RELG 330 - History of Christianity
Course Notes
Pentecostals and Charismatics
The Pentecostal movement dates its origin to the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles in 1906.
The Azusa Street Revival is regarded as one of the first steps in the resurgence of the Pentecostal movement, though it was not the first occasion of glossolalia since the time of the New Testament.
The reports of the behavior of the crowds during the preaching tours of John Wesley and George Whitefield indicate that there may have been similar occurrences then - people shouting, falling to the ground, leaping and jumping.
At least one of Sandford's students was reported to have spoken in tongues.
In France, the Curé d'Ars, a relatively uneducated parish priest from a peasant background, was reported to engage in spiritual warfare which he was very unwilling to discuss publicly.
In Britain, at the turn of the twentieth century there were revivals accompanied by Pentecostal manifestations in Wales and England, and the formation of the Irvingite or Apostolic Church.
In the outlying regions of Russia, where religious undesirables had been exiled, there were several movements among the laity (they were not allowed to have priests or church leaders). Some of these peasants fled into Armenia, and spead their message to the Armenians. A boy-prophet arose amongst the Armenians, prophesying that there was to be a terrible time of trouble for all who remained in Armenia. As a result, hundreds of Armenians fled, mainly to the USA. The persecution did indeed happen,
when the Turks carried out the Armenian Genocide in an attempt to exterminate all Armenians.
One of the Armenian families who fled to the USA was that of Demos Shakarian (1913-1993), who, in his autobiography 'The Happiest People on Earth' tells how he and his family were walking along the streets of Van Nuys when they heard a sound of people speaking in tongues similarly to the way the Armenian 'spiritual Christians' did in their worship. It was a meeting of the Azusa Street church; the two groups kept in contact, even when the Armenians moved into the country to start dairy-farming. Demos Shakarian founded the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International in 1953, as an inter-denominational organization with monthly meetings for fellowship, testimonies, and prayer, aimed especially at empowering lay leaders of society. There was a similar society for Women, 'Women Aglow', which also met monthly. Both groups met in secular surroundings such as restaurants, civic halls, rather than in churches - they did not want to draw people away from their own churches, but to empower them for ministry in the secular world. After the death of Demos Shakarian the society lost its impetus, though it does still exist.
Charles Fox Parham (1873-1929) was a preacher in the Holiness Methodist tradition, who was a founder figure of the Pentecostal movement in the early twentieth century. He was the first preacher to emphasize that Pentecostalism involved speaking in tongues (glossolalia) - which might not be human languages.
Parham began preaching at the age of 15 (in 1890) and also became a student in a Methodist College. He left college three years later, to become a supply pastor for the Methodist Episcopal church, though he was never ordained. In 1895 he left the Methodist Church because he felt that it was too autocratic and he ws not allowed to preach 'by direct inspiration'. Consequently, Parham rejected denominations, and set up his own evangelistic ministry to tour Kansas.
In 1897 both Parham and his new-born son fell ill, but recovered after what Parham believed to be divine intervention. Parham renounced medical help from them on and preached divine healing and prayer for the sick. He established the Bethel Healing Home in Topeka, KA. Parham ran his missions on a 'faith' basis - he did not take up an offering during his services, but payed for God to provide what funds were needed.
During 1900 Parham spent the year traveling and studying, mostly with Frank Sandford of Maine, from whom he got the idea of a Bible School. On retuning to Kansas Parham founded the Bethel Bible College, charging no tuition fees, and using only the Bible as textbook. Around the end of that year the students held an all-night prayer service, and on the New Year's day one of the students asked the others to pray for her to receive 'the fullness of the Holy Spirit'. As a result she began to speak in tongues.
Local opposition to Parham forced him to leave Topeka, but in 1903, when he was preaching about the healing power of Christ in Missouri, one of his hearers experienced what she believed to be divine healing. After that, as he preached though Missouri and Kansas during 1903-1904, it was claimed that 1,000 people were healed and hundreds became Christians. From them, Parham trained co-workers to spread the message of the 'Apostolic Faith', and Apostolic Faith Assemblies were formed throughout the region.
Parham held a Bible School in Houston in 1906, which became an influence in the ministry of William Seymour. Parham sent some of his students, including Seymour, to take the message to Los Angeles, and this eventually gave rise to the Azusa Street Mission and Revival. Seymour eventually broke with the Azusa Street Mission because of the intermixing of races during the worship services, and over what he regarded as too-emotional worship services.
