The "New Issue": Institutional Separation

[This post presents chapter 2 from my dissertation, The People of the Name: Oneness Pentecostalism in the United States (Florida State University, 1985).  This chapter focuses on the Frank Ewart - G. T. Haywood - W. T. Witherspoon school of oneness thought which holds all “3 steps” of Acts 2:38 – repentance, water baptism administered by immersion with the invocation of the name “Jesus,” and Spirit baptism evidenced by glossolalia – as necessary for the “new birth” or “full salvation.” This view was rivaled by a “2 step” view which holds the more traditional classical Pentecostal view that “new birth” occurs at repentance and Spirit baptism is “subsequent to and distinct from” the new birth. See Thomas Fudge’s Christianity Without the Cross: A History of Salvation in Oneness Pentecostalism for a full discussion of these competing doctrines of salvation.]

Excitement and uncertainty surrounded the formative years of American Pentecostalism. Religious ecstasy bound the diverse elements that participated in the 1906-07 Azusa revivals in Los Angeles. From these promising, but meager beginnings, Pentecostal victories soon resounded in the South and Midwest. Opposition, however, grew alongside the Pentecostal congregations. Newspaper editors chided the eccentricity of ecstatic worship, while denominational leaders rejected the Pentecostal claims of superior religious experience. Even more foreboding, doctrinal conflict emerged from the haze of ecstasy that before had clouded the differences among American Pentecostals. In 1908, controversy raged over the nature of sanctification and threatened to end the early harmony. By 1910, the fire of Azusa had been extinguished and with it the central unifying symbol of the now scattered Pentecostals faded. Regional organizations—many formed from existing Holiness bodies that converted to Pentecostalism en masse—hoped to avert any dissolution. Similarly, large camp meetings sought to consolidate the movement, but failed to match the nationwide scale of the recent revivals. Five years after its inception, the solidarity of Azusa was long since passed and it appeared that American Pentecostalism would become diffuse, regional, and ultimately powerless.

Envisioned as a nationwide organization, the Assemblies of God sought to bind up the remnants of the Pentecostal revivals and to provide structure for effective evangelistic, educational, and missionary action. With strong anti-creedal sentiment, the Assemblies' founders rejected the confining parameters of a firm doctrinal statement and emphasized instead the Pentecostal experience—the baptism of the Holy Spirit evidenced by glossolalia—as the movement's unifying factor. Officially organized in Hot Springs, Arkansas, April 2-12, 1914, the Assemblies of God emphatically pronounced that members of the new body “do not believe in identifying ourselves as, or establishing ourselves into, a sect, that is a human organization that legislates or forms laws and ARTICLES OF FAITH [emphasis mine] and has unscriptural lines of fellowship and disfellowship.”¹

The purpose of the new organization was not to "legislate laws," "usurp authority," or "deprive rights and privileges," but rather to "recognize scriptural methods and order for worship, unity, and fellowship."² Adopting only the most general statement of the sufficiency of the scriptures in matters of faith and practice, the new organization avoided potentially schismatic doctrinal debate. A guiding maxim epitomized the spirit of the new body: "Endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit until we all come together in the unity of the faith."³

But this attitude of tolerance was soon to be tested. The New Issue, or Oneness, Controversy challenged the organizing principles of the new body and resulted in a crippling schism three years later. Boasting of new revelation, several Pentecostal leaders began preaching an innovative baptismal formula, a reevaluation of the person of Jesus, and a denial of Trinitarianism. Many ministers converted to this new doctrine, including the Assemblies of God General Chairman, E. N. Bell, and the most important leader in black Pentecostalism, G. T. Haywood. When entire congregations followed these leaders, a growing rift threatened the unity of the new body.

The New Issue controversy had been born unexpectedly and unobtrusively amidst the excitement of the "Worldwide" Pentecostal Camp Meeting held in the Highland Park area outside Los Angeles in April 1913. This, and other, increasingly centralized camp meetings rallied Pentecostal strength for evangelistic appeal. Effused with enthusiasm and eschatological hope, these camp meetings became the seed beds of new thought that would, in turn, be quickly disseminated throughout the movement by those in attendance.

Large crowds gathered at the "Worldwide" Pentecostal Camp Meeting to hear the ministry of Mary B. Woodworth-Etter, the foremost Pentecostal woman evangelist and faith healer. The grand scale of the meeting led to an atmosphere of inquisitive, restless expectancy. An early sermon from Jeremiah 31:22 stressed the expectancy that God was about to perform some "new thing" among these believers. Frank J. Ewart, a later New Issue leader who was present at the camp meeting, echoed this expectation.

The very suggestion that God was doing a New Thing struck fire in the minds and hearts of the saints. From that point on, one could hear expressions of hope that God would do a New Thing for His people.⁴

Into this otherwise typical Pentecostal camp meeting, doctrinal conflict appeared. R. E. McAlister, a Canadian evangelist, sparked this dissension with a casual remark during a baptismal service. While instructing the candidates, he compared several different understandings of the baptismal mode and refuted various false views with the abrupt declaration that Christ's apostles (as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles) always baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus rather than the triune formula. McAlister asserted, "The words Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were never used in the early church in Christian baptism."⁵ His shocked listeners voiced a hasty rebuke and forced McAlister to clarify his position: the apostolic use of the name of Jesus in baptism by no means negated the effectiveness of the triune formula.⁶

But this explanation did not satisfy all those present. McAlister's statements so arrested one man, John G. Sheppe, that he spent an entire night in prayer and Bible study, to emerge the next morning shouting throughout the camp that God had revealed to him "the truth of baptism in Jesus name."⁷ Such "revelations" were common during the Pentecostal revivals and would later become a point of contention among those demanding biblical confirmation of doctrinal matters. Howard Goss, a Oneness minister, wrote

A preacher who did not dig up some new slant on a Scripture or get some new revelation to his own heart ever so often; a preacher who did not propagate it, defend it, and if necessary, be prepared to lay down his life for it, was considered slow, stupid, unscriptural.⁸

More significant than its impact on Sheppe, McAlister's declaration awakened the thoughts of Frank Ewart, the earliest formulator of New Issue ideas. Ewart, an Australian, had served as a Baptist missionary in Victoria, but poor health forced him to settle in a pastorate near Winnipeg. Exposed to the Pentecostal revivals, Ewart fully accepted the Pentecostal message in Portland, Oregon in 1908. As he began to proclaim his new understanding of Spirit baptism and glossolalia to his congregation, his Baptist superiors dismissed him. Moving to Los Angeles, Ewart became William Durham's assistant at the Seventh Street Mission and assumed full responsibility for the work with Durham's death in 1912.⁹

When the "Worldwide" Pentecostal Camp Meeting ended, Ewart met with McAlister to discuss harmonizing the triune baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19 and the apostolic formula of Acts 2:38. Shortly after this meeting, Ewart left the Seventh Street Mission and established a new work on Main Street aided by McAlister and Glenn A. Cook. Throughout the winter of 1913-14, Ewart honored his ministerial associations, not baptizing in "Jesus name," but all the while wrestling with his conscience and studying the divine name in both biblical testaments. Observing that the Old Testament designations for God were repeated concerning Jesus in the New Testament, Ewart "discovered that Jehovah of the Old Testament was Jesus of the New Testament." With this insight, he expounded the new baptismal formula based on a new doctrine of the name and nature of God. Asserting that "Jesus" was the proper and redemptive name of God, Ewart argued that baptism must be administered in "Jesus name." The application of Old Testament monotheism to the person of Jesus and the subsequent denial of the Trinitarian conception of God—both implicit in Ewart's "theology of the Name"—followed from his new understanding of the divine name and baptism.¹⁰ Ultimately, Ewart preached his first "public sermon" calling for baptism in "Jesus name" on April 15, 1914. Realizing their own need for rebaptism, Ewart and Cook publicly baptized one another in "Jesus name."

