Randall Holm. Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices. Editor: Thomas Riggs, 2nd Edition, Volume 1, Gale, 2015.
Overview
Pentecostals are Christians who believe in a subjective experience called “baptism with the Holy Spirit.” This form of baptism refers to the descent of the Holy Spirit upon a person, allowing him or her to speak in a language of spiritual ecstasy commonly identified as “tongues” and to manifest other spiritual gifts as are listed in 1 Corinthians 12-14, such as healing and wisdom. It is mentioned several times in the New Testament of the Bible, including the following passage from Matthew 3:11: “I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.”
The name “Pentecostalism” comes from Pentecost, which is the day, discussed in the Acts of the Apostles, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus’s apostles. Pentecostalism loosely finds its origins in the late 19th century in the United States as religious leaders—primarily Methodist in origin—sought to make a connection between their core teaching of entire sanctification (a state of divine grace as a result of conversion) and the work of the Holy Spirit. In January 1901 one such leader, evangelist Charles Fox Parham (1873-1929), began preaching that speaking in tongues was the biblical evidence of baptism with the Holy Spirit. This would become the touchstone doctrine that would launch and distinguish Pentecostalism from all other religious and, in particular, Holiness groups. Parham’s teaching was picked up by a student, William Seymour (1870-1922), who in 1906 took Parham’s doctrines to Los Angeles and sparked the Azusa Street Revival, whose publications attracted radical evangelical groups across the United States.
In the early 21st century much of Pentecostalism’s numerical strength lies outside the United States. Especially prominent in recent times has been growth in Latin America, Africa, and India. According to research conducted in 2011 by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, there are an estimated 279 million Pentecostals worldwide. The total of Pentecostal and charismatic Christians numbers more than 584 million.
History
Many late-19th-century Protestants on the margins of the church establishment taught that baptism was with the Holy Spirit rather than with all three persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Among them were those who embraced the idea that the evidence of such baptism was speaking in tongues (also called glossolalia). This was the view of evangelist Charles Fox Parham. A native of Iowa, Parham spent his formative years in Kansas, where he began preaching among Methodists. His strong independent inclinations led him to branch out on his own, however. During the mid-1890s he preached throughout eastern Kansas, imbibing homespun religious opinions. In 1898 he opened a healing home and mission in Topeka and began publishing the newspaper Apostolic Faith. Working “by faith,” he received no salary and passed no collection plates at the mission. With his wife, Sarah Thistlethwaite Parham, he developed enough of a following to open a Bible school in the fall of 1900. Aware of growing interest in topics related to the Holy Spirit, Parham read and traveled to keep abreast of the latest popular views.
In January 1901 Parham began teaching that speaking in tongues was always evidence of baptism with the Holy Spirit. He also believed that the gift, which for Parham consisted of an identifiable known foreign language that was unknown to the speaker, would circumvent the time needed for language study and allow the Gospel to be proclaimed rapidly in the vernacular language of other nations around the world. Parham understood baptism with the Holy Spirit to be the third in a series of “crisis experiences” he urged everyone to embrace. Conversion and sanctification, hallmarks of 19th-century Methodism, were the first two, where conversion initiated the seeker into Christendom and sanctification freed the penitent from the power of sin. The third, baptism with the Holy Spirit, provided the fully sanctified believer with the power for service, which was widely understood as readying a person for the work of evangelism.
Parham’s message started to spread in 1903, when he began a series of meetings in Joplin, Missouri. His efforts then reached Texas, where his message caught the attention of William J. Seymour, a local African American Holiness pastor, who carried the views to Los Angeles in 1906. Between 1906 and 1908 there were revivals at Seymour’s Azusa Street Mission. Seymour and his followers understood that God was revitalizing the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which God had bestowed on his disciples some 2,000 years earlier. Azusa Street trumpeted the idea that what occurred on the day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2, complete with speaking in tongues, was not an isolated incident but rather constituted a normative pattern that is available to all believers.