Parham continued his ministry, even though it was being overshadowed by the growing influence of the Azusa Street Revival, for the next twenty years. In 1927 he started to suffer from heart problems, which continued until his death in 1929.
In 1914 Parham's Apostolic Faith Movement joined with other Pentecostal groups to form the Assemblies of God.
William Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival of 1906. William Seymour (1870-1922) was the son of freed slaves, and grew up in Louisiana, which at that time had the highest rate of lynchings in the USA. Seymour was subjected to racial prejudice while he was growing up, and in the 1890s he left Louisiana to travel north to escape the violence. Seymour had been baptized as Roman Catholic, but in Indianapolis he attended a Methodist Episcopal Church, where he experienced new birth in Christ. He attended a Bible School in Cincinnati, and his ideas on racial equality and the call to holiness of life continued to develop. While in Cincinnati he caught smallpox which caused blindness in his left eye. During this time he was ordained by a small church - the Evening Light Saints - which later became a part of the Church of God.
In 1906 Seymour attended a Bible School founded by Charles Parham in Houston, TX for a brief time. He did not stay long at the Bible School because he was asked to become pastor of a small church in Los Angeles, but he did learn about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit from Charles Parham. When he arrived in Los Angeles in 1906 he started to preach about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, but within two weeks he was thrown out of the church because of his beliefs and because he himself did not speak in tongues.
Seymour had no church any more but he stayed at a friend's home and started a prayer group there. The group grew, and at one meeting Seymour prayed for a member and laid hands in prayer on him. The member, Edward Lee, started to speak in tongues - this is reckoned as the start of the Azusa Street Revival. Seymour himself received the gift of tongues three days later. The group grew so large that the front porch of the house where they were meeting collapsed. Seymour found an old African Methodist Episcopal church building on Azusa street in Los Angeles for the group to meet in, and the Azusa Street Revival began. Services at the mission were conducted three times each day at 10am, noon and 7pm, but they often ran together until the entire day became one great worship service. This schedule was continued seven days a week for more than three years. The Revival Meeting lasted until 1909
The Azusa Street Revival is regarded as the start of the Pentecostal movement.
Seymour stressed racial equality, and the church membership was mixed, Black, White, and some Hispanics and Asians worshiped together in spite of the views about segregation held at that time. Seymour also allowed women to hold leadership positions in the church. The new movement caused much controversy in the other churches of the time - some condemned it as heresy, while others were influenced by it to adopt Pentecostal ideas in their own churches.
Later in 1906 Charles Parham visited the Azusa Street Revival and denounced it, partly because of the racial mixing of the services, but also because he thought that some of Seymour's teaching was unscriptural. This caused a split between the two leaders which was never healed. Seymour died of a heart attack in 1922.
The Assemblies of God are probably the world's largest Pentecostal denomination - although the Assemblies of God are not a unified denominational body, but a Fellowship of national groups of churches. The member Churches are all independent and autonomous, but they all stem from the Pentecostal revival of the early 20th century, and they all share similar beliefs. The Assemblies of God in the USA was formed in 1914, but it was not until 1988 that the world-wide Fellowship was formed. The Assemblies of God teach that Christians can experience "the fullness of the Holy Spirit", or the "Baptism in the Holy Spirit" which empowers them for ministry and imparts the gift of praying in tongues or speaking in tongues (languages not known to the speaker).
The Assemblies of God holds firmly to the doctrine of the Trinity, and holds the Bible as divinely inspired and the authoritative guide to faith and conduct. The Assemblies of God are very focussed on the fulfillment of the Great Commission (to go into all the world and preach the Gospel of Jesus), hence they send and support missionaries throughout the world. They also practice prayer for healing, and have very joyful and upbeat worship services
The Charismatic Renewal is the term used for the movement of the Holy Spirit in some of the liturgical churches such as the Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. "Prayer and Praise" Services or Meetings are a typical feature, often held mid-week so as to have more conventional worship on Sundays. Prayer and Praise meetings tend to be quite informal, with people offering spontaneous praise and thanksgiving, prayer for healing and other needs, joyful music often with hands uplifted in praise. A number of musicians, for example Betty Pulkingham, have developed in the charismatic tradition.
