History and Development of Pentecostalism — Unit 5: Race, Women, and the Early Pentecostal Community

Key Verse

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Describe who made up the early Pentecostal community and why the movement drew people from the edges of society.

2. Explain the role of William J. Seymour and the interracial worship at Azusa Street, and state how historians debate how complete that unity was.

3. Trace how racial division entered the movement, using the examples of Charles Parham, the Church of God in Christ, the Assemblies of God and the 1994 Memphis meeting.

4. Name women who led in the early movement and explain the biblical reasons they gave for their ministry.

5. Explain the Pentecostal tradition's historic recognition of women called and anointed by the Spirit, state the complementarian objection fairly, and give the Pentecostal answer.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the classical Pentecostal tradition, for students who belong to it. We believe the Holy Spirit was poured out in the early 1900s, and we also believe the early believers were sinners saved by grace. They did some things that glorify God and some things that grieve Him. A history that hides the failures is not honest, and it does not help the church. So we tell both.

On the question of women in ministry, this unit speaks from the tradition's own conviction: the Spirit calls and anoints women as well as men. We state the objection to that view fairly, we answer it from Scripture, and we say honestly where Pentecostal bodies differ.

Who Came to the Early Meetings

The people who gathered in the first Pentecostal meetings were mostly ordinary. The Apostolic Faith newspaper and the memories of early believers show working people, many of them poor, many of them from rural areas or from immigrant families. In Los Angeles they included African Americans, Latinos, Europeans and Asians. Women were present in large numbers, and so were children and young people.

This fits the pattern of the Bible. At Pentecost the Spirit fell on a small group of ordinary Galileans, and Paul later reminded the Corinthians, "For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called" (1 Corinthians 1:26). Pentecostalism grew first among people who had little power in the world. They had little to lose and much to hope for, and they received the message of the Spirit with joy.

Some historians explain the growth only by social conditions: poverty, migration and hardship. These things were real, and we should not ignore them. But they do not explain why other poor people did not become Pentecostal, and they do not explain the believers' own account, which was that they met God. We say that God chose to pour out His Spirit on those who were open to Him, and that He often does so among the poor. Social conditions describe the soil. The Holy Spirit is the One who sends the rain.

William J. Seymour and Azusa Street

William J. Seymour was born in Louisiana to parents who had been enslaved. He became a Holiness preacher, and he came to Houston, Texas, where he heard the teaching of Charles Parham. He then accepted an invitation to preach in Los Angeles. The meetings that grew from his preaching moved in 1906 to a simple building on Azusa Street, and the Azusa Street Mission began.

Seymour was not a famous man in the world's eyes. Yet historians who study the mission, including Cecil M. Robeck Jr., agree that he was its central leader and that he gave it a spirit of humility and prayer. He led by teaching, by waiting on the Lord, and by making room for others to testify and pray. He taught that Spirit baptism is given for power to witness, and he also taught that the real proof of a Spirit-filled life is love. In 1908 he married Jennie Evans Moore, who had been part of the Los Angeles revival from its early days and who served beside him at the mission. Seymour died in 1922.

One Place, Many Races

What made Azusa Street astonishing to its visitors was the mixing of races. In the United States of that time, the law and the custom of many places kept Black and white people apart, in schools, trains, neighborhoods and most churches. Yet people of different races knelt at the same altar at Azusa Street, prayed for one another, and heard preachers of different races. The Apostolic Faith reported this with wonder. Frank Bartleman, a white Holiness writer who was at the mission, also described how the divisions between the races seemed to fall away in the meetings.

We understand this as the Spirit doing what Galatians 3:28 and Acts 2 describe. At Pentecost, people "from every nation under heaven" heard the wonders of God in their own languages (Acts 2:5-11). The Spirit does not make everyone the same, but He makes them one.

A debate among historians

Historians do not all agree on how far this unity went. Some have emphasized the interracial worship and called it one of the great achievements of the movement. Others point out that the unity did not last, that it existed within a society that was still segregated, and that even at Azusa Street the leadership and the experience of Black and white worshipers were not always the same. Some also say the early reports, written by believers who were excited about what they saw, may make the unity sound more complete than it was.

