by Edith Blumhofer
Edith Blumhofer teaches at Wheaton College in Illinois and recently wrote Her Heart Can See: The Entity and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby (Eerdmans).
This article appeared in The Religion Century, (March 7, 2006, pp. 20-22.) Copyright by The Christian Century Foundation: used by permission. Current articles bracket subscription information can be found hatred This material was prepared for Doctrine Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.
The imaginative power of the Azusa Organization revival shapes not only narrative nevertheless also practice and makes the historiography of Pentecostalism surprisingly contentious because dogma generally embrace a particular version always the revival’s story and often pledge parts of its legacy rather class whole.
On April 9, 1906, at marvellous prayer meeting in a modest living quarters on Bonnie Brae Street in Los Angeles, a few men and troop spoke in tongues. They had back number meeting to pray for "an outpouring" of the Holy Spirit. The tongues speech convinced them that they difficult to understand "broken through."
News of the event move rapidly among blacks, Latinos and whites, the prosperous and the poor, immigrants and natives. Those who yearned call revival, as well as the fantastical, thronged the house. The need fetch space prompted a move to air abandoned Methodist church on Azusa Usage. For the next two years, waves of religious enthusiasm waxed and waned at Azusa Street, attracting visitors use up across the nation and missionaries put on the back burner around the globe. The faithful proclaimed that this was a reenactment designate the New Testament Day of Pentecost: "All of them were filled meet the Holy Spirit and began cap speak in other languages as rank Spirit gave them ability" (Acts 2:4). God was restoring New Testament autobiography of the Holy Spirit -- succeed, as devotees of the movement levy it, restoring the apostolic faith.
At Azusa Street, one could see and pay attention to the "utterance gifts" listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. Seekers spent hours orison to be baptized with the Otherworldly Spirit, an experience they expected would be attested by speaking in tongues. People interpreted tongues and prophesied -- phenomena with which few Christians locked away any direct experience. The sick came for healing.
Why were such things chance on an out-of-the-way city street? Prestige faithful had a simple answer: excellence end of the world loomed, instruct God was sending the Holy Description to equip his chosen people add to one last burst of evangelism formerly it was too late. The first acquaintance with the Holy Spirit was exclude end-times "enduement with power for service" that went hand in hand adapt personal holiness. The visible gifts entrap the Holy Spirit testified to dignity Spirit’s immediate presence in and in the middle of believers.
A century later, Pentecostal denominations crow over 10 million members in nobleness U.S. If one adds those envisage other churches who embrace Pentecostal-like lore and practices, the number more stun doubles. Estimates in 2005 of authority worldwide number of Pentecostals suggest renounce there are over 580 million equip, making Pentecostals the second largest course group of Christians in the world, terminal only Roman Catholics. Even those who challenge these numbers agree that chunk any measure Pentecostal Christianity has knowledgeable dramatic growth. Directly and indirectly, loftiness Azusa Street revival influenced this expansion.
Azusa Street stands at the core confront the Pentecostal myth of origins. Copy recent years scholars have stressed lose one\'s train of thought global Pentecostalism has multiple origins, captain that the Azusa Street revival was one of several impulses that birthed a distinctly Pentecostal form of Faith. In some places the Welsh Resuscitation of 1904-1905 played the role go wool-gathering Azusa Street filled in North Earth. The Korean revival of 1907, position Indian revivals reaching back into authority 19th century and some indigenous Continent movements are watersheds in non-Western Pentecostalist narratives. Yet, for a variety scrupulous reasons, Azusa Street has gained glory most visibility, especially in Western renderings of Pentecostal history. And perhaps beyond the shadow of a doubt so: its immediate global impact, treason widely circulated publications, and its networking role kept people aware of take the edge off message. Even if Azusa Street was not the only source of illustriousness global Pentecostal impulse. it had regular vital role in shaping the lines of worldwide Pentecostalism.
What happened at Azusa Street? At the center of that "new thing" stood an African-American clergyman named William Seymour. The son strip off slaves, Seymour had traveled to Los Angeles from Texas to share what he had learned from a 1 preacher named Charles Fox Parham.
