Where did the Pentecostal Movement that has so influenced American Christianity come from? What are the "Roots" of Charismatic Pentecostalism. Tongue talking, Word Faith blab it and grab it, New Apostolic Prophetic, Miracle Healing Ministries, Dominion Theology? They are all branches of the same corrupt root. In this persons investigations it seems to have it origins traced to African voo-doo ritual worship intermingling into Christianity through the African slave trades of the 18Th and 19Th centuries. You will always here of the "Great Revival" that happened on Asuzu Street, but was it really? An was what they claimed to be a move of God of emotionalism that has deceived 100's of millions of people Biblical? Did it then and does it now line up with scripture? The Word of God being our lamp to our feet and a light to our path. In this persons investigations I do not believe it to be so. Read secular reporting of 1906 and read 1 Cor. chapter 14 you will see that what the Bible says and what was reported do not match. I believe that this phenomena as it is called was and is in fact the doctrine of demons the apostle Paul warned would prevail in the last days.
1 Timothy 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.......
In a skeptical front-page story titled "Weird Babel of Tongues", a Los Angeles Times reporter attempted to describe what would soon be known as the Azusa Street Revival. "Breathing strange utterances and mouthing a creed which it would seem no sane mortal could understand," the story began, "the newest religious sect has started in Los Angeles." Another local paper reporter in September, 1906 described the happenings with the following words:
...disgraceful intermingling of the races...they cry and make howling noises all day and into the night. They run, jump, shake all over, shout to the top of their voice, spin around in circles, fall out on the sawdust blanketed floor jerking, kicking and rolling all over it. Some of them pass out and do not move for hours as though they were dead. These people appear to be mad, mentally deranged or under a spell. They claim to be filled with the spirit. They have a one eyed, illiterate, Negro as their preacher who stays on his knees much of the time with his head hidden between the wooden milk crates.
He doesn't talk very much but at times he can be heard shouting, ‘Repent,’ and he's supposed to be running the thing... They repeatedly sing the same song, ‘The Comforter Has Come.’ The attenders of the meetings were often described as "Holy Rollers," "Holy Jumpers," "Tangled Tonguers" and "Holy Ghosters." Reports were published throughout the U.S. and the world of the strange happenings in Los Angeles.
Christians from many traditions were critical, saying the movement was hyper-emotional, misused Scripture and lost focus on Christ by overemphasizing the Holy Spirit. Within a short time ministers were warning their congregations to stay away from the Azusa Street Mission. Some called the police and tried to get the building shut down.
This "revival" broke out on April 8, 1906, amongst a small group of African Americans led by a man named William J. Seymour, who had traveled to Los Angeles to preach the message of Pentecost that he had learned from Charles Parham, who has sometimes been called the projector and founder of pentecostalism. Within a week, over 300 people began to meet there. The porch fell in on the last night. The Los Angeles Police Department came because people were speaking in tongues in the street, and they arrested them on a 72-hour psychiatric hold. The police told the gatherers that they would need to move, and they moved to 312 Azusa Street a week later, first meeting there on April 16, 1906.
It is interesting to see how the local newspaper of record, the Los Angeles Daily Times, as it was called in those days, described the events on Azusa Street back in April of 1906. I'm reading here from an April 18, 1906 article entitled, in the best tradition of impartial journalism, "Weird Babble of Tongues." It was the custom in those days to have three bullet points, which essentially summarized the article, and the three bullet points are these: "New sect of fanatics is breaking loose; Wild scene last night on Azusa Street; Gurgle of wordless talk by a sister."
The first paragraph: "Breathing strange utterances and mouthing a creed which it would seem no sane mortal could understand, the newest religious sect has started in Los Angeles. Meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street near San Pedro, and devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories, and work themselves into a state of mad excitement in their peculiar zeal. Colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howling of the worshippers who spend hours swaying back and forth in nerve-racking attitude of prayer and supplication. They claim to have the gift of tongues and to be able to comprehend the babble. Such a startling claim has never yet been made by any company of fanatics even in Los Angeles, the home of almost numberless creeds." That was 1906.
another quote even by Charles Parham "Men and women, white and blacks, knelt together or fell across one another; a white woman, perhaps of wealth and culture, could be seen thrown back in the arms of a big 'buck nigger,' and held tightly thus as she shivered and shook in freak imitation of Pentecost. Horrible, awful shame!"