Our answer. These cautions are fair, and we should take them to heart. A newspaper written by the mission itself, as we saw in Unit 1, shows what the editors wished to say. We should not claim a perfect church. But the evidence that people of different races did worship together under Black leadership in 1906 is strong, and it was remarkable in its time. The fact that the unity weakened later does not prove it was not real. It proves that sin is real, and that the church needs the Spirit not only once but always.

Charles Parham and the Color Line

The story of Charles Parham and Seymour shows the difficulty. In Houston in 1905, Parham taught Seymour. The laws of Texas then forbade Black and white people to be taught together, and historians report that Seymour sat outside the classroom door to listen. Seymour learned the teaching that Spirit baptism is accompanied by tongues, and he carried it to Los Angeles.

When Parham visited Azusa Street in late 1906, he was displeased. He objected to the mixing of the races in worship, and he also disliked some of the manner of the meetings. He and Seymour parted. Parham's teaching on the Spirit had shaped the early movement, yet he held racist views that were contrary to the gospel. Here our tradition must speak plainly. A man may be used by God in one part of his life and still be wrong in another. The gift of tongues does not remove prejudice. Only repentance and the love of Christ do that.

Women also had a part in sending Seymour to Los Angeles. Historians record that Neely Terry, a woman from Los Angeles, recommended him to a Holiness congregation there, and that Lucy Farrow, an African American woman who had worked in Parham's household and had been baptized in the Spirit, helped to bring the message to Seymour's attention in Houston and later traveled to Los Angeles. This is one example of how often the early movement depended on women whose names are not well known.

How Division Came

The new movement soon divided along racial lines, just as most churches in America did. Here are three markers.

The Church of God in Christ. Charles Harrison Mason, an African American Holiness leader, led the Church of God in Christ. He visited Azusa Street in 1907 and was baptized in the Holy Spirit. The Church of God in Christ then became a Pentecostal body, and today it is one of the largest African American denominations in the United States. In the early years Mason ordained and gave credentials to white ministers, because the new Pentecostal groups did not yet have their own organizations.

The Assemblies of God. In 1914, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, many of those white ministers met and formed the Assemblies of God. Their reasons were varied. They wanted a way to support missionaries, order their churches and protect their doctrine, and historians note that the effect was that white and Black Pentecostals were organized in separate bodies. Many white Pentecostal groups were formed in this way. The separation was not the fruit of the Spirit. It was a wound.

A white fellowship, and a repentance. In 1948, white Pentecostal denominations formed the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America, which did not include the Black Pentecostal bodies. In 1994, in Memphis, Tennessee, leaders met and the white fellowship was dissolved. In its place a new group was formed, the Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches of North America, with white and Black leadership. White leaders acknowledged and repented of the racism that had been present in the movement. The meeting is often called the Memphis Miracle, and it shows that the story does not end in failure. When God's people confess their sin, He forgives and restores.

Women in the Early Movement

If race was one great question, the other was the place of women. In the early years, women preached, taught, prayed for the sick, planted churches and went abroad as missionaries. Here are a few.

• Florence Crawford, a worker at Azusa Street, went to Portland, Oregon, and led a Pentecostal ministry there.

• Maria Woodworth-Etter was an evangelist whose tent meetings were known for healing and for people falling under the power of the Spirit. Her ministry began before the Pentecostal revival and continued into it.

• Aimee Semple McPherson built the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, which opened in 1923, and founded the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel in 1927.

• Pandita Ramabai and Minnie Abrams, whom we met in Unit 3, led the Mukti revival in India.

• Lillian Trasher went from the United States to Egypt in the early 1910s and cared for orphans in Assiut.

• Jennie Evans Moore Seymour, Lucy Farrow and Neely Terry helped establish Azusa Street.

Why women served

Classical Pentecostalism has historically recognized women called and anointed by the Spirit to preach, evangelize and serve as missionaries. This is our tradition's view, and the early believers gave a clear biblical reason for it. Peter, at Pentecost, quoted the prophet Joel: "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy... And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy" (Acts 2:17-18; see Joel 2:28). They believed that the Spirit's gifts are given according to His will and not according to sex, as Paul says that the one Spirit distributes "to each one individually as He wills" (1 Corinthians 12:11). The Bible also names women who served God publicly: Deborah, a judge and prophet (Judges 4:4); the four daughters of Philip, who prophesied (Acts 21:9); Priscilla, who with her husband Aquila taught Apollos (Acts 18:26); and Phoebe, whom Paul called a servant of the church at Cenchrea (Romans 16:1). The early believers also said that when the Spirit has called someone, the church should not stand in His way. Many women, especially missionaries, were doing the work of evangelists and pastors, and the results were plain.