Equipped with Ewart's new theology, the "Jesus name" movement spread throughout the Midwest in late 1914 and early 1915. Ewart's periodical, “Meat In Due Season”, which offered glorious testimonials to the "greater blessings" received with the "new light" message, greatly influenced this advance. Glenn Cook's evangelistic tour in January 1915 reaped many crops sown by Ewart's periodical. His initial success occurred at Mother Mary Barnes' Faith Home in St. Louis, where the entire staff was rebaptized.¹¹ With this foothold, Cook pioneered revivals in Indiana, Oklahoma, and several southern states.

The new movement made particularly important strides among black Pentecostals in Indianapolis, Indiana. Here, L. V. Roberts and his entire congregation submitted to rebaptism after hearing Cook. G. T. Haywood and his congregation followed this example, with Haywood receiving a "personal revelation" after a visit to Cook's home. J. Roswell Flower, the young General Secretary of the Assemblies of God, sent a letter warning his good friend Haywood to avoid this new error. Haywood replied, "Your warning came too late. I have already accepted the message and been rebaptized."¹² Many black pastors emulated Haywood's shift, bringing a substantial portion of Midwestern black Pentecostalism into the new movement. Haywood's periodical, “A Voice in the Wilderness”, soon replaced “Meat In Due Season” as the most widely read New Issue publication.¹³

By spring 1915, the "Jesus name" movement saturated American "Finished Work" Pentecostalism. The efforts of R. E. McAlister and Franklin Small made inroads into Canada. Louisiana became the stronghold of the New Issue when all the Assemblies of God ministers shifted to the new position.¹⁴ Many key Pentecostal leaders likewise converted to the "new light" message at this time: C. C. Hall, George B. Studd, Elmer K. Fisher, R. J. Scott, W. T. Witherspoon, Delmer White, E. G. Lowe, W. L. Stallowes, and Harry Morse.¹⁵

Although not fully understood, the danger of the new doctrine became obvious to the leadership of the Assemblies of God, personified in Bell and Flower. As the new understanding of God and the demand for rebaptism persisted, the new movement leaned ever closer to an exclusive doctrine of baptismal regeneration. Seeking to prove the necessity of baptism in "Jesus name," the New Issue thinkers Haywood and Ewart first sought to prove the necessity of water baptism for salvation in contrast to the official Assemblies of God position. Appealing to Clarke's Commentary, which equated the "born of" of the New Birth passage (John 3:3-5) with the "baptized with/in" of Acts 2:38, the New Issue advocates linked the imperative of "birth by water," or water baptism, with the command to baptize in "Jesus name." Apparently as an afterthought, Spirit baptism (Acts 2:38) was also linked to the imperative of "birth by the Spirit" (John 3:5), equating for the first time the Pentecostal experience with conversion.¹⁶ This intricate reinterpretation of passages produced a well-defined "plan of salvation" based on Acts 2:38: repentance, water baptism administered in "Jesus name," and Spirit baptism evidenced by glossolalia. In the New Issue mentality, these three steps were essential to Christian salvation and those not participating in them were held as deficient and not truly saved. (Thus, the semantic differentiation between "salvation" and "full salvation.") Glenn Cook's description of "Jesus name" baptism as the "water test" of sincerity and truth summed up the sectarian quality of the New Issue.¹⁷

As the dispute became volatile, Bell and Flower began defending the triune formula in the pages of “Word and Witness” and the “Weekly Evangel.” From March to July 1915, the call to moderation and orthodoxy emerged as the official Assemblies of God position.¹⁸ These articles attacked "Jesus name" baptism as novel, rather than as a return to apostolic practice. Bell and Flower likewise rejected the unbiblical practice of rebaptism and sought to discredit the claims of mass conversion to the New Issue. Arguing that the New Issue interpretation of ecclesiastical history was at best imaginative, Bell contended that the early church recognized a variety of baptismal formulas and that to act "in the name of Christ" was merely to act with his authority or in his stead. Above all, these articles isolated the real issue as the divisiveness of a doctrine of baptismal regeneration and the growing sectarianism of the New Issue advocates.¹⁹ These articles provided the ammunition for the future Assemblies of God attacks on New Issue doctrine. But within the next few months, the hierarchy of the fledgling organization splintered and threatened the much lauded unity of the body. Most surprisingly, Bell, the orthodox defender, defected to the New Issue party in late July 1915.

Dismaying his colleagues, Bell submitted to rebaptism in "Jesus name" at the Third Interstate Encampment of the Assemblies of God in Jackson, Tennessee. With Bell and H. G. Rogers officiating, the first services of the meeting were uninspired and the converts few. New Issue believers in attendance vocally decried Bell's rejection of the new message as the reason for this failure. Sorely troubled, Bell confided his doubts to Rogers and they sent for L. V. Roberts, a New Issue evangelist, to conduct the remainder of the meeting.

Startling success followed Roberts' sermons. Convinced by the results, Bell and Rogers submitted to rebaptism in the apostolic formula with sixty-eight others following their example, including eleven area pastors. The news of Bell's rebaptism brought a curious crowd of four thousand to the final service of the meeting.²⁰ The swelling crowds only served to confirm Bell's experience and sent him boldly defending the position he had once attacked.

Bell spent the remainder of the summer fulfilling previous ministerial obligations. In each instance, he met with area pastors, discussed their differences, and sought permission to preach his new understanding. This new approach met little grassroots opposition. Not surprisingly, Bell avoided the Assemblies of God headquarters and the showdown with his fellow officials that was sure to follow. Bell's editorial duties fell to Flower.

By late August 1915, the news of Bell's defection filtered throughout the new body and prompted much confusion and hostility. In defense, Bell submitted an explanatory article—entitled "Who Is Jesus Christ?: Jesus Christ, Rediscovered as Jehovah of the Old Testament"—to both the “Weekly Evangel” and “Word and Witness.”²¹ But Flower rejected this offensive title substituting the less volatile word "exalted" in the subtitle and omitting Bell's testimony to rebaptism. New Issue advocates hastily charged that Flower "mutilated" the article.²²

Actually Bell's article was rather tame by later New Issue standards, but Bell played a key role in sensitizing the Assemblies' leadership to the full scope of the debate. Following the usual pattern of comparing Old and New Testament texts, Bell also appealed to Colossians 2:9, "For in him [Christ] dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Interpreting this passage quantitatively, Bell understood Christ as the embodiment of the entire Trinity rather than merely the incarnate Son and, thus, formed a middle ground in the debate which properly "exalted Jesus," but did not deny classical Trinitarianism.

