a history of the charismatic movements ch510 vements mo f ......such reoccuring prominent people as...

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Transcript - CH510 A History of the Charismatic Movements © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved. 1 of 14 LESSON 09 of 24 CH510 The Spread of Pentecostalism A History of the Charismatic Movements We begin our session today with the proper notion in the back of your minds of our topic last time, and that is the crucial issue of the great Azusa revival. I do not think, in all honesty, you can understand the charismatic movement in the twentieth century without going back to that embryonic and powerful event called the awakening at Azusa. Vinson Synan in his fine history called The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States has this rather important sentence. He says: “The importance of Azusa Street was that it acted as a catalytic agent that congealed tongues speaking into a fully defined doctrine.” This is clearly demonstrated throughout the history of the movement, where tongues speaking was manifested from the 1890s. News of Azusa Street meetings was spread rapidly by the printed page, particularly by Seymour’s “Apostolic Faith” and J. M. Pike’s “The Way of Faith,” which regularly carried articles by such reoccuring prominent people as Frank Bartleman. So what I’m saying, as we begin our time together today, is that emanating from the great Azusa revival of 1906 through 1909, with the hub figure being William J. Seymour, you have the beginning of a truly international movement. What I would like to do in the few moments we have in this lecture time is this: It seems like a bizarre and large topic, but I would like to try to sketch in the briefest form both the national and international explosion that occurred in the context of the great Azusa revival. The movement spread rapidly across the United States, rapidly into Canada, and rapidly into Europe; and though this lecture will be sketchy by its broad nature, it’s still a very important topic for settings. We must remember, also, that this movement, from its beginning at Topeka and then California, is commonly designated as the Apostolic Faith Movement. That was Parham’s designation. Antagonists nicknamed it the “tongues movement” or the Pentecostal movement. John D. Hannah, PhD Experience: Distinguished Professor of Historical Theology, Dallas Theological Seminary

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Page 1: A History of the Charismatic Movements CH510 vements Mo f ......such reoccuring prominent people as Frank Bartleman. So what I’m saying, as we begin our time together today, is that

A History of the Charismatic Movements

Transcript - CH510 A History of the Charismatic Movements © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

1 of 14

LESSON 09 of 24CH510

The Spread of Pentecostalism

A History of the Charismatic Movements

We begin our session today with the proper notion in the back of your minds of our topic last time, and that is the crucial issue of the great Azusa revival. I do not think, in all honesty, you can understand the charismatic movement in the twentieth century without going back to that embryonic and powerful event called the awakening at Azusa.

Vinson Synan in his fine history called The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States has this rather important sentence. He says: “The importance of Azusa Street was that it acted as a catalytic agent that congealed tongues speaking into a fully defined doctrine.” This is clearly demonstrated throughout the history of the movement, where tongues speaking was manifested from the 1890s. News of Azusa Street meetings was spread rapidly by the printed page, particularly by Seymour’s “Apostolic Faith” and J. M. Pike’s “The Way of Faith,” which regularly carried articles by such reoccuring prominent people as Frank Bartleman.

So what I’m saying, as we begin our time together today, is that emanating from the great Azusa revival of 1906 through 1909, with the hub figure being William J. Seymour, you have the beginning of a truly international movement. What I would like to do in the few moments we have in this lecture time is this: It seems like a bizarre and large topic, but I would like to try to sketch in the briefest form both the national and international explosion that occurred in the context of the great Azusa revival. The movement spread rapidly across the United States, rapidly into Canada, and rapidly into Europe; and though this lecture will be sketchy by its broad nature, it’s still a very important topic for settings.

We must remember, also, that this movement, from its beginning at Topeka and then California, is commonly designated as the Apostolic Faith Movement. That was Parham’s designation. Antagonists nicknamed it the “tongues movement” or the Pentecostal movement.

John D. Hannah, PhD Experience: Distinguished Professor of

Historical Theology, Dallas Theological Seminary

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The Spread of Pentecostalism

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The latter title, of course, became the accepted title devoid of any negative connotations. Another early title of the movement we saw in the last lecture by focusing upon David Wesley Myland, and that is the Latter Rain Movement. So it has various early titles: Apostolic Faith, tongues movement, Pentecostal movement, the Latter Rain Movement.