Reports of “Pentecosts” around the globe filled the pages of the mission’s four-page monthly, Apostolic Faith. Leaders of various grassroots networks embraced the mission’s message of restoring early Christian practices, and by 1907 regional clusters, most of them small associations, began to identify with Pentecostalism. Among them were the Church of God, established by Ambrose J. Tomlinson (1865-1943) near Cleveland, Tennessee; the Pentecostal Holiness Church around Dunn, North Carolina; and the largely African American Church of God in Christ, with congregations in northern Mississippi and southwestern Tennessee. Camp meetings, periodic conventions, and a flurry of inexpensively produced periodicals sustained fervor and slowly built an enduring religious movement out of an emotion-packed revival.
A renewal movement that included Pentecostal practices erupted during the 1960s in both mainstream Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. This charismatic, or neo-Pentecostal, movement also contributed to the growth of independent ministries. Oral Roberts (1918-2009) became a key figure when he moved from the Pentecostal Holiness Church to the Methodist Church and then to an independent fellowship that bridged charismatic and older Pentecostal influences. Pentecostal evangelists traveled the globe to testify to experiences described in the movement’s press, and the Pentecostal focus on possession by the Holy Spirit, physical healing, and the immediacy of the divine presence found a ready response in some non-Western cultures. Such media-savvy Pentecostals as Americans Jimmy Swaggart (1935- ) and Benny Hinn (1952- ) promoted their message throughout the world, and German Reinhard Bonnke (1940- ) and American T. L. Osborn (1923-2013) conducted crusades featuring “signs and wonders evangelism.”
In the 1980s a third wave of Pentecostal enthusiasm emerged among conservative evangelical groups. Inspired by the likes of Fuller theological professor John Wimber (1934-1997) and missiologist Peter Wagner (1930- ), denominations such as Vineyard emerged. These groups maintained the conservative traits of evangelicalism and an openness to the inbreaking of Holy Spirit activity as embodied by mainline charismatic groups.
Central Doctrines
The three crisis experiences preached by Charles Fox Parham—conversion, sanctification, and Spirit baptism—continue to be central to Pentecostal beliefs. Parham’s conviction that speaking in tongues, or tongues speech, was always evidence of baptism with the Holy Spirit lay at the core of early Pentecostal identity. A handful of Pentecostals argued that this gave undue prominence to one spiritual gift or disagreed about the meaning of speaking in tongues, but these views were soon overwhelmed by the force of the majority. The idea that speaking in tongues was useful in missionary work was taught briefly at Azusa Street, but increasing numbers of Pentecostals embraced the view that speakers in tongues generally employed heavenly languages.
The interweaving of two other convictions also influences the religion’s core identity. First, Pentecostals believe they are living at the end of history. They anticipate the imminent “rapture” of the church to heaven, and they want to be ready. This translates into an interest in personal holiness and public witness of their faith. Second, Pentecostals believe that the Bible promises an end-times revival, a “latter rain” loosely based on Joel 2:23 that will rival the power of New Testament Christianity. They see the restoration of the gift of tongues as the sign that the end-times revival has arrived, namely that they anticipate the return of Jesus Christ to imminently happen in their lifetime.
In the spirit of such urgency Pentecostals believe that all New Testament spiritual gifts were restored in their fullness to the contemporary church, and they embrace with particular enthusiasm the doctrine of divine healing. If it had happened in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, then there is no reason it could not happen again. Furthermore, they believe healing is part of the Atonement (reconciliation between God and humans), and they anoint and lay hands on the sick and pray for their recovery, often eschewing the use of medicine. They think of themselves as people of faith and believe that faith supplies their physical, temporal, and spiritual needs. Over time this teaching has been modified, with most Pentecostals now allowing for the use of medicine as one God-given means for eventual healing. Some modern Pentecostal writers also distinguish between healing and curing, where curing affects the actual disease and healing deals with its social construction. Consideration has also been given for the idea that death could be the ultimate stage of healing.
For Pentecostals sanctification is not an abstract doctrine. Becoming holy has everything to do with how they live. In the movement’s formative years most Pentecostals thought of sanctification as a “second definite work of grace,” in which the tendency to sin had been uprooted. Like their cousins in the Holiness movement, Pentecostals receive this “second blessing” in a crisis moment, often by coming forward for prayer and generally after much agonized self-searching and repentance. In 1910 Chicago Pentecostal evangelist William Durham (1873-1912) offered an alternate view he called “the finished work of Calvary.” Durham deemphasized the crisis aspect of sanctification and stressed the moment-by-moment subduing of sin effected by Christ “reigning” within the soul. Durham’s supporters thought of sanctification as a process rather than an instantaneous event. This has caused an enduring rift in the Pentecostal movement between those who insist that three crisis experiences (conversion, sanctification, and Spirit baptism) mark the Christian life and those who are satisfied with two (conversion and Spirit baptism).
