The Pentecostal Movement

The Pentecostal Movement    

History   

Doctrine, Success, and Failures

The Pentecostal Movement

The Pentecostal Movement is by far the largest and most important religious movement to originate in the United States. It has been called Christendom "fourth force", alongside Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodox, and it is probably the fastest growing religion in the world.

The Charismatic Renewal Movement has some of its roots in historic Pentecostalism, and it is now deeply entrenched in most of the mainline Protestant denominations, in Catholicism, and in some Orthodox. Now, in the Third Millennium, the number of Pentecostals and Charismatics probably exceed the number of Protestants and Orthodox combined.  Pentecostal statistics show 200 million members designated as nominational Pentecostals. In addition, there were 200 million Charismatics in 1993 in the main Protestant denominations and Catholicism. A total of over 400 million.

In the USA, the two Churches of God in Christ and the United Pentecostal Church are predominantly black denominations, with 7 million members. The Assemblies of God, is the largest predominantly white denomination, with 3 million. A total of 41,165 local congregations in the USA.

In Brazil, there were 2 Pentecostal congregations in 1920, they grew up to 200 in 1930, and now there are over 25,000.

In 1950, 10% of the Hispanic Protestants were Pentecostals, in the year 2000, over 50%.

In the Catholic Charismatic Renewal there are now, in the Third Millennium, over 80 million (20 million in America), with official organizations in 120 countries. In New York City we have today 500 Catholic Charismatic Hispanic Prayer Groups.

History:

The first "Pentecostals" in the modern sense appeared on the scene in 1901 in the city of Topeka, Kansas, with a handful of students conducted by Charles Fox Parham, a holiness teacher and former Methodist Pastor, with emphasis in the Pentecost's Baptism with the Spirit and glossolalia (speaking in tongues) of Acts 2. The first student who spoke in tongues was Agnes Ozman, on January 1, 1901, the first day of the twentieth century. Parham founded a church movement which he called the "Apostolic Faith", and begun a whirlwind revival tour of the America middle west to promote his exiting new experience.

It was not until 1906, however, that pentecostalism achieved worldwide attention through the "Azusa Street Revival" in Los Angeles, California, by the African-American preacher William Joseph Seymour. He learned about the tongues-attested baptism from Parham, and opened the historic meeting in April 1906 in a Black Holiness Church, a former African Methodist Episcopal church building at 312 Azusa Street in downtown Los Angeles.

What happened at Azusa Street has fascinated church historians: For over three years, the Azusa Street "Apostolic Faith Mission" conducted three services a day, seven days a week, where thousands of seekers received the tongues baptism. At that time of color segregation in the United States, the phenomenon of Blacks and Whites worshiping together under a Black pastor seemed incredible to many observers. Indeed, the color line was washed away in the Blood of Christ, in Los Angeles, "the American Jerusalem", as it called by Frank Bartleman, where the people from all ethnic minorities were represented at Azusa Street.

Besides the tongues-attested baptism, there was joy, and praise to the Lord, and service to the brother at Azusa Street. The expressive worship and praise included shouting and dancing, that had been common among Appalachian Whites and Southern Blacks. This admixture of tongues and other charisms with Black music and worship styles crated a new and indigenous form of Pentecostalism that was to prove extremely attractive to disinherited and deprived people, both in America and around the world.

From Azusa Street Pentecostalism spread rapidly around the world and begun its advance toward becoming a major force in Christendom. Seymour and Parham could be called the "co-founders" of modern world Pentecostalism.

The Methodism of Wesley, and the Holiness Movement may be considered the front runners of modern Pentecostalism, with its basic theology mysticism and joy, but without the tongues-attested baptism. A popular Presbyterian pastor in London, Edward Irving, led the first attempt at "charismatic renewal" in his Regents Square Presbyterian Church in 1831, with glossolalia as the standing sign of the baptism in the Spirit. He was not very successful, but a pioneer of modern Pentecostalism. The British Keswick "Higher Life" in 1875 also prepared the way of Pentecostalism.

The four waves of Pentecostalism:
    1- The "Classical Pentecostal Movement" started by started in 1901 by Parham and Seymour has now over 11,000 pentecostal denominations throughout the world.
    2- The "Neo-Pentecostal" movement started in 1960 in Van Nuys, California, under Dennis Bennett, Rector of St Marks Episcopal (Anglican) Church. In ten years it spread to all major Protestant families of the world, reaching a total of 55 million people by 1990.
    3- The Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement started in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1967 among students and faculty of DuQuesne University, and by 19993 it has touched the lives of over 100 million Catholics in over 238 nations.
4- The Evangelicals started in 1981 at Fuller Theological Seminary with John Wimber. By 1990, 33 millions in the world were moving in signs and wonders, though they disdain labels such as "Pentecostal" and "charismatic".
    For more information, look at The Origins of the Pentecostal Movement.