"Who Is Jesus Christ?" brought accolades from New Issue advocates, but intensified hostilities among the Assemblies of God leaders. Bell tried to defuse the situation with further articles in which he argued that he sought neither to cause division nor to force any issue of controversy in the body.²³ He also contended that his experience was not to serve as a standard for others and urged that his example be followed only if conscience demanded. Most significantly, the moderate Bell denounced the "errors" associated with the New Issue: the identification of the New Birth and water baptism and the equating of Spirit baptism and conversion. Bell's unique stance in the New Issue became clear in these articles: although the discussion of the divine name had led him to a new understanding of the person of Christ, he did not promote the sectarian spirit of the movement.

Despite Bell's moderation, the Assemblies' leadership felt the need for quick action to preserve the unity of the organization. Usurping leadership over the lackluster interim chairman, Arch P. Collins, Flower alerted the Executive Presbyters and arranged for a General Council in October 1915.²⁴ Many of the movement's founders had been swept into the New Issue (including Bell, Howard Goss, and D. C. O. Opperman), leaving the remainder, led by Flower and J. W. Welch, to respond to the new threat. The power politics and secret arrangements of the following year insured the ascendancy of this group and the dominating positions of Flower and Welch in the future of the Assemblies of God.

Labeled an "experiment in liberality,"²⁵ the 1915 General Council convened October 1. Welch and Flower controlled the meeting in the absence of General Chairman Collins and Assistant Chairman Opperman. Flower called the meeting to order and arranged for the selection of Welch as temporary chairman.²⁶ Together, Flower and Welch pushed for an exclusive doctrinal statement to define the boundaries of fellowship with New Issue doctrines and adherents, of course, outside orthodox circles.

Despite several days of debate and the machinations of Flower and Welch, the Council reached no final word regarding baptismal formula. Succinctly, the Council refused "to attempt to bind the conscience of men on this matter." Ministers retained "perfect liberty to baptize such persons whose consciences are not satisfied that they have fully obeyed God in Christian baptism."²⁷ Carl Brumback records, "The general conviction prevailed that all should wait patiently for another year, allowing time for prayerful study of the Word, before reaching a definite conclusion."²⁸

Despite this hopeful optimism, the "experiment in liberality" was flawed. The "spirit of Hot Springs" began to crack with the Council's listing of doctrines disapproved by the majority. Of the five listed, the final four directly addressed the New Issue.

1. The use of fermented wine in the communion service.

2. The failure to distinguish between the blood and the Holy Spirit.

3. The confusion of the New Birth with the baptism or filling with the Spirit.

4. The identification of the Father as the Son.

5. The identification of Christ as the Holy Spirit.²⁹

Also New Issue ministers received no committee appointments. Welch officially replaced Bell as editor. Orthodox ministers replaced New Issue sympathizers—Bell, Opperman, Goss, and B. F. Lawrence—on the Executive Presbytery. The peace of the 1915 General Council more resembled an "armed truce."³⁰

New Issue advocates took this new tolerance as license to propagate their message with greater fervor. Their renewed aggressiveness and increasingly sectarian claims thwarted the proposed "experiment in liberality" and moved the Assemblies' leaders to eliminate the problem altogether. Dominated by Welch and Flower, the “Weekly Evangel” and “Word and Witness” officially followed the Council's policy of moderation³¹, but actually spoke the strongest against the New Issue.³² This policy evoked a dire warning from Glenn Cook to Flower: "Roswell, if you fight against this Oneness message, the whole printing plant will be a pile of junk in six weeks."³³ Tensions mounted throughout the year with personalities clashing as often as beliefs. By summer 1916, schism was imminent. Welch's call for an "Open Bible Council" to decide the issue demonstrated the extent of the hostilities and the determination of the orthodox party to end the debate.

The time has come for the interpretation of what scriptural teaching and conduct is. The time of shaking and solidifying is here. The great shaking has begun and all that can be disturbed will be shaken into separation from that which is settled in God. This will not all be done in a few days of Council, but lines will doubtless be drawn.³⁴

The 1916 General Council, opening on October 2, erupted in a blaze of debate. The New Issue men boasted of a mass defection into their ranks, but the meeting rested firmly in Trinitarian hands. Flower engineered the appointment of a "wholly orthodox" committee, including T. K. Leonard, S. A. Jamieson, D. W. Kerr, S. H. Frodsham, and E. N. Bell, to prepare a doctrinal statement.³⁵ The proposed statement of faith was primarily the work of David Warren Kerr of Cleveland, Ohio, a shy, withdrawn minister originally of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. After a personal struggle with New Issue doctrine, Kerr prepared a lengthy defense of Trinitarianism, much of which was incorporated into the "Statement of Fundamental Truths."

When presented, this statement evoked more discussion of its creedal nature than its specifics. Recognizing that their unique understanding of God and demand for rebaptism stood little chance of Council approval, the New Issue advocates focused all their efforts to block any binding doctrinal statement and appealed to the promise of the Hot Springs Council to never disfellowship anyone accepting the basic Pentecostal message. The Trinitarians countered that the intent of the liberality of the Hot Springs Council was to prevent rather than promote sectarianism. The Hot Springs Council had called for the recognition of scriptural methods and for rules regulating "unity, fellowship, and work," but had also called for disapproval of all unscriptural methods and conduct—in this case, New Issue doctrine and practice.³⁶

When their attempt to block any statement of faith failed, the New Issue men, led most vocally by Haywood, Goss, Opperman, Roberts, Rogers, and Ewart, voted en bloc against every portion of the statement, even those portions with which they concurred. This stance evoked such hostility on the Council floor that the debate drifted into a less than gentlemanly scuffle. Deterred by the bitter words passed, the New Issue leaders recognized the futility of any further action and withdrew from the discussion.

The 1916 General Council adopted the "Statement of Fundamental Truths," of which roughly one-half addressed the New Issue error. Traditional Trinitarianism, expressed in Athanasian and Augustinian terms, predominated. Further instructions to the Credentials Committee insured against a resurgence of any unorthodox position. With this thorough repudiation, the New Issue ministers withdrew from the Assemblies of God, shrinking its ranks from 585 to 429 ministers. These homeless ministers passed from view briefly, only to reappear in new Oneness bodies as early as December 1916. Under the reins of Welch and Flower, the Assemblies of God, shaken by the New Issue, steered back to the course of orthodoxy and stability.

The New Issue controversy, with its doctrinal and organizational ramifications, began as an evangelical awakening of sincere minds, but soon swelled into a numerical and doctrinal threat to the status quo unity of the Assemblies of God. Nurtured by poor exegesis, misapplied literalism, and the lack of sufficient rebuttal, the New Issue shifted from an academic debate concerning the baptismal formula to a revolutionary application of monotheism to the person of Christ, and ultimately to a rigid, exclusive doctrine of salvation. This exclusiveness necessarily bred schism.

Formulated by Ewart and Haywood and later defended most prominently by Andrew Urshan, the Oneness doctrine of God and the Acts 2:38 "plan of salvation" pitted sectarian claims against the non-sectarian liberality of the Assemblies of God. Perhaps even more important than any theoretical leadership, the New Issue evangelists—such as Cook, Roberts, Goss, and Oliver F. Fauss—captivated the grassroots of the movement with their sincerity and powers of persuasion. The New Issue leaders also deftly handled the wavering position of Bell during the crucial year of conflict to the advantage of their cause. Nevertheless, the New Issue was destined for separation rather than success: its sectarian doctrines demanded it. The idealized anti-creedalism of the Assemblies withstood three years of threat before the New Issue forced the body to redefine itself in more realistic terms. In this, the New Issue provided a great service to the Assemblies of God by forcing a clarification of its beliefs, goals, and future direction.

