A Mission on Azusa Street
Topeka gave Pentecostalism its doctrine. Azusa Street gave it to the world. Beginning in April 1906, in a plain two-story building in a run-down part of Los Angeles, a Black Holiness preacher named William J. Seymour led meetings that went on almost daily for about three years. Visitors came from across the country and from overseas, and many carried what they had experienced back home. Most Pentecostal denominations trace their roots, directly or indirectly, to the Azusa Street Revival.
Some things at Azusa Street deserve honest praise, especially the way believers of different races worshipped together in a segregated age. Other things must be weighed carefully by Scripture. We will do both, judging teaching and practice rather than the hearts of those who were there.
Two things make Azusa Street essential to understanding modern Pentecostalism. First, it spread the movement worldwide through visitors, missionaries, and a free newspaper. Second, it fixed in the movement's teaching the belief that speaking in tongues is the initial evidence that a person has been baptized in the Holy Spirit. That doctrine still defines classical Pentecostalism today.
If a revival brings real zeal, real sacrifice, and real fellowship, does that prove everything taught and practiced in it is from God?
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For Deeper Study
- Strange FireAmazon John MacArthurPlaces Azusa Street in the larger story of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements and answers its claims from Scripture.
- Charismatic ConfusionAmazon Ernest PickeringA short evaluation of the movement by a Baptist pastor and educator.
- Charismatic ChaosAmazon John MacArthurExamines the role of experience, healing, and tongues in the movement Azusa Street launched.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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Topeka and the Birth of Pentecostalism
Modern Pentecostalism began in January 1901 at Charles Parham's Bible school in Topeka, Kansas, where students sought tongues as the sign of Spirit baptism and believed they had received foreign languages for missions, a claim the mission field soon disproved.
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