Now let’s go to our topic and try to trace the key figures, key events in the growth of the movement emanating from this massive gathering and explosion called the Azusa revivals. First it spread across the United States. It spread along the West Coast, and we have mentioned a very important figure before, but I’ll mention it again, and that’s Florence Crawford. Portland, Oregon, became an early center of the movement out of the context of the Holiness Movement. We’ve said again and again: You cannot understand the charismatic movement without understanding its rootages in Wesley, its rootages in Methodism, its rootages in the Holiness Movement, of which this latter movement is an expression of its maturity, some would say.

On Christmas Eve 1906, a young lady, Laura Jacobson, spoke in tongues in a holiness mission. This was interpreted as from God, although no one understood it. This set the stage for the coming of Mrs. Crawford, Florence Crawford, who explained the event in the light of Acts 2:4. The “Apostle of the Northwest” was Florence Crawford. She had attended the Azusa revivals in the Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission in 1906, and she carried this new message to the holiness mission in Portland, where she established her earliest headquarters. In keeping with the Parham-Seymour model, the Portland group called themselves The Apostolic Faith, although it had no technical connection to either man. So from Azusa the movement spread to Portland, and Portland became an early hub under the ministry of Florence Crawford and her movement, The Apostolic Faith Movement.

It spread then into the Midwest and the Southwest. The narrative of the history of Pentecostal expansion is lacking in standard Pentecostal accounts. For example, Synan has a chapter on the South but otherwise treats the rest of the nation in a few sentences, so you have to piece the story together in sort of an anecdotal way, unfortunately. One addition perhaps is the work of Mrs. Rachel Sizelove, a Free Methodist evangelist. Free Methodism was a splinter from mainline Methodism in New York in the 1860s and was radically holiness in its theology. But she labored principally in Missouri and particularly in Springfield.

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The Spread of Pentecostalism

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In the Southwest, Parham’s influence was noted in Houston, Texas, and its environs. The influence of the Azusa meetings did have an additional effect on Texas through one Lucy Farrow, whom we’ve mentioned before, a black American lady who experienced her baptism at Azusa and traveled eastward with Rachel Sizelove. The two parted company in Dallas, with Sizelove going to southwest Missouri and Farrow going to Houston. Farrow, as we have said, labored in Africa as a missionary, where she later died. The first notice of Pentecostal meetings in Dallas was in 1912.

All that I’m saying in this lecture is this: From the Azusa awakening this movement spread. It spreads north to Portland, where Florence Crawford’s movement becomes a hub for greater expansion. You can see it planted in the southwest of Missouri, Springfield, which is obviously important to the story of the charismatic movements that spread into Texas, and so forth and so on. It spread as a hub to Chicago, and Chicago becomes terribly important. Frodsham in his book says,

After the fire fell in Los Angeles in 1906, these who were newly filled with the Spirit began to go forth to preach the gospel in many cities. In the summer of 1906, a party came from the Azusa Street Mission to Chicago. In the fall of 1906, some of the workers who had been blessed in the earlier outpourings in Texas also visited Chicago and Zion City as well. The first preacher to labor in Chicago was Mabel Smith. Later she married W. W. Hall who held the first Pentecostal meetings in a mission on 63rd Street and South Halstead Street. The first to receive the baptism in the Spirit was J. C. Sinclair, who later took charge of the 63rd Street work. He was Spirit baptized on November 19, 1906. The larger influence in Chicago was through the work of William H. Durham, a pastor of a Holiness Mission on North Avenue.

William Durham becomes very important, as we will emphasize in our next lecture. Durham was initially skeptical of the experience when he first heard of tongues but determined to investigate the issue by visiting Azusa Street. After receiving the baptism on the 2nd of March of 1907, he returned to Chicago and became an ardent proponent of the gift of the Spirit. Durham recounts: “Pastor Seymour said that he had retired to rest early in the evening, and the Spirit had spoken to him and said, ‘Brother Durham will get the baptism tonight.’ And he arose and came down.

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When he beheld the wondrous sight of the Chicago pastor being filled with the Spirit, he prophesied that wherever this man would preach, the Holy Spirit would fall on the people.”

So Durham becomes a key central figure in the Chicago area. Through Durham’s influence and the influence of the North Avenue Mission, a third center in the city arose at the Stone Church on 37th Street under another prominent figure, and that is William H. Piper. Piper founded the Stone Church as a holiness body but later became convinced of the scripturalness of tongues and Spirit baptism.