_____________________

¹Assemblies of God, Minutes of the General Council, 1914, p. 4. (Typewritten.)

²Ibid.

³E. N. Bell, "There Is Safety in Counsel," Weekly Evangel, September 18, 1915, p. 1.

⁴Frank J. Ewart, The Phenomenon of Pentecost (Hazelwood, Mo.: World Aflame Press, 1947), p. 104. Three hundred sixty-four received the baptism of the Spirit here.

⁵Ibid., pp. 105-06.

⁶These statements had little effect on the meeting a whole. Miss Woodworth-Etter, notorious for exploiting any miracle, healing, or vision, failed to record this event. See her Signs and Wonders God Wrought in the Ministry of Forty Years (Chicago: Herald Press, 1916).

⁷Although the specific content of this "revelation" is unclear, Sheppe sided with the New Issue and became a minister in the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, an early Oneness body. See David A. Reed, "Origins and Developments of the Theology of Oneness Pentecostalism in the United States" (Ph.D. dissertation, Boston University, 1978), p. 99.

⁸Ethel E. Goss, The Winds of God (Hazelwood, Mo.: World Aflame Press, 1958), p. 155.

⁹For complete discussion, see Ewart, Phenomenon.

¹⁰This doctrinal development is best seen in Frank J. Ewart's Revelation of Jesus Christ (St. Louis: Pentecostal Publishing House, n.d.).

¹¹Particularly significant in that Missouri and Arkansas were Assemblies of God strongholds. See Carl Brumback, Suddenly From Heaven (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing House, 1961), p. 192.

¹²Paul Dugas, ed., The Life and Writings of Elder G. T. Haywood (Stockton, Ca.: Apostolic Press, 1968), p. 19.

¹³Robert M. Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 193.

¹⁴Brumback, Suddenly, 197.

¹⁵Ewart, Phenomenon, 117.

¹⁶See the comments on John 3:3-5 in Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 4 (New York: Funk and Wagnall's, n.d.). Compare G. T. Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit and the Mystery of the Godhead (Indianapolis: Christ Temple, n.d.), p. 5.

¹⁷Arthur L. Clanton, United We Stand: A History of Oneness Organizations (St. Louis: Pentecostal Publishing House, 1970), p. 5.

¹⁸See the following articles by E. N. Bell, "Baptized Once For All," Weekly Evangel, March 27, 1915, p. 1; "To Act in the Name of Another," Weekly Evangel, May 8, 1915, p. 1; "The Great Outlook," Weekly Evangel, May 29, 1915, p. 1; "The Sad New Issue," Weekly Evangel, June 5, 1915, p. 1; and "Scriptural Varieties in Baptismal Formula," Weekly Evangel, July 3, 1915, p. 1. See also these articles by J. R. Flower, "Editorial," Weekly Evangel, June 19, 1915, p. 1; "Preliminary Statement," Word and Witness, June 1915, p. 1; and "Mis-statement Corrected," Weekly Evangel, July 17, 1915, p. 2.

¹⁹A defense of Trinitarianism is notably absent from these articles. This does not mean that Oneness studies of the divine name had yet to equate the radical monotheism of Jehovah and the "absolute deity" of Jesus. Rather, this shows an incomplete understanding of the issue by Bell and Flower.

²⁰Brumback, Suddenly, 196.

²¹E. N. Bell, "Who Is Jesus Christ?: Jesus Christ, Exalted As Jehovah of the Old Testament," Weekly Evangel, August 14, 1915, p. 1 and Word and Witness, September, 1915, p. 1.

²²Note especially D. C. O. Opperman's comments in Clanton's United, p. 19.

²³Note especially E. N. Bell, "There is Safety in Counsel," Weekly Evangel, September 18, 1915, p. 1.

²⁴Brumback, Suddenly, p. 198.

²⁵This is David A. Reed's term. See his "Origins and Developments," p. 124.

²⁶Welch continued to sit as chairman throughout the Council despite Collins later appearance.

²⁷Assemblies of God, Minutes of the General Council, 1915 , p. 5. (Typewritten.)

²⁸Brumback, Suddenly, p. 201.

²⁹Assemblies of God, Minutes, 1915, p. 5.

³⁰Brumback, Suddenly, p. 202.

³¹See "Controversy Discouraged," Weekly Evangel, September 18, 1915, p. 2; "Controversy Discouraged," Word and Witness, October 1915, p. 4; and "Editorial," Weekly Evangel, October 30, 1915, p. 2.

³²See E. N. Bell, "Bro. Bell on the Trinity," Weekly Evangel, November 6, 1915, p. 1; M.M. Pinson, "What Think Ye of Christ?," Weekly Evangel, November 20, 1915, p. 3; "The Holy Ghost as a Person," Weekly Evangel, November 27, 1915, p. 2; and "The Mystery of God," Weekly Evangel, May 20, 1916, p. 1.

³³Brumback, Suddenly, p. 202.

³⁴J. W. Welch, "Editorial," Weekly Evangel, June 14, 1916, p. 1.

³⁵By this time, Bell had denounced the New Issue and reaffirmed [re-embraced] Trinitarianism. For a Oneness response, see Clanton, United, p. 21.

³⁶Assemblies of God, Minutes, 1914, p. 4.

Fading Pentecostal Revivals and Oneness Renewal

[This post presents the first chapter of my dissertation, The People of the Name: Oneness Pentecostalism in the United States (Florida State University, 1985) which focuses on the emergence of American classical Pentecostalism and the eventual appearance of apostolic Pentecostalism as a distinct voice within this tradition.]

Oneness Pentecostalism originated in a restorationist fervor during the waning years of the Pentecostal revivals as an attempt to recapture the vitality of the Azusa revival, to thwart the theologizing of the Pentecostal experience, and to reaffirm the eschatological zeal of the early Pentecostals. American Pentecostalism, above all, began as a millennarian movement. Along with the premillennialist Adventist, Holiness, and Keswick movements, the early Pentecostals expected the imminent, apocalyptic return of Jesus Christ to right the wrongs of a corrupt world and establish a new order under his reign. For them, history itself revealed a cataclysmic downhill plunge into chaos and collapse. Even the church world had largely succumbed to this trend by leaving behind the cherished values of nineteenth-century revivalism and accommodating itself to the modern secular world. But in the early twentieth century, the "closing days" of history, God was raising up a "remnant of the faithful" through whom he would restore the pristine faith of the early church and launch a worldwide revival. A great outpouring of the Holy Spirit—a "Latter Rain" in contrast to the "Early Rain" of the Holy Spirit recorded in the Acts of the Apostles—would precede the second coming of Christ.¹

The early Pentecostals expected and experienced unusual phenomena which paralleled the experience of the miraculous among the New Testament Christians. Of particular importance, glossolalia (speaking with tongues) and miracles of healing confirmed their end time scenario and intensified Pentecostal missionary efforts. Some Pentecostals even believed that glossolalia, the last great sign of God's end time action, would hasten world evangelism by miraculously overcoming language barriers on foreign fields. But as this hope failed to materialize, speaking with tongues came to be understood rather as "a divine encounter, a subjective experience of the Spirit, which no amount of objective evidence could annul." For the early Pentecostal, the experience of immediacy with the divine, the "being possessed" by the Holy Spirit, evidenced by tongue speaking, legitimated the experience of Spirit baptism as the great end time token.²