Charismatic renewal among the Protestant churches started around 1960, when Dennis Bennett announced to his congregation at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Van Nuys, CA, that he had had an encounter with the Holy Spirit, and during the next few weeks part of the congregation also received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Dennis Bennett was already an Episcopalian priest, leading a church in Van Nuys, CA, when he received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and spoke openly about it to his church. Some members of the church became antagonistic and started a movement to have him thrown out of the church, though others did not agree, and a potential split was beginning. Dennis Bennett resigned, and went to a small mission church, St. Luke's, in Seattle, WA, which was about to be closed as hopeless. Under Dennis Bennett's leadership St. Luke's became a thriving, growing church, and a center of the charismatic movement in the Episcopal Church. Dennis Bennett wrote of his experiences in the book "Nine O'clock in the Morning" - a book was was influential in my own spiritual growth.
When I was in seminary I had the privilege of meeting Dennis Bennett and hearing him preach and teach.
When my husband was pastor of a mission church in California, one of the members of the church was a lady who had been at St. Mark's Van Nuys when Dennis Bennett was thrown out - although she did not speak in tongues she stated that the way in which the church leadership treated Dennis Bennett was just plain wrong. Dennis Bennett continued at St Luke's Seattle for many years, and wrote several books explaining the charismatic movement. He and his wife Rita had a wide-spread healing and renewal ministry.
The Catholic Charismatic movement dates from 1966-1967, when two professors from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh attended a congress of the Cursillo movement, and started to study the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Duquesne University became a center for prayer meetings and study, with professors and students praying for and experiencing an infilling of the Holy Spirit in their lives, and praying in tongues. From Duquesne, the news spread to the University of Notre Dame, and the renewal began to spread.
The movement stresses a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, with a one-on-one relationship in which the believer talks to Jesus directly, and expects guidance for every-day life. The "fruit of the Spirit" is to show in the life of the believer. The "fruit of the Spirit" includes qualities and virtues which are very difficult for anyone to maintain without spiritual help. As listed in Galatians 5:22-23, the "fruit of the Spirit" is love (charity) joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance (self-control). Other traditions add kindness, generosity, perseverance, modesty and chastity.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are usually listed as seven : wisdom, understanding, counsel (prudence), fortitude (courage), knowledge, piety, and the fear (awe) of the Lord.
Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis all acknowledged the movement and affirmed it.
Paul Yonggi (David) Cho (born 1936) was brought up as a Buddhist. His father failed as a businessman, and the family went bankrupt, so Yonggi Cho was unable to attend University but went to a technical high school to learn a trade.
There was an American army base near the school, and Yonggi Cho made friends with some of the soldiers and learned English from them. His English became so good that he was able to act as the interpreter for the commander of the army base.
When he was 17 he became seriously ill with TB and it was feared that he would die. One of his sisters had a Christian friend who visited him daily, telling him about Jesus. As a result, Yonggi Cho accepted Jesus as his Savior.
He returned home to convalesce from his illness, and while there he went to a crusade led by Ken Tize, an American Pentecostal missionary. At the crusade, Yonggi Cho was healed, came into a deeper relationship with Christ, and felt a call to ministry and to study theology. For a time he worked as an interpreter for Ken Tize, while reading Christian books to continue his studies.
In 1956 Yonggi Cho went to Seoul and entered the Pentecostal Full Gospel Bible College on a scholarship; he graduated in 1958. While at the Bible College, he met Choi Ja-Shil (one of whose daughters he married later) and joined with her in Christian ministry.
In 1958 Choi Ja-Shil and David Yonggi Cho held a worship service in pastor Ja-Shil's home - the congregation consisted of Ja-Shil's three daughters and an elderly lady who had come in out of the rain.
Choi Ja-Shil and Yonggi Cho started a campaign of visiting all in the neighborhood, providing spiritual help, prayer for the sick, and help for the poor.
Over the next few months the church grew to a membership of 50 - too large to meet inside the house. So they pitched a tent in the yard and continued to meet there. Yonggi Cho and some of the church members would spend the whole night in prayer in the tent - even in the cold of winter. During the day they went into the surrounding regions witnessing and ministering to people's needs. The first great increase in membership occurred after a lady was miraculously healed from a long illness after Choi Ja-Shil and Yonggi Cho spent days of prayer and ministry to her. Within three years membership had grown to 400.
