Pentecostalism

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Pentecostalism worldwide 20th–21st-century Christian movement that emphasizes the experience of Spirit baptism, generally evidenced by speaking in tongues ( glossolalia ). The name derives from Pentecost , the Greek name for the Jewish Feast of Weeks, which falls on the fiftieth day after Passover. On this day the Holy Spirit descended upon the first Christians enabling them to "speak in other tongues" (see Acts 2:1–4). Besides glossolalia, Pentecostals promote other gifts of the Spirit ( charismata ), including faith healing, prophecy, and exorcism. Ecstatic experience remains the unifying element of the movement. Pentecostals in America are generally conservative evangelical in their beliefs (see fundamentalism ), but no unified stance on matters of doctrine and polity exists among adherents. Pentecostal churches are also strong in Indonesia, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Latin America and Europe. Pentecostal churches around the world cooperate through the Pentecostal World Conference, first held in Sweden (1939). The American counterpart to the conference is the Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches of North America; it is not a policy-setting organization.

Classical Pentecostalism

What is sometimes called classical Pentecostalism grew out of the late 19th-century Holiness Movement in the United States. The Holiness preacher Charles Fox Parham began preaching (1901) to his Topeka congregation that speaking in tongues was objective evidence of baptism in the Spirit. After Parham's Los Angeles–based Apostolic Faith mission became the center of a great revival (1906), the movement quickly spread around the world. Over the next two decades the movement split along doctrinal and racial lines. Of the many Pentecostalist denominations in the United States today, the largest are the Church of God in Christ, with about 5.5 million members (2000); the Assemblies of God , with about 2.5 million members (2000); the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, with about 1.5 million members (2000); and the Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.), with about 870,000 members (2000).

The Charismatic Movement

A second form of Pentecostalism arose in the 1960s after many non-Pentecostals became aware of Pentecostalism through an earlier Pentecostal revival organized by faith-healing evangelists (notably Oral Roberts). The formal origin of the new Pentecostalism or charismatic movement, as it is often called, is traced to Dennis Bennett, an Episcopal minister who declared to his congregation in Van Nuys, California (1961) that he was speaking in tongues. Following Bennett's confession the charismatic movement appeared in nearly all the Protestant denominations, the Roman Catholic church, and, to a lesser extent, in Eastern Orthodox communions. With the support of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International, founded (1951) to provide lay support for faith-healers, the charismatic movement spread throughout the world.

Other Offshoots

A third type of Pentecostalism consists of independent schismatic offshoots of the mission churches and wholly indigenous sects which adopt or tolerate beliefs and practices such as ancestor worship and polygamy. These Pentecostals, mostly nonwhites, abound in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Pentecostalism has attracted the poor, minorities, and the dispossessed, although it is not limited to these groups. It has also afforded a prominent role to women leaders.

Bibliography

See W. J. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals (1972); V. Synan, ed., Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins (1975); R. M. Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited (1979); D. W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (1987); S. M. Burgess and G. B. McGee, ed., Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (1988); H. Cox, Fire from Heaven (1994); G. Wacker, Heaven Below (2001); R. J. Stephens, The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentacostalism in the American South (2008).

Pentecostalism, an early twentieth‐century religious movement among American evangelicals that connected the baptism of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues (the Pentecost experience described in the New Testament). Pentecostals believe that all Christians may receive spiritual gifts and that those anointed by the Holy Spirit can work mighty signs and miracles. Though the rise of Pentecostalism cannot be traced to a single event, important dates in the movement's early history include an outbreak of speaking in tongues (glossolalia), considered evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, on New Year's Day 1901 in a Topeka, Kansas, Bible school operated by the itinerant evangelist Charles F. Parham (1873–1929), and a three‐year‐long revival at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles (1906–1909) that precipitated worldwide interest.

In the succeeding years, scores of small Pentecostal sects sprang up; the most successful were the Assemblies of God church and the Church of God. Growing slowly at first, the Pentecostal churches expanded rapidly after 1950, both in the United States and abroad. Early Pentecostal churches flourished among the poor; they often challenged accepted practices by ordaining women and forming racially integrated churches. Segregation appeared by the 1920s, however, and one of the largest late twentieth‐century Pentecostal denominations was the predominantly African American Church of God in Christ.

After World War II a pan‐Pentecostal revival erupted, spawning a generation of independent evangelists, including Oral Roberts (1918– ) and Jimmy Swaggart (1935– ). These preachers, along with ecumenically minded Pentecostal leaders such as David Du Plessis (1905–1987), encouraged the spread of the charismatic movement to mainstream Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic church.

In all of its modern variations—Pentecostal denominations, independent ministries and churches, and charismatic movements within Protestantism and Roman Catholicism—Pentecostal religion strongly influenced twentieth‐century American Christianity and transformed the religious demography of much of the developing world.
See also African American Religion; McPherson, Aimee Semple; Religion; Televangelism.

Bibliography

David Edwin Harrell Jr. , All Things Are Possible, 1975.
Robert Mapes Anderson , Vision of the Disinherited, 1979.
Edith L. Blumhofer, Russell P. Spittler, and Grant A. Wacker, eds., Pentecostal Currents in American Protestantism, 1999.
Grant Wacker , Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture, 2001.

David Edwin Harrell Jr.

Pentecostalism. The modern Pentecostal movement is characterized by belief in the possibility of receiving the same experience and spiritual ‘gifts’ as did the first Christians ‘on the day of Pentecost’ (Acts 2: 1–4). Its adherents emphasize the corporate element in worship (often marked by great spontaneity) and lay stress on the practice of the gifts listed in 1 Cor. 12 and 14 and recorded Acts (e.g. speaking in tongues or glossolalia, divine [spiritual] healing, and exorcism) and on possession of these gifts by all true believers. Most claim that the ‘power’ to exercise these gifts is given initially in an experience known as ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’ (q.v.).

In the early 20th cent. experiences of ‘Spirit baptism’ were reported among various revivalist or Holiness groups in America; those occurring in Los Angeles in 1906 attracted attention. The largest Pentecostal body in the USA is the ‘Assemblies of God’, an affiliation of Churches formed in 1914. Pentecostalism in Britain is dated from a visit in 1907 by a Methodist minister who claimed to have received ‘Spirit baptism’; it was reinforced by immigrants from Jamaica who established the ‘New Testament Church of God’ in 1953. It also spread early to other W. European countries and is now expanding in the Third World. Since c.1960 the Pentecostal movement has come to be widely represented within the main Christian denominations, where it is sometimes called ‘Neo-Pentecostalism’ (see CHARISMATIC RENEWAL MOVEMENT).

Pen·te·cos·tal / ˌpentəˈkôstl; -ˈkästl/ • adj. 1. of or relating to Pentecost. 2. of, relating to, or denoting any of a number of Christian sects and individuals emphasizing baptism in the Holy Spirit, evidenced by speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing, and exorcism. • n. a member of a Pentecostal sect. DERIVATIVES: Pen·te·cos·tal·ism / -ˌizəm/ n. Pen·te·cos·tal·ist / -ist/ adj. & n.

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