What I’m saying is that from this hub of the Azusa awakening, people who had experienced the wonder of it traveled to Portland. Florence Crawford had established a work; a work is established in Missouri; others in Texas; pivotally in Chicago, in William H. Durham and Piper and others. Another center was established outside of Chicago in a town called Zion City. Here the figure of Alexander Dowie, an Australian-born faith healer, becomes important to us. The manifestation of Pentecostalism occurred in Zion City as early as 1904, not from the Azusa awakening, obviously, but from the Lawrence, Kansas, meetings of Charles Fox Parham. From the Zion City hub of Pentecostalism came Marie Burgess who, after anguishing to receive her baptism, became a preacher demonstrating her zeal for carrying the message to New York City, where she labored in a very early center called Glad Tidings Tabernacle.

The Pentecostal message spread into Indiana and Ohio, as well. The beginnings in Indiana are connected with G. N. Eldridge, a former Methodist who joined the Christian & Missionary Alliance, an affiliation of churches founded by Albert B. Simpson, a former Presbyterian in New York City. Eldridge pastored the gospel tabernacle in Indianapolis called The Power House. In one of Eldridge’s Sunday services in January 1907, Glenn A. Cook, whose name will reoccur in the early history, sought the platform, having just returned from Azusa to testify of his baptism. Because of Eldridge’s hostility to Cook’s message, a schism developed in the church, with some elements being led away to form a Pentecostal body in the city.

The beginnings in Ohio are associated in the context of the Christian & Missionary Alliance work (the CM&A). One writer says this:

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It was while Father D. W. Kerr was pastor of the Christian & Missionary Alliance in Dayton, Ohio, in 1907, that strange news began to come from the West Coast and the Midwest. As people were gathering together waiting upon God, praying for revival, we began to hear of the visitation of God’s presence, which was evidenced by people being filled with the Spirit and speaking with other tongues. Father Kerr had always been a man to dig deep into the Word of God and was in every sense a teaching preacher. So when this new strange thing came to his attention, he began to dig into the Word of God to find out whether these things were true. Came time for the summer camp meeting at Beulah Park, just east of Cleveland, Ohio, the conference grounds for the Christian & Missionary Alliance; this was the big event of the year for us children, for there was Lake Erie with the beach to play on, and, of course, that was our main interest. For Father and Mother, it was to be a crisis time in their lives and ministries. They anticipated that there might be some at the camp meeting who had actually seen what God was doing in other parts of the country. Father went well armed with what he felt was the truth in the matter of this strange phenomena and was flanked on all sides with what he believed to be Scriptural armament.

And the story goes on to say that he was convinced of it, and he later founded a Pentecostal church, the first in Cleveland, Ohio. So the story I’m trying to tell is fairly simple, in that this message of Azusa spread across the country. And new names are popping up that become very important to us: Florence Crawford, Sizemore, Lucy Farrow, W. H. Durham, William H. Piper, Eldridge, Kerr in Ohio.

The movement also spread into the South and into, obviously, the Northeast. Let me begin with the Northeast and the spread into New York City. In the spring of 1907, Marie Burgess, who had been connected with Dowie’s work in Zion City and had accepted the Pentecostal baptism in Durham’s work in Chicago, became an evangelist of the Full Gospel, preaching first around Chicago, then in Toledo and Detroit. She then received an invitation to labor in a New York holiness mission and arrived with her coworker, Mrs. Jessie Brown. Like many holiness organizations at this time, the mission on 42nd Street was in transition moving toward, but not yet, a Pentecostal position. In other words, two works of grace and sanctification, not a third of power with a miraculous sign gift.

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Burgess and Brown were rejected by the leader of the mission because of their views on sanctification.

