|
|
The Pentecostal church is a movement that emerged in the 1900s emphasizing the need for believers in Jesus to be baptized not by water but by the Holy Spirit. Pentecostalism is essentially evangelical. It teaches its followers that the Bible, as revealed through its original manuscripts, is infallible and inerrant. The 'full gospel' is emphasized through four fundamental beliefs. Jesus saves according to John 3:16. He baptizes with the Holy Spirit according to Acts 2:4. He heals according to James 5:15. He will come again to prepare the way for people who have been saved according to I Thessalonians 4:16-17.
Followers of Pentecostalism believe that when they are baptized by the Holy Spirit, they become a vessel for that Spirit. They engage in speaking in tongues and giving their entire bodies over to the Holy Spirit. And for that reason, they have, in the past, been derisively called Holy Rollers ~ a name that many of them have come to proudly claim as a badge of honor.
Pentecostalism advocates holistic faith and healing through prayer. They also believe in healing by 'laying on of hands' in imitation of the method of healing practiced by Jesus, the Christ.
The belief in Christian eschatology is an important facet of Pentecostalism. That is the belief in the imminent return of Jesus in His Second Coming. Because of His imminent return, Pentecostalists feel that personal holiness is of utmost importance. In order to help others to be prepared for the Second Coming, followers of Pentecostalism practice evangelism.
Pentecostalism emerged in Kansas at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Charles Parham was brought up in Muscatine, Iowa and attended a Methodist church. He experienced a religious conversion and contemplated going into the ministry. He chose not to and in his mid-20s, he became deathly ill. He believed that his illness was God punishing him for not having entered the ministry. When he changed his mind and started making plans to become a minister, his health suddenly improved. The experience convinced Charles that God healed him through his faith. At the age of twenty-six, Charles moved to Topeka, Kansas and opened his new home to any Christian seeking healing by God's, rather than man's, hand.
After traveling through New England, and returning to Kansas, Parham opened school, Bethel Bible College, in October 1900. The initial enrollment was forty students. The Bible was the only textbook required. The first subject of theological study was baptism in the Holy Spirit. As the students explored the subject, they found that in the book of Acts it was noted that baptism in the Holy Spirit was evinced by speaking in tongues. Disbelief in the sincerity of the Pentecostals was expressed by followers of other denominations who claimed the speaking in tongues was merely senseless gibberish. Miss Agnes N. Ozman was the first person to have the experience of speaking in tongues; it was so profound that she could not speak English for three days afterward.
Charles Parham expanded his preaching into an area that included parts of Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas. His preaching revealed that Pentecostalism had roots in the Wesleyan / Holiness Movement of the 1800s. It has sometimes been described as a form of the Charismatic movement. There has been very little change in the Pentecostal churches that have developed since the early 1900s.
In the year 1960, at an Episcopalian Church in Van Nuys, California a number of congregants burst into speaking in tongues and the New Pentecostal or Charismatic Revival was born. The revival spread quickly throughout the United States in Episcopalian, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches. The movement spread to other nations as well. In 1967, thirty Catholics at Rome received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and the Catholic Pentecostal conference was given birth. In 1975 at an international conference held in Rome, Pope Paul VI expressed his approval of the movement.
In 1914, during the height of the first Pentecostal Movement, the General Council of the Assemblies of God (USA) was organized. The Assembly of God church was brought into existence by the preaching of William J. Seymour, an African-American Holiness preacher at the Apostolic Faith Mission on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California. Seymour, a student of Charles Parham, preached sermons that advocated racial reconciliation along with the acceptance of God's spiritual gifts as described in the Bible's Old Testament. As the congregants of Seymour's church began to experience the speaking in tongues, local interest brought many new members, and it also brought national attention to the Pentecostal Movement. A conference was held between 02 and 12 April 1914 among a number of Pentecostal ministers and followers, including the 'Church of God in Christ and in Unity with the Apostolic Faith Movement' and the 'Association of Christian Assemblies.' The Council was held at Hot Springs, Arkansas and the first General Council of the Assembly of God church was formally established. In 1916 the General Council approved a 'Statement of Fundamental Truths' including acceptance and approval of the Trinitarian orthodoxy.
The Assembly of God church has spread across the world, and has resulted in the establishment of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship.
Another product of the Pentecostal Movement was the Church of the Nazarene. It actually was the result of a merger between the Pentecostal Movement and the Holiness Movement in the early 1900s. The original Church of the Nazarene was founded at Los Angeles, California by Dr. Phineas F. Bresee, a Methodist Episcopal Church minister in October 1895. At about the same time, on 13 April 1897, three church groups established by William Howard Hoople under the name of the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America and the Central Evangelical Holiness Association, organized in 1890 by Fred A. Hillery and C. Howard Davis, entered into a merger. The new denomination took the name of the former (the APCA). Between 10 and 17 October 1907, a merger was worked out between the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America and the Church of the Nazarene. The new group took the name Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene.
The Pennsylvania Conference of the Holiness Christian Church merged with the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene in April 1908. On 13 October of that same year, the Holiness Church of Christ (itself having risen from the merger in 1904 of The Holiness Church and the Independent Holiness Church) merged with the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene. The new body was named the Church of the Nazarene.
From 1915 to 1988, eight independent pentecostal, holiness and charismatic entities merged with the Church of the Nazarene. In 1915, the Pentecostal Church of Scotland (founded in 1909 by Reverend George Sharpe) and the Pentecostal Mission (founded in 1898 by J. O. McClurkan) merged with the Church of the Nazarene. The year 1922 marked the merging of the Laymen's Holiness Association (founded in 1917 by Joseph G. Morrison). In 1950, the Hephzibah Faith Missionary Association (founded in 1893) merged with the Nazarene church. In 1952 the International Holiness Mission (founded by David Thomas in 1907 in London) became the next group to merge with the Nazarene church. The Calvary Holiness Church (founded in 1934 by Maynard James and Jack Ford in Great Britain) merged in 1955. In 1958 the Gospel Workers Church (founded in Ontario in 1918) merged with the Nazarene church. And finally, on 03 April 1988, the Church of the Nazarene that had been established in Nigeria in the 1940s, merged with the Church of the Nazarene.
Despite the mergers, which brought many thousands of new congregants into the fold, at least six new denominations were formed by the departure of groups from the Church of the Nazarene. People's Mission Church separated in 1912, just one year after it had merged with the Church of the Nazarene. The Pentecost Pilgrim Church left in 1917. It would, in 1922 merge with the International Holiness Church to form the Pilgrim Holiness Church, which in turn would, in three years merge with the People's Mission Church to form the Pilgrim Holiness Church. The Bible Missionary Church split off of the Church of the Nazarene in 1955, subsequently to divide itself into the Wesleyan Holiness Association of Churches in 1959 and the Nazarene Baptist Church in 1960. The Nazarene Baptist Church would, in 1967, change its name to Nazarene Bible Church. In the Philippines, the Holiness Church of the Nazarene split away in 1961. In 1967, the Church of the Bible Covenant left. In 1972, a group left to form the Crusaders Churches of the United States of America. And finally, in 1977, the most recent group to leave was the Fellowship of Charismatic Nazarenes.
The Church of the Nazarene is primarily Arminian in tradition and is based on sixteen 'Articles of Faith.' The Articles include belief in the divinity of the three-fold nature of God, the authority of the Bible, the need for repentance and baptism at any age and by any means: sprinkling, pouring or immersion. The denomination has, as its primary objective, the ministry to the poor and the homeless. The Arminian tradition teaches that grace is available to all who allow God's Holy Spirit to enter into their lives.