By 1912 the baptismal formula had led to yet another controversy. Observant Pentecostals noticed that, according to the Acts of the Apostles, early Christians were baptized “in the name of Jesus” rather than “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Some members promptly introduced this pattern, and by 1913 prominent preachers called for rebaptism of the faithful in the name of Jesus. In some areas Pentecostals largely heeded the summons. By the end of the decade, proponents of rebaptism had begun rejecting traditional views of the Trinity in favor of an emphasis on Jesus as the New Testament manifestation of the Old Testament Jehovah. They came to be known as Oneness, or sometimes Apostolic, Pentecostals.
Moral Code of Conduct
Pentecostals draw their moral code of conduct from Scripture. Early Pentecostals dreaded worldliness and separated themselves from the world in decisive ways. Movies, theaters, spectator sports, dance halls, bars, and the like were off-limits. Adherents dressed modestly and shunned jewelry, and women wore their hair long, avoided makeup, and wore skirts rather than slacks. One Southern U.S. denomination, the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, divided over the worldliness of men’s ties. Others argued about the propriety of wedding rings. In tobacco-growing regions Pentecostals wrestled with the conflict presented by making their livelihood from a product they denounced. Pentecostals also abstained from alcohol.
After World War II many of these proscriptions began to change, especially those related to dress and entertainment. Objections to movies and theaters gave way to sponsored dramatic competitions, as early notions of worldliness yielded to the press of popular culture. Like other evangelicals, Pentecostals have moved away from the lists that once governed conduct to general guidelines that leave many such decisions to individual choice. Oneness Pentecostals have tended to be the most conservative on these issues.
Sacred Books
The Bible is the only book Pentecostals regard as sacred. They value the devotional writings common among evangelicals, however, and they regularly publish new resources and materials. Pentecostal how-to and therapeutic manuals are as popular as the classics.
Sacred Symbols
Pentecostals have no sacred symbols in any traditional sense, and the movement sustains no concept of sacred space. While some churches display a cross or a Scripture text, others display no Christian symbols.
Early and Modern Leaders
Leading Pentecostal figures include Charles Fox Parham, the self-proclaimed “founder and progenitor” of the movement; William J. Seymour, a preacher and constant presence in the ever-changing scene at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles; and Ambrose J. Tomlinson, founder of the Church of God movements that identify with Pentecostalism. William Durham is known for articulating the process of grace as an alternative to crisis sanctification. Also notable are J. H. King (1869-1946), founder of the Pentecostal Holiness Church; Charles H. Mason (1866-1961), who established the Church of God in Christ; and Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944), founder of the Los Angeles-based International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and a nationally known evangelist. More recent leaders include Oral Roberts, evangelist and broadcaster, and John Wimber, who taught at Fuller Theological Seminary and established the Vineyard Church. He helped bridged the gap between the Pentecostal and evangelical movements. Jack Hayford (1934- ), pastor of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, is an educator, broadcaster, author, and popular speaker, who has also been instrumental in finding common ground among the Pentecostal and charismatic movements.
Major Theologians and Authors
Pentecostals have not historically valued formal theology, and the movement in the West has produced few theologians recognized beyond Pentecostalism. Some leading theologians include Donald Gee (1861-1966), George Taylor, Ernest Williams (1885-1981), Stanley Horton (1916- ), David du Plessis (1905-1987), Gordon Fee (1934- ), Vinson Synan (1934- ), William Menzies (d. 2011), and the charismatic Presbyterian J. Rodman Williams (1918-2008). In 1970 more than 100 Pentecostals signed on to form the Society of Pentecostal Studies, an independent body of scholars who meet annually to explore historic, biblical, and theological themes related to the work of the Holy Spirit. The result has unleashed a new wave of biblical and theological scholars who regularly engage in the larger theological arena. Scholars of distinction include Frank Macchia, Amos Yong (1965- ), Roger Stronstad, Cecil Melvin Robeck Jr., Steven Land (1946- ), Margaret Poloma, and many others. In recent times their activity has attracted the attention and contributions of many within the larger theological world, such as Harvey Cox (1929- ), Jürgen Moltmann (1926- ), Miroslav Volf (1956- ), and Walter Brueggemann (1933- ).
