Pentecost in Print: Papers and Tracts from Pentecostal Pioneers

Pentecostals have always been prolific, and the turn-of-the-century rediscovery of the New Testament truth of Spirit baptism, evidenced by speaking in tongues at Charles Parham’s Bethel Bible College, spawned a plethora of circulars, papers, and tracts. Parham launched The Apostolic Faith in March 1899 and used this publication to promote the activities of his school in Topeka, Kansas. While the initial publication predates the Pentecostal outpouring that took place at Bethel, the name of the periodical evidences his school’s dedication to recreating a New Testament model of Christianity. Before the baptism fell, Parham’s curriculum was mainly focused on healing and prophecy, and the facility included a Healing Home, a spiritual retreat for the physically and spiritually infirmed (Goff 46-7). When Agnes Ozman, one of the Bethel students, received the baptism of the Holy Ghost on 1 January 1901, The Apostolic Faith became the first Pentecostal publication and began promoting Spirit baptism with the evidence of speaking in other tongues.

When the famed Azusa Street revival began, William Joseph Seymour borrowed the name of Parham’s publication and began publishing The Apostolic Faith from Los Angeles in September 1906. The headline of the first issue read boldly: “Pentecost Has Come: Los Angeles Being Visited by a Revival of Bible Salvation and Pentecost as Recorded in the Book of Acts.” This periodical was seminal in promoting the Pentecostal experience. It included a broad spectrum of testimonies, conversion reports, missionary news, and theology. Tens of thousands of copies were soon in circulation, and printed reports of unprecedented revival in Los Angeles brought thousands to the true birthplace of modern Pentecostalism, the mission at 312 Azusa Street.

While the secular press wrote articles criticizing the Azusa Pentecostals as fanatics citing their long, raucous services and mixing of racial and social classes in an environment of unbridled revivalism, The Apostolic Faith provided glowing details of conversions, miracles, and the phenomenon of speaking in tongues, often accompanied by interpretation. A May 1907 article declared: “The interpretation of many of the messages in nearly every language spoken by the Holy Ghost in unknown tongues is that Jesus is coming” (Untitled).

Many missionaries visited Azusa Street filled with hunger or curiosity returning to their labor filled with the Holy Ghost. In October, the paper reported that eight Pentecostal missionaries had been dispatched from Los Angeles (Seymour 1). Hundreds of preachers, mainly from Holiness denominations, received their Pentecostal baptism at Azusa and returned to their churches declaring its truth. The paper also chronicles the Spirit baptisms of a spectrum of immigrants including: Mexicans, Chinese, Russian, Italians, and Japanese, many of whom were converted after hearing messages in tongues delivered in their native languages. Additionally, The Apostolic Faith records the conversions of Catholics, Jews, and Muslims to the Pentecostal faith. Racism and bigotry were forgotten in the presence of God, and the Spirit produced a miraculous unity amongst the early Pentecostals.

Bro. Frank Bartleman, a Los Angeles journalist and former Holiness preacher who received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, saturated California with thousands of Pentecostal tracts during the Azusa revival. Before Azusa, Bro. Bartleman and other Christians in Los Angeles, inspired by published accounts of the Welsh Revival led by Evan Roberts, were anticipating another Pentecost and praying fervently to that end. The Azusa revival filled that hunger, and Bro. Bartleman’s writing captures the deep hunger and spiritual zeal of the early Pentecostals and their singular belief in God’s soon coming. Following the San Francisco earthquake, he published a tract called “The Last Call.” In less than three weeks, Bro. Bartleman and his workers distributed over 75,000 of the pamphlets, and the revival at Azusa increased (Bartleman 50-4).

Initially, Bro. Bartleman continued writing articles about the Pentecostal outpouring in Los Angeles for Holiness publications. Gradually, proponents of the Holiness Movement distanced themselves from the Pentecostals, and Bartleman began submitting his work to other exclusively Pentecostal publications including The Way of Faith, Christian Harvester, and Apostolic Light (Bartleman 61). While little is known of these publications, they provide evidence that a growing number of Pentecostal circulars were in existence.
Pentecostal periodicals were influential and provided a rudimentary cohesiveness for the burgeoning movement. In 1914, the newsletter Word & Witness called for a general convention of members of the Church of God in Christ and “all Pentecostal or Apostolic Faith Assemblies who desire with united purpose to co-operate in love and peace to push the interests of the kingdom of God everywhere” (Bell 1). From this advertised meeting emerged the Assemblies of God, one of the earliest and largest Pentecostal organizations.

The restorationism of the early Pentecostal Movement is strongly evidenced in the published writings of early apologists, and periodicals very often included strong, doctrinal defenses. The notion of the “Finished Work of Calvary” championed by Bro. William H. Durham, the well-known pastor of Chicago’s North Avenue Mission, penetrated Pentecostalism through his paper entitled The Pentecostal Testimony (”William Durham” 255). The controversial “New Issue”, the contemporary name for Oneness theology, emerged at the Worldwide Pentecostal Camp Meeting held in Arroyo Seco, California, when Bro. R.E. McAlister, a Canadian evangelist, declared that the Matthew 28:19 formula for baptism was never used by the New Testament Church. Several brethren, including McAlister, Frank Ewart, Glenn Cook, and John Scheppe, became convinced, through prayer and study, that the proper biblical baptismal invocation was “in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” This idea spawned an untold number of publications and tracts dedicated to the furtherance of the revelation of the Mighty God in Christ.

A 1913 notice in Word and Witness announced the launch of The Good Report edited by Brothers Ewart and McAlister, the oldest known Oneness periodical (Notice). Bro. Ewart also edited a paper called The Present Truth. Perhaps the three most influential Oneness publications, however, were Bro. Ewart’s Meat in Due Season, Bro. D.C.O. Opperman’s The Blessed Truth, and Elder G.T. Haywood’s The Voice in the Wilderness. These papers were filled with articles about the advancement of the Jesus’ Name message, including international news of rebaptisms in the name of Jesus.

Bishop G.T. Haywood was one of the most prolific and profound Oneness apologists. He wrote: “Much of the early Pentecostal movement was promoted and introduced to various islands, countries, and continents of the world through tracts and periodicals that we published.” His paper, The Voice in the Wilderness, became the official organ of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World in 1918, and Haywood retained editorial responsibility for the publication after he was elevated to presiding bishop in 1925 (Tyson 16). He also wrote a prodigious number of tracts and booklets, including his masterpieces: “The Finest of Wheat” and “The Victim of the Flaming Sword.” His incomparable ability to articulate biblical truth with theological proofs, historical context, and eschatological importance makes him one of the most beloved twentieth century Pentecostal authors.

While Oneness brethren promulgated truth in their periodicals, their detractors were also busy campaigning against the spread of their message. In 1915, J. Roswell Flower, General Secretary of the Assemblies of God, lamented the penetration of the “New Issue” literature in the Assemblies of God’s Weekly Evangel :

Another letter, this very week, tells of the unsettled conditions in an eastern State where the Los Angeles [Oneness] literature has been scattered broadcast [sic] among the Pentecostal Assemblies, and where unstable souls, who know not the Word of God, are being swept off their feet. And that is not all, the new teaching has been carried to the foreign fields, and already hearts that are sore and distressed are writing us stating the awful results and after-effects of this teaching . . .

He further warns: “These workers are scattering over the country, and methinks they drive like Jehu. They are liable to drop in your assembly any day, and the day after, your assembly is possibly on the verge of dissolution” (Flower 1). Clearly, Trinitarians were worried about the wildfires of doctrinal truth ignited worldwide by Oneness Pentecostal publishers and preachers, and the “New Issue” battle was largely fought on front pages of their respective periodicals.

