Pentecostal movement

Christian revivalist movement inspired by the experience of the apostles after the resurrection of Jesus, when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit and able to speak in tongues. The Pentecostal movement represents a reaction against the rigid theology and formal worship of traditional churches. It originated in the USA in 1906.

Pentecostalists believe in the literal word of the Bible and practise charismatic worship, emphasizing the gift of the Holy Spirit. Adult members are expected to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, enabling faith healing and speaking in tongues (glossolalia) to occur as fulfilment of the words found in 1 Corinthians 12:10. Services are informal and uninhibited, with gospel music and exclamations of ‘Hallelujah’.

The movement began on 4 April 1906 when members of the congregation of the Azusa Street Mission, Los Angeles, experienced ‘baptism in the Spirit’. From its outset the movement appealed to the poor and those alienated by the formalism and modernist theology of established denominations. It combined a highly emotional, informal approach to worship with an ethical emphasis on sobriety and hard work, and it became a way for poor and marginal groups to improve their economic and social status while retaining their religious faith.

The movement grew rapidly in the South and in impoverished urban areas, meanwhile dividing into dozens of small, contentious sects separated by doctrine and by such practices as faith healing. In the 1950s, faith healing, represented most prominently by Oral Roberts, was at its peak among Pentecostalists. After the 1960s, prosperity through faith became a dominant theme, taken up by Roberts and other television evangelists. But all the Pentecostal sects – ranging from the largest, the Assemblies of God, to small storefront churches – shared a rapturous, ecstatic tone that continued to have a powerful appeal in the USA, Latin America, and Africa. The movement in Europe, after rapid growth in the early 20th century, had stabilized by mid-century. A similar movement within the Roman Catholic Church, the charismatic movement, won large numbers of followers from the 1960s.

Black and white denominations within the US Pentecostal Church voted in October 1994 to create a national multiracial association, ending 88 years of racial segregation.

The Pentecostal movement is an intensely missionary faith, regarding the spread of the gospel as a Christian duty, an emphasis that has influenced other churches in the charismatic movement. It has been spoken of as the ‘third force’ in the Christian church, and a serious challenge to Roman Catholicism and traditional Protestantism. Recruitment has been rapid since the 1960s: worldwide membership is more than 10 million.