Historiography of the Genesis of the Pentecostal Movement: Early and Recent Research Directions in English-language Literature

Tsys Aleksei Vladimirovich Postgraduate student of the Department of Philosophy of Religion and Religious Studies, Saint-Petersburg State University 199034, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg, Smolenskaya str., 33, office 3 alextsis@yandex.ru

Introduction

It is problematic to determine the exact time of the emergence of Pentecostalism. Before 1900, there were no Pentecostals (followers of Pentecostalism), or Pentecostal churches and denominations, but by the end of World War I, thousands of Pentecostals could be found in various countries around the world.

What was meant by the first Pentecostalism? The starting point is considered to be the "awakening" on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, accompanied by a public mass glossolalia ("speaking in tongues", uttering inarticulate sounds during prayer), "baptism of the Spirit and fire", and a sermon by Charles Parham and William Seymour on the return of spiritual gifts to the church. It lasted for three years, along with the preaching of Pentecostals and the establishment of churches in other parts of the United States, which turned Pentecostalism into a national and international religious movement that spread throughout the world within two decades ^{[1, p. 24]}. Although through an analysis of the early works of the second half of the twentieth century, we will see that most studies are devoted specifically to American Pentecostalism, modern researchers of Pentecostalism do not agree with the unambiguous definition of the movement as originated on Azusa Street.

Early research

Pentecostalism was not studied properly in the first half of the twentieth century. According to F.Bartleman, a participant in the "awakening meetings", the reason for this was that since this movement was accompanied by supernatural phenomena, it simply "came from Heaven" ^{[2, p. 69]}. Or, as D. Taylor unequivocally wrote, another early interpreter of Pentecostalism: "This movement has no leader except the Holy Spirit" ^{[3, p. 95]}. Bartleman, Taylor and other pioneers of Pentecostalism saw in their new religious movement nothing more than the biblically promised "last rain" or the restoration of "apostolic" Christianity. In fact, it was "the last outpouring of God's Spirit on unregenerate humanity before the return of Jesus Christ and the end of human history." Therefore, Pentecostalism was considered as a spontaneous, accidental, religious revival of the last time. This view of the origin of Pentecostalism dominated Pentecostal historiography until the end of the 1950s, as church ministers continued to write the history of the movement, who often did not have critical standards, were biased and turned some theological statements into historical facts ^{[4, p. 5]}.

In the 1960s, attempts were made to determine the origin of Pentecostalism by finding its origins in the historical roots of other Christian spiritual movements. Historians K. Kendrick and V. Sainan find Wesleyan roots of Pentecostalism. They write that in the 18th century John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church in England, for the first time made a distinction between those who were "sanctified" or "baptized in the Spirit" and ordinary Christians. This gives rise to the "holiness movement" in the 19th century, which sought Christian perfection through "total sanctification," an experience that occurs after salvation and allows Christians to live a sinless life. By the end of the 19th century, the "holiness movement" had turned into an ecumenical, interracial movement, whose most zealous supporters sought to restore the power and practice of "apostolic" Christianity of the first century, expected the imminent Second Coming of Christ and accepted a free form of worship, which is definitely a feature of early Pentecostalism. This is confirmed by the theologian and historian D. Dayton, who defines Pentecostalism as a movement consisting of four main doctrines - the doctrine of salvation, healing, baptism of the Holy Spirit and the second coming of Jesus Christ ^[5].

But some researchers have emphasized the great role of the non-Wesleyan roots of Pentecostalism. E. Blumhoffer, for example, emphasized the theological contribution of non-Wesleyan evangelicals. She called their views "reformed Pentecostal theology", which, in contrast to Wesleyan, insisted on the belief in sanctification as a gradual overcoming of sin, and not as an instant eradication of sinful nature ^{[6, p. 40]}. A great proponent of this position is W. Menzies, a theologian and teacher of the Assemblies of God, who writes that before 1910 the history of the movement was largely Wesleyan Pentecostal history, but by 1920 the Reformed component of the modern Pentecostal movement was becoming the main direction of the movement around the world, and the only serious disagreement was the issue of pneumatology – the doctrine of Cessationism (the doctrine of the cessation of spiritual gifts with the end of the "apostolic era") ^[7].

The historian of Pentecostalism Hollenweger also emphasizes the moment of departure from Wesleyan theology. Early Pentecostalism quickly abandoned some of its beliefs that had contributed to the revival: the movement moved away from the three-step understanding of salvation (conversion, sanctification, and baptism of the Holy Spirit, preached by D. Wesley and the leaders of the revival, Ch. Parham and W. Seymour) to a two–stage conversion and baptism of the Spirit (preached by W. Durham) ^[5]. Also, the theory of British Israel and communication with African Americans were abandoned. The latter point was criticized due to the glorification of white Pentecostalism and the lack of attention to black people. The black historian of Pentecostalism, David Daniels, called for "redefining Pentecostalism as a multicultural phenomenon." Thus, the concept of early Pentecostalism is inextricably linked with multiculturalism. In the 1980s and 1990s, Hollenweger's students, as well as I. Clemmons and S.Sanders expanded his ideas to a full-fledged African-American interpretation of the historical origins of modern American Pentecostalism. They described Seymour's Pentecostalism, especially his teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, as a revolutionary religious experience that allowed participants to overcome racial, ethnic, gender and class differences and create a truly egalitarian community^[6].