Ultimately, the Pentecostal press was a key component in reshaping the face of twentieth century Christianity. With the ink of inspiration, great Apostolic believers penned, printed, and published the full gospel message; and while thousands of evangelists, missionaries, and Christian workers canvassed the globe with New Testament truth, they were often preceded by or armed with Pentecostal literature. From the writings of our Pentecostal pioneers, we can create a composite picture of the passion and zeal that fueled the fires of revival that made Pentecostalism the fastest growing religion on earth (McClung 1). The yellowed records of our past must inspire us, and their voices urge us on toward increased worldwide evangelism as we carry the blessed truth of the Apostolic faith to a new generation of believers. Founded on our strong Pentecostal heritage of the written word and empowered with modern tools of mass communication, we can publish “The Whole Gospel to the Whole World.”

Sources:

Bartleman, Frank. From Plow to Pulpit: from Maine to California. Los Angeles: 1924.
Bell, E.N. General Convention of Pentecostal Saints and Churches of God in Christ, Hot Springs, Arkansas, April 2 to 12, 1914. Word & Witness 9.12 (1913): 1.

Flower, J. Roswell. Editorial Comment on Issue. Weekly Evangel, 99 (15 July 1915): 1.

Goff, James. Fields White unto Harvest : Charles F. Parham and the Missionary Origins of Pentecostalism. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 1988.

McClung, Grant. Pentecostals: the Sequel. Christianity Today. 50.4 (2006): 1-8.

Notice. Word & Witness 9.6 (1913): 8.

Seymour, William J. The Pentecostal Baptism Restored: the Promised Latter Rain Now Being Poured Out on God’s Humble People. The Apostolic Faith. 1.2 (October 1906): 1.

Tyson, James. Before I Sleep. Indianapolis: Pentecostal Publications, 1976.

Untitled. The Apostolic Faith 1.8 (May 1907): 3.

“William Durham.” Dictionary of Charismatic and Pentecostal Movements. Eds. Stanley M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988.

Circle of Fire: Early Pentecostal Revival in Indianapolis

Indianapolis, Indiana was the epicenter of Pentecostal revival east of the Mississippi River. Bro. Glenn Cook, one of the elders from William J. Seymour’s Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles, arrived in the city in January of 1907 with the Pentecostal message. Revival meetings were conducted at the Christian and Missionary Alliance Gospel Tabernacle, and several were filled with the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The assembly’s pastor, Dr. G.N. Eldridge, who was out of town, sent a telegram refusing his pulpit to Cook, and an alternate location had to be secured for continued meetings. Ironically, Eldridge later joined the Pentecostal movement (Tyson EPR 129-130). In March 1907, Bro. Cook published a good report of the burgeoning revival in Indianapolis in The Apostolic Faith, the official publication of the Azusa Mission:

The Lord gave us a gracious time of Pentecostal power at Indianapolis, Ind. Many received the baptism with the Holy Ghost and are speaking with tongues. They came from different parts of Indiana and are now going forth to spread the good news. This will be a center of power, being an interurban railway center like Los Angeles. (Cook 3)

The group had rented a “nice hall and chairs to seat it” at 1111½ Shelby Street in Fountain Square, marking the formation of the first Pentecostal congregation in Indianapolis (Cook 3).
When Bro. Cook returned to Los Angeles in March 1907, another party of Azusa Pentecostal workers came to Indianapolis, including: Thomas Hezmalhalch, Fred Dexheimer, Celia Smock, and Lenora Hall. As crowds grew, the fledgling congregation had to move to larger facilities, securing a vacant spiritualist church called Murphy Hall at the corner of New York and Alabama Streets. Pentecostal revival continued to grow, and many were healed and filled at the mission. J. Roswell Flower, the first General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God, and his future wife, Alice Reynolds both received the Holy Ghost in these early meetings (Flower 5-6). In 1908, Flower began publishing The Pentecost, a monthly newsletter detailing the spread of the Pentecostal message.

Garfield Thomas Haywood was filled with the Holy Ghost in February 1908 in a converted tin shop on West Michigan Street in a small work led by Henry Prentice, who had received his Pentecost in Los Angeles (Tyson, EPR 10). This mission grew, and the congregation moved to an empty storeroom on the corner of Michigan and Minverva Streets (Tyson BIS 16).

G.T. Haywood soon felt called to the ministry and began his pastorate of a small work in February 1909 located in a downtown storeroom at 12th and Lafayette Streets. The assembly also held meetings for a short time at West 13th and Canal before moving to a more permanent home at 12th and Missouri (Dugas 12-13; Tyson BIS 16-17). Eventually, the congregation relocated to 11th and Senate before constructing the beautiful building, Christ Temple, on Fall Creek Boulevard in 1924, an extant landmark of Apostolic heritage. Haywood and his interracial congregation were instrumental in the Indianapolis work, and he began publication in 1910 of The Voice in the Wilderness, an important Pentecostal periodical that became the official organ of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World in 1918 (Tyson BIS 16).

L.V. Roberts was also an early influence in the Pentecostal movement in Indianapolis. He assumed leadership of the original Indianapolis Assembly from Murphy Hall in February 1913. Meetings were moved to No. 9 New Jersey Avenue and later to Roosevelt Avenue under the name Oak Hill Tabernacle. His church began holding an annual camp meeting that attracted Pentecostals from the Midwest (Roberts 3).

In October 1914, Lena Spillman visited Roberts’ church and was converted and physically healed of a life-threatening heart condition (Foley 203). Early in her Pentecostal experience, she recognized God’s call to the ministry. In 1929, she began holding revival meetings at Thirty-Fourth and Orchard Streets, and the assembly grew into a thriving work eventually became Christian Tabernacle at 28th and Sherman Streets (Foley 208).

In March 1915, Bro. Glenn Cook returned from Los Angeles to Indianapolis. Bro. Cook had accepted the message of the mighty God in Christ and was rebaptized in Jesus’ Name. This man, who had been so instrumental in the spread of the Pentecostal message in the Midwest, now returned preaching Oneness doctrine. Indianapolis, which had experienced growing Apostolic revival, was ripe to receive the revelatory teaching; and on 6 March 1915, L.V. Roberts and his congregation were immersed in Eagle Creek in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ as well as Pentecostal leaders G.T. Haywood and Samuel N. Hancock (French 65). On Easter Sunday, 4 April 1915, Haywood preached Oneness truth to his growing congregation at 11th and Senate. At the conclusion of the sermon, G.T. Haywood baptized 456 members of his congregation in Jesus’ Name (Tyson BIS 36). The conversion of Haywood and his congregation from Trinitarianism was instrumental in bringing the fledgling Pentecostal Assemblies of the World into the Oneness camp.

Indianapolis continued to be a center of Apostolic revival, and many other missions and churches were formed in the next few decades. Today, Indianapolis has scores of Apostolic Faith assemblies, and many of these revival churches were either formed or led by some of the most renowned names in Hoosier Pentecostal history including: G.T. Haywood, L.V. Roberts, Oscar Hughes, Raymond Hoekstra, Nathaniel A. Urshan, Paul Jordan, James E. Simison, Morris E. Golder, and James Tyson. The seeds of truth fell on fertile ground in the heart of Indiana, and the Indianapolis became the strong root system of many Oneness works around the Midwest, the nation, and the globe as concentric waves of true Apostolic revival emanated from the Circle City.

Sources:

Cook, Glenn. “Revival in Indianpolis.” Apostolic Faith March 1907, p. 3. 

