Hist Pen final Flashcards
Some important values of early Pentecostals
- Personal experience
- Oral communication
- Spontaneity
- Other worldliness
- Spiritual authority
Some early issues in the Pentecostal Church Movement
- A tendency to minimize organization problems
- Lacked a mechanism for corporate discernment
- False Dichotomy between spontaneous and systematic theology
- Training for leaders. Rejection by popular evangelical training institutes
- Theological disputes
- Unity/conflict resolution- not always one accord
A push towards organization
Early in the 2nd decade of the 20th century, the growth and survival of this burgeoning movement necessitated some kind of structure
5 key issues served for the motivation for organization
- The need for some level of consistency in doctrine
- Need to establish a credentialing body to dovetail with the legal requirements of the movement faced- @ home and the mission field
- Consistency in stewardship for missions endeavour
- Uniformity of church structure
- Education and training of clergy and church leadership
An example of early organization- PAOC
4 key individuals from Azusa that took the message to Canada:
- James and Ellen Hebden (Toronto)
- Andrew H. Argue (Winnepeg)
- R.E. McAlister
1909- Pentecostal missionary union formed- mixed reception
May 1917- (AG founded in 1914)- Dominion charter applied for a fraternal rather than denominational organization
September 1917- Montreal- Eastern pastors meet and propose calling in PAOC
By 1919 there were…
… 27 affiliated assemblies with the PAOC
- 18 in Ontario
- 9 in the 4 western provinces
The oneness controversy
Followers of Durham met at world camp meeting in Arroyo Seco, 1913.
R.E. McAlister preached on the mode of baptism, including with examples out of the book of Acts to emphasize NT baptism should be “In the name of Jesus”
John Scheppe, who was in attendance at the camp, received a new revelation in a dream that this form of baptism was a “new thing” that God was revealing. He ran through the camp sharing his experience.
4 Key leaders influenced in the oneness controversy teaching
Frank Ewart, G.T Hayward, Glenn Cook and Franklin Small
- Both Cook and Ewart became leading proponents of this new movement
- 1 Year later they baptized each other in the Name of Jesus- felt that Matt 28 baptism nullified their salvation
- Salvation through baptism, using the correct formula
- The group moved through the Pentecostal work, sharing their message, and re-baptizing Christians.
In 1913- 1920…
Small and McAlister travelled throughout Canada preaching the oneness “revelation”
Why a knowledge of history is important
The oneness controversy was a resurgence on an ancient heresy known by several names.
1920
AG= Statement of faith= Trinitarian
1/2 versions on oneness
A modalism that saw God revealing himself differently during “dispensations”: God was father, then became Son, and later the HS
2/2 versions of oneness
3 manifestations of one deity (different modes of God’s existence)
Oneness…
… Denies that the distinctions are real. Simply roles that God plays
Oneness groups
- Third and most isolated strain of the Pentecostal movement
- 2.3 million Oneness Pentecostals worldwide, about 620,000 in the NA
- 1916- General Assemblies of the world
- 1918- Pentecostal Assemblies of the world
- 1945- Combined to form the United Pentecostal Church
- 1921- Apostolic church of pentecost
Distinctive practices and beliefs and practices of the “oneness peeps”
- Non-Trinitarian
- Baptismal formula “In Jesus Name”
- Insist on re-baptism
- Baptism in Jesus name seen as pre-requisite for salvation
- In some cases, they feel speaking in tongues is as well
- Camp meeting services, running, dancing, look like early pentecostal frozen in time