Doctrine, success, and failures:

The basis of Pentecostalism is Jesus Christ, with emphasis in the explosive power of the Holy Spirit, specially as experienced by the disciples of Christ in the Great Pentecost of Acts 2, with the baptism with the Holy Spirit of Act.1:4 and speaking in tongues… and the daily practice of the gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit of 1Cor.12 and 14

    Pentecost
    The "baptism with the Holy Spirit "or "to be filled with the Spirit"  -  The Pentecost for you!... the "baptism with the Holy Spirit for you!
    Resting in the Spirit
    Charisms of the Holy Spirit - Healing, Miracles, cast out demons,  speaking in tongues, prophecy...
    Fruits of the Spirit
    Raising the Hands to Pray
    The "much better way" of St. Paul  
   The Holy Spirit

    The "two main features" of the Pentecostals are "praising the Lord" and "service"

    Virgin Mary is the first Pentecostal of the NT as shown in Mat.1 and Lk.1:
    - First Pentecost of the NT: Of the 7 Episodes of Pentecost in the NT, the first one was in Luk.1, when the Holy Spirit came to Virgin Mary, and filled her with Jesus, which is the essence of any Pentecost... and filled with Jesus, Virgin Mary did the two things every good Pentecostal should do:
            1- She went to serve her cousin Elizabeth, when she was pregnant at old age (Luk.1:39-45).
            2- She praised the glories of God wit the "Magnificat" of Luk.1:46-56.
    - The "second Pentecost", occurred when Elizabeth and John the Baptist received the Holy Spirit at the Virgin Marys visit (Luk.1:41).
    - The "third Pentecost", the big one, was in Act.2, when the Holy Spirit came over the disciples with Virgin Mary present, and the Church was officially born to the world. 

The Pentecostal congregation, tend to be small, meetings may be in storefronts or in rented upper floors... but their prayer meetings are explosive, praising the Lord with lusty gospel tunes, swaying the arms and body, among exiting revival preaching... and speaking in tongues, with miracles and healing of he body and spirit and soul, and prophecies, and tongues... all the charisms of the Holy Spirit in action!... with the participation of everybody in the prayer meeting (1Cor.12).

The "Second Coming of Christ", is a preferred theme for the Pentecostals, as well as for the Baptists, Evangelicals... do not wait until the Second Coming to be saved, "now is the acceptable time, now is the time of salvation" (2Cor.6:2), in the Second Coming, Jesus will not come "to save", but "to judge", the good ones to Heaven, and the bad ones to Hell (Matt.25:31-46, Jn.5:29, Rom.2:5-10, 2Cor.5:10, 1Thes.4:15-18, Rev.20:11-15).

Unity and Criticism: The Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements have unequivocally proved to be a united feature among the different groups of Christianity. However they have been hardly criticized, mainly by leaders of main Protestant denominations and Catholics, most often for misunderstandings of the meanings of the Baptism with the Spirit, glossolalia, the practice of the gifts of the Spirit, and sometimes just for jealousy of their success… a jealous one dared to say, "the charismatic movement is a catalyst for building the ecumenical one-world church of the Antichrist", when actually is exactly the opposite, it is building bonds of unity in the Church of Christ!.

 In Pentecostalism, there are pastors and preachers, but no priests nor Holy Mass. It is a part in the evolution of the Protestant Reformation:
    - The Pope is out with Martin Luther (the churches still have bishops)
    - The bishops are out with Calvin and the Presbyterian churches (with Presbyters, priests, but no Bishops)
    - The priests are out, with the altars and sacrifices out, in most modern Pentecostal churches, in most of the 41,000 of them.
    - No Baptism of Children, after Zwingli and the Anabaptists. 
    - Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus, though highly praised by the original Reformers, is now the forgotten biblical figure in many modern reformed churches.

"Little Popes": The Pentecostals, like most Protestants, do not accept the authority of the successor of Peter, of the Pope... but since each congregation is independent, in each one the founder or leader usually becomes the "Little Pope", not the descendent of Peter, but often a more demanding one: He sets the norms and regulations, that some times are rigid, and if a member of the congregation breaks them, he will be severely chastised in front of all congregation, or simply cast out… if you smoke or drink coffee of use make up or jewelry , watch out!… and, in occasions, that leader abuses his supreme authority and prestige in different ways with women and men, like in the sorrowful cases of Jim Jones in Jonestown, David Koresh in the Branch Davidians of Waco

"Money": The Pentecostals are very generous, and a temptation for any charismatic leader is to set up his or her own church, to "administer" by himself the money that comes on every service, without any other church authority to supervise him.

    Only time will reveal the ultimate results of this movement which has greatly impacted the world during the Twentieth Century… but the leaders of the main Protestant denominations, Catholics and Orthodox should honestly learn about the explosive facts of the Pentecostals and Charismatics, criticize and guide them in whatever is necessary, and most specially, help them and love them with the only way of the spirit of love and respect and understanding of a Christian… it is a great sin against God the pastor or priest or Bishop who disdains or doesn't even care about the Charismatics in his parish or dioceses.

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