This year is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the modern Pentecostal or "charismatic" movement. Adherents might suggest it began very soon after the Resurrection of Jesus.
The occasion should at least provide some interesting informational pieces on Pentecostalism. Although it's similar in theology to fundamentalism, the two groups tend to define themselves separately. The Pentecostalists tend to have a more emotional style of worship. They practice rituals like speaking in tongues, laying on of hands, exorcism and faith healing that fundamentalists regard as weird.
Also, Pentecostals are known for having much livlier music. Elvis Presley grew up going to a Pentecostal church and absorbing their brand of Gospel music. His long-time backup singers, the Jordanaires, were a Gospel group.
Kendall's article reminds us that one of the distinctive features of Pentecostalism at the start was it's inter-racial congregations:
It was at the Bonnie Brae house that believers set off a movement of exuberant worship that has grown from a scoffed-at sect to the world's fastest-growing branch of Christianity, with more than 500 million participants around the globe. And as Pentecostalism explodes in Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia, the fire hasn't gone out on Bonnie Brae Street. ...
"You can feel the presence of God wherever you are," he says, standing in the uncluttered living room, its walls bare white, "but in this place, this is where the Holy Spirit fell."
That was in 1906, shortly after an African American preacher named William Seymour came to Los Angeles from Texas. Raised in a Catholic home, Seymour was drawn as an adult to a fledgling sect that stressed the need for believers to receive "baptism in the Holy Spirit," as described in the Bible's Book of Acts. His notions about speaking in tongues didn't go over well at the storefront church in L.A. that he had been asked to lead as pastor; within days of his arrival, the church kicked him out.
Before long, he was leading Bible studies in the house on Bonnie Brae Street, owned at the time by a husband and wife who were believers. And on April 9, 1906, some in Seymour's group began speaking in tongues. The word traveled fast, and worshipers flocked to the house. One day, so many gathered for a service that they spilled out onto the front porch, which collapsed under their weight.
Seeking larger quarters, Seymour and his congregation moved to a building on Azusa Street in what now is Little Tokyo. Daily services at the Apostolic Faith Mission drew hundreds of ecstatic worshipers inspired by the New Testament story of the Day of Pentecost, when believers gathered in Jerusalem after Christ's ascension to heaven and received the Holy Spirit, descending as "tongues of fire."
The press mocked the Azusa Street crowd; "Weird Babel of Tongues," declared a headline in the April 18, 1906, issue of the Los Angeles Times. "New Sect of Fanatics Is Breaking Loose." Many local Protestant church leaders opposed the new movement, not only for its enthusiastic style but also for its multiracial makeup and African American leader. "Here was this little upstart, racially integrated mission that was making all these outlandish claims about God's power and about miracles," says Cecil M. Robeck Jr., a church history professor at Pasadena's Fuller Theological Seminary, a Pentecostal himself and the author of the upcoming book "The Azusa Street Mission & Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal Movement." The L.A. newspapers were "scandalized by the fact that white folk and black folk are hugging and kissing and praying together." (my emphasis)
Prominent theologians consider Azusa Street "the birthplace of the modern Pentecostal movement," that now boasts more than 600 million adherents to the tenets of Pentecostalism. According to a recent Lausanne report, Pentecostals/Charismatics make up 26.3 percent of the population in the United States with 79 million members. In addition, the U.K.-based Christian research institute noted in its January statistic that out of all Christian groups, Charismatic independent churches are growing the fastest, at 2.4 percent per year. [Critical reserve about these figures is probably in order. - Bruce.]
The denominations that follow the Pentecostal tenets include the Church of God in Christ, Assemblies of God and the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. ...
More than 150 well known Pentecostal leaders from around the world are confirmed to preach or teach [at the April celebration], including Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter's House in Dallas, Texas; the Rev. Paula White of the Church Without Walls in Tampa, Fla.; the Rev. Jack Hayford of Living Way Ministries in Van Nuys, Calif.; and Pastor Kenneth Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Fort Worth, Texas.