Dugas, Paul D. The Life and Writings of G.T. Haywood. Stockton, CA: Apostolic
Press, 1968.

Flower, Alice Reynolds. “When Pentecost Came to Indianapolis, a First-Hand Report of
the Revival which Began in 1907.” Heritage 5 (4) Winter 1985/1986, pp. 5-6.

Foley, Bertha L. “Lena Spillman.” Pioneer Pentecostal Women, Volume II. Mary H. Wallace, ed. Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press, 1981, pp. 201-212.

French, Talmadge. Our God is One: the Story of Oneness Pentecostals. Indianapolis:
Voice & Vision Publications, 1999.

Roberts, L.V. “More Blessed Revival Fires: Fresh Blaze in Indianapolis.” Word and
Witness 9 (2) 20 February 1913, p. 3.

Tyson, James L. Before I Sleep. Indianapolis: Pentecostal Publications, 1976.

—. Early Pentecostal Revival. Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press, 1992.

 

Marching to Zion: Pentecostal Revival in Dowie’s Utopia

In the early summer of 1906, Charles Fox Parham received a vision of Zion City, Illinois, and the voice of the Lord said:  “‘Arise and go to Zion and take up the burden of an oppressed people’” (”Kingdom Come” . . . ).  In late September, Bro. Parham entered the troubled city with the message of the baptism of the Holy Ghost evidenced by speaking in tongues.  As the self-proclaimed “Projector” of the pneteocstal message, Parham saw a clear opportunity to win converts among the dissillusioned followers of John Alexander Dowie, the deposed leader of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church.  Parham’s presence in the city and some high-profile conversions caused a firestorm of controversy and a showdown with Wilbur Glenn Voliva, the newly-appointed overseers of Zion’s official and only church.

Zion City was the utopian experiment of John Alexander Dowie, an evangelist from Australia.  Dowie began meetings in Chicago and attracted widespread media attention with his open denouncement of medical practitioners and corrupt city leaders.  His sermons were filled with overt invectives and dire warnings to unrepentant sinners.  In response to the social degeneracy of metropolitan Chicago, Dowie announced in 1900 a new venture, the establishment of a city where the faithful could live out the simple message of their church:  salvation, healing, and holy living.  In 1902, when the city incorporated, over 5,000 believers claimed residency in Zion (Cook 135.).

Initially, Zion seemed to be the anticipated haven promised by Dowie.  The city prospered as a “theocracy” and developed industries, manufacturing products as diverse as lace, fig bars, and chocolate.  The city formed a bank, a school, and band, and there were no doctors, druggists, or dance halls.  Dowie and his followers were trusting God in their veritable Promised Land, and citizens worshipped in the Shiloh Tabernacle, one in faith, doctrine, and love.

Unfortunately, Dowie himself became progressively corrupt, mismanaging church funds, living opulently, and forming a cult of personality.  In 1904, Dowie presumptuously styled himself Elijah the Restorer and First Apostle of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church and began dressing in liturgical robes modeled after the Levitical high priest’s garment.  Dowie’s excesses and doctrinal eccentricities increased; and in the end, he was replaced by Wilbur Glenn Voliva, a convert who had overseen Zion’s work in Australia.  Feeble and marginalized, Dowie retained only a small following as Voliva attempted to stabilize the crumbling church and financially-devastated city.

It was in this state of turmoil and confusion that Charles Parham entered Zion.  He rented schoolhouses and the main tabernacle and defiantly announced to a furious Voliva his full intention to remain in Zion “till Kingdom Come [sic]” (”New Prophet” . . .).  In a short time, Voliva closed the doors of the city buildings to Parham, and meetings were moved to private homes.  At the revival’s peak, Bro. Parham was holding five meetings each evening, traveling to each location to preach (Parham 157).  Voliva issued a burning ultimatum to his church:  “You must choose either me or this intruder . . . You can not [sic] have two leaders” (”Kingdom come” . . . ).  Escalating the controversy, Voliva erected a printed billboard declaring his city to be “established by Zion people and for Zion people only.”  The sign orders Parham to leave Zion and establish his own settlement, calling his faith “an ecclesiastical ‘goat-house’” or “garbage dump” and threatening:  “The war is on RED HOT . . .” (”Zion Signs”).

In addition, Dowie himself spoke out against Bro. Parham’s growing influence over his flock, and a confident Parham rebutted that “Dowie was not in his right mind but if placed under his care would soon be restored to his former self” (Parham 160).

Within a week, Bro. Parham had attracted hundreds of followers.  Zion City was home to many who would become influential workers in the Pentecostal Movement.  Dowie’s own restorationist doctrine had prepared Zion’s denizens to receive the message of the Apostolic Faith.  Like their leader, they fully anticipated the full recovery of the New Testament Church, and Bro. Parham’s experiential message of speaking in tongues was certainly a credible corollary, supported by the Scriptures.  Among those converted under Bro. Parham were F.F. Bosworth, director of the city band, E.N. Richey, Zion’s mayor, John G. Lake, a deacon in Zion’s church, and D.C.O. Opperman, who later became an influential leader in the Oneness movement (Blumhofer 4).  By New Year’s Eve 1906, 2,000 were attending Parham’s meetings, and hundreds had been filled with the baptism of the Holy Ghost (Parham 172). 

While faithful Zionites viewed Bro. Charles Parham as an opportunist and proselytizer, his unflagging commitment to the Apostolic Faith empowered him to endure the persecutions and personal attacks wielded by the spiritual leaders of Zion.  Though Dowie and his successor never accepted Parham’s message, their watchwords of salvation, healing, and holy living are still meaningful to modern Pentecostals, complemented by the baptism of the Holy Ghost.  Despite Zion’s troubles and ultimate degeneration from its original ideals, the city proved to be a fertile seedbed for Pentecostal revival in the Midwest, and many of the workers were instrumental in propelling the Pentecostal Movement around the globe and completely restoring the original message of the New Testament Apostolic Church.

Sources:

Blumhofer, Edith. “A Pentecostal Branch Grows in Dowie’s Zion.”  Heritage.  Fall 1986, 3-9.

Cook, Philip Lee.  Zion City, Illinois:  Twentieth Century Utopia Thes. U of Colorado, 1965.

“Kingdome Come:  Parham Makes Big Convernts.” Waukegan Daily Sun 26 Sept 1906.

“New Prophet in Zion Defies Voliva.” Waukegan Daily Sun 21 Sept 1906.

Parham, Sarah E.  The Life of Charles F. Parham:  Founder of the Apostolic Faith Movement.  New York:  Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985.

Zion Signs.  Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Justin Martyr: Father of False Doctrine

Justin Martyr is hailed by the Roman Catholic Church as one of the great Church Fathers of the Catholic faith. His doctrinal ideas widely influenced the nascent Catholic Church, and Justin invented a Christology based strongly on the Hellenistic philosophers that he studied before his conversion. Ultimately, his dogma laid the foundation for Trinitarianism by segmenting the Godhead into persons and attempting to explain the Creator with vain and heathen philosophies.

Born to Greek parents in 100 AD, Justin studied Stoic, Peripatetic, Pythagorean, and Platonist philosophy in Ephesus (Chadwyck 93). He was converted to Christiantiy but retained a great respect for pagan philosophers. Justin believed that the ancient Greek philosophers had a partial revelation of scriptural truth through an impartation of the Logos: “And those who live according to the Logos are Christians, even though they may have been counted as atheists-such as Socrates and Heraclitus, and others like them, among the Greeks” (qtd. in McGrath 3).