Another beginning is that at Nyack College or Training School. Prior to Marie Burgess’s work in New York City, Pentecostalism made significant inroads through Albert B. Simpson’s Christian & Missionary Alliance Training School in New York. The spread of Pentecostalism through the C&MA can be readily seen through the revival at Nyack in 1907. It’s worth reading the story of the mercy of God at Nyack, but time does not permit us. Needless to say, in the context of that awakening that May, things reached a climax when the Christian & Missionary Alliance held its annual conference at the college with the Holiness-Pentecostal issue clearly debated. Many of the delegates were already filled with the Spirit and spoke in tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. John Cox, a Mr. Cranny, and a Mr. Cullen, already Pentecostally inclined, led the meetings past midnight. One description, later printed in “The Latter Rain Evangel,” goes like this:

I remember a revival that broke forth in Nyack. For three weeks preachers, teachers, students were lying on their faces. Awful confessions were made. It began at 12:00 noon and went on until the next morning. God had struck with mighty conviction. Some tried to come back and go through with it. I declare unto you that when the confessions were over, the mighty presence of God filled the place. The spread of Pentecostalism by C&MA auspices was quite prolific after the May revival at Nyack. In August McDowell attended a conference at Nyack and spoke to over a thousand people saying, “I have received wonderful experience, and yet I don’t have a great deal of doctrine for it, but I know that it is from God and that it is for you. This is the latter rain for which we have all been praying for years.”

It spread through the C&MA, a holiness organization, causing divisions at times. A. W. Tozer in his book Wingspread says:

The result was that a number of prominent men withdrew from the society and joined the new movement. In a few cities whole Alliance congregations went over to Pentecostalism, taking their church property with them. The grand total of churches going out in the general exodus was large, and the blow was hard for a young movement to bear.

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But the society never forgot its early calling, and after a few uncomfortable years in which she was battered and bruised considerably by this controversy, she shook off her aches and pains and launched forward stronger than ever in her initial task of world evangelism.

The Pentecostal message was also rooted in western New York in Rochester, a large eruption of glossolalia baptism occurred at the Elim Faith Home of Rochester, New York, in June of 1907. Again, it’s a little sad that I can’t read eyewitness accounts, but time does not permit it. All I’m trying to argue is that this movement emanating from Azusa literally spreads across the country.

In New England in 1905, William J. Mitchell separated from Dowieism and relocated in Chelsea, where he started a mission in a rundown building that was previously a saloon. Somehow he secured the services of Mabel Smith Hall of Chicago and Jean Campbell and invited them to hold a revival service for two or three weeks. In 1907, a Brother and Mrs. Lee, Pentecostal evangelists from the South, held meetings in the mission, so that this oncoming wave sweeps from West to East across the country.

In the South there are three important dominant names and movements of this early wave of classic Pentecostalism. One is associated with the name of G. B. Cashwell and the Pentecostal-Holiness Church. G. B. Cashwell owns the distinction properly as “the Apostle of the South.” Born within Methodist ministry, in 1903 he joined the Pentecostal-Holiness Church, which was holiness. As a result of reading the account of the California Pentecost in the Way of Faith, he determined to go to Azusa, where he said, “I shall seek for the baptism of the Holy Ghost.” At first repulsed, he finally lost his pride and asked Seymour to lay hands upon him in order for him to be filled. Cashwell then immediately returned, having been filled, to Dunn, North Carolina. Cashwell returned and rented a large tobacco warehouse in Dunn, which literally became the Azusa of the South. On the 31st of December, 1906, the meetings began, which was to result in the conversion of most of the Holiness Movement in the Southeast to the Pentecostal view, largely in Dunn, North Carolina.

In 1907 Cashwell commenced a tour of the Southern states that was blessed with large crowds and key conversions. Cashwell was invited to Toccoa, Georgia, the hometown of J. H. King, to conduct meetings. There he convinced King of Pentecostalism, which experience he received in February of 1907.

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Cashwell also convinced Nicholas J. Holmes, a former Presbyterian who had adopted two-step holiness views, and opened a new church, the Tabernacle Presbyterian and Holmes Bible Institute at Paris Mountain, South Carolina.

As a result of Cashwell’s labors, the Pentecostal-Holiness Church merged with the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church in 1911 to become the Pentecostal-Holiness Church. That church is the church in which Oral Roberts had early connections. A sad note in the story of G. B. Cashwell is that he later, in 1909, returned to Methodism and repudiated some of his earlier views; but a major center is established in Dunne, North Carolina.

