Pentecostalism is a Christian religious movement tracing its roots to an event recorded in chapter two of the Book of Acts.
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:1-4 | NIV)
Pentecost is derived from the Jewish Shavuot or Feast of Weeks which occurred 50 days after the Passover Sabbath. It was one of three annual pilgrimage feasts that required all males to travel to Jerusalem to present their gifts to God. The Holy Spirit descended on 120 Jesus followers while Jerusalem was filled with visitors satisfying that requirement. Pentecost is traditionally celebrated by Christians seven weeks after Easter Sunday.
In the minds of the early Church, what was experienced on Pentecost fulfilled an Old Testament promise. “. . . I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. (Joel 2:28 | NIV)
It also satisfied promises Jesus made to his disciples.
On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 1:4-5 | NIV)
Prior to the adoption of the biblical canon, church worship services were characterized by submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit as Jesus had promised. “When the Holy Spirit, who is truth, comes, he shall guide you into all truth, for he will not be presenting his own ideas, but will be passing on to you what he has heard. . . “ (John 16:13 | TLB) People would gather to sing, share the gospel, celebrate the Lord’s Supper and await the leading of the Holy Spirit through a member or members of the congregation.
There are many references to the working of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament Church, but the letters written by the apostle Paul to the Church in Corinth demonstrate how he functioned in worship services through Spirit-filled individuals.
“The Corinthian letters, in particular, indicate that the assembled churches relied on the spontaneity of the Spirit rather than on official authority for the life and direction of their meetings.”[1] This is supported by Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) “For the prophetical gifts remain with us even to the present time.”[2] Later in the same work, he says, “Now it is possible to see among us women and men who possess gifts of the Spirit of God.”[3]
Pentecostals, in general, believe in a post-conversion experience called “baptism with (or in) the Holy Spirit” demonstrated by “speaking in tongues” or glossolalia (speech in an unknown language) or xenoglossy (speech in a language known to others but not the speaker). It emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit in the direct, powerful experience of God in the lives of believers. Many maintain that the initial evidence of the baptism is speaking in tongues.
Those who have been filled may also receive one or more of the “Apostolic Gifts” or Gifts of the Spirit outlined in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 (ESV):
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
According to Hyatt, the Holy Spirit has maintained a low-key presence in some form from that first Pentecost to the present. After years of being absent from mainstream Christianity the Pentecostal movement emerged in Topeka, KS at Bethel Bible College.
The college’s director, Charles Fox Parham, a former Methodist preacher, instructed his students to fast, pray and meditate on Scripture until they received the Holy Spirit baptism. On New Year’s Day 1901, a woman named Agnes Oznam became the first of Parham’s students to speak in an unknown tongue. Others soon followed.
In 1906, the Spirit fell during a service conducted by William Seymour, a Black Holiness preacher and student of Parham. It occurred at Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission, an abandoned African Methodist Episcopal church, located at 312 Azusa St, Los Angeles, CA.
As their numbers grew, many Pentecostals sought to impact their home church congregations by using their spiritual gifts. But that made some members and pastors uncomfortable causing many Spirit-filled people to move on to Pentecostal congregations. Still. opposition increased. Pastors who endorsed charismatic ideas were removed from their pulpits and missionaries lost financial support.
As a consequence, new fellowships and denominations emerged, largely from Holiness backgrounds. But other Holiness denominations rejected Pentecostalism, including the Methodists, Church of the Nazarene and Salvation Army, among others. Yet, it spread rapidly worldwide after 1906. But that expansion was not without controversy and division. The two primary doctrinal divisions were the Trinity and sanctification.
The sanctification controversy was linked to the Holiness tradition of many Pentecostals including Parham and Seymour. William Durham developed what he called the “finished work” theory comprised of three “works.” They were, salvation, Spirit baptism and sanctification. His view was adopted by the Assemblies of God which began in 1914. The majority of Pentecostal denominations are based on the Assemblies of God model, including the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.
By far, the most significant schism grew out of the “oneness” or Jesus-only doctrine that began in 1911 in Los Angeles. The doctrine, similar to Modalism, also known as Sabellianism, is the unorthodox belief that God is one person who manifested himself in three forms or modes in contrast to Trinitarian doctrine where God is one being eternally existing in three persons. Oneness adherents maintain God does not exist as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the same time. Rather, he is one person and has merely adopted one of the three modes as necessary at various times.
According to oneness doctrine, Jesus is simultaneously Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And Jesus is the “name” of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit referenced in Matthew 28:19. Therefore, they perform water baptism “in the name of Jesus” as directed by the apostle Peter in Acts 2:38. This controversy caused a split in the Assemblies of God leading to the formation of the United Pentecostal Church and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World.
Post-World War II, Pentecostalism became increasingly acceptable to middle class Americans. In 1943, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, Assemblies of God, Church of God (Cleveland, TN) and the Pentecostal Holiness Church became charter members of the National Association of Evangelicals, NAE, completely disassociating from the fundamentalists that had disfellowshipped them in 1928.[4]
The ministries of Oral Roberts in the 1950s and the founding of the Full Gospel Businessmen in 1952 by Demoos Shakarian helped mainstream the movement.
What became known an “Neo-Pentecostalism” emerged in the 1960s in the Roman Catholic Church, led by Joseph Leon Cardinal Suenens who was named by two Popes to be episcopal advisor to the renewal. And it exploded when an Episcopal priest, Dennis Bennett (1917-1991) detailed his Charismatic experience in Nine O’Clock in the Morning. He was forced out of his pastorate in Van Nuys, CA, but relocated to Seattle where he pastored an inner-city parish that grew rapidly, becoming ground zero for the Protestant Charismatic renewal.
A.B. Simpson defined what many consider to be the four cardinal doctrines of the Pentecostal movement: salvation, baptism in the holy Spirit, divine healing and the second coming of Jesus. A subsequent addition was belief that the initial evidence of Holy Spirit baptism is speaking in tongues. Finally, most Pentecostals also believe in the premillennial return of Jesus.
By 1995, the global number of Pentecostals and charismatics had reached 463 million, second only to the Roman Catholic Church. And sixty-six percent of all Christians in developing nations identify as Pentecostal or charismatic.
[1] Eddie L. Hyatt, 2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity: A 21st Century Look at Church History from a Pentecostal/Charismatic Perspective (Lake Mary, FL:Charisma House, 2002) Kindle edition, p.9.
[2] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Christian Library, ed Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Edinburgh;T&T Clark, 1874) p. 240.
[3] Ibid., p. 243.
[4] V. Synan, “Pentecostalism,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed., Edited by Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), p. 901.