Justin was a Platonist and subscribed to Plato’s theory of universal forms, or the idea that invisible ideals are the most supreme form of reality. Justin ultimately hailed Plato as a prophet, contriving a Christian interpretation of Plato’s writings, whom he believed to have a prefigured understanding of the Trinity of God and the redemptive Cross of Christ: “And the physiological discussing concerning the Son of God in the Timaeus of Plato, where he says, ‘He placed him crosswise in the universe,’ he borrowed in like manner from Moses.” Additionally, he locates in Plato his own idea concerning the numerical uniqueness of the Logos as separate from God, Plato’s Prime Mover: “Which things Plat reading, and not accurately understanding, and not apprehending that it was the figure of the cross, but taking it to be a placing crosswise, he said that the power next to the first God was placed crosswise in the universe” (qtd. in Roberts and Donaldson 58). Justin superimposes his false perceptions of the God of the Bible on the Platonic models of invisible principles to produce a distinction between the Father and Son, the invisible and the visible.

Justin’s “Logos Christology” is responsible for the extra-biblical notion of the pre-existent Son of God. Justin equated the Logos of St. John 1 with God the Son. He ascribed to God’s divine and redemptive plan, both personality and function, numerically separate from the impassable God: “For we worship and love, next to God, the Logos, who comes from the unbegotten and ineffable God, since it was for our sake that he became a human being” (qtd in McGrath 3).

In his First Apology, Justin pronounces a Trinitarian devotion to ” . . . the most true God, the Father of righteousness . . . and the Son (who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host of other good angels who follow and are made like to Him), and the Prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore . . . ” (qtd. in Placher 32). While the passage even seems to indicate the worshipfulness of angels, it certainly distinguishes between the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Further corrupting the original Apostolic teaching of the mighty God in Christ, Justin Martyr expanded the biblical baptismal formula to “in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit” (qtd. in Roberts and Donaldson 60). This is an obvious innovation and does not follow the traditional Trinitarian invocation of “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” but attempts to retain the personal name of Christ, the proper New Testament rubric for Christian baptism, while exploding Justin’s tri-personal Godhead.

The connection between Justin Martyr’s Christological ideas and the vain philosophies of the Hellenistic heathen are indisputable. His clear reverence for Greek philosophers and his repeated appeals to their logic to produce his Trinitarian construct is perhaps the earliest example of pronounced apostasy in the post-Apostolic Church. This theological innovation further proves the fact that the Trinity is indeed completely foreign to the first generation of Christians, and later patristical writings (i.e. Tertullian’s Adversus Praxean III) confirm that the idea of a tripartite God was utterly foreign to the universal Catholic Church well into the third century. St. Paul’s Apostolic admonition completely discredits Justin and his demonic doctrine: “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2.8-9). Certainly, through the Spirit of prophecy, Paul was speaking to a generation who would forsake the simplicity of the doctrine of Christ for the foolishness of the world. Justin preached “another Jesus” and “another Gospel.” His Christ was not the Christ of God but was a lesser deity, a mere conduit of a God unknowable and unknown, the god of Plato. The dogma of the Trinity is, in fact, built upon the Justinian sand of such foolishness and will one day perish with all such prideful foolishness that obscures the glory of the One True & Living God, Jesus Christ, from the eyes of those fettered by tradition!

Sources:

Chadwyck, H. “Justin Martyr, St.” New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 93-95. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. BALL STATE UNIV. 10 Mar. 2008 .

McGrath, Alister E. The Christian Theology Reader, 3rd. ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.

Placher, William. Readings in the History of Christian Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988.

Roberts, Alexander Rev. and James Donaldson. Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325. Edinburgh: L & T Clark, 1867. 

God Completely Heals Stroke Victim!

NOTE:  While this is not technically historical, it does document the work of God for future generations!

On October 16, 2007, God performed an astounding miracle for Sis. Judie Ritchie, a member of River of Life in Muncie. In October 2001, Sis. Ritchie experienced her first stroke. This incident was followed by a series of Transient Ischemic Attacks, so-called ministrokes. In February 2002, she was hospitalized at Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie and continued to suffer debilitating attacks over the next five years.

The strokes left Sis. Ritchie’s body partially paralyzed and greatly weakened. Drained of energy, she was unable to do housework and perform usual tasks. She walked with a cane and sometimes used a walker because of the hemiplegia in her right leg and foot, which were paralyzed and turned outward, causing her to fall often. She also experienced paralysis in two fingers on her right hand and was unable to take proper hold of things. Sister Ritchie had a knot in her abdomen that was also paralyzed, and the left side of her face was paralyzed, effecting her speech.

During the night of October 15, 2007, Sis. Ritchie experienced yet another ministroke. She woke to discover her mouth badly drawn down and had difficulty moving. By faith, she struggled to get ready for the weekly Ladies’ Prayer meeting held on Tuesday mornings at River of Life. “I almost stayed home,” says Sis. Ritchie, “but I’m so glad I ended up going!”

Approximately fifteen women were gathered for the meeting. Toward the end of the meeting, the sisters gathered in a prayer circle. A chair was placed in the center of the circle, and several of the sisters sat in the chair by turn to receive special prayer. When Sis. Ritchie took the seat, the ladies began to fervently pray the prayer of faith in the Name of Jesus, laying hands on her. Sis. Ritchie gives all the glory to God for what happened next!

I felt a weight like big heavy bricks in my feet, and it began to go up my legs. My right foot and leg moved back into position. The feeling continued to move up my body, and the knot in my stomach disappeared. The tingling in my fingers went away, and the feeling moved up my left arm into my shoulder and onto the left side of my face. My mouth moved back into place, and the paralysis left me!

When the sisters realized what God was doing, they began to rejoice with Sister Ritchie for the miracle God was performing.

For six years, Sis. Ritchie had not been able to play the accordion. She got up from the chair and picked up Sis. Margaret Martin’s accordion and began to play “There’s Something About That Name.” The sweet Spirit of the Lord began to move in a very powerful way.

Sis. Ritchie left the church and drove to Pastor John Martin’s home and testified of the miracle she had received. She then visited her two sisters and prayed for them. When her husband came home that evening, he asked if she had gotten the mail. She replied that she hadn’t and rose from her chair to walk with him to the mailbox. He was astounded at her movement and agreed to attend Bible Study that night with his wife.

Pastor Martin called Sis. Ritchie to the platform to give her testimony. She explained the supernatural healing that God had given her and joyfully ran the perimeter aisles of the church, igniting powerful praise and worship for God’s undeniable healing power!

Sis. Ritchie made an appointment to see her internist, Dr. Mohammed Bahrami. The doctor was amazed at her miraculous recuperation and recorded on his official report: “A miracle happened to her at church as she received prayer from her lady friends.”

God still answers prayer! Jesus said: “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, that will I do . . .” (Jn. 14.13). Sis. Ritchie’s healing is a dynamic testimony of the divine power that resides in the omnipotent Name of Christ Jesus! He is still Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that Heals! 

When Radio Was Wrong

Pentecostals have always viewed mass media technologies with warranted suspicion, fearing their invasive capacity to influence the Christian home and morals. With the advent of home radios in the 1920s, there was widespread social and religious concern about radio and its long-term effects on listeners. The Church was a vocal opponent of immoral radio programming, and many worried that Christian broadcasting would ultimately damage the local churches.