Robert Mapes Anderson points out that as Pentecostal urgency concerning the second coming of Christ dwindled, a shift in Pentecostal ideology occurred. Once the emphasis on an imminent apocalypse ceased to create "an immediate individual expectation," the movement drifted toward institutionalization with glossolalia moving to the central place in Pentecostal thought. "The former hope of immediate physical escape from [the] unhappy world through the Second Coming was replaced by the reality of immediate psychic escape through ecstasy." Belief in the second coming became formalized in doctrinal terms rather than in the "lively hope" of the believer. Glossolalia was no longer understood as an eschatological sign and a means for advancing the gospel, but became an "end in itself," the focal point of the Pentecostal message.³ From its inception, Oneness theology sought to reverse this trend by reemphasizing the eschatological quality of not only glossolalia, but also baptism in "Jesus name" and the "revelation" of the "oneness" of God. Likewise, Oneness thought resisted the strict categorization of the Pentecostal experience in Wesleyan or Reformed terms and sought to stress the experience itself over any explanation of the experience.

American Pentecostalism grew from roots in Topeka, Kansas and Galena, Texas to explode upon the national and international scenes with the 1906 revival at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles. Under the direction of Charles Fox Parham, a white Holiness preacher, a Pentecostal revival of ecstatic worship and glossolalia broke out at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas in January 1901. Referring to the Acts of the Apostles, Parham and his students identified tongue speaking as the "visible outward manifestation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit" and, therefore, normative within the Christian experience. The Bethel school quickly suspended all classes and became a full time revival center. Appealing to the Keswick doctrine of Spirit baptism as an empowering for Christian service, the majority of Bethel's students hastened into evangelistic efforts which forced Parham to close the school.

Traveling to Galena, Texas early in 1904, Parham conducted a three month "divine healing" campaign and boasted of several miracle cures. From this center, Pentecostalism spread in the tri-state region of Kansas, Missouri, and Texas. Parham then moved to Houston and formed a new Bible college. One of his students, William J. Seymour, a black minister who traveled to California and became the pastor of the Azusa Street Mission, soon replaced his teacher as the shaper and spokesman of American Pentecostalism.

The Azusa revival, which shocked the Los Angeles religious scene and reverberated throughout the nation, marked the peak of early Pentecostal success and began to gel the doctrines and practices of early Pentecostalism. From Houston, William Seymour moved to Los Angeles in 1905 to serve as associate pastor in the Santa Fe Mission, a Holiness congregation. Forced out of this position by his "offensive" Pentecostal message, Seymour began holding services in the homes of converts before settling his new congregation in a vacant frame warehouse on Azusa Street in the city's industrial section. This new Azusa Street Mission became the center of a worldwide Pentecostal revival. Throughout 1906 and 1907, day long services drew crowds too large to fit into the building. Pilgrims from America and abroad flocked to Azusa Street and returned home with messages of supernatural signs and end time revival.

The Azusa revival did much to crystallize the beliefs and practices of early Pentecostalism by uniting elements of American black "primitive" Christianity and the "old time religion" of rural whites—a union elaborated by Dr. James S. Tinney of Howard University.⁴ On the one hand, the rebellion of the blacks at Azusa against the social and religious customs of the rising black "middle class" by emphasizing a return to "original" biblical Christianity paralleled a return to a racial past. A widening class division within black churches had developed between those wishing to preserve elements of "slave religion" long practiced in the South and those who felt black religion should distance itself from its past and imitate the more ordered worship of the mainstream Protestant denominations. Black Methodist bodies largely succeeded in their efforts to abolish the remnants of "slave religion": emotional display, dreams and visions, emphasis on the activity of evil and good spirits, musical expressions derived from African melodies and chants, and the use of percussive instruments, especially the drum, in worship. But black Baptists were less successful and C. H. Mason's Church of God in Christ drew many into Pentecostalism. As a response to the harshness of Jim Crow legislation and increased violence against blacks, Azusa Pentecostalism, as well as other emotional religious expressions, offered a return to the "authenticity and simplicity of faith that had served [blacks] well in slavery and could be relied on to serve them in a growing racial crisis." This element of Azusa spirituality was African in its origin.⁵ On the other hand, Azusa also attracted many rural-agrarian whites associated with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement. These brought with them an experience of economic dislocation and an aversion to the changes of the urban-industrial world as well as the revival techniques and enthusiastic worship, the theological system, and the history of "come-outism" of the Holiness movement.⁶ The blending of these traditions—as well as their predictably repeated conflict—shaped the unique complexion of American Pentecostalism.

Azusa Street Pentecostalism spread most successfully in the Midwestern and southeastern states with the return of the curious and pilgrims to their homes. After traveling to Los Angeles in 1907 as a skeptic, William Durham returned to Chicago to revolutionize the ministry of North Street Mission and extend the message of Spirit baptism throughout the Midwest. Through his influence, many future Pentecostal leaders—including E. N. Bell, the first Chairman of the Assemblies of God, and A. H. Argue, the first to preach the new message in Canada—were converted. Through the efforts of two other Azusa converts, G. B. Cashwell and C. H. Mason, Pentecostalism also made deep inroads in the southeastern states. While conducting revival meetings throughout Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, Cashwell converted A. J. Tomlinson who in turn led the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) into Pentecostalism. Similarly, Mason, ministering in Memphis, Tennessee, led the Church of God in Christ—presently the largest black Pentecostal body with an estimated 3.7 million members—into Pentecostal ranks.⁷

Much of the advance of early Pentecostalism is attributable to its association with and absorption of most of the "Faith Healing" and Holiness movements. Incorporating the practices and rhetoric of these groups, Pentecostalism depleted their ranks and consolidated a variety of emotional, experiential religious expressions. The trans-denominational character of young Pentecostalism emphasized religious experience over doctrine or polity as it sought to revitalize rather than further divide American denominationalism. But this parachurch quality faded as Pentecostals recruited more among nominal Christians than among the unconverted. Targeting the working class, a group largely overlooked by the major Protestant denominations, the Pentecostals pursued an aggressive evangelistic policy, not waiting for recognition, approval, or invitation before launching their campaigns. Instructed by a century of revivalist evangelism, Pentecostals employed camp meetings and tent revivals as chief tools of outreach. A long list of tabloid periodicals, broadcasting sermons and testimonials of the Pentecostal experience and miraculous healings, trace the dramatic spread and growing isolation of American Pentecostalism.⁸

As Pentecostalism grew more isolated, opposition gave way to open hostility in denominational pulpits and secular newspapers. Pentecostal sympathizers were often removed from denominational leadership positions, and some Pentecostal leaders even suffered physical violence. Most of this opposition stemmed from the excesses of Pentecostal worship, especially frantic physical demonstrations and glossolalia. The exodus of denominational church members, predominantly Baptist, Methodist, and Holiness believers, into Pentecostal congregations also brought heated response. This response sharpened when Pentecostal evangelists, after establishing a congregation during a protracted meeting, would hastily move on to the next revival, leaving no one to pastor or instruct the congregation. Among some Pentecostals, attitudes of "spiritual superiority" were tainted by obvious moral inconsistency. Such extremes cried for rebuttal.

