a history of the charismatic movements ch510 …...all was not ideal in the good old days.” and...

A History of the Charismatic Movements

Transcript - CH510 A History of the Charismatic Movements © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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LESSON 10 of 24CH510

The Formation of the Assemblies of God

A History of the Charismatic Movements

As the Pentecostal movement proliferated across the United States and from the United States into Europe through Norway, the need for some structure and standardization became apparent. Emotional extremism needed to be checked and channeled, for the movement threatened to undo itself in personality clashes and insignificant doctrinal points. Once Pentecostalism spread from Azusa coast to coast, the movement entered a period of solidification and definition. This brought about divisions and various clashes, but it positively resulted in a stabilizing interdenominational body, the Assemblies of God, in 1914. The Assemblies of God brought unity, standardization, and solidification to a movement that threatened to untie itself in a vacuum of immaturity and instability. The purpose of this lesson is twofold: first, to give notice to the fact and nature of the difficulties experienced in the early phase of the movement, and second, to note one attempted solution, the Assemblies of God.

First then today as we reflect upon this movement, the early dissension within the Pentecostal ranks. As the second decade of our century came, the movement being about six years old, an attempt was made to bring about balance, solidification, and respectability to the church, its problem in the quest for a unified identity for many. And I’d like to highlight three basic difficulties in early classical Pentecostalism. To give you some perspective on where we are, we have rooted the movement out of Methodist influences, the birth of the national Holiness Movement, dissension with the Holiness Movement as it was expressed in Methodism in the late nineteenth century, separation of that Holiness Movement out of Methodism giving birth to two things: one, holiness denominations and second, the birth of classical Pentecostalism. And we’re now trying to describe the history, the outreach of classical or classic Pentecostalism.

John D. Hannah, PhD Experience: Distinguished Professor of

Historical Theology, Dallas Theological Seminary



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Basically three-step Pentecostalism arguing specifically that one needed to be saved, then sanctified, and then a third work of grace for power and victory in life, in ministry, and over sin with an evidential sign, normally tongues.

The birth of classic Pentecostalism is found in at least two places, we argued: Topeka, Kansas, and Charles Fox Parham, and secondly in the great Azusa revivals of 1906 to 1909 and William J. Seymour. The Azusa awakening was sort of a massive upsurge of interest that proliferated itself across the United States and into Europe and, literally, around the world very quickly. But as you come to this second decade where we are now, unfortunately and tragically there were real difficulties with the ongoing of classic Pentecostalism. And these difficulties were recognized by those within the movement as well as those without. And that precipitates an attempt by many Pentecostals to remedy these defects that they themselves recognized. So the defects that were evident in this second decade were basically three. There were personality difficulties. Brumback is amazingly sharp when he writes in his book Suddenly from Heaven, “This may come as a shock to some who are inclined to idealize the past. But the truth must be told. All was not ideal in the good old days.” And that lack of idealism, in spite of the rhetoric of perfectionism and victory over sin and power in the Christian life, those within the movement recognized that there were moral difficulties. There were organizational difficulties, basically the lack of organization. And third, there were theological differences that needed to be ironed out.

So what exactly were the difficulties of that second decade that precipitates this huge, massive conglomerate of churches that we will recognize as the Assemblies of God? First, there are personality difficulties, as I have said. And by that I mean first, its fanaticism. While Pentecostals viewed various exercises as of the Lord, shouting, leaping, trembling, dancing, and falling, for which they argue biblical precedent as well as historic example, they understand that such subsequent and continued experiences apart from Spirit baptism are not normative. Not only did emotional extremes become evident, but also music became loud and unconducive to spiritual worship. As one writer said, “There was more rock than Bach.” Spiritual gifts were abused, and prophecy was misused. Second, there was egotism. Early Pentecostalism evidenced an exclusive superiority complex.



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They conceived of themselves ofttimes as the most particularly blessed and spiritual of Christendom while uninformed Christians, those who had not experienced the baptism and the victory, were often viewed as second raters when it comes to heaven. Third, there were often moral difficulties. One of the most damaging blows to early Pentecostal testimony was the tragic moral lapse of its leadership. Kendrick, in his book The Promise Fulfilled, stated that “unscrupulous persons would take advantage of local bodies and establish themselves as despots.” He went on to say,

Opportunists having to answer to no governing authority found the early assemblies easy prey and frequently exploited them. Funds were in many instances misappropriated, and capital investments deeded to individual interests rather than to those of the congregation. Congregations had little protection against strange ministers coming into their services under the pretense of being loyal to the movement and then bringing schism over some strange doctrinal view.