Initially, radio was hailed as a tool for education and cultural enrichment, but broadcasts quickly degenerated. Soap operas developed, and evening programming soon filled the daytime airwaves with shows like Trouble House, Lonely Women, and John’s Other Wife, captivating housewives with their melodramatic depictions of adultery, intrigue, and illicit love. During the 1930s, evening programs increasingly included crime and suspense dramas like The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet, closely followed by the appearance of supernatural horror shows like The Inner Sanctum, whose famous introduction of a dissonant organ and creaking door lured adults and children into thrilling tales of ghosts, lunatics, and murderers (Starker 112-113). Such so-called entertainment seems completely innocuous to modern audiences who are desensitized by the pedestrian vulgarity of television and Hollywood films, but psychologists, parents, and preachers raised voices of legitimate concern about the meaning and menace of radio programming.

In a 1932 article from the Journal of Adult Education, educators were cautioned about the potential ill effects of radio:

All great human inventions, even printing, even language itself, have proved to be two-edged swords. They can do as much evil as good. Radio is as great-and as dangerous-as any. It will not, in careless hands, bring on any millenniums, and it can broadcast injury and discord and ugliness into the farthest reaches of inhabited space. To be light-minded about the radio is to jig along a precipice. (Bryson 234)

In 1933, Arthur Man contributed an article to Scribner’s, lamenting the criminal content of so many radio programs, noting that “every form of crime known to man” made up the plot of many children’s programs on the radio. He reviewed twenty-five juvenile programs for the article and could only recommend two fit for children, concluding: “I should like to postpone my children’s knowledge of how to rob a bank, scuttle a ship, shoot a sheriff, the emotional effects of romantic infidelity, jungle hazards, and the horrors of the drug habit for a few more years at least” (qtd. in Starker 117).

Bro. William Booth-Clibborn contributed a number of articles to Pentecostal periodicals on the subject of radio. In a June 1933 piece, he lamented about the down-spiraling immorality of radio:

The last five years have seen a complete change both in the tone and in the material of that which is permitted to be broadcast. Murder mysteries, sex serials, detective stories, absurd banalities with the most fantastic fables are mingled together in the most heterogeneous mixture, curses and groans, shrieks and sobs, revolver reports, Machiavelian madnesses, the description of bloodthirsty encounters and debauching banquets is all scrambled together . . . We are waiting to hear the first
voice that is raised by a Christian spokesman against the modern menace that radio presents to the immature minds of Christian childhood raised up in a protective atmosphere of homes that should take a firm stand against the blasts of this breath of hell. It is impossible to “bring every thought to the obedience of Christ and to cast down every foolish imagination” as we are commanded of Paul, and listen to the modern radio programs. (Booth-Clibborn, “Radio Menace” 13)

In another article, he quipped about the voyeuristic lovemaking on radio: “Crooner’s Curse. Generally people make love privately but the fool crooner uses radio’s immense mouth to fill the air with his sentimental pains” (Booth-Clibborn, “Pulse . . .” 13). Clearly, radio seemed a clear enough enemy of Godly living and Christian morality.

Despite such assessments, many groups, including Pentecostals, began using the radio to broadcast religious services. However, as early as 1923, some members of the clergy noticed that wireless worship had an unwanted side effect-decreased church attendance. Parishioners were prone to simply stay home from church and listen to services via the radio. Cardinal Dubois, the Catholic Archbishop of Paris, France, posited that radio was indeed an anemic substitute for church attendance as “the radio cannot convert sinners.” Bishop Wilson R. Stearly, an Episcopal churchman from Newark, New Jersey rhetorically asked: “Why go to your parish church when you can sit at ease in your parlor and hear the heavenly music of a capable choir and be charmed by the fervid eloquence of a magnetic preacher?” He identified radio as “another ally of those forces which make more difficult the assembling of the faithful for praise and prayer” (”Radio Cutting Down . . . ” E1).

While radio ultimately proved to be an efficient technological vehicle for the worldwide delivery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it cannot be said that the Apostolic Church, or denominational Christianity in general, impacted radio. Radio ministry never eclipsed or even seriously competed with the seductive soap operas or hi-fi horror shows. The immorality of nascent radio gradually desensitized audiences to the once taboo topics of sex and crime, invading the Christian home and mind with vice and violence and created a ready-made audience for the evils of television in the 1950s. Modern radio continues to be a minefield for the Christian, filled with prurient talk shows, secular music, and celebrity gossip. With the passage of time and the deadening of society’s sensibilities, The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet seem almost completely innocent to modern listeners. Such automatic divestiture of offense should make us keenly aware of the debilitation of social concern and religious conviction. Let us heed the call of God’s Spirit to the observance of a stricter and much higher standard for all entertainment, “denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, [that] we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world” (Titus 2.12).

Sources:

Booth-Clibborn, William. “Crooner’s Curse.” The Pentecostal Evangel Vol. 26, No. 3: December 1993, pg. 12.

Booth-Clibborn, William. “The Radio Menace.” The Pentecostal Evangel Vol. 25, No. 9: June 1933, pg. 13.

Bryson, Lyman. “The Revolt of the Radio Listener.” Journal of Adult Education Vol. 4: 1932, pp. 234-239.

“Radio Cutting Down Church Attendance by Broadcasting Services, Says Bishop.” New York Times 27 May 1923, E1.

Starker, Steven. Evil Influences: Crusades Against the Mass Media. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1989.

We Will Not Bow! Lessons Learned from the Assemblies of God

 In August 1943, Mayme Williams, veteran Assemblies of God evangelist and future missionary to the Philippines, wrote a passionate article for the Pentecostal Evangel, the official organ of the AG, appealing to a new generation of Pentecostals to cling to their holiness roots. Her address, entitled “We Will Not Bow”, evidences the pre-World War II erosion of Godly standards of living in the Assemblies of God and serves as a cautionary reminder to United Pentecostals, who continue the battle against the encroachment of worldliness and compromise in our own fellowship.
Williams recalls the “early years of the Pentecostal outpouring” and recounts her own experience of receiving gentle instruction from her pastor’s wife after her conversion, attributing her ministry to that relationship: ” . . . today, I am preaching the gospel largely as the result of that woman’s words; yes, and her dress also.” She reminisces about those nascent years of Pentecostal faith when “It made no difference if you were sixteen or sixty, you did your hair up, lengthened your dresses, quit the extreme method of so-called make up, and in general put yourself in the class of separated people who were everywhere called by the name ‘Holiness’” (Williams 2).
She credits the wave of compromise to satanic influences and foretells a grave future for both the Church and the country if they continue to loosen their moral strictures:

It is a known fact that the great nations of past ages fell when their women let down the standard of modesty. Recently, while in prayer about this very thing, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said: “THE THING YOU CALL WORLDLINESS IS THE SPIRIT OF IMMODESTY.” As I thought on the subject, I realized more than ever before, that God had given me the real definition of the thing. The devil wants to trample the beauty of womanhood and motherhood into the very dust, and to away with all the sacredness of the high calling to which God has called women. If he can get us to be brazen and extreme in dress and actions, any influence we might have had upon our fathers, husbands and sons will be entirely lost. The last days will be especially noted for the let down in standards in the home, the marriage vows and morality.” (Williams 2)
She further laments the growing adoption of trousers for women who claim to wear the “immodest dress” because of the demands of their employers (Williams 2).