This opposition forced young Pentecostalism to tighten its otherwise diverse ranks. The legacy of Holiness "come-outism" encouraged withdrawal from mainline bodies and the development of independent Pentecostal congregations and organizations. But as Pentecostals consolidated themselves against opposition, discrepancies of beliefs and practices, not visible in the evangelical flexibility of the earliest revival, became readily apparent. Soon internal controversy threatened more than external opposition.

Leadership struggles first plagued infant Pentecostalism. Seeking to speak for the whole movement, leaders such as Seymour, Parham, Durham, and Tomlinson promoted a partisanship which hindered a unified Pentecostal effort. The entire question of organization unearthed strong attachments to the divergent systems of polity of the Pentecostals' former denominations. Many came to resist the notion of organization altogether, but Seymour's "Apostolic Faith" movement became the standard for early Pentecostal organization. Pentecostal leaders also debated the appropriateness of women clergy and the place of the rigorous ethical restrictions on dress, associations, and behavior brought into Pentecostalism through converts from the Holiness movement. Many of these matters divided the new movement along racial lines.⁹

Beyond organizational problems, doctrinal controversy divided the young movement into two distinct Pentecostal traditions. The "sanctification controversy" of 1908 arose from the various attempts to theologically explain the Pentecostal experience. Drawing from the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, some held sanctification as a "second work of grace"—an experience subsequent to conversion in which the believer becomes "entirely sanctified," that is, free from sinful inclinations. To these thinkers, the Pentecostal experience was received only after this cleansing experience. Others, leaning on the Keswick revivalism's explanation of Spirit baptism as an empowerment for Christian service, embraced a more Reformed understanding of sanctification as the outworking of the regeneration experience in the believer's life.¹⁰ Sanctification was, therefore, an inward work which altered man's nature and status with God—not as an independent crisis experience subsequent to salvation, but in the Christian life process. Heralded most prominently by William Durham, this "Finished Work of Calvary" position argued that no "second work" of cleansing stood between the experiences of conversion and Spirit baptism. The emerging Pentecostal denominations divided along these lines: the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), the Pentecostal Holiness Church, the various Apostolic Faith organizations, and the Church of God in Christ institutionalized the "Second Work" tradition, whereas the Assemblies of God and its offshoots enshrined the "Finished Work" tradition. It is also important to note that while Seymour, and his Apostolic Faith followers, adopted the categories of Wesleyan theology, he was never comfortable with the notion of the subsequence of Spirit baptism to salvation. Rather, Seymour described the experience of Spirit baptism as "possessing" or "anointing" with no mention of its relation to sanctification. For Seymour, and no doubt much of black Pentecostalism in general, Spirit baptism was to be experienced, not theologically examined.¹¹

Against this background of early revivalist flourishing, growing internal and external disruption, and moves toward institutional and theological stability and formality, Oneness, or Apostolic, Pentecostalism was born. Accordingly, Oneness development should be viewed as a "counter-reformation of the Azusa revival," a rejection of the attempts to define and harness the Pentecostal experience. Extending beyond even the "Finished Work" critique of the Wesleyan elaboration of the Pentecostal experience, Oneness thinkers refuted any notion of sequentialism in works of grace by denying that any work, whether justification or sanctification, stood between the believer's conversion and Spirit baptism. For the Oneness believer, Spirit baptism, along with water baptism in "Jesus name," was synonymous with conversion and the normal Christian state. Oneness thought freed the experience of Spirit baptism from Pentecostal theologizing and reaffirmed the immediacy of the experience itself—the most prominent feature of the Azusa revival.¹²

The rise of Oneness, or Apostolic, Pentecostalism must also be seen as a reaction against racism in the early movement. Domination of white leadership faded with the return to an Azusa-like interracial fellowship and the stabilizing ministry of the black G. T. Haywood.¹³ Similar to Azusa, Oneness beliefs and practices blended elements of black and white religious expression in the greater context of eschatological expectation. Black influences are seen in the Oneness emphasis on monotheism, belief in the Holy Spirit as a force rather than a person, the magical use of the name "Jesus," the primacy of the ritual of water baptism, and the role of subjective revelation. To these emphases, white Oneness believers added a mechanical theory of biblical inspiration, the acceptance of women clergy, and the adoption of dispensational eschatology.¹⁴ These elements combined under the aegis of renewed eschatological zeal for the "revelation" of the divine name "Jesus," the climactic event in God's end time restoration of the apostolic church and the divine token of the great revival soon to come. In the Oneness mind, the Azusa "Age of the Spirit" was replaced by the Apostolic "Age of the Name." The Oneness theology, although innovative in its doctrines of God and salvation, sought to retrieve the lost Azusa revival with its religious fervor and millennarian hopes.

____________________

¹Robert Mapes Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 79-81.

²Ibid., pp. 89-93.

³Ibid., pp. 96-97.

⁴James S. Tinney, "The Significance of Race in the Rise and Development of the Apostolic Pentecostal Movement," paper presented at the First Occasional Symposium on Aspects of the Oneness Pentecostal Movement, Harvard Divinity School, July 1984, pp. 55-70.

⁵Ibid, pp 55-56.

⁶Ibid., pp. 56-57.

⁷If this estimate is accurate, then the black Church of God in Christ challenges the Assemblies of God as the largest denomination within the classical Pentecostal movement.

⁸See John Thomas Nichol, The Pentecostals (Plainfield, N. J.: Logos Books, 1966), pp. 54-69. Nichol offers a survey of early Pentecostal evangelistic techniques and accomplishments.

⁹Tinney, "The Significance of Race," pp. 57-58.

¹⁰Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited, pp. 43-46. Anderson supplies the best presentation of the Keswick movement as a transition from the older Holiness to Pentecostal forms. Compare this with the position of Vinson Synan in his The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971).

¹¹Tinney, "The Significance of Race," pp. 57-58.

¹²Ibid.

¹³See James L. Tyson's Before I Sleep: A Narrative and Photographic Biography of Bishop Garfield Thomas Haywood (Indianapolis: Pentecostal Publications, 1976) for a full discussion of Haywood's life and contributions to the Apostolic movement.

¹⁴Tinney, "The Significance of Race," p. 58.

The People of the Name - Introduction

[In the next several posts, I will present several chapters from my dissertation, The People of the Name: Oneness Pentecostalism in the United States (Florida State University, 1985).  Each subsequent post will focus on the emergence of apostolic Pentecostalism as a distinct voice within American classical Pentecostalism.

NOTE: This presentation dates from the early 1980s and is limited to resources archived at this time. Since this time, many primary sources of early Pentecostal history have become available. Newer works on the rise and message of oneness Pentecostalism are strongly suggested, including David Reed’s In Jesus’ Name: The History and Beliefs of Oneness Pentecostals and Talmadge French’s Early Interracial Oneness Pentecostalism: G. T. Haywood and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World (1901-1931).

This work also focuses on the Frank Ewart - G. T. Haywood - W. T. Witherspoon school of oneness thought which holds all “3 steps” of Acts 2:38 – repentance, water baptism administered by immersion with the invocation of the name “Jesus,” and Spirit baptism evidenced by glossolalia – as necessary for the “new birth” or “full salvation.” This view was rivaled by a “2 step” view which holds the more traditional classical Pentecostal view that “new birth” occurs at repentance and Spirit baptism is “subsequent to and distinct from” the new birth. See Thomas Fudge’s Christianity Without the Cross: A History of Salvation in Oneness Pentecostalism for a full discussion of these competing doctrines of salvation.]