Another key figure in the South—and we’ve touched upon this man before—is A. J. Tomlinson and the Church of God, Cleveland. Tomlinson was noted previously as the Quaker-born laborer for the American Bible Society who contacted the Bryant-Spurling revivals in Tennessee and North Carolina, resulting in his joining the Church of God in 1903. Tomlinson then rose to undisputed leadership in the holiness body by 1906. Word of the Pentecostal revival came to the Church of God through the preaching of G. B. Cashwell in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1906. And it’s through G. B. Cashwell that A. J. Tomlinson received what literally is a mighty baptism of the Spirit. His story is truly worth telling. It’s phenomenal. This was the beginning of the Church of God Holiness body as a Pentecostal church. Vinson Synan says: “From this point on the Church of God and all its subsequent branches became full-fledged members of the Pentecostal movement.”

The third key figure in the South—the first being G. B. Cashwell, the Apostle to the South; A. J. Tomlinson, the Church of God, Cleveland—was C. H. Mason, and the Church of God in Christ. The Church of God was formed in 1895, later called the Church of God in Christ in 1897. It was organized by C. H. Mason. He was born in 1863 and died in 1961, a black African man born and raised in Tennessee by former slaves who were members of the Missionary Baptist Church. While quite young, he felt that God endowed him with supernatural characteristics which were manifest in dreams and visions that followed him through his life, up to the age of forty-one years. He was licensed in 1893, without formal training, but later attended the Arkansas Baptist College. He left the school feeling that there was no salvation in schools and colleges, a posture he adopted for his church.

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The church remained in the holiness camp until 1907, until news of the Azusa revival was received by the leadership of the church, Mason, C. P. Jones in Memphis in that year. Mason went to Los Angeles with two fellow preachers to observe the Azusa revival under the Negro Seymour. During their five-week stay all three received the baptism. Mason and the others returned to Memphis, where he preached Spirit baptism as a New Testament doctrine, bringing schism in the Holiness Movement. Mason was joined in Memphis by Glenn A. Cook, a white who had extensively preached the new doctrine in the Ohio Valley.

The schism within the Holiness Church led Mason to establish a new group called The Church of God (Holiness) U.S.A. This church is today the largest black Holiness-Pentecostal church, claiming over five million members in over fifteen thousand churches. Synan concludes in his history: “With the conversion of Mason to the Pentecostal position, the Pentecostal invasion of the South was complete.”

I want to turn from this brief story in America to Canada, the spread of the Pentecostal gospel message into the Canadian provinces. The spread of the message of the Full Gospel penetrated Canada through Durham’s ministry at the North Avenue Mission in Chicago. That’s the connecting link. That’s important to gain. From Durham’s ministry—and Durham’s name becomes terribly important time and time again—apparently the first Canadian to receive the Pentecostal baptism was R. E. McAllister, a young holiness preacher who attended the Azusa meetings in 1906. Through his preaching, as well as editing the newspaper “Good Report,” he established the first Pentecostal assembly in 1911 in Ottawa, Canada. From McAllister’s labors, Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Baker carried the message to Montreal.

Mr. and Mrs. A. Hebden pastored an independent holiness church in Toronto, Canada, where in 1906 both were baptized. By 1907 the holiness mission had become fully Pentecostal in doctrine. The influence of Hebden’s mission reached over central Ontario, particularly among Methodists, Free Methodists, Mennonites, and holiness groups. From their meetings Thomas Hindle went to Mongolia, Robert Semple with his wife Aimee to China, and Charles Cowner went to South Africa.

The story of the Pentecostal beginning in Winnipeg revolves around a very key figure. His name is A. H. Argue. Argue was a prosperous businessman in Winnipeg who heard of the Pentecostal

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movement in the US, which had subsequently spread to Chicago. He left his business for Chicago and Durham’s mission, tarrying for the gift of the Spirit. Returning to Winnipeg, having received the gift of the Spirit, he says:

I started tarrying meetings in my home. On the third day, May 2, 1907, three were filled with the Spirit. Quickly the news spread, and soon we secured a hall for services. People began to come from far and near. One night I was preaching, quoting from Acts 10:44–46: “While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all of them which heard the Word.” Like a flash from heaven, the Spirit fell in like manner on two people seated in the congregation, one of whom was a Holiness lady evangelist. During 1907 and 1908 a great number received the wonderful experience, including a number of ministers and Christian workers.

In addition to growing fame as a preacher, Argue published The Apostolic Messenger, which had a circulation of over seventy thousand by 1908.

Another concentration of early Pentecostal development was in Kitchener, Ontario, under Solomon Eby, a former Mennonite who broke from the established body in 1909 and pastored independently after 1911. He received his baptism while at Nyack Bible Institute. Hugh Cadwalder of Texas led a band into Saskatchewan, while George S. Paul preached the message first in Vancouver, British Columbia. In Newfoundland, Alice Garrigus first preached the message.

