (healing, prominently, but also miracles and prophecy). However, his views were more extreme than those of many in the Holiness Movement in that he viewed the sanctification aspect of the "second blessing" as conferring sinless perfection upon its recipient.
Bethel Bible College, which he operated in Topeka, Kansas, from the Fall of 1900 until the Spring of 1901, was an independent Holiness college. It is noteworthy, however, that Parham operated a healing mission or healing school at a different location in Topeka for several years prior to the opening of Bethel College, and that newsletters published by his healing school assert that many notable healings occurred there. Thus, he clearly viewed the gift of healing as being in operation in the Church before 1900. Therefore, he would obviously have asserted that he had received power for service before that date.
In the Fall of 1900, Parham's organization rented a larger building, the only partially completed Stone mansion ("Stone's Folly"), which was then more than a mile beyond the west city limit, as a location for his new (and all white) Bible college. The question assigned for study at Bethel Bible College in the Fall of 1900 was this: what is the sign of entire sanctification? That is, how can I look at you and be sure that you have received the sanctification experience — and are, therefore, eligible for church leadership? It was a theological question that could only have arisen in a Holiness group.
Over the course of their studies that Fall, Parham and his students first concluded that entire sanctification and the baptism of the Holy Spirit were related to each other. This led to a second question — what is the outward sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit?
Thus, when Parham left Topeka for a few weeks in December 1900, he left his students with the following question to answer from the Scriptures: "What is the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Ghost?" However, it should be noted once again that the issue which underlay this question was essentially a practical question of Wesleyan doctrine, i.e., given that there are certain people in our local churches who have received the "second blessing" (and, therefore, now are no longer able to sin and have received God's power for service), what is the sign by which we can recognize these individuals? Obviously, it would be of benefit to place these blessed individuals, and only these individuals, in leadership. (This reasoning is, in itself, an interesting example of the heavenly boss fallacy discussed on another site.) It rather escaped Parham, et. al., that the obvious sign of sanctification would be a holy life (which, unfortunately, takes too long to observe accurately and can be faked in the short-term) and that the obvious sign of endowment with power would be manifest acts of power (which, equally unfortunately, few have the courage to attempt and which can also be faked). Ultimately, Parham and his students became convinced that the "second blessing" of entire sanctification and the baptism of the Holy Ghost were essentially the same experience, an opinion which was neither new nor unique to them, as has already been discussed. Thus, the question to be answered by Parham and his students became what outward evidence to look for to prove that someone else has had that experience. This was the question Parham left his students to answer.
The answer which Parham's students devised was the same answer given by Edward Irving in Scotland 69 years earlier: the evidence of Spirit baptism is speaking in tongues. Therefore, the Bethel Bible College community was in prayer and fasting for this experience of Holy Spirit baptism "with the evidence of speaking in tongues" for some days prior to New Year's Eve, 1900. Then, on January 1, 1901, student Agnes Ozman asked that hands be laid on her and that prayer be made that she would receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She was baptized in the Holy Spirit and did, in fact, start to speak in other tongues, and, over the next few days, other students and Parham himself followed her in this experience.
Parham and his immediate followers took the concept of tongues as evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Ghost somewhat farther than most modern Pentecostals, however, in that, as they viewed it, "tongues" included both angelic languages and human languages. Therefore, they believed that the gift of tongues was to be the key to rapidly evangelizing the world, since a missionary, once called to a foreign land, would no longer need language school but could simply go wherever he was sent and depend upon the Holy Spirit to enable him to communicate. Thus, as Parham taught it, speaking in "tongues" was, ideally, in many instances, to become a real acid test of the reality of a person's Spirit baptism: it's one thing to speak in an unknown tongue in a church where no one ever questions that you might be faking it (the modern Pentecostal practice) but quite another thing to book passage to a distant land fully believing that the natives of that land will understand you when you speak in their tongue (which you have never learned). Bethel Bible College closed in the Summer of 1901, the victim of the sale of its leased facility.
Parham and company left Topeka in the Spring of 1901, and traveled around various locations in the Midwest preaching their new experience — always in segregated meetings — and planting small, white churches. Most of Parham's ministry from 1901 to 1906 was in Missouri and Texas, and he was very strict about his compliance with the apartheid laws of the states where he ministered. Throughout this period, and until the end of his life, Parham's work suffered from one great error — although possibly not himself a racist (a matter much debated), he failed to fully practice scriptures like Colossians 3:11-14, but instead complied with secular laws prescribing racial segregation. Blacks were required to sit at the back of the hall in his meetings, could not pray at the same altars as whites and could not receive laying on of hands at the same time as whites. And when William Seymour, a black man, sought training at Parham's Bible school, he was allowed to attend, but not in the same room with whites — he sat in the anteroom or hallway or stood in the doorway and listened to the lectures through an open door. And while Seymour was not baptized with the Holy Spirit under Parham's ministry, he did learn Parham's teachings and become convinced that Parham was at least mostly correct (although he concluded that salvation, entire sanctification and Spirit baptism were three separate experiences which would always occur in that order).