We have mentioned already the situation with Charles Fox Parham. Benjamin Irwin dropped from the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church in 1899. Parham denounced Seymour repeatedly on morals charges. And both had been pushed from the limelight of the movement by historians. The early movement had no educational or moral standardization. This led Brumback to say, “Proselytizing, egotism, immorality, fanaticism, legalism, impermanence, these elements of the seamier side of Pentecostalism revealed the opponents had enough material to fashion a formidable and colorful scarecrow.” What I am saying I think at this point is not to be demeaning to the birth of this great movement. It’s only to say, that like many movements that are first born, they lack structure. They are susceptible to the loud, to the flamboyant, to the superficial, and those who judge reality by the externals. And therefore, the radicalness of the movement needed to be curbed.

Criticism of Pentecostalism came from various sources. Alma White was very violent in her criticism of early Pentecostalism. Within the holiness tradition, G. Campbell Morgan struck out against Pentecostalism, as did R. A. Torrey and others of that holiness or Keswick tradition. The most outstanding critic from outside the Holiness-Pentecostal movement was the rather famous Bible teacher, Harry Allen Ironside, often associated with the Plymouth Brethren movement. He wrote a broadside against both holiness and Pentecostalism entitled Holiness: The False and the True.



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An excerpt from his book would give you some maybe indication of the anger that he seems to have had. He says,

Superstition and fanaticism of the grossest character find a hotbed among holiness advocates; witness the present disgusting “tongues movement” with all its attendant delusions and insanities. An unhealthy craving for new and thrilling religious sensations and emotional meetings of a most exciting character readily account for these things. Because settled peace is unknown and final salvation is supposed to depend on progress in the soul, people get to depend so much upon blessings and new baptisms of the Spirit as they call these experiences that they readily fall prey to the most absurd delusions. In the last few years, hundreds of holiness meetings all over the world have been literally turned into pandemonium where exhibitions worthy of a madhouse or of a collection of howling dervishes are held night after night. No wonder a heavy toll of lunacy and infidelity are frequent results. Now I am well aware that many holiness teachers repudiate all connection with these fanatics, but they do not seem to see that it is their doctrines that are the most direct cause of the disgusting fruits I have been enumerating. Let a full Christ be preached. Let a finished salvation be proclaimed. The truth of the indwelling Spirit be scripturally taught and all these excrescences [“additions” is the word used in the actual quote] disappear.

My point to be made is that simply from the data available to read, the early Pentecostal movement was not all roses. The writers themselves within the movement as well as critics without say that there were some very severe problems that needed to be addressed. Second, there were also organizational difficulties. And these were simply that there was no overarching organization. The independent churches and missions depended upon a spiritual idealism that was grounded in subjectivism to direct the work simply “as the Lord leads.” Many individuals followed their own inclinations. As a consequence, local groups were sometimes in a state of confusion. There was a lack of interchurch cooperation. A need arose in the minds of many that a Pentecostal fellowship was needed that would extend beyond the local church much like many previously enjoyed in the National Holiness Movement for mutual encouragement and stimulation.



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Third, there was a lack of united missions outreach. The eruption of Pentecostalism produced an irrepressible zeal for missions. J. Roswell Flower argues for a general council by saying, “Men and women sold out for God left their occupations and devoted themselves to the propagation of the full gospel message under the conviction that the return of our Lord was at hand.” And what was done must be done quickly. Many went to fields with no support; others on the field lost support as they adopted new views. A central agency was needed to supervise these widespread activities and to promote regular financial support for missions.

Fourth, there was a lack of a standard periodical voice. Numerous periodicals emerged to propagate Pentecostal views like Piper’s The Latter Rain Evangel, Pike’s The Way of Salvation, Sexton’s The Bridegroom’s Messenger, Lupton’s New Acts, Durham’s (The) Pentecostal Testimony, Bell’s (The) Word and (the) Witness, and Crawford’s The Apostolic Faith. But these were connected to individuals. None spoke for the entire movement. The need was for a periodical that could be read and accepted with confidence, one that emanated from a recognized authority. And fifth, of an organizational nature, there was a lack of uniformed training for ministers. Short-term Bible institutes were found to sustain the early movement, but their lack of uniformity or standardization rendered them increasingly useless to a growing movement.