Frodsham in his book says:

In summary, the Pentecostal revival has spread from coast to coast of Canada, and there is practically no city of any size where there had not been a gracious visitation from God. An outpouring of a unique character came to the little town of Victoria in Newfoundland, and the report here quoted is vouched for by Miss Alice Garrigus, a well-known reliable worker. “An unusual and miraculous visitation of God’s presence and power has been witnessed here,” she says. “At the close of a service one evening in a new Pentecostal assembly which had just been opened, the presence and power of God was manifest in the place with a distinct noise resembling thunder. A white mist was seen filling the atmosphere, and men and women fell to

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the floor all over the meeting. Some unsaved ran out of the meeting through fear and were seen holding onto the building outside to keep from falling. Strong men weighing 200 pounds were mowed down like matches. It resulted in the salvation of over 60 people, and 25 received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The news spread around town, and people got up at midnight to witness the scene. It was a visitation such as we read about in the times of Wesley, Cartwright [Cartwright was a Methodist frontier preacher in the nineteenth century] and Finney. And the revival is still going on.”

What I’m saying in a survey fashion is important to our story because it fills in the gaps. From the Azusa awakening, it spread across the United States, and centers emerge—Portland; Chicago; Springfield; areas of Texas; New York City; Rochester, New York; Dunn, North Carolina; Memphis, Tennessee. Various prominent names emerge: Florence Crawford, Durham, Piper, Marie Burgess, G. B. Cashewell, C. H. Mason. And then it spread across Canada, in key areas and key cities. Almost every city has a Pentecostal witness by the end of the first decade, and the key names are Hebden, Argue; and they become the prominent hubs.

In the time that remains what I’d like to do is say a bit about the spread of the Pentecostal message into Europe. It’s a huge story that we’ll have to keep coming back to, but my purpose here is to get the real prominent people and the real prominent locations in our minds.

The story of the worldwide spread of Pentecostalism begins in the Scandinavian country of Norway as a center, and then into Europe and the British Isles. The key central figure, “the Apostle of Europe,” we would say, is Thomas Ball Barratt, born in 1862 and going into the presence of the Lord in 1940. He was born in Cornwall, England, to parents who were devout Wesleyan Methodists. His father was connected to the mining industry, which brought them to Norway in 1867.

He was raised in Methodism, and at seventeen years of age Thomas Ball Barratt started conducting meetings, reading from Moody’s sermons and eventually preaching in his own town. He became a local Methodist preacher.

In 1891 he was ordained as an elder in the Oslo District. Then in 1898 he pastored the First Church of Oslo and was

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superintendent of the welfare work. In 1902 he left the church to become superintendent and founder of the Oslo City Mission. In many ways Thomas Ball Barratt’s life parallels the whole story of classical Pentecostalism: out of Methodism, into holiness, in the Holiness Movement chafing with Methodism, breaking from it, and eventually into the charismatic movement. While living in a mission house of the Christian & Missionary Alliance in New York City, he read of the Pentecostal movement in Los Angeles. After corresponding with Seymour and accepting the theory of sanctification, Barratt had an ecstatic experience without tongues in October of 1906, which was followed with the evidence of tongues, plus the gift of singing, in November of the same year.

Barratt returned to Oslo in 1906. The Methodist Church took a firm position against him, resulting in Barratt’s dismissal from the church and the city mission. He then founded the very famous Philadelphia Church in Oslo. He also edited a national newspaper and managed a national publishing house.

The context of the emergence of Pentecostalism in Norway was set by at least two factors. First, Norway had a large holiness emphasis, both within Methodism and in the Salvation Army. And particularly through the printed page—the influence of F. B. Meyer, R. A. Torrey, D. L. Moody—the Oslo Mission began to emerge as a beehive of activity. It’s a hub like Chicago. As Barratt returned from the United States, he wrote in his journal of December 29, “A great outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit is taking place. Ten have now received the baptism.” As thousands came to Azusa to observe the phenomena and receive a mighty baptism, so leaders from Europe came to Oslo and Barratt. The effects are parallel. From Barratt’s Oslo City Mission the lines of influence resemble those of Azusa. The Norwegian Pentecostal movement played a leading role in the founding of the European movement. Sensational news reports in Oslo, like those of Azusa, spread across Europe. Barratt and others took the message with them to other countries where the movement took root. Thomas Ball Barratt sent out literature printed in numerous languages and published a major periodical. The influence of Barratt can be seen in Denmark.

