ASSEMBLIES OF GOD

The largest organized church in the pentecostal movement. Its origins may be found in the holiness revival within the Methodist Church in the decades immediately following the Civil War. It grew out of the broader Pentecostal movement of the early 20th century, which reflected influences of the Holiness and Fundamentalist (biblicism) movements. The main distinction between the pentecostal groups and the other denominations that grew from the same source lies in their belief that, after the religious experience of conversion and of the baptism by the Holy Spirit that sanctifies and cleanses from inner sin, it is part of the divine dispensation that the same charismatic signs that marked the Apostles after the first Pentecost should reappear in the Christian community. Thus, the "second blessing" of the holiness sects is made manifest among the pentecostals by the healing of the sick and speaking with tongues. Baptist influence is seen in the practice of immersion and in the rejection of infant baptism.

The Apostolic Faith Movement, the immediate precursor of the Assemblies of God, began (1901) at Bethel Bible College, Topeka, Kans. Charles F. Parham, a holiness revival preacher, had organized this small institution the previous year to offer courses in Scripture study and to prepare men and women for the evangelistic ministry. Speaking in unknown tongues became common among the Topeka students, and this form of the "second blessing" began to manifest itself in revival meetings. Pentecostal congregations developed in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma in a loose fellowship. William J. Seymour experienced a similar outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Texas and founded a holiness mission (1906) in Los Angeles, Calif. One of his converts, G. B. Cashwell, conducted similar revivals in North Carolina. The same type of pentecostal movement sprang up elsewhere, with such leaders

as A. J. Tomlinson gathering (1908) the Church of God at Cleveland, Tenn., and Elder C. H. Mason forming the Church of God in Christ the same year.

In the Dec. 20, 1913, issue of Word and Witness published in Malvern, Ark., editor E. N. Bell called "saints who believe in the baptism with the Holy Ghost, with signs following" to a meeting in Hot Springs, Ark. In 1914 a general convention of Pentecostal Saints and Churches of God in Christ was held at Hot Springs, Ark. Endorus N. Bell, pastor of a Baptist church in Texas and editor of the pentecostal Word and Witness, and J. Roswell Flower, editor of the Christian Evangel, were the prime movers of the meeting. Its aim was to recognize the need for a standard in the ministry and preaching of the pentecostal movement, for fellowship between the congregations, and for a centralized agency for foreign missionary work. A missionary board, the Home and Foreign Mission Committee, was set up and a general council was incorporated legally. The highly democratic movement had little interest in denominational machinery, loosely organizing itself under an annual general council, with state and district councils, and local assemblies. The ministry of women was recognized and a central publishing house set up in St. Louis, Mo.

Originally conceived as an informal fellowship to facilitate cooperative work and provide such services as ministerial certification, the simple structure formed in 1914 evolved into a large organization administering extensive programs. The General Council, which meets every two years, includes all ministers and a delegate from each local church. The 240-member General Presbytery meets annually, and governance between its sessions is in the hands of the 13-member Executive Presbytery, consisting of the four-member Administrative Board, a director of foreign missions and eight regional representatives. Local churches retain a high degree of autonomy.

In 1916, the new body adopted "A Statement of Fundamental Truths," including assertion of a trinitarian position and rejection of the quasi-unitarian shift of some pentecostals to baptism in the name of "Jesus only." In 1918, the denomination declared it would not accept those who considered optional "our distinctive testimony" of speaking in tongues. The constitution now says baptism in the Holy Spirit is an experience "distinct from and subsequent to the experience of the new birth," is "witnessed by the initial physical sign of speaking with other tongues," and produces an "enduement of power for life and service." The gift of tongues is also seen as a sign of the imminent return of Christ.

Although the Assemblies of God have increasingly come to resemble the older Protestant denominations and belong to the National Association of Evangelicals, they continue their distinctive emphases on tongues and divine healing, though without rejecting modern medicine. Informal in worship, they are aggressive in evangelism and missionary work.

The Assemblies of God are avowedly fundamentalist in their theological views, emphasizing the unity and Trinity of God, the Incarnation and atoning death of Christ, humanity's fallen nature, the need for repentance and sanctification by faith, and the inspiration and sufficiency of the Scriptures. They stress the work of the Holy Spirit in the process of conversion and the outpouring of the Spirit cleansing from inner sins. The movement known as the New Order of the Latter Rain, beginning in 1947, placed even greater stress on pentecostal manifestations, but this group has gradually died out. In addition, the Assemblies of God condemn the use of liquor, tobacco, cosmetics, and worldly adornment. A great deal of freedom is allowed in both worship and evangelistic services for spontaneous demonstrations of praise or zeal. Services center on sermons and hymns and are often of long duration.

Bibliography: c. brumback, Suddenly From Heaven (Springfield, Mo. 1961). i. winehouse, The Assemblies of God (New York 1959). r. m. riggs, We Believe (Springfield, Mo. 1954). r. m. anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism (New York 1979). w. w. menzies, Anointed to Serve: The Story of the Assemblies of God (Springfield, Ill. 1971).

[r. k. macmaster/

t. early/eds.]