So what I’m saying by quick summary is that many recognized that the movement had dynamics in it, failures in it that needed earnestly to be corrected. So in this sense, I see this movement as just a normal movement. It began with great zeal, great purpose; but there is a rugged edge to it that needed to be refined, corralled in, and to the credit of the great movement, it indeed was able to do that. There were personality difficulties. There were crackpots. There’s always overstatement of things. There were severe organizational deficiencies that needed to be addressed. Where do we have our men and women trained? Where’s a periodical we can trust? How do we support foreign missions?

And third, there were some theological difficulties that desperately needed to be addressed as views of different things were scattered about. And those views really were around three things. First, there was a crisis concerning tongues. The crisis concerning tongues as previously indicated completely disrupted the Holiness Movement, causing the holiness Pentecostals to withdraw. This was noted with great intensity in the Christian and Missionary Alliance as well as several Bible institutes like Moody.



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The traditionally holiness preachers rejected a third experience and were forced into exile. There was a crisis concerning the Trinity. We’ll come upon this in our next lesson. But the crisis concerning the Trinity, commonly called the Jesus Only, the New Issue, or Unitarian Pentecostalism, will be discussed in the next lesson. For many black Pentecostals adopted a oneness theory leaving Trinitarian white Pentecostalism.

The third issue, and it was really a massive precipitating issue theologically, was a crisis concerning sanctification itself or sometimes called the “finished work theory.” This crisis brought a cleavage, a drastic cleavage, a schism over sanctification as a second work of grace. Double cure theology was deeply ingrained in the Methodist Holiness Movement and was transferred into Pentecostalism through Parham and Seymour. A disruption arose as those of a non-Wesleyan heritage entered the movement, particularly those of a Baptist heritage or more Calvinistic heritage. And what I mean by that before I describe it is simply this, that your earlier Pentecostals tended to be Methodist people. And part of their theological baggage in Methodism, particularly of a holiness type, was two works of grace. We needed to be saved. We needed to be sanctified. And the early Pentecostals added a third work, and that is power or victory with a sign evidence. Those of a non-Wesleyan background entered the Pentecostal movement not with two works of grace, salvation and then sanctification, but with one work of grace that included both.

So when we talk about the finished work controversy, the question is, Was sanctification finished in the work of salvation? Finished work people said it was finished in the work of salvation. So instead of seeking a third work of grace, they sought a second work of grace in their baptism. So now we have a major cleavage among early Pentecostals, those of a Wesleyan heritage, three-steppers, and those of a non-Wesleyan heritage which tended to be two-steppers. To the non-Wesleyan people, salvation and sanctification occur at one time. And so they anticipated just one more work of grace in their baptisms.

Now let me continue. The issue that would polarize Pentecostals into warring camps and threaten the life of the new movement was raised by William H. Durham, pastor of the North Avenue Mission in Chicago, who received his Pentecost through Seymour at Azusa. Durham had definite misgivings about a second work of grace, meaning eradication from inbred sin. Those who doubted that doctrine were obviously from a non-Wesleyan heritage.



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Durham says, for instance, “From that day to this, I could never preach another sermon on the second work of grace theory. I had held it for years and continued to do so for some time but could not preach on the subject again. I could preach Christ and holiness as never before but not as a second work of grace.” So what he is implying in this quote is simply this, that when one is saved salvation and sanctification occur at the same time. But sanctification does not entail eradication of the inbred sin nature. It continues till death. He looked forward to a second work of grace which was baptism of the Spirit with the sign gift of tongues following. So he taught two works of grace. In other words, Durham understood that sanctification came at conversion. In the same article, he says this:

I began to write against the doctrine that it takes two works of grace to save and cleanse a man. I denied and still deny that God does not deal with the nature of sin at conversion. I deny that a man who is converted or born again is outwardly washed and cleansed but that his heart is left unclean with enmity against God in it. This would not be salvation. Salvation is an inward work. It means a change of heart. It means a change of nature. It means that old things pass away, and all things become new. It means that all condemnation and guilt is removed. It means that all the old man or old nature which was sinful and depraved and which was the very thing in us that was condemned is crucified with Christ. That all happens at salvation.