The Assemblies of God, like other early Pentecostals, adopted strong positions of holiness and separation from the world. AG periodicals included many articles admonishing Christian women to observe modesty in dress, to avoid worldly fashion, and to cover their bodies. Writers also denounced the use of jewelry, cosmetics, and female haircutting. A piece by Eudorus N. Bell called for Pentecostals to use only functional pins and buckles and repudiated “tight lacing” and the disfigurement of vain corsets (2). In 1925, an unnamed African missionary who had returned to America on furlough sent an editorial resolution to the Pentecostal Evangel lengthily detailing his shock and dismay at the worldliness penetrating the Assemblies of God:

An earnest and loving appeal is prayerfully offered to sisters of our Pentecostal assemblies in Christ Jesus, that since we are looking for our Lord ’s soon return from heaven, and are earnestly praying for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28). They will with united effort by the grace of God enter into a solemn covenant with Him.
(1) Not to adorn themselves with earrings, necklaces, rings or other ornaments of gold;
(2) With blouses that expose in any degree the back or chest, or with skirts immodestly short;
(3) That they refrain from the use of paint and powder, and from curling of the hair by artificial means. (”A Timely Word” 9)

The writer further requests: “Will pastors who feel concerned and grieved over prevailing conditions among professors of the Pentecostal Baptism in the Holy Spirit read this appeal in their assemblies, and seek as .the Spirit directs to stay the tide of worldliness that threatens to engulf and ruin this movement?” (9). In 1934, William Booth-Clibborn contributed an article to the Latter Rain Evangel, entitled “The Lost Glory” about the shearing of women’s hair. He appeals to a 17th century treatise by the Puritan William Prynne against the practice and concludes: “That women universally practice the cutting of their hair today is a sign of the times showing that in the ripeness of the age, the church as a whole of whom woman is a type, will lose its power, its faith and its glory” (22).
In time, the Assemblies of God completely distanced itself from its primitive roots in Bible holiness. As early as 1952, a short item called “Holy Adornment” appeared in the Pentecostal Evangel asserting that I Peter 2:3-4 did not forbid the wearing of jewelry and admonishing Christians not to become “morbid” on the issue of dress (Meyer 4). Subsequent articles in the Evangel about holiness completely omit discussions about former standards of dress, cosmetics, and ornamentation. The same publication that once upheld holiness regulations now minimizes, redefines, and compromises their original meaning and importance to the spiritual life of the Church!
Surely, Evangelist Mayme Williams did not realize in 1943 that her plea for the strengthening of holiness standards in the Assemblies of God came at the very twilight of their practice. Her resolution, “We will not bow”, may have characterized the early generation of Assemblies of God ministers and members but was not representative of younger generations who were disconnected from the revival and holiness roots of their fellowship. While many early pioneers within the AG organization valiantly attempted to thwart the invasion of worldliness, they were ultimately unsuccessful. Today, most Assemblies members would be unrecognizable to their founding fathers.
The United Pentecostal Church International can take a relevant lesson from these periodical pieces. Their words should inspire us to retain our solid stand for biblical holiness. There is, in fact, an Apostolic Church in the grave counting on this modern generation of Oneness Pentecostals to maintain our moorings in the peaceful Harbor of Holiness rather than drift with our culture’s current, as so many Pentecostal groups have done, into the dangerous waters of wickedness. We cannot afford to make wreckage of Zion’s ship with carnality and compromise or to abandon our Bible anchor in clean living. Where others have failed, we can succeed! With truth and Christ’s own righteousness, let us declare with unwavering fervor: “We will not bow!”

Sources:

Bell, Eudorus N. “The Dress Fad.” Word & Witness 9 (6) 20 June 1913, p. 2.

Booth-Clibborn, William. “The Lost Glory.” Latter Rain Evangel 26 (10). July 1934, pp. 13 & 22.

Meyer, Frederick B. “Holy Adornment.” Pentecostal Evangel 27 April 1952, p. 3.

“A Timely Word.” Pentecostal Evangel. No. 514. 15 Sept 1923, p. 9.

Williams, Mayme. “We Will Not Bow.” Pentecostal Evangel. No. 1527. 14 Aug 1943, pp. 2-3.  

Unto to You and to Your Children: a Historical Survey of Speaking in Tongues

The theological centerpiece of the modern Pentecostal movement is the belief that speaking in tongues, or glossolalia, is evidential of the baptism of the Holy Ghost and replicates the experience of the Apostolic Church on the Day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2. While the New Testament is replete with examples of the miracle of speaking in unknown tongues, history includes infrequent accounts of the phenomenon.

Irenaeus, a 2nd century bishop in Gaul, makes clear references to the practice:

When the Apostle says “We speak wisdom among the perfect,” by the “perfect” he means those who had received the Spirit of God, and in all tongues speak through the Spirit of God, as he himself also spake. As also we now hear many brethren in the Church having prophetic gifts, and speaking in all sorts of languages through the Spirit . . . (qtd. Cutten 33)

Irenaeus also went to Rome to defend the Montanist sectarians against excommunication in 177. Montanus spoke in tongues at his baptism and promoted the prophetic gifts and glossolalic utterances of two prophetesses, Prisca and Maximilla (Latourette 128).

Origen (185-254 A.D), a Greek apologist, records the comments of Celsus, an ancient pagan philosopher who opposed Christianity. Celsus describes Christian prophets who utter prophecies to which “are added strange, fanatical, and quite unintelligible words, of which no rational person can find the meaning” (Origen vii. 9).

By the time of Chrysostom (345-407 AD), speaking in tongues seems to have completely disappeared from the nascent Catholic Church. Writing of Paul’s treatment on tongues to the Corinthians, he concludes: “The whole passage is exceedingly obscure; and the obscurity is occasioned by our ignorance of the facts and the cessation of happenings which were common in those days but unexampled in our own” (qtd. in Cutten, 37).

There are numerous descriptions of tongues or similar glossolalic “miracles” throughout the Middle Ages, but they lack apostolic authenticity and are primarily the stuff of ecclesiastical hagiography. In his La Mystique Divine, Naturelle, et Diabolique, Joseph Gorres offers a lengthy catalog of Catholic saints who were apparently gifted with “tongues.” Among these were St. Pachomius (292-348), St. Hildegard (1098-1179), St. Vincent Ferrier (1357-1419) and St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552). It is, in fact, possible that many of the Catholic examples are demonic, as various saints preached to the heathen to bring them into popery. In one case, Jeanne of the Cross ecstatically spoke Arabic to “two Mohammadeans” who demanded baptism. Later, she instructed them “in tongues” concerning the tenets of the Catholic faith (Gorres 451). Undoubtedly, the true Holy Spirit of God would not inspire utterances in any language that would bring the hearers into the bondage of false doctrine, and such outlandish tales can only be considered fiction or lying signs and wonders.

Outside the Roman communion, tongues and other ecstatic speech were attributed to a number of religious sects. Between 1688 and 1701, the Huguenots of Southern France under heavy persecution from Louis XIV began to experience glossalia amongst children, who would prophesy and preach in various languages (Cutten 51). The Jansenists experienced tongues in France in 1731; and during Protestant revivals in Norway and Sweden from 1841-1843, young people experienced what became known as “sermon sickness” in which they uttered unintelligible words and sang hymns in other languages (Cutten 67).

Mormons regularly “spoke in tongues”, and both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young claimed the experience (Bugress & McGee 339). Again, it seems unlikely that Mormonism, which is so theologically antichrist, could produce a manifestation that is authentically Christian.

Perhaps the most complete and convincing documentation of speaking in tongues comes from the Irvingite revivals in England during the 19th Century. Edward Irving was a Presbyterian minister who gained a great and wealthy following in England, opening a church in Regent Square. In October 1831, a lady named Miss Hall began speaking in tongues (Allen 75). Irving had, in fact, encountered the manifestation at a church in Rhu, Scotland where his friend, John Macleod Campbell, served as pastor (Brown). But, Irving, like modern Pentecostals, hailed speaking in tongues as evidential of Spirit baptism: “We shall ere long have lifted up amongst us the full manifestation of the Holy Ghost, which is already present in the speaking with tongues . . . ” (Irving 109).

