Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement[1][2][3] that emphasizes direct personal experience of God through baptism with the Holy Spirit.[1] The term Pentecostal is derived from Pentecost, an event that commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1–31).[4]
Like other forms of evangelical Protestantism,[5] Pentecostalism adheres to the inerrancy of the Bible and the necessity of the New Birth: an individual repenting of their sin and "accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior". It is distinguished by belief in both the "baptism in the Holy Spirit" and baptism by water, that enables a Christian to "live a Spirit-filled and empowered life". This empowerment includes the use of spiritual gifts: such as speaking in tongues and divine healing.[1] Because of their commitment to biblical authority, spiritual gifts, and the miraculous, Pentecostals see their movement as reflecting the same kind of spiritual power and teachings that were found in the Apostolic Age of the Early Church. For this reason, some Pentecostals also use the term "Apostolic" or "Full Gospel" to describe their movement.[1]
Holiness Pentecostalism emerged in the early 20th century among radical adherents of the Wesleyan-Holiness movement, who were energized by Christian revivalism and expectation of the imminent Second Coming of Christ.[6] Believing that they were living in the end times, they expected God to spiritually renew the Christian Church and bring to pass the restoration of spiritual gifts and the evangelization of the world. In 1900, Charles Parham, an American evangelist and faith healer, began teaching that speaking in tongues was the Biblical evidence of Spirit baptism. Along with William J. Seymour, a Wesleyan-Holiness preacher, he taught that this was the third work of grace.[7] The three-year-long Azusa Street Revival, founded and led by Seymour in Los Angeles, California, resulted in the growth of Pentecostalism throughout the United States and the rest of the world. Visitors carried the Pentecostal experience back to their home churches or felt called to the mission field. While virtually all Pentecostal denominations trace their origins to Azusa Street, the movement has had several divisions and controversies. Early disputes centered on challenges to the doctrine of entire sanctification, and later on, the Holy Trinity. As a result, the Pentecostal movement is divided between Holiness Pentecostals who affirm three definite works of grace,[6] and Finished Work Pentecostals who are partitioned into trinitarian and non-trinitarian branches, the latter giving rise to Oneness Pentecostalism.[8][9]
Comprising over 700 denominations and many independent churches, Pentecostalism is highly decentralized.[10] No central authority exists, but many denominations are affiliated with the Pentecostal World Fellowship. With over 279 million classical Pentecostals worldwide, the movement is growing in many parts of the world, especially the Global South and Third World countries.[10][11][12][13][14] Since the 1960s, Pentecostalism has increasingly gained acceptance from other Christian traditions, and Pentecostal beliefs concerning the baptism of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts have been embraced by non-Pentecostal Christians in Protestant and Catholic churches through their adherence to the Charismatic movement. Together, worldwide Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity numbers over 644 million adherents.[15] While the movement originally attracted mostly lower classes in the global South, there is a new appeal to middle classes.[16][17][18] Middle-class congregations tend to have fewer members.[19][20][21] Pentecostalism is believed to be the fastest-growing religious movement in the world.[22]
Early Pentecostals have considered the movement a latter-day restoration of the church's apostolic power, and historians such as Cecil M. Robeck Jr. and Edith Blumhofer write that the movement emerged from late 19th-century radical evangelical revival movements in America and in Great Britain.[23][24]
Within this radical evangelicalism, expressed most strongly in the Wesleyan–holiness and Higher Life movements, themes of restorationism, premillennialism, faith healing, and greater attention on the person and work of the Holy Spirit were central to emerging Pentecostalism.[25] Believing that the second coming of Christ was imminent, these Christians expected an endtime revival of apostolic power, spiritual gifts, and miracle-working.[26] Figures such as Dwight L. Moody and R. A. Torrey began to speak of an experience available to all Christians which would empower believers to evangelize the world, often termed baptism with the Holy Spirit.[27]
Certain Christian leaders and movements had important influences on early Pentecostals. The essentially universal belief in the continuation of all the spiritual gifts in the Keswick and Higher Life movements constituted a crucial historical background for the rise of Pentecostalism.[28] Albert Benjamin Simpson (1843–1919) and his Christian and Missionary Alliance (founded in 1887) was very influential in the early years of Pentecostalism, especially on the development of the Assemblies of God. Another early influence on Pentecostals was John Alexander Dowie (1847–1907) and his Christian Catholic Apostolic Church (founded in 1896). Pentecostals embraced the teachings of Simpson, Dowie, Adoniram Judson Gordon (1836–1895) and Maria Woodworth-Etter (1844–1924; she later joined the Pentecostal movement) on healing.[29] Edward Irving's Catholic Apostolic Church (founded c. 1831) also displayed many characteristics later found in the Pentecostal revival.[30]: 131
Isolated Christian groups were experiencing charismatic phenomena such as divine healing and speaking in tongues. The Holiness Pentecostal movement provided a theological explanation for what was happening to these Christians, and they adapted a modified form of Wesleyan soteriology to accommodate their new understanding.[31][32][33]
Charles Fox Parham, an independent holiness evangelist who believed strongly in divine healing, was an important figure to the emergence of Pentecostalism as a distinct Christian movement. Parham, who was raised as a Methodist,[34] started a spiritual school near Topeka, Kansas in 1900, which he named Bethel Bible School. There he taught that speaking in tongues was the scriptural evidence for the reception of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. On January 1, 1901, after a watch night service, the students prayed for and received the baptism with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues.[35] Parham received this same experience sometime later and began preaching it in all his services. Parham believed this was xenoglossia and that missionaries would no longer need to study foreign languages. Parham closed his Topeka school after 1901 and began a four-year revival tour throughout Kansas and Missouri.[36] He taught that the baptism with the Holy Spirit was a third experience, subsequent to conversion and sanctification. Sanctification cleansed the believer, but Spirit baptism empowered for service.[37]
At about the same time that Parham was spreading his doctrine of initial evidence in the Midwestern United States, news of the Welsh Revival of 1904–1905 ignited intense speculation among radical evangelicals around the world and particularly in the US of a coming move of the Spirit which would renew the entire Christian Church. This revival saw thousands of conversions and also exhibited speaking in tongues.[