Durham retained a baptism for power with tongues according to the Acts 2:4 pattern, but he denied a third work of grace, which cut across accepted views of those who had come out of the Holiness Movement a la Irwin, Parham, and Seymour. So he’s advocating two works of grace. The first work includes sanctification. The second work is baptism. Whereas your Wesleyan Holiness-Pentecostal people had simply three works of grace: saved, sanctified (your second), and baptism (your third). He has two. Parham took his teachings back to Los Angeles in 1911 and received a large welcome in Azusa Street, then a declining, near-empty mission, although locked out of Azusa by Seymour. Remember when Seymour went out with his three works of grace to California; he was locked out of the Santa Fe Mission. Durham goes out with his two works of grace, and he’s locked out of the Azusa mission. Durham says, “I secured Keeler Street Mission temporarily, and the cloud moved with us. Rather it led us there.”



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In a few days, Brother Durham rented a large building at the corner of 7th and Los Angeles streets. “A thousand people attended the meetings here on Sunday. We had an ordinary congregation of 400 weeknights. Here the cloud rested. God’s glory filled the place. Azusa became deserted. The Lord was with Brother Durham.” I’m quoting from Frank Bartleman’s account. “The Lord was with Brother Durham in great power. God set His seal especially on the present truth to be established.”

A storm of protest resulted. A writer of Faith Standard in November of 1922 succinctly states, “Pentecostal people revised their testimonies. Formerly they would stand up and say ‘I praise God for saving me, sanctifying me, and baptizing me with the Holy Ghost.’ After this instruction, they would testify only the following. ‘I praise God for saving me and baptizing me with the Holy Ghost.’ They didn’t praise the Lord anymore for sanctifying them.” Now that will be a massive ripple that will like an incoming tide on the seashore ripple across classic Pentecostalism, dividing it asunder into those who hold to three-step-ism and those who have revised back a la Durham to just two steps.

In this fear of conflict, the arguments of the three-steppers were essentially these. This is what three-steppers said to the finished work or the Durhamites. They argued that the teaching aligns itself with non-Pentecostals, that sanctification will suffer a loss in emphasis by seeing it as a conversion, that Durham’s view is too vague, that Durham’s view encouraged weak Christians if you tell them that the old nature has not been eradicated, that God fills only clean vessels which presupposes eradication, that it denies a sacred experience in the lives of many sacred Christians, and that God approved it, this third work of grace, by sending the Latter Rain Movement. And then finally, and this seems to be a charge that is terribly illogical to me, that whatever is schismatic is wrong. It would seem to me that if they apply that argument, they ought to think back to what the Holiness Movement did to Methodism and what the Pentecostal view did to the Holiness Movement. Now this is what a finished work theory is doing to three-steppers.

So what I have said thus far in the lecture is fairly simple. And that is, in the second decade, things were not that good in this nascent movement. It was fractured by personalities, sometimes dictatorial types whose quest was perhaps for self-glory and money more than the glory of God. There were organizational difficulties that wracked the new movement.



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How do we organize for missions, which was a prolific movement from the beginning recognizing the soon coming of Christ. People gave up their jobs and wanted to go out and serve Him more fully. How do we ordain ministers? How do we train ministers? And there were theological difficulties, and they were the difference between holiness people and tongues people in the first place, the issue of the “Jesus only” movement, which will come upon us in the next lecture. And now there’s a massive early division among the charismatics into three-steppers, Wesleyan background people that have come to this third step with two previously, and Baptist background people who come to their baptism not having had two works of grace but just one. So now within Pentecostalism, there are Wesleyan holiness background people, three-steppers, and Baptist holiness background people, two. Those two-steppers saved, baptized become known as finished work theorists, because sanctification was finished at Calvary.

With all of that as a background, I want to come now to the first major huge denomination that gathers up many of the Pentecostal people bringing organization to their movement. The need for uniformity and regulation became increasingly imperative for reasons internal and theological. The only point of large-scale organization was that many polarized around dynamic leadership: Parham, Crawford, Seymour, Durham, Cashwell, Thomas Ball Barratt, and numerous private publications.