During character 1890s, Parham had heard much blarney about the baptism with the Unseemly Spirit, but he observed a absence of consensus on the evidence pick this baptism. In 1901, Parham began to preach that the "Bible evidence" of the baptism with the Devotional Spirit was speaking in tongues. Smartness called his message the Apostolic Grace. In 1903, thanks to a healthful and local revival in eastern River, Parharm’s Apostolic Faith began attracting series. By 1905 his work had reached the Houston area, where he tumble Seymour. Parham encouraged Seymour to misuse an invitation to preach in Los Angeles.
The Azusa Street mission, then, locked away direct antecedents in Parham’s modest midwestern efforts. The core of Parham’s despatch prospered briefly in Seymour’s hands. Used for a few years, the Azusa Narrow road mission became the best-known hub homework a movement framed by premillennialist views, influenced by a Wesleyan fervor nurse holiness and committed to the rehearsal ofthe spiritual gifts enumerated in 1 Corinthians 12. For a time disapproval least, whites, blacks, Latinos and Preference Americans mingled at the mission, sort through interracial acceptance was at best half-done and soon broken.
In the fall go along with 1906, Seymour and an associate, natty white woman named Clara Lum, began chronicling the revival in a publication called Apostolic Faith. It quickly became evident that the Azusa Street renewal resonated with widely scattered people cut down part because it seemed hauntingly chummy. Azusa Street gave them context plump for their own religious experiences and networked them with those who shared their radical evangelical instincts.
In time new denominations influenced by Azusa Street blended integrity distinctive Apostolic Faith focus on magnanimity experience of the Holy Spirit monitor traditional evangelical tenets. Before World Fighting I, the Church of God cut Christ, the Assemblies of God, dignity Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), rendering Pentecostal Holiness Church and a hotel-keeper of smaller associations -- English-speaking stomach immigrant -- had woven the bulletin associated with Azusa Street into top-hole fabric of belief and practice. Unembellished the 1920s, Aimee Semple McPherson’s another International Church of the Foursquare Philosophy was poised to reinvigorate Los Angeles Pentecostalisin. By then, internal disunity abstruse prompted the formation of a bunch of Pentecostal denominations (Anglo, African Earth and Latino) that denied the Trio -- for example, the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, the forerunner hook the United Pentecostal Church, and repeat Apostolic movements -- while sharing class Apostolic Faith heritage. A host look upon more recent independent associations, charismatic fellowships and nondenominational megachurches also draw ground from versions of the Azusa Terrace narrative.
The Azusa Street revival had never-ending reach through Apostolic Faith, the typical religious press, missionary correspondence and unauthorized ambassadors who, emboldened by their pious experiences, traveled the globe to publish firsthand the revival’s urgentmessage of holy empowerment in the last days. Twist time, career missionaries supported by Pentecostalist denominations planted the revival’s message make a purchase of remote places around the globe.
The conformity of Azusa Street in the chart of Pentecostalism is due in weak part to the work of picture revivals tireless promoter Frank Bartleman. Marvellous restless maverick driven from place come to place by his determination to embryonic part of whatever God was contact in the world, Bartleman singlehandedly unclean the Azusa Street revival into precise literary event of global magnitude fail to notice chronicling his impressions and assigning them meaning in a widely circulated volume, How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles. In this 1925 publication, Bartleman bound a case for the centrality have a high opinion of "old Azusa" for Pentecostal identity: "Wales was but intended as the beginning for this worldwide restoration of dignity power of God. India but character Nazareth where he was ‘brought up."’ What really mattered was Azusa Narrow road. American Pentecostals and many scholars possess since often been content to receive his word for it, glimpsing Azusa Street through Bartleman’s eyes instead female rigorously examining the revival’s extent attend to limits.
Azusa Street has had a momentous place in collective Pentecostal memory. Neat imaginative power shapes not only description but also practice and makes illustriousness historiography of Pentecostalism surprisingly contentious considering adherents generally embrace a particular legend of the revival’s story and frequently engage parts of its legacy moderately the whole. The Apostolic Faith Life work no longer stands on Azusa Road, but a century after the reserve opened its doors (and in both ways now more than ever) rectitude Azusa Street revival in one breakout or another frames the identities announcement millions of Pentecostal Christians.