In 1961 construction was started on a church building, and in 1962 Pastor Cho was ordained as a minister of the Assemblies of God and the church was registered as the Full Gospel Central Church. By 1964 membership had grown to 3,000
In 1965 Yonggi Cho married Ja-Shil Choi's daughter Sung-hae Kim.
By 1965 it had become obvious that the work of pastoring the church was too much for one man. Yonggi Cho had a vision of leadership based on Home Cell groups, in which women could be leaders (in contravention of traditional Korean roles for the sexes). He divided the city of Seoul into 20 areas, and encouraged the members of the church to form Home Cell groups in each area, where members could meet together in their homes for Bible study, worship and fellowship during the week. He trained some of the women and a few of the men as cell leaders, and each cell leader was supposed to train an assistant cell leader. When a Home Cell grew large enough it would be split into two cells - the assistant leader and some of the members would form a new cell, and two new assistant cell leaders would start to be trained. Pastor Cho's vision of Home Cell Groups became one of the great ways of evangelizing a neighborhood. The church now has several thousand Home Cell groups.
By 1968 there were 8,000 members, with three worship services on Sundays, and the original church building was insufficient for the membership. Pastor Cho chose a new site, on the island of Yoido, a sandy island in the Han river which flows through Seoul.
In 1969 construction of the new church building began, but was followed almost immediately by the worldwide Oil Crisis, which caused prices of construction materials to go sky-high. Members of the church lost their jobs in the crisis and the church income fell sharply, until the church was facing bankruptcy. Construction of the new building was halted. Pastor Cho went to the site of the new building every night and prayed for hours until he was exhausted. Members of the church joined in the prayer sessions of Pastor Cho at the construction site, and construction did begin again, until the building, designed to hold 10,000 people, was completed.
In 1973 the first worship service was held in the Yoido church. Also in 1973 the church established 'Prayer Mountain' in the village of Kyung-gi-do where Pastor Ja-shill Choi had used a storage shed for all-night prayer and fasting. A Prayer Mountain was a feature of Korean Christianity, dating to the time when Christians in Korea fled to the mountains to pray when facing severe persecution. Prayer Mountain features many small Prayer Grottos where people can fast and pray undisturbed for as long as they wish. Construction at Prayer Mountain of a building to hold 10,000 people was completed in 1982, and the center was opened to all Christians who wanted to spend time in fasting and prayer.
Church membership continued to increase at an extraordinary rate. By 1979 there were 100,000 members, and by 1981 there were 200,000. By 1984 there were 400,000 members, and the church was officially registered as 'Yoido Full Gospel Church'. By 1992 membership was 700,000. The Yoido church then started to establish other churches to reach out further throughout Korea, and education and missions centers prepared missionaries for evangelizing the world.
As of 2015, membership of the main church was 480,000, in spite of having founded hundreds of satellite churches which had drawn their members from the main church. The Yoido Full Gospel Church is now reputed to be as the largest Christian congregation in the world.
In 1981 Pastor Cho was chosen to give a message during the Inauguration Ceremony of Ronald Regan as the 40th President of the USA.
In 1986 Yonggi Cho was one of the founders of Elim Welfare Town for the elderly, the homeless, the unemployed, and the young, where people were given training to enable them to have a choice of occupations.
Pastor Cho was the first non-American president of the World Assemblies of God, serving from 1992-2000.
In 2008 he retired as senior pastor of the Yoida Church, but was given the position of Pastor Emeritus.
I heard Pastor Cho preaching in Fresno, CA, in the 1980s, and at that time his message seemed to be a fairly orthodox straightforward pentecostal call to a deeper commitment to God, dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit, and evangelistic outreach into the local community.
His preaching now features what he calls the 'Three-fold Blessing' - the well-being of the spirit, the body, and 'circumstances' (usually financial prosperity), and 'Fourth Dimension Spirituality' - which he identifies as the spirit world.
This also involves 'positive thinking' - visualize the results you want, such as healing or financial gain, and act as if you have already received them (sometimes referred to as "Name it and Claim it"). This is the essence of what is also called the 'Prosperity Gospel', which has the danger of thinking of God as someone who can be manipulated to give us whatever we want if we only pray hard enough or 'have enough faith'. It can encourage people to become ego-centric. It is not really the firm foundation needed to face real life and the bad things that do happen.
Copyright © 2005 Shirley J. Rollinson, all Rights Reserved