Although there is no question that racial animosity played a role in the divisiveness which was to plague Azusa Street and its' offshoots, the fact is that there were many other elements present there which would serve to bring the place's orthodoxy into question. The hyper-spiritual atmosphere ultimately led to Azusa Street being a stopping off place for spirit mediums, hypnotists, fortune tellers and all manner of quacks and frauds. Although Seymour protested more and more against the invasion of his congregation by such individuals, there was little he could do to stem the tide of occultism and suggestion which was now submerging the renowned revival site. Yet, Seymour cannot be absolved from all responsibility for such a state of affairs. This was, after all, partly due to the uncritical acceptance of any and every strange experience and paroxysm purported to be a manifestation of the Holy Spirit.
The article that Luis read from appeared on a crucial date, because April 18 was also the day the San Francisco earthquake happened. Somebody, two days beforehand, had predicted at the meeting that God was going to do a great shaking. The confluence of this pentecostal experience with the actual event of the earthquake set the revival on its course and began to bring people there in large numbers.
The babble that the reporter wrote about in the Los Angeles Daily Times was tongues, and speaking in tongues is the first and foremost sign that pentecostals look to as a way to prove both A. a sanctification experience, and B. an end-time focus. Early pentecostals thought of tongues-speaking as not just glossolalia, as we term it in religious language, but xenoglossolalia, actual languages. So for the participants at the Azusa Street revival, tongues was not just a spiritual language, as some pentecostals talk about it now, but also an actual language that would help them spread the gospel to people of other nationalities. Plans abounded at the mission among Chinese, Mexicans and others who claimed they could hear messages from God in their own languages.
Xenoglossolalia was a new boundary breaker, a form of incipient global focus present at the beginning of the revival. This gift was for a purpose: to evangelize the world. And those who believed that they had the gift of tongues - that it was an actual language - set out for mission fields in Asia, Africa and Europe. I don't need to tell you that many missionaries who found themselves on the shores of Africa or China were very upset to find out that those tongues they spoke were not actual languages.
African American influence
Many maintain that African-Americans can be credited with much of the movement's success. In fact, there are several theories that say that because the pioneers of Pentecostalism were from churches rooted in the nineteenth century African-American culture, the religious expressions of Pentecostalism are themselves a reflection of the African religious culture from which black slaves had been wrenched.
Azusa Street Revival leader Seymour himself was deeply affected by black slave spirituality. Black Pentecostal scholar Leonard Lovett said that "black Pentecostalism emerged out of the context of the brokenness of black existence… their holistic view of religion had its roots in African religion" (MacRobert 1988: 77-78). The main features of this African American spirituality are considered oral liturgy, narrative theology and witness, the maximum participation of the whole community in worship and service, the inclusion of visions and dreams into public worship, and healing through prayer. Furthermore, rhythmic hand-clapping, the antiphonal participation of the congregation in the sermon, the immediacy of God in the services may all be "survivals of Africanisms." These expressions were fundamental to early Pentecostalism and largely remain in the movement to this day. The African roots of Pentecostalism help explain its significance in developing nations countries, such as Jamaica, Haiti, and Guatemala. It is impossible to understand the origins of North American Pentecostalism without reference to Seymour and the Azusa Street revival.
A far-reaching and rarely noticed legacy of Azusa Street is the new style of worship music that ultimately spread around the world. Since Azusa Street was a mixture of both white and black worship styles, it was inevitable that the music ethos of black Pentecostalism would have increasing influence among Pentecostals. Even though Azusa Street worshipers sang the old Methodist and Holiness hymns such as the Azusa favorite “The Comforter Has Come,” the black musical ethos gradually spread and ultimately influenced white churches. The fact Elvis Presley was raised in a Pentecostal church helps explain the development of today’s popular music styles that reflect the influence of country music, and rhythm and blues, jazz and rock.
Around the world today, churches of many traditions are singing worship songs inspired by the Pentecostal and charismatic movements. It is through African influence through black Pentecostalism we have the many types of secular musics. Interesting to know that it all came through the corrupt Pentecostal root. The devil is in the details and the history.