Where Pentecostals differ

We should be honest that Pentecostal bodies do not all agree on every point. Some have ordained women as pastors, and some have limited the senior pastoral office, or ordination, to men. Good brothers and sisters are found on both sides of that question. Yet the tradition as a whole has not silenced women who preach, evangelize and go as missionaries.

The complementarian objection and our answer

The objection is a serious one. Complementarians teach that men and women are equal in worth and both gifted by the Spirit, but that the Bible gives the office of pastor or elder to qualified men. They point to 1 Timothy 2:12, "And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence," and to the qualifications for overseers in 1 Timothy 3:1-7. They also teach that women have wide and honored ministries of prophecy, teaching, mission and mercy.

Our answer. We take these verses seriously, and we do not set them aside. But the same Paul who wrote them also speaks of women praying and prophesying in the church (1 Corinthians 11:5), calls Phoebe a servant of the church, and greets Priscilla and Aquila as his fellow workers (Romans 16:1-3). He also tells us that in Christ "there is neither male nor female" (Galatians 3:28). Our tradition reads 1 Timothy 2:12 in its setting, as direction to a particular church and not as a ban on every ministry the Spirit gives to women. And it holds that Acts 2:17-18 means what it says. If the Spirit pours out His gifts on daughters and maidservants, and if He gives them "as He wills," the church has no right to forbid what He has given. Finally, the fruit has been plain: souls saved, churches planted and orphans cared for. This is why, across the tradition, we say that the Spirit is poured out on women as well as men; that women prophesy, pray, testify, evangelize and serve as missionaries; that the early movement could not have grown as it did without them; and that no one has a right to suppress what the Spirit gives.

Pastoral Application

A Pentecostal pastor leads a church in a city where two congregations of the same denomination, one mostly Black and one mostly white, meet two streets apart and have never prayed together. A young woman in his own church feels called to preach, and some of the older members do not know what to think.

First, he teaches the history honestly. He tells both congregations the story of Azusa Street, and he tells them also of the division that followed, so that the present separation is seen as a wound and not as the way things must be.

Second, he invites the pastor of the other congregation to share a service and a meal. He does not announce a program. He begins with prayer and friendship.

Third, with the young woman, he listens to her calling, opens the Scriptures with her, and helps the church test and recognize what the Spirit has given. He gives her real opportunities to preach and serve under oversight, and he leads the church to order the matter, including questions of office and ordination, according to his denomination's own practice and not in anger.

Summary

The early Pentecostal community was made up mostly of ordinary and often poor people of many races, and women were prominent in it. At the Azusa Street Mission, William J. Seymour led a church in which Black, white and other worshipers prayed together, though historians debate how complete that unity was and how long it lasted. Charles Parham, who taught Seymour, disliked the mixing of races. Division followed: the Church of God in Christ under Charles Harrison Mason, the Assemblies of God in 1914, the all-white Pentecostal Fellowship of North America in 1948, and the 1994 meeting in Memphis that repented of racism. Women such as Florence Crawford, Maria Woodworth-Etter, Aimee Semple McPherson and Lillian Trasher led and served, and they appealed to Acts 2:17-18. The tradition's view is that the Spirit calls and anoints women as well as men. Pentecostal bodies differ on women in the senior pastoral office and in ordination, and complementarians object from 1 Timothy 2:12, but the tradition answers that the Spirit's gifting, Acts 2:17-18 and the fruit of women's ministry stand against forbidding what He has given.

Further Reading

• Cecil M. Robeck Jr., The Azusa Street Mission and Revival (2006).

• Grant Wacker, Heaven Below (2001).

• Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition (1997).

• Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (2nd ed., 2014).

• William J. Seymour, Doctrines and Discipline (1915), a primary source.

• The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles, 1906-1908), a primary source.

• Frank Bartleman, How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles (1925), a primary source.

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