Since the 1970s, studies have begun to appear characterizing Pentecostalism as a socially destructive movement. Historian Robert Anderson, using a naturalistic approach to religious experience, explained the emergence of Pentecostalism as a psychologically unhealthy and socially dysfunctional religious reaction of marginal poor farmers, urban residents from the working and lower classes, immigrants and black Americans to a rapidly industrializing and urbanizing America. These Pentecostals, Anderson says critically, spoke in tongues and longed for the imminent second coming of Jesus as a way to escape from the terrible life here and now. Another historian, G.Walker suggested that the ideology of Pentecostalism, opposed to everything modern in American life at the beginning of the 20th century, contained socially regressive cultural attitudes that reflected the marginal status of Pentecostals in American society. As part of its attempt to move away from modern society and create its own social and religious space, Walker writes, the Pentecostal movement "carried regressive sentiments that, by any reasonable measure, were socially destructive. His disregard for social conventions, his belligerence and fanaticism, his ecstatic excess and deliberate distortion of human language undoubtedly reflected a gloomy primitivist desire for disorder"^[6].

But in the end, the modern explosive growth of Pentecostalism around the world, especially among the poor, forced scientists trying to understand the origins and appeal of primitive Pentecostalism in the early twentieth century to recognize the socially positive functions that Pentecostalism provided for various segments of the population, and how Pentecostalism was sensitive to its mostly poor and disenfranchised followers. At the moment, the social approach shares with the multicultural interpretation a positive assessment of the role of Pentecostalism in the early 20th century in connection with the empowerment of farmers, workers and minorities in progressive America. D. Goff, biographer of Charles Parham, writes that Pentecostal preaching met the social and spiritual needs of farmers and urban workers ^[8]. It is worth noting here the work of historian Bloch-Hoell on the roots and development of Pentecostalism, thanks to which the sociological and geographical picture of the spread of Pentecostalism became known ^[9].

In 1988, a dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements was published, edited by S. Burgess. In this large-scale work, the concept of "Pentecostalism" was defined, historical information about the spread of Pentecostalism was collected, biographies of the leaders of the Pentecostal movement were collected. "Pentecostalism" is defined as a spiritual movement that has taken shape in a denomination in which followers adhere to the doctrine that every Christian, after conversion, should strive for the "baptism of the Holy Spirit", and that a believer baptized in the Spirit can receive one or more supernatural gifts that were known in the early church, which may include instantaneous sanctification, the ability to prophesy, practice divine healing through prayer, speak in tongues or interpret tongues, singing in tongues, singing in the Spirit, dancing in the Spirit, dreams, visions, discernment of spirits, words of wisdom, words of knowledge, strong experiences, exorcism (exorcism), resurrections, deliverances, signs and wonders ^[10].

An important point is that in the late 1980s, when the first edition of the dictionary was published, it became customary to classify renaissance groups into three "waves" and separate Pentecostalism from the two subsequent "waves".  In the 50s, Pentecostal movements arose within non-Pentecostal denominations ^[10]. These representatives of Christian denominations (including Catholics and Orthodox) practice glossolalia and baptism of the Spirit, while remaining in their denomination in the position of a special group. At first, such a group of people was called "neo-Pentecostals", but after that they began to be called "charismatics" or the "second wave" movement. The "third wave", which appeared in the 1970s, are charismatics who came out of their faiths, and a number of local communities (mainly in Africa, Asia and Latin America) who created their own denominations - the so—called "neo–charismatics". The term "third wave" was coined by one of its participants, Peter Wagner, in 1983 ^[1].

Some scholars describe all these movements as three "waves" of Pentecostalism and say that the terms "Pentecostals" and "Charismatics" are often used interchangeably. Indeed, they have many common features, and even for an expert it is often difficult to separate these two concepts. And despite the fact that it is quite difficult for society, including Christians themselves, to separate these concepts, Pentecostal researchers have been adhering to the concept of three different "waves" since the 1980s, separating "Pentecostalism" from "charisma" and "neo-charisma".

This classification persists to this day, although some modern researchers, such as U.Kay and A. Anderson, write about the difficulty of unambiguously classifying the Pentecostal and charismatic movements. Anderson is more inclined to define Pentecostalism as a denomination, and Charismatism and neo-Charism as a movement, since, in his opinion, followers of different denominations and denominations, including Pentecostals, can call themselves Charismatics, whereas Charismatics and neo-Charismatics in many ways do not associate themselves with classical Pentecostals, and may not even be Protestants ^[11]. W. Grudam, the author of the famous "Systematic Theology", understands the terms "Pentecostal" and "charismatic" in the same way ^[12].