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Joseph Smale, pastor of the First Baptist Church, after visiting Wales (then in the midst of a great revival), in 1905 began prayer meetings in his church modeled after what he had seen in Wales, and healings began to occur there. However, the things Smale was doing caused him trouble with his board, and he left to found a "New Testament Assembly," which met in a house on Bonnie Brae. Meanwhile, in April, 1906, at the instance of Neeley Terry, who had just visited Houston, the small black Nazarene congregation she attended invited Seymour to preach in their church. He accepted the invitation, and preached his first sermon out of Acts 2:4 on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Many in that Nazarene church believed Seymour to have preached false doctrine, and he returned that evening to find the door padlocked. Those who followed Seymour out of the Nazarene church started to meet in the home of some Baptists (from Smale's flock) on Bonnie Brae. On April 9, 1996, "the Spirit fell upon this small group of African-American believers." The group soon moved to a former Methodist church building at 312 Azusa St., where it met 3 times a day, 7 days a week for the next three years.
It is noteworthy that California had by far the most diverse population of any state in the United States and had no apartheid laws requiring racial segregation of public meetings. What started at Azusa Street was entirely inclusive; under Seymour's leadership, the Azusa Street congregation would tolerate no racial or ethnic divisions in the Body of Christ. Although it started among a group of African-Americans, the Azusa Street meetings were completely interracial, and many whites became involved. Many people of all races, and from various countries, came to Azusa Street to observe or to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Though Parham continued to preach, in Houston and elsewhere, and his students also spread around the U.S., after April 1906 the focus of activity was in Los Angeles, not in Parham's ministry.
It is also noteworthy that Parham subsequently rejected his student Seymour, in part because Seymour's congregation at the Azusa Street mission in Los Angeles was a mixed race congregation. Parham's published negative comments about Seymour and Azusa Street leave little doubt that, although Parham may have believed the races were equal before God, he also believed that they ought not be allowed to mix in church. Seymour, for his part, taught three separate experiences — baptism, sanctification (which must come before Spirit baptism), and baptism in the Holy Spirit — and insisted, correctly, that any form of racist attitude was inconsistent with sanctification. Unfortunately, between 1911 and 1920, the large majority of the white leaders in the Pentecostal movement in the United States followed Parham in his hypocrisy in this matter, compare Galatians 2:11-13, bowed the knee to state apartheid laws, and separated themselves to form separate white Pentecostal churches and denominations. For instance, what are now the two largest Pentecostal denominations in the United States — the Church of God in Christ and the Assemblies of God — arose from such a racial division of a single group. The white Assemblies of God left the Church of God in Christ (until then a mixed-race denomination) in 1914, ostensibly to comply with the apartheid laws of the southern states where these groups were based. By so doing, they short-circuited the revival, reconciliation and healing God intended to bring in this country through a united Church. (Other countries have seen it, however). They also in large measure caused the violence of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and '60s, which would have been unnecessary if God had been free to bring reconciliation through His Church in the 1910's.
Of course, this decision to ignore God's purpose for the Pentecostal revival by officially tolerating racism led once again, necessarily, to a warping of doctrine. The point where doctrine had to be amended to allow this sin to be hidden was the same place the Methodists and the Holiness movement had modified their thinking — that is, the exaltation of a religious experience ("the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues") over relationship (living by the Spirit). Unfortunately, Seymour, and the COGIC's founding Bishop, Charles Mason, were correct on this point — living by the Spirit (sanctification) really is a prerequisite to being fully empowered by Him, even for people who speak in tongues, and making racial distinctions in the Church is inconsistent with living by the Spirit (who makes no such distinctions). Therefore, instead of producing the unity it was intended to produce, the Pentecostal revival fell apart into just another collection of denominations and produced division. As a group, the Church in America has consciously ignored the serious consequences that these divisions (not recognizing the body of the Lord) can have. I Corinthians 11:29-30.
The point of this rather long digression is that, although the followers of Parham and Seymour asked God for the baptism of the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues, they did not have a clear understanding of what they were asking for. Parham and his students thought that they were asking for charismatic gifts and sinless perfection, with tongues as evidence that they could no longer sin (among other things). Seymour thought that one would have to pray through to entire sanctification before the baptism of the Spirit would bring power for service; thus, while for him manifestation of tongues was not, strictly speaking, evidence of perfection, perfection had to come first. This is a very different view than is taken by most present-day Pentecostals. Nevertheless, having asked for both Spirit baptism and tongues, these early Pentecostals were given a great outpouring of power, healings, deliverances, a large revival, positively changed lives in many cases AND ALSO tongues. However, they subsequently permitted the power of the revival to slip away from them because they rejected the unifying purpose for which the revival was given
Next page: Was manifestation of tongues in evidence in every instance of Spirit baptism in Acts?
American Holiness Movement, an historical essay by R.V. Pierard from the Elwell Evangelical Dictionary.
A page discussing the definition of heresy, showing that racism in the church is a form of heresy.
Letter to Dr. John MacArthur, Jr., regarding his book Charismatic Chaos.
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SITE DISCLOSURES |
Worship and giving | The author's resumé |