It was, however, not until Charles Parham and the students at Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas claimed to replicate the Pentecostal experience in Acts 2 by receiving the Holy Ghost with speaking in tongues that the practice became the central tenet of a theological movement. Purportedly, Parham set his students on a “Berean” search for the Bible evidence of Spirit baptism, and they “all had the same story, that while there were different things which occurred when the Pentecostal blessing fell, that the indisputable proof on each occasion was, that they spake with other tongues” (Parham 52). Modern Classical Pentecostalists, universally trace their “initial evidence” perspective on glossolalia to Parham and believe that the outpouring in Topeka marks an important watershed in the restoration of Apostolic truth.

Today, the Pentecostal experience along with its correct soteriological centrality has been fully realized by the contemporary Apostolic Pentecostal Church. Speaking in tongues is no longer an infrequent, undocumented, or abnormal experience but a powerfully recognized source of spiritual renewal for over 400 million Pentecostals worldwide (Gonzales 1). Considering the historical and ancient eminence of the Roman Church and the oppression of those who opposed catholic dogma, it is not surprising that we lack clear documentation of the manifestation of the Holy Ghost, for surely His divine work was alien to the apostate. While history does not offer us a recorded continuum of tongue speaking from the time of Apostles until now, it is certain that the gift of the Spirit was bestowed throughout generations upon those who sought the Lord with sincerity and with careful attention to the enduring promise of God’s Word: “For the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts 2:39).

Sources:

Allen, David. “Regent Square Revisited: Edward Irving, Precursor of the Pentecostal Movement.” Evangel. Autumn 2004, 22 (3), pp. 75-80.

Brown, Stewart J. “Irving, Edward (1792-1834″‘, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14473, accessed 31 Dec 2007].

Cutten, George Barton. Speaking with Tongues, Historically and Psychologically Considered. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927.

Gonzales, David. “A Sliver of a Storefront, a Faith on the Rise.” New York Times. 14 Jan 2007, p. 1.

Gorres, Joseph von. La Mystique Divine, Naturelle, et Diabolique. Paris: Poussilque-Rousand, 1861.

Irving, Edward. The Day of Pentecost, or the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. London: Baldwin and Craddock, 1831.

Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of Christianity, Volume I Beginnings to 1500. San
Francisco: Harper, 1975.

Origen. Chadwick, Henry trans. Contra Celsum. Cambridge: University Press, 1980.

Parham, Sarah E. The Life of Charles F. Parham, Founder of the Apostolic Faith Movement. New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1985.

Pentecostal Zionism: Charles Fox Parham and the Lost Tribes of Israel

Pentecostals are historically apocalyptic. When the Holy Ghost baptism evidenced by speaking in tongues was rediscovered in the early Twentieth Century, converts to the theology were convinced of its centrality to worldwide evangelism and the final harvest of souls before the imminent return of Jesus Christ. Bro. Charles Parham, founder of the Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas and self-proclaimed “Projector” of the Apostolic Faith propagated the Pentecostal message and formulated an elaborate eschatological perspective on the identity of the Church, the Bride, and the reformation of the nation of Israel. In 1902, he published Kol Kare Bomidbar or A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, which articulates many of his theological ideas, most of which do not survive in modern Pentecostalism. However, an examination of Bro. Parham’s theories indicates a strong support amongst early Pentecostals for the creation of a Jewish state and the reinstitution of Temple worship, which Parham believed would usher in the consummation of all things.

Bro. Parham was a Zionist! He repudiated the establishment of various utopian “Zions” by Christian sects, most certainly referring to Dowie’s Zion City, Illinois, and argued that all prophecies concerning Zion apply only to Jerusalem. He praises the work of the Zionist movement under Dr. Herzel of Vienna, Austria and declares: ” . . . probably no one but a Jew can understand the great love and affection that we bear Jerusalem. It amounts to a consuming passion. We long for her ancient glory, we pray for its restoration!” (Parham 101). He further laments the unavoidable deception of the “Jewish brethren” who will accept the imposter Antichrist (Parham 103).Bro. Parham’s passionate affinity for Judaism is more perfectly understood, however, when examining his conviction that Anglo-Saxons are blood descendants of Abraham. He outlines the complex migration of the Jewish diaspora and claims that Hindus, Japanese, high German, Danes, Scandinavians, and Anglo-Saxons are all “lost tribes.” He claims that archaeological and folkloric evidence of their passage through various nations does exist, identifying them as the Isuki warriors recorded on Babylonian monuments and asserting that Greek historians wrote of monotheistic peoples who received their laws from Ike Moxes (Moses). The Danes, according to the theory, are the modern descendants of Dan. He also cites etymological evolution, arguing that Saxons (a corruption of “Isaac’s Sons”) have been variously known as Isuki, Sacae, Sunae, Sacea, Suncea, and Saxons through history (Parham 106).

 

 

The concept of British Israelism, the contemporary name for the identification of Anglo-Saxons as members of the lost tribes of Israel, is the root of many extreme, racist cults today. White supremacists have used the idea to foster anti-Semitic hate campaigns. Conversely, Parham’s conviction about the genetic relationship of modern Caucasians to the ancient Hebrews establishes a deep reverence for the Jews. The construct also involves both Christian Aryans and Jews in a complicit end-time drama that will culminate in the peaceful millennium of messianic monarchy. Parham quotes a friend, an unnamed Jewish rabbi, whom he claims also accepts the premise of British Israelism. When asked whether Jews must become Christians or Christians must become Jews, the rabbi responds:

But when He, the desire of all nations shall come (Hag. 2:7.) [sic] the Jew in Him will behold their longed for Messiah, while the Christian in ecstasy, behold their Savior, and together He will unite them in the Messiah’s Sabbatic Kingdom of one thousand years. (Parham 104)

Bro. Parham also believed that through the ancient mingling of Israelites with various races and tribes in the Mediterranean there were people of all races that were true, blood descendants of Abraham. He concludes that Bride of Christ will be comprised of these descendants: “In the Body and Bride of Christ there seemingly will be people from all races in whose veins flow the blood of Abraham.” Furthermore, he believes that the Bride will be sealed with the Holy Ghost baptism which is “the only promised deliverance from the plagues and wraths [sic] of the last days” (Parham 86). It follows, then, that Parham believed that the gift of the Holy Spirit was given expressly to those who were genetically Abraham’s seed. In several early evangelistic campaigns, Parham even dressed in Palestinian costume, visually demonstrating his connection to Semitic culture (Blumhofer 89).

In his book, Bro. Parham gives the genealogical account, formulated by Rev. F.R.A. Glover, chaplain to the British consulate at Cologne, of Queen Victoria’s primogenitures, tracing her ancestry to the original grandsire, Adam (Parham 97-9). The unique history of this lineage connects the Irish, Scottish, and English Kings to Tea Tephi, a Hebrew princess who is said to have arrived in Ireland, more specifically Tara (Torah) with the Prophet Jeremiah (Glover 60; 75-7). Parham also accepts the legendary history of the stone of Scone, which some believe was brought to Ireland by Jeremiah, used for centuries in the coronation seat of Irish, Scottish, and English monarchs (Parham 94). He believes that the Anglo-Saxon royal houses are the prophetic Davidic line of rulers and the fulfillment of God’s promise to King David that his descendants will not be without a throne.