It was, however, Norwegians who brought the movement to Copenhagen—a Mr. Anthony and two young ladies from the Oslo Mission. Barratt conducted two tours of Denmark, and in his ministry Anna Larson came to faith and a Pentecostal baptism. She was a prominent actor on the stage and becomes a key leader

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The Spread of Pentecostalism

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Lesson 09 of 24

of the movement in Denmark.

In Sweden Barratt repeatedly paid visits, particularly to Stockholm, and through his influence Lewi Pethrus—perhaps the most outstanding leader reared in the movement—became an advocate. Pethrus was born and raised in a Baptist heritage. He subsequently went to a small Baptist church in Stockholm, which became entirely Pentecostal. When Pethrus was removed from the church and the Baptist denomination, he founded the Philadelphia Church. So there’s a major Philadelphia Church in Oslo, Norway; and there’s a significantly important crucial one in Sweden as well. That church in Sweden is not only the largest—over four thousand—but the largest non-Lutheran church in all of Scandinavia.

The movement spread, as well, into Finland. The Pentecostal movement was introduced there in 1911, and by 1912 Finnish preachers were known to have attended Barratt’s Oslo Mission. In 1907 Barratt visited Helsinki. In 1911 Gerhard Schmidt, a former Salvation Army officer, came to Pentecostalism by reading Barratt’s Post magazine and came to Norway from the United States.

Bloch-Hoell in his history says: “Barratt was, in effect, the Apostle of the Pentecostal Movement in Europe. In his assembly in Oslo is the mother congregation of the European Pentecostal Movement.” The influence of Barratt on England produces a massive movement. The context, of course, is this: England was particularly prepared for the Pentecostal movement, as was the US. In fact, it was the influence of holiness teaching from America in part that set the stage. The birth of the American holiness teaching that had flowered in the Keswick Movement with its two steps, the great Welsh Revival, prominent people coming from the United States like Finney and Moody and Asa Mahan and Smith and others.

The principal figure in the introduction of Pentecostalism to England was an Episcopalian vicar, A. A. Boddy, pastor of Sunderland in the north of the country. Boddy, rector of All Saints Church, labored with Evan Roberts in Wales and belonged to the low church. Although Boddy visited Oslo and Barratt, he was not Spirit baptized at that time. However, he returned very enthusiastic about the movement. Boddy not only invited Barratt to come to England, but he also wrote pamphlets which were distributed by the thousands at the annual Keswick Conferences. And Alexander

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Christ-Centered Learning — Anytime, Anywhere

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The Spread of PentecostalismLesson 09 of 24

Boddy becomes the key figure, really, in the birth of the Pentecostal movement in England.

The spread into Germany is associated with both Barratt and a man by the name of Meier. The context, of course, is the Keswick Conventions, with their two-step notion of holiness popularized in America, later in England. It has direct corollary to what is called the Deeper Life Conference or Deeper Life Movement.

Then came the Moody-Sankey tours, which emphasized holiness, as well as the Welsh Revival. The most catalytic factor was the appearance of Reuben Archer Torrey, who preached in Berlin in 1907, at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Alliance at Blankenburg. Jonathan Paul and Edward Meier appeared as native Germans who brought Pentecostalism to Germany. Jonathan Paul was a Berlin pastor who read of the events at Oslo and actively participated with Barratt in Norway. Edward Meier of Hamburg also visited Barratt in 1907.

The movement spread beyond Germany, beyond England. In Switzerland the Pentecostal message was first heard through an interpreter of Dagmar Gregesen and Agnes Thelle in Zurich in 1907. Holland heard the message of Azusa in 1906; but the early leader, G. R. Pullman was baptized in Sunderland, England, under A. A. Boddy. India received news of Azusa Street in 1907. China heard of Pentecostalism through the ministry of Natty Moomau, who heard of the outpouring at Azusa and journeyed to Azusa to investigate, where she received her baptism.

The purpose of this very cryptic survey is to plant the enormous explosion from Azusa across the United States, into Canada, into Norway, and from Norway to England, and all across Europe.