The tipping point and late studies

In the early 1990s, studies appeared convincingly showing that Pentecostal "outpourings of the Spirit" took place in other parts of the world - in particular, in Africa, England, Finland, Russia, India and Latin America, and in some parts of the world even long before the 20th century ^[13].Due to new research, a reprint of the Burgess Dictionary was published in 2002, as the first edition was limited in both time and geographical scope. The dictionary highlighted the events of the 20th century in the United States and Western Europe, where white Pentecostals were traditionally at the origins of these movements. The new edition added information about the Pentecostal movement in countries around the world, and also revised the approach to the emergence of the movement ^[14].

In 2005, A. Anderson in the article "Revision of the history of Pentecostalism in a global perspective" writes that it is necessary to correct the global misconception in writing the history of Pentecostalism. His criticism can be expressed in two points: first, early studies have a North American orientation, implying that the Pentecostal movement, thanks to the events on Azusa Street, from this new "Jerusalem", spread to the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, whereas there were such "Jerusalem" centers of Pentecostalism a lot more before the events on Azusa Street. Secondly, Western missionaries were often infected with the idea of the superiority of Western culture and civilization, which influenced the fact that many local ministers and their contribution to the development of the movement remained in the shadow of the missionaries. These people have gone unnoticed into history, and their memory is now very difficult to restore, but this must be done due to the "shift of the center of gravity of Christianity to the South" and the fact that most Pentecostals today live in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In conclusion, Anderson writes that historiographical imperialism and ethnocentrism must be corrected ^[15]. British priest and theologian A. McGrath says that at the beginning of the last century, a number of movements emerged with recognizable common beliefs and expectations, but without obvious signs of mutual causation. And large-scale studies of the origins of the movement, often devoted to the biographies of individual leaders of movements in Argentina, Ghana, Korea, the Philippines, South Africa, Chile and South India, forced scientists to significantly revise previous paradigms ^{[13, p. 422]}. Thus, one can single out the first area of late research on Pentecostalism – historical and biographical, which is largely aimed at local ministers. This direction is also represented in the Russian-speaking space ^[16-20].

The second area of research is theological. It can be divided into practical and theoretical. Practical is, first of all, missiology. There has always been a mission at the core of the Pentecostal movement, action and experience were given greater priority over reflection, and the movement itself was associated with a rapidly spreading fire ^[17]. It is also possible to highlight studies on spiritual manifestations in meetings: prophecies, glossolalia and other spiritual gifts. If the practical direction was previously studied, then the theoretical theological direction mainly began to develop only in the 21st century. Of course, theological literature was present before that (for example, the research of Gordon Fee, a leading theologian in the field of pneumatology), but there were no systematic academic works (and it is no coincidence that in the publication "Wipf and Stock" devoted to Pentecostal theology, 26 books are presented in the section "Theology of the 21st century", while the section "Theology The 20th century" just doesn't exist). The development of theoretical theology is, firstly, an attempt to respond to more than a century of criticism from more "traditional" Protestant denominations (Lutherans, Reformed, Baptists) and solve the problems that Pentecostals faced in such important areas as hermeneutics and exegesis of the Holy Scriptures. As an example, in the West in 2020, a handbook of Pentecostal theology was published edited by V. Vondey, many works were written by leading Pentecostal Theologians V.Karkainen and A. Yong, in Russia there are no academic Pentecostal theological works of their own, but foreign translations are beginning to be published (for example, a six-volume edition of "Evangelical Theology for Eastern Christians" was translated into Russian", and three books by Robert Menzies have been published). Secondly, it is the result of the trend of institutionalization of the movement, which is taking place not only in the West or in the countries of the Global South, but also in Russia. As I. writes. Skorobogatova, the Russian charismatic movement has mixed with Russian Pentecostalism, having overcome the stage of Revivalism and "today is in the process of institutionalizing its creed", there is a "gradual transition from a mystically oriented, detached from real life teaching towards a rational understanding of faith" ^{[21, p. 220]}.

The third area of research is religious studies. Here, Pentecostalism is mainly approached from the standpoint of the sociology of religion, trying to determine the phenomenon of the growth of this movement during the decline of religiosity in developed countries, and noting this movement as a religion of the "periphery", the religion of the lower and middle classes ^[22-23]. In Western religious studies, the sociological approach to the study of Pentecostalism dominates, leaving a large space for the study of the religious philosophy of the followers of Pentecostalism, rituals and practices of church members. It is worth noting here the collection of studies "The Study of Global Pentecostalism", where religious studies, theological and interdisciplinary studies taken together summarize the achievements and problems of modern Pentecostal studies ^[24]. The fact that this is the first publication of its kind since serious academic work on the phenomenon of the Pentecostal movement shows how young this industry is.

Conclusion

The "turning point" between early and late studies of Pentecostalism in English-language literature is the emergence of studies on the genesis of Pentecostalism outside the United States, which began a rethinking of the origin of Pentecostalism.  To date, historical and biographical, theological and religious studies are the three largest areas of research. The rest of the research is conducted on "current issues": the church and gender issues; Pentecostalism and migration processes; the media influence of the church; research on mega-churches; as well as a large volume of articles devoted to how Pentecostal churches responded to the coronavirus pandemic. Pentecostal and charismatic movements are represented mainly among the poor, are rapidly developing in the countries of the Global South, are a young and volatile religious phenomenon, and therefore their study remains relevant for further research.