Introduction

Oneness, or Apostolic, Pentecostalism grew from factional controversy and restorationist zeal during the final years of the classical Pentecostal revivals into a "third force" in present American Pentecostalism. Current estimates mark Oneness Pentecostal growth at over three- quarters of a million, roughly one-fifth of the entire Pentecostal movement. These Pentecostals, with their unique doctrine of God's person and name, their continued emphasis on "holiness" codes of behavior and associations, and their theological and cooperative isolation, retain many of the qualities of classical Pentecostalism has lost in the more established Pentecostal denominations.

Oneness Pentecostalism, in both its contemporary and historic forms, represents a highly successful, albeit radical expression of American Pentecostalism which recaptures the intensity and millennarian zeal of the earliest Pentecostal revivals and transforms this enthusiasm into a fully developed ritual worship and belief system centered in the unique understanding and experience of the "oneness" of God in the person of Christ. This dissertation will investigate the life and development of Oneness Pentecostalism as a religious and social movement in both its historical and present forms by focusing on the internal dynamics of the movement. This work will examine the movement's institutional development from an early period of undifferentiated growth into a period of mature, diversified ministries and its religious "life expression" with the act of Pentecostal worship serving as the key to the religious "worldview" of contemporary Oneness believers.

Oneness Pentecostalism arose from the "New Issue" controversy in the Assemblies of God with a “rediscovery” of the centrality of the name and person of Jesus Christ in the life and practice of the church. But when this early academic debate concerning the baptismal formula led to a revolutionary application of Old Testament monotheism to the person of Jesus, a rigid, exclusive revision of the Pentecostal understanding of Christian salvation emerged. Such exclusiveness threatened the status quo unity of the young Assemblies of God, both doctrinally and numerically, and necessarily bred schism.

The Oneness doctrine of God and the Acts 2:38 "plan of salvation"—formulated by Frank J. Ewart and G. T. Haywood and later defended most prominently by Andrew Urshan—pitted sectarian claims against the non-sectarian liberality of the Assemblies of God. Perhaps more important than any theoretical leadership, the New Issue evangelists—such as Glenn Cook, L. V. Roberts, Howard Goss, and Oliver F. Fauss—captivated the grassroots of the movement with their sincerity and powers of persuasion. The New Issue was, nevertheless, destined for separation rather than success. The idealized anti-creedalism of the Assemblies withstood three years of threat before the New Issue forced the body to redefine itself in more realistic terms and exclude the Oneness adherents.

Emerging from the Assemblies of God, the Oneness Pentecostals embarked on a series of organizational struggles with the two largest white bodies, the Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ and the Pentecostal Church, Incorporated, merging to form the United Pentecostal Church in 1945. The Pentecostal Assemblies of the World organized most black Apostolics, although much of black Oneness Pentecostalism remains diffusely organized. Smaller bodies, with diverse doctrinal emphases and extremes, also proliferated.

Despite this development, Oneness Pentecostalism stands in theological isolation from the remainder of Pentecostalism and Protestantism. Buttressed by exclusive thinking and theological defensiveness, these Pentecostals remain largely anti-intellectual and anti-educational. This stance, along with entrenched sectarianism and the belief in sure eschatological vindication, has left Oneness Pentecostals to stand alone, without sound theological reflection or dialogue with other Christian groups.

Beyond this historical presentation, Oneness Pentecostal origins must be understood as a repudiation of moves toward institutional and theological stability in classical Pentecostalism. Accordingly, Oneness development should be viewed as a "counter-reformation of the Azusa revival," an attempt to recapture the early revival's vitality, to thwart the theologizing of the Pentecostal experience, to reaffirm the eschatological zeal of the early Pentecostals, and to revive interracial fellowship withinthe movement. In denying any religious experience subsequent to conversion—the standard explanation of Spirit baptism in both "Second Work" and "Finished Work" Pentecostal traditions—Oneness Pentecostals identified Spirit baptism, along with water baptism administered in the name of Jesus, with conversion. This freed the experience of Spirit baptism from Pentecostal theologizing and reaffirmed the immediacy of the experience itself—the most prominent feature of the Azusa revival. In this, and in their commitment to the "revelation" of the divine name "Jesus" as God's token of the great revival immediately prior to the end time, Oneness Pentecostals retrieved the lost fervor and millenarian hopes of the early Pentecostal revivals. In the Oneness mind, the Azusa "Age of the Spirit" was replaced by the Apostolic "Age of the Name."

The terms "Oneness" and "Apostolic Pentecostalism" describe a unique religious expression within American Pentecostalism which emphasizes a "oneness" doctrine of God and an "Acts 2:38 plan of salvation." "Pentecostalism" refers to the religious movement which arose from revivals in the first decade of the twentieth century in which glossolalia, speaking in tongues, came to be regarded as the evidence of the experience of Spirit baptism for the individual and a sure sign of the imminent return of Christ. All "classical Pentecostal" churches have roots in these revivals. The term "classical" differentiates this branch of Pentecostalism from the "neo-Pentecostal" or "Charismatic" movement which emerged in the 1960's with the appearance of the charismatic gifts (listed in I Corinthians 12-14), especially glossolalia, among Protestant and Catholic church members.

The term "oneness" refers, most specifically, to the innovative application of Old Testament monotheism to the person of Jesus and the resultant denial of the traditional notion of the Trinity. Similarly, the term "apostolic" here refers to the rite of water baptism administered in the name of Jesus as practiced by the apostles in the Acts of the Apostles (herein referred to as "Jesus name" [in quotations] baptism as commonly designated within the movement). Both of these terms are used as appellations for those Pentecostals who proclaim a three-step "plan of salvation" as recorded in Acts 2:38 which involves the requirements of repentance, water baptism in "Jesus name," and Spirit baptism evidenced by glossolalia. In a more general sense, "Oneness" applies to all such Pentecostals, while "Apostolic" usually refers to African American believers and practices. (The term "apostolic" [not capitalized] will be used in reference to the practices of the New Testament apostles, whereas "Apostolic" will refer to Oneness Pentecostals.)

Although Oneness Pentecostalism has been discussed in previous works, most of these are descriptive rather than analytical and have yielded rather limited results. The major general studies of Pentecostalism—represented best by Robert Anderson's Vision of the Disinherited, Walter Hollenweger's The Pentecostals, John Nichol's Pentecostalism, and Vinson Synan's The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States—all survey the rise of Oneness organizations in outline form, but contribute little beyond this. Several denominational histories, including Arthur Clanton's United We Stand, Fred Foster's Their Story: Twentieth Century Pentecostals, and Morris Golder's History of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, offer a more detailed, although biased, presentation of Oneness growth and thought. But these works fail to exhaust available primary materials and often demonstrate a lack of objectivity. The same might be said of the histories of the Assemblies of God—Carl Brumback's Suddenly From Heaven, Klaude Kendrick's The Promise Fulfilled, and William Menzies' Anointed To Serve—each of which offers a chapter on the New Issue controversy. Only James Richardson's thesis "Historical and Doctrinal Development of the Black Pentecostal-Apostolic Churches, 1900 to the Present" (Howard University, 1974) adequately analyzes the emergence and diffusion of black Apostolicism. No work has fully investigated the internal dynamics of the growth and thought of the movement as a whole.