Organizational Structure
The Pentecostal movement involves members in numerous Christian denominations and in a vibrant independent sector. Larger groups include the Church of God in Christ; Assemblies of God; International Church of the Foursquare Gospel; United Pentecostal Church; Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee; Pentecostal Holiness Church; and Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. Church structure in the classical Pentecostal denominations tends to be largely congregational at the local level and Presbyterian at the level of leadership.
Houses of Worship and Holy Places
Pentecostal congregations meet in all kinds of buildings, from megachurches filled with the latest technology to small-frame buildings. The movement has no holy places, though the memory of the Azusa Street Revival has a hallowed place in rhetoric and collective identity. Pentecostals generally favor pragmatics over aesthetics when determining the location and style of their churches. For example, theaters that were once, in principle, eschewed by Pentecostals have now become popular start-ups for new Pentecostal gatherings.
What is Sacred
While Pentecostals do not generally denote objects or spaces as sacred, in practice they regard both the teaching of Scripture and the “moving of the Spirit” as sacred. They understand the Holy Spirit to move among gathered believers when spiritual gifts are exercised and emotions are touched. Ecstasy, individual audible praise, prostration, uplifted hands, dance, or tears may mark such moments.
Holidays and Festivals
Pentecostals have no holidays or festivals of their own. Some, however, take special note of the day of Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after Easter, to celebrate the movement’s particular emphasis on speaking in tongues and baptism with the Holy Spirit, experiences recorded in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles as having marked the first Christian Pentecost.
Mode of Dress
Pentecostals vary in their customs of dress. Most emphasize general modesty, but they interpret this in a variety of ways. Pastors often wear business suits, although some adopt clerical collars and wear robes. In keeping with more casual trends, some have abandoned any real distinction between laypeople and the congregation and have supported even the wearing of jeans on the pulpit. African American congregations may feature deaconesses, or congregational mothers, who dress in white and take a prominent part in the life and worship of the community. A few denominations continue to object to the wearing of jewelry and other such adornments.
Dietary Practices
In general Pentecostals view the body as God’s temple and urge believers to exercise good stewardship of their health. With this in mind, Pentecostals have historically opposed smoking and the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
Rituals
Pentecostal congregations have worship services on Sunday mornings as well as midweek prayer and Bible studies with a family emphasis. In the United States, Sunday evening services are increasingly less common. Rituals include prayers for healing, often accompanied by anointing with oil; exorcisms; and altar calls (invitations to the penitent or those seeking healing or Spirit baptism to come forward for prayer). As in the evangelical tradition, most Pentecostal groups practice Communion on a regular basis, where the ritual is understood to be a symbol of the atoning work of Christ on the cross. Less common but still practiced in some parts is foot washing. Some small fringe groups include among their liturgies snake handling, a form of religious expression based on Mark 16:17-18, which states, “They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.” Even if they are bitten by a poisonous snake (or consume anything poisonous), followers of this practice do not seek medical treatment, believing their fate is in God’s hands.
Annual or biennial denominational business meetings attract huge numbers of members. The fall convention of the Church of God in Christ, for example, draws tens of thousands of people to Memphis, Tennessee. At these mammoth gatherings of the faithful, both lay and clerical, rituals for cleansing, healing, and reconciliation are reenacted around business sessions.
Annual denomination camp meetings are another popular destination for adherents to mix with other congregations for encouragement, prayer, and fellowship.
Rites of Passage
Most Pentecostal congregations offer a service of infant dedication, in which parents promise to provide their child with a Christian home and church education. Once they reach an age of accountability, children may choose to be baptized. Both new converts and anyone who received baptism as an infant are encouraged to be baptized on a profession of faith. Pentecostals regard baptism as obedience to a command, as a sign of something from the past rather than as a moment of grace. In some Pentecostal denominations it is not necessary to be baptized to receive Communion.