The steps toward a national organization first in the southwest, the organization of a cooperative fellowship among independent Pentecostal churches in the Texas area emerged in a strictly voluntary format through the agency of summer camp meetings. The emerging leaders and sponsors were E. N. Bell of Fort Worth, who was very prominent in the movement, Howard A. Goss, an evangelist, Archibald P. Collins, and Daniel (C. O.) Opperman, an evangelist. The group of churches generally read E. N. Bell’s periodical The Word (and) Witness and J. R. Flower’s The Christian Evangel as literary voices of the group. The leadership began to give credentials of ordination through C. H. Mason’s Church of God in Christ. In the South, a loose federation of churches formed in Mississippi and Alabama that held association meetings in 1909 and evolved by 1911 into a structured body called The Church of God. These two loose federations amalgamated in 1912, officially in 1913, at Meridian, Mississippi, under the name Church of God. M. M. Pinson’s periodical for the Southern group, Word and Witness, was merged with E. N. Bell’s Apostolic Faith to become simply Word and Witness.



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Howard Goss and E. N. Bell were particularly prominent in the move toward a national organization. And what I’m arguing is that groups of churches are finding each other, and they’re amalgamating into federations. Goss leased the Grand Opera House in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he held a brief pastorate. It was in that setting that a convention was called to meet from April 2 to April 12, 1914. The official call was signed by Pinson, Collins, Goss, Opperman, and Bell to all the Churches in Christ, to all Pentecostal or apostolic faith assemblies who desire with united purpose to cooperate in love and peace to push the interests of the kingdom of God everywhere for saints who believe in the baptism in the Holy Ghost with signs following. The purposes of the group as listed in their advertisement to come to Hot Springs in 1914 were five, and I’ll read bits and portions.

First, we come together that we may set a better understanding of what God would have us teach that we may do away with so many divisions both in doctrines and in various names under which our Pentecostal people are working and cooperating. Second, again we come together that we may know how to serve the Lord or to conserve the work that we may build up and not tear down both in home and foreign lands. Third, we come together for another reason that we may get a better understanding of the needs of each foreign field and know how to place our money in such a way that one mission or missionary may not suffer while another not any more worthy lives in luxury. Fourth, many of the saints have felt the need of chartering the Churches of God in Christ putting them on a legal basis and thus obeying the laws of the land. Fifth, we may also have a proposition to lay before the body for a general Bible training school with a literary department for our people.

This grand meeting was held in April of 1914 in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The spirit of the convention was readily apparent from the opening minutes. But as to its causes and purposes, the minutes say this:

For a number of years, God has been leading men to seek for a full apostolic gospel standard of experience and doctrine. Some 14 years ago in answer to prayer, the Lord began to pour out His Spirit in Kansas and then in Texas. And some eight years ago it reached Los Angeles, California. [This is an excellent summary, by the way.]



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And from hence, it soon became scattered over the civilized world. It has been so aggressive that almost every city and community and civilization has heard of the latter rain outpouring of the Holy Ghost with many signs following. And not only has civilization been affected to more or less a degree, but hundreds of missionaries have consecrated themselves and gone forth until almost every country on the globe has heard the message and also the prophecy which is “Jesus is coming soon” to this old world in the same manner as He left it to set up His millennial kingdom and to reign over the earth in righteousness and peace for a thousand years. As is true in all great religious awakenings as evidenced by past history, all kinds of chaotic conditions have been manifest. [This is a summary of our lesson plan in the preamble of the minutes of the organization of the Assemblies of God.] And as this great movement of God has no man nor set of men at the head of it but God to guide and mold it into a clear-cut Scriptural path by the Holy Spirit, individualism has been the human order of the day every man being a law unto himself and consequently that Scriptural cooperation and fellowship which go far to guarantee the presence and power of God has not been realized in the past in its fullest measure. But as we appropriate the divine order, we shall experience the divine presence and power.

The writer of the preamble was saying that we need organization, because we have got some problems. The Pentecostal saints in the United States and Canada especially had seen this great need of cooperation, fellowship, and unity according to the Scriptures and have felt such a great need of the time in the home and foreign missions work, that in different parts of the country brethren have undertaken we believe in the name of Jesus to accomplish this end. But seemingly, God has a more scriptural basis and method and a broader field and a greater work than has been accomplished. Here’s the resolution.