Two dissertations have surveyed the theology of Oneness Pentecostalism. James David Kider's "Theology of the 'Jesus Only' Movement" (Dallas Theological Seminary, 1956), a work limited to secondary sources and lacking in necessary historical perspective, fails to understand and adequately present the Oneness mindset. A superior work by David Arthur Reed, "Origins and Developments of the Theology of Oneness Pentecostalism in the United States" (Boston University, 1978) examines Oneness thought against the background of European and American pietism—especially the "Jesus-centrism," or Christ-centered literature and worship, of nineteenth-century American revivalism. This work offers a systematic presentation of Oneness thought based on what Reed identifies as a "Jewish Christian theology of the Name." Presently, Reed's work stands as the single most important contribution to the study of Oneness Pentecostal theology. Nevertheless, a thorough historical and sociological evaluation of the movement has yet to appear.

Much of this study will necessarily deal with Pentecostalism in general, or perhaps better, Oneness Pentecostalism as an expression of the larger Pentecostal phenomenon. This is necessitated by the shared social composition and growth patterns of Oneness and other classical Pentecostal groups, the static quality of Oneness doctrine and practice which embraces more of the early Pentecostal ethos than the better established "mainline" Pentecostal groups, and the self-perception of Oneness believers who see themselves as the true heirs of the Azusa millennarian fervor, immediacy of Spirit baptism, and interracial union. The uniqueness of Oneness Pentecostalism must be investigated only after surveying its place in the larger Pentecostal community.

While no social phenomenon is self-explanatory, explanations for the growth and survival of a social movement—in this case, Oneness Pentecostalism—must be sought in the structure and dynamics of the movement itself as well as in external conditions leading to the movement's existence. More traditional approaches explain the appearance of the Pentecostal phenomenon in terms of economic deprivation, social disorganization, and even psychological maladjustment. Although these may have "facilitated" or "enabled" the emergence of Pentecostalism, such external factors are inadequate analytical tools if used without reference to the internal structure and processes of the movement. This study will embark upon such an internal analysis by employing the tools of social history and the methodology of "phenomenological" sociology. Gleaning from Peter Berger's notions of religion as "world construction" and "world maintenance" and Arthur Paris’ study of the religious "worldview" of black Pentecostals as well as more traditional primary source materials, this work will investigate not only the movement's institutions and leaders, but also its mind and values.

This dissertation will be developed in three sections. Section one will survey the rise of Oneness Pentecostal organizations and thought during the waning years of the classical Pentecostal revivals. Section two will trace Oneness institutional development through a period of undifferentiated growth in its earliest organizational efforts and revivalism to a period of more specialized and diverse ministries in the movement's maturity. Section three will discuss the unique ethos of Oneness life and practice as observed in contemporary worship forms.

Section one offers a historical overview of the emergence and maturing of Oneness thought from 1913 to 1916 which reveals a strong, self-conscious link between the extremes of the Oneness believers and the faded intensity of the Azusa revival of a decade past. Recapturing this early millennarian zeal in the restored "revelation" of the person and name of Jesus, the Oneness Pentecostals created a primitive alternative to the increasingly complex and stable Trinitarian Pentecostal bodies. Forced by their own exclusive claims and the diminishing tolerance of the Assemblies of God, the Oneness Pentecostals separated themselves from the mainstream of Pentecostalism and, in this isolation, developed and preserved the extremes of their early practices. The Oneness thought—always expressed in apologetic or polemic tones—which crystallized with the Oneness founders (Haywood, Ewart, and Urshan) continues to guide the contemporary movement.

Section two will employ the "undifferentiated growth"/"analytical proliferation" model of Pentecostal development—first applied in William Menzies' Anointed To Serve: The Story of the Assemblies of God—to investigate the dynamics of changing policies and structures in the history of the Oneness movement. The early years of Oneness expansion were lived in institutional isolation apart from the struggles of the mainline American churches. In this time of revival efforts, Oneness Pentecostalism grew in a rather undifferentiated pattern, showing only a limited ministry strategy or organization. But with the emergence and development of the major Oneness, or Apostolic, organizations, the movement witnessed the appearance of a clear-cut missions strategy, the specialization of organizational and administrative structures, the appearance of diversified service agencies, and the blooming of educational concerns. The formation of the Pentecostal Church, Incorporated in 1932 and the Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ in 1931 (and their later merger into the United Pentecostal Church in 1945) and the return of most black Apostolics to the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World in 1937 marked the beginning of this maturation process as the Oneness bodies sought to harness the energies of the movement in concerted efforts to meet the changing needs of their constituencies.

Section three discusses the contemporary Oneness Pentecostal movement as a social phenomenon by investigating the role of the Oneness "worldview" and worship forms in giving meaningful order to the life experiences of Oneness believers and, in turn, legitimating the larger Oneness social experience and order as the "correct" way of living in the world. The ethos of Oneness Pentecostal life and practice will be examined in four areas: the centrality of the divine "epiphany" in ritual worship, the theoretical framework which rises from the act of worship and in turn reshapes the content and interpretation of this act, the role of the Oneness community (congregation) as an inclusive, independent social world, and the crisis of the Oneness community in the larger context of American society.

Hot, Cold, and Lukewarm

And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write . . . “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot.  So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:14-16 NRSV)

The divine assessment of the works of the Laodicean Christians is a perfect example of the need to read the Scriptures again “for the first time.”

Sermon after sermon has tied the temperatures mentioned here to levels of Christian commitment. The logic is simple and consistent: God’s greatest desire is that Christians are hot – fiery, ablaze — in their commitment. If they are not hot, he had rather them be cold — without commitment and at least honest about. The worst spiritual condition is to be lukewarm — a partial, “sometimes,” incomplete, inconsistent commitment — that is neither hot with commitment or cold without commitment.

The only problem here is that this is not what the text says. Equating “hot” with good and “cold” with bad (but at least honest) is not at all point of the passage.

The angelic messenger condemns the works of the Laodicean church — the way they act, the way they practically live out their faith in the world. If read literally, either hot or cold works are desirable to God. Only lukewarm works are condemned.

This leads to a very different interpretation of the passage. The angel’s message offers a metaphor of usefulness. Hot water is useful — it cleanses, disinfects, soothes, heals, and drives out impurities. Cold water is useful — it quenches thirst, refreshes, and restores to strength. But lukewarm water is not useful — at least not when compared with the usefulness of hot or cold water.

The angelic pronouncement concerning the Laodicean works is a call to usefulness — let your works cleanse, purify, refresh, and restore and do not be satisfied with lukewarm works which make no useful difference in the world around you.

Randy Richards and Brandon O’Brien, in their Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, tell of visiting the ruins of ancient Laodicea. Across the Lycus River, just to the north, lies the twin city of Hieropolis, famous for its hot springs that even today attract thousands of visitors. Just to the east, up the river a bit, lies the ancient city of Colossae, known for its natural springs of cold refreshing water. Laodicea stood between these two water sources — one hot and one cold — but having no water source of its own. All water came to Laodicea via aqueduct and with its flow lost its temperature. Surrounded by hot water on one side and cold on the other, the water in Laodicea ran lukewarm.

Alluding to the water supply to the city, the messenger called the Laodicean Christians to useful works — either hot or cold — and away from useless, tepid, lukewarm works.