Membership
Pentecostals evangelize eagerly, as they are persuaded urgently that they are living in the end times before the return of Christ. Pentecostal denominations support thousands of career and short-term missionaries around the globe. Adherents employ many modes of outreach, both in the United States and elsewhere. They readily embrace new media to assist their evangelistic efforts. Pioneers in radio and televangelism, Pentecostals also use the Internet and nontraditional missionaries to reach countries closed to missionary work.
Religious Tolerance
Pentecostals support freedom of worship. However, in the United States they have historically been wary of the ecumenical movement. This distrust has been fueled by the perceived liberal theology and political views of ecumenical agencies, by a longstanding Pentecostal belief in the prophecy of a coming apostate world church, and by more recent efforts to politically align mainstream Pentecostalism with mainstream evangelicalism. In 1942, not without some controversy, Pentecostals were included in the founding of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Other members included Christian and Missionary Alliance, Presbyterian Church in America, Conservative Baptist Association, and the Baptist General Conference. Representing conservative Christians in the United States, initially Pentecostals were minority participants. By 1961 they were the majority and had one of their own serving as the president of NAE. For Pentecostals the association gave them new found respectability among conservative Christians. For all involved it has resulted in the evangelicalization of Pentecostalism and the Pentecostalization of evangelicalism. Pentecostals also cooperate in the efforts of evangelical agencies to support relief work and evangelism.
Social Justice
A burgeoning Pentecostal movement at the turn of the 20th century trampled many secular and religious barriers of the time. Meetings were interracial, and the working class was featured prominently as preachers, since it was common to think the Lord could “burst” through anyone. However, with the inevitable institutionalization of the movement, this early radical social experiment quickly fell in step with social norms of the broader conservative side of the church that was not as ready to embrace total integration of races or allow women in equal leadership.
As a result white Pentecostals in the United States until recently have not taken strong public stands on issues related to social justice, except to support human rights elsewhere, especially religious freedom, with petitions, prayers, and public statements. African American Pentecostals have been much more involved than white Pentecostals in the civil rights and poverty issues that affect their constituencies.
Social Life
Pentecostals work hard at building strong family units. They promote Alpha, a popular global network of bible studies that is cross denominational and explores questions such as “How does God guide us?” “Who is Jesus?” “Why and how do we pray?” The realities of modern life also have forced the group to respond to the needs of divorced and single parents and of blended families. Pentecostals have looked to other nondenominational programs such as James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, a support network that promotes conservative views on marriage, relationships in the family, and male headship in the home.
Controversial Issues
Pentecostals discourage divorce and remarriage. For most of the religion’s history ministers refused to remarry a person whose earlier spouse was living, and most Pentecostal denominations routinely refused ordination to divorced persons. In the 1990s some altered this stance in favor of a case-by-case approach. Pentecostals have no proscriptions on birth control, but they absolutely reject abortion. Some denominations ordain women, and to sustain their out-reaches, all of them depend heavily on the volunteer efforts of women, who constitute a majority of the membership. The majority of Pentecostal churches view homosexuality as a sin, going against God’s orders in the Bible concerning human relationships. They typically oppose same-sex marriage and gay clergy. A handful of Pentecostal churches that welcome the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community exist, including the Affirming Pentecostal Church International.
Cultural Impact
Music is the area in which Pentecostals have had the most cultural influence. The Pentecostal emphasis on religious experience has assured a prominent role for music, and their styles of music have affected both Christian sacred and secular popular music. Instead of traditional hymns, it was gospel hymns, with roots in late-19th-century revivals emphasizing testimony and experience, that found favor at the movement’s outset. Since the mid-1960s the musical revolution associated with the charismatic renewal has brought into many Pentecostal congregations simple scriptural choruses (Bible verses or phrases set to music), along with music focused on praise and worship. While these changes in religious music did not necessarily originate in Pentecostal circles, Pentecostals have embraced them in their yearning for renewal of their worship practices. Thus, the emphasis on personal worship has made Pentecostals major contributors to the praise-and-worship music used widely in contemporary Christian services.
Pentecostals are also making contributions to postmodern religious studies. Their historical emphasis on the fluidity of the Holy Spirit continues to bristle against the propositional theologies of modernity that have been the pillars of evangelicalism.