Bro. Parham was not successful in interpolating British Israelism and its theological corollaries into core Pentecostal persuasion. His ideas were probably related to the anomaly of the idea’s fashionable nineteenth-century popularity, which was in many ways a product of British and American economic and social hubris. However, his strong personal belief in the ubiquity of Abraham’s seed and the common inheritance of God’s people, internationally dispersed and prophetically destined for blessing and ultimate salvation may have been seminal in preventing Pentecostals from developing the anti-Semitic attitudes that were common at the turn of the century. While Parham’s concepts of British Israelism may be foreign to modern Apostolics, the dearness of Jerusalem and the prophetic centrality of a restored Jewish nation continue to dominate the modern Pentecostal view of God’s purpose and soon-coming divine finale!

Sources:

Blumhofer, Edith L. The Assemblies of God: a Chapter in the Story of American Pentecostalism, Volume 1-to 1941. Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1989.

Glover, F.R.A. England the Remnant of Judah and the Israel of Ephraim: the Two Families under One Head, a Hebrew Episode in British History. London: Rivingtons, 1880.

Parham, Charles Fox. Kol Kare Bomidbar, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness. Baxter Springs, KS: Apostolic Faith Bible College, 1929.

 

From Paul to Pulpit: Men’s Hair and the Apostolic Tradition

In his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul develops a lengthy argument concerning order and submission, connecting Creation’s hierarchy to the male and female relationship and extending the premise to appropriate hair length as a sign of natural and God-given position:  “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God:  but the woman is the glory of the man” (11.6).  Paul instructs men not to pray or prophesy with their head covered (v. 4) and rhetorically poses the question:  “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair it is a shame unto him?” (v.14).  This apostolic admonition has far-reaching cultural and theological implications; for instance, every time a man removes his hat to pray, greet a woman, or sing the national anthem, he is (perhaps unknowingly) complying with the social norms rooted in the Pauline epistle.  Long hair for men did not originate with the free-love hippies of the 1960s.  In fact, two millennia of patristic, pulpit, and popular literature evidence the Church’s on-going war against the un-cropped Christian man.

In his Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, Saint Chrysostom appeals to Paul’s teaching, quoting the Apostle verbatim (Schaff, Saint Chrysostom 176).   Clement of Alexandria, an early Egyptian cleric, interestingly maintains that a man should cut his hair short but should not interfere with the growth of the beard:  “About the hair, the following seems right.  Let the head of men be shaven . . . But let the chin have the hair.  But let not twisted locks hang far down from the head, gliding into womanish ringlets.”  He called the beard the “mark of the man” and concluded “the hair of the chin is not to be disturbed, as it gives no trouble, and lends to the face dignity and paternal terror” (Schaff, Fathers of the Second Century 286).  The beard is still characteristic of Eastern Orthodox religious.

In the West, the Roman Catholic Church progressively adopted a divergent position on beards.  In the seventh century, the pope forbade priests to wear beards and required the shaving of the top of the head, or tonsure, for friars (Cooper 102).  The issue was revisited by Pope Gregory VII, who issued a ban on bearded clerics in 1073 (Cox 137).  St. Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, cut male penitents’ hair; and in 1096, the Archbishop of Rouen anathematized long-haired men, refusing them admittance to Catholic sanctuaries.  In 1105, the Bishop of Amiens denied the Eucharist to any would-be communicants wearing a beard (Cooper 102). 

Even monarchs were not excluded from rebuke on the issue of long hair.  William II, William Rufus, was criticized by St. Anselm for adopting effeminate hairstyles, and “nearly all young men of the Court [grew] their hair long like girls” and assumed a “mincing gait.”  In his Lenten sermon, Anselm appealed to the king and his courtiers to renounce their unmanliness, and many repented, cutting their locks (Bosanquet 49).  Ordericus Vitalis, chronicler of English ecclesiastical history, records one of the most remarkable invectives against hirsute men in a sermon preached by Bishop Serlo of Seez to King Henry I and his nobles.  Serlo appealed to Paul’s authority and accused the royal parishioners openly:

All of you wear your hair in woman’s fashion, which is not seemly for you who are made in the image of God and ought to use your strength like men.  Paul the apostle, who was a chosen vessel and teacher of the Gentiles, showed how unseemly and detestable it is for men to have curly locks . . . The perverse sons of Belial grow the tresses of women on their heads . . . Many imitate these utterly depraved fashions, not realizing how much evil is in the long tresses of which they boast.  So, glorious king, I beg of you to a set a praiseworthy example to your subjects; let them see first in you how they ought to prepare themselves. (Chibnall 67)

At this, Vitalis records that the Bishop Seez produced shears and closely cropped the hair of King Henry, the Count of Meulan, and the king’s household.  The company “trod their once-cherished locks under foot as contemptible refuse” (Chibnall 67). 

In 1628 William Prynne, a Puritan minister, published The Vnlovelinesse of Loue-Lockes railing against the effeminacy of English youths:  “Is it not now held the accomplished Gallantrie of our youth, to Frizle their haire like Women:  and to become Womanish . . . even in the vary length, and culture of their Lockes, and Haire?” (Shapiro 408).  Thomas Hall, pastor at Kingsnorton, published The Loathsomness of Long Hair in 1653, castigating men with uncut tresses.

In Colonial America, the situation was much the same.  The Harvard College Book of 1649 declared:  “ . . . the wearing of long hair after the manner of ruffians and barbarous Indians has begun to invade New England and contrary to rule of God’s word which says it is a shame for a man to wear long hair” (qtd. in Rudofsky 128).  All thirteen colonies adopted laws concerning the appropriate length of men’s hair (Cooper 103).

While long and elaborate wigs dominated the style of the 17^th and 18^th Centuries, the 19^th Century saw a return to shorter hairstyles for men.  Both in Europe and America, men adopted shorter hair, but the war on long-haired men resumed with intensity in the 1960s when men began growing their locks and beards as a sign of social rebellion. Businesses and schools began adopting strict codes to regulate men’s hair length.  In 1968, the principal of the Brian McMahon High School in Norwalk, Connecticut expelled 51 boys for having long hair.  Bishop Brady High School in Concord, New Hampshire transported 18 boys by bus to a local barber for shearing under threat of suspension in the same year.  A nationwide billboard campaign depicting a shaggy youth advised:  “Beautify America, get a haircut” (Cook 29).

The United Pentecostal Church International maintains a strong position against inordinately long hair for men and facial hair.  The regulations are both biblically and culturally informed, founded on Paul’s teaching to the Corinthians and buttressed by the correlative Christian traditions that grew out of his apostolic precept.  The historical continuum of writings and sermons on the subject of men’s unshorn hair demonstrates the consistent stance of the Church against worldliness in the face of changing fashion and folly.  Modern Apostolics are inheritors of the rich teachings of previous generations and must retain a faithful dedication to Paul’s epistlary instruction in order to demonstrate submission to Christ and headship in the home, shining forth to the world “the image and glory of God.”

 Sources:

Bosquanet, Geoffrey, trans.  Historia Novorum in Anglia.  Philadelphia:  Dufour, 1965.

Chibnall, Marjorie, ed. & trans.  The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis.  Vol. VI.  Oxford:  Oxford Univ. Press, 1978.

Cook, Joan.  “In the 60’s, Hair was a Fighting Word.”  The New York Times.  31 Decmber 1969, p. 29.

Cooper, Wendy.  Hair:  Sex Society Symbolism.  New York:  Stein and Day, 1971.

Rudofsky, Bernard.  The Unfashionable Human Body.  Garden City, New York:  Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1971.

Schaff, Philip.  Father sof the Second Century:  Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria.   Edinburgh:  T&T Clark, 1889.

Schaff, Philip.  Saint Chrysostom:  Homiles on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians.  Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1889.

Shapiro, Susan C.  “’Yon Plumed Danderbat’:  Male ‘Effeminacy’ in English Satire and Criticism.’  The Review of English Studies.  XXXIX (155):  400-412.