Therefore, be it resolved that we recognizes ourselves as a General Council of Pentecostal Spirit-baptized saints from local Churches of God in Christ, Assemblies of God, and various apostolic faith missions and churches, and full gospel Pentecostal missions, and assemblies of like faith in the United States of America, Canada, and foreign lands whose purposes is neither to legislate laws of government nor usurp authority over said various Assemblies of God



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nor deprive them of their scriptural and local rights and privileges but to recognize scriptural methods and order for worship, unity, fellowship, work, and business for God and to disapprove of all unscriptural methods, doctrine, conduct, and approve all scriptural truth in conduct, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace until we all come into the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

The hierarchical structure takes its title from Hebrews 12:23, the general assembly of the firstborn. The structure of the Assemblies of God, which is an umbrella organization of various churches, is something like this. Reflective of the theological tensions in the early Pentecostal movement in the second decade, the assemblies did not define any specific tenets except that “the holy Scriptures are the all-sufficient rule of faith and practice.” So the Assemblies of God, an umbrella organization of various kinds of independent work, took a rather simple doctrinal statement about the Scriptures. Two years later in 1916, when the Assemblies was rocked by the oneness or Unitarian controversy, they adopted a sixteen-point statement of fundamental truths. So it’s ironic to me that very early they simply wanted the broadest basic organization possible, and they found unity without a creed simply by saying that we believe the Bible is true. And that would have of course afforded them an umbrella organization in which they could regulate foreign missions. They could regulate the use or disuse of money. They could ordain clergy. They could have a periodical that would be a spokesman for the entire movement. They could do a lot of organizational things. And they didn’t feel compelled to address the specifics of theology.

While this is commendable of course that one should not be divided over minor points of theology, two years later it will really disrupt and almost bring to an end this hopeful attempt at bringing unity to the movement. The oneness controversy will be another one of those incoming waves that will sweep across the churches that will promise new spiritual insight, sort of a Gideon’s water test. As I think of the charismatic movements, a wave metaphor seems to be a valid image of it. The first wave of course is Methodism. The second wave was holiness. The third wave, now this new teaching, is a third work of grace. For some it’s a second work of grace.



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But in the birth of the Assemblies of God movement, that controversy was basically not made an issue because baptism was. But when the oneness controversy came, that will divide the early assemblies, almost bringing the assemblies to naught, and will force them to make a very fine detailed doctrinal statement called “The Sixteen Points.”

The official name of the body became the General Council of the Assemblies of God with Pinson Bell’s Word and Witness and Flower’s Christian Evangel as the official periodicals. The structure of the Assemblies of God is as follows. The general council is the highest constitutional authority as the legislative and policy-making body made up of all ordained clergy and one lay representative from each church. The general council met twice in 1914, annually until 1921, and as far as I can tell, biannually afterward. So their highest court or highest body is called the General Assembly. The district council, geographical regional council, supervises and expedites the activities of churches in each geographical region. Such councils are created by and subordinate to the higher council or general council. They elect their own officers and arrange conventions usually on a state level. Third, there is the general presbytery. The general presbytery is the executive and judicial power in the assemblies. Membership is composed of district presidents and two representatives from each district.

And then there is an executive presbytery. The executive presbytery is the administrative committee that has varied in number of officers over the years. The agency functions to carry out the church’s missions and evangelism. The last I read, sixteen people make up the present executive presbytery: eight resident and eight non-resident. The Assemblies of God are an ecclesiastical mix of Congregationalists and Presbyterians, Baptists. The assemblies list over 800 missionaries serving in 71 countries, over 30,500 ordained ministers, over 11,300 churches, and over 1,300,000 members. So the Assemblies is a massive umbrella organization created in the second decade of the birth of this great movement when that movement threatened to be torn by personality, domination, and egotism, by organizational difficulties mostly just fundamental acts and then theological dissension.

The Assemblies was born as an umbrella group with a very minimalist creed, although the five key people in it as we’ve enumerated, the Oppermans, the Bells, did have a creed. But


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this was a fundamental, overarching organization with a simple doctrinal statement that functioned to send out missionaries, to regulate finances, to handle ordinations, handle training. They will eventually obviously develop some very fine schools across the country. Theological dissension will hit them in 1916 which will force them to give up their simplistic creed of Bible only truth to go to a very detailed sixteen-point creed which is the subject of our next lecture.

a history of the charismatic movements ch510 …...all was not ideal in the good old days.” and...

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