If you were to ask newspaper editors, "What is the biggest religious story of the last century?" you would probably hear about growing religious diversity in America and in the Western world. You might hear about the rise of militant Islam. Some newspaper editors might point to the historic changes in the Catholic Church as a result of Vatican II. And some editors might even single out the defeat of atheism with the fall of worldwide communism.
But no religious story in the last century is bigger than the growth of the Pentecostal/Charismatic, or what we in the Vineyard call the "Empowered Evangelical" wing of the Christian church. The growth of Holy Spirit-empowered Christianity, with people experiencing the Acts 2-like "filling of the Holy Spirit," and practicing 1 Cor. 12 spiritual gifts, is by far the most significant religious story of the past century.
The story began at a little Bible college in Topeka, Kansas with a 31-year old woman who was seeking more of God. The woman's name was Agnes Ozman who attended Charles Parham's Bible school in Topeka. Charles Parham was a Holiness preacher who taught that the Spirit of God was going to be poured out in these last days, to bring about a worldwide revival before Jesus' return. According to Parham, the way the revival would come would be that the Holy Spirit would give the gift of speaking in other languages. This would create instant missionaries. In other words, Charles Parham taught that the gift of tongues that we read about in the Bible was a gift that would instantly give individuals the capacity to speak Mandarin Chinese or Hindi, or Arabic, or New York. And with this miraculous ability to speak in languages that people hadn't learned, folks would become instant missionaries.
During the Christmas break, a few students decided to fast and to seek God for the filling of the Spirit. One of those students was Agnes Ozman. In the providence of God, as the 20th century began, God gave Agnes Ozman, a 31 year old single woman, who simply wanted to be used by God more and felt called to be a missionary, the gift of tongues. While people all over the world were celebrating the new century, at exactly 12:01 a.m. January 1, 1901 Agnes Ozman was filled with the Holy Spirit and received the biblical gift of tongues - not a known foreign language like Chinese or Japanese or Hindi, but a prayer language that assisted her to pray better, worship more fervently, and connect more intimately with God.
The news about this phenomenon spread like wildfire throughout the Bible College and many other students also received the gift of tongues. They then went to churches around Kansas and other people began experiencing the Holy Spirit in a new and fresh way accompanied by tongues-speaking.
Parham took this message of the coming of the Spirit and the gift of tongues down to Texas and started a little Bible College where he taught the doctrine of the Holy Spirit's filling accompanied by speaking in other tongues. Unfortunately, Charles Parham was also a terrible racist. An African American named William Seymour wanted to attend Parham's school, but Parham often made him sit outside the window and listen to the lectures from outside the building.
Seymour left that Texas school and headed out to Los Angeles. In 1906, during Easter week, he experienced the spiritual breakthrough he was seeking. The day after Palm Sunday several people who William Seymour ministered to experienced the Spirit's filling accompanied by speaking in tongues. His little group grew. They needed a larger facility to hold the growing crowds. And so an old 2-story building at 312 Azusa Street was procured. His congregation was mostly poor blacks and poor whites. They put together a little pulpit made of two wooden crates in the center of the room with a prayer altar in front. Redwood planks laid across nail kegs and old boxes formed the pews. The upstairs part of the room was called "the upper room" where people went to pray silently and wait for the Spirit's coming.
People from virtually every segment of society - whites, blacks, men, women, the poor, the rich, urban, rural, Americans and internationals - came to the old building on Azusa Street to meetings continuously held three times a day for three years. Women, in particular, were empowered by the Spirit and went out from Azusa Street as evangelists, Bible preachers, and missionaries.
The Azusa Street revival under the leadership of William Seymour gave birth to modern Pentecostalism and modern Pentecostal churches such as the Assembly of God Church, and the Pentecostal Holiness Church.
But the tongues-speaking phenomenon associated with the Spirit's filling remained quarantined within poor Pentecostal churches that met in tents on the fringes of town and in inner city storefront churches. Then in April 1959 Dennis Bennett, the rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California told his very wealthy, suburban parishioners that he spoke in tongues. This was not received as good news. Bennett spoke of his experience at each of the three morning services. After the second service, his associate resigned and after a hastily called board meeting, Bennett was asked to resign. He tendered his resignation at the morning's third service.
Dennis Bennett's admission in front of a large Episcopal Church that he spoke in tongues sent a shockwave across the country. His story was reported in Time Magazine, in Newsweek and in various local newspapers around America. It stunned the church-world and created an interest in Pentecostal phenomenon in mainstream churches, especially the Episcopal Church, the Lutheran Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. These churches experienced a charismatic renewal in the 1960's. During that decade there were also many independent charismatic churches which were birthed alongside of the Jesus Movement in the late 1960's.
But there was still a portion of the church which remained untouched by this 20th century move of the Holy Spirit - the conservative evangelical wing of the church. In 1982, the Holy Spirit breached the wall through, among other people - John Wimber, who was teaching a class at Fuller Seminary's School of World Missions. I have been told that there are only two famous seminary courses in the history of seminaries - theologian Karl Barth's famous course on dogmatics taught in Basel, Switzerland and John Wimber's MC510 "The Miraculous and Church Growth" taught at Fuller Seminary. John brought the message of the power of the Spirit to conservative evangelicals across America and around the world.
John just didn't talk about the Holy Spirit; for him, the Holy Spirit wasn't just a doctrine. John expected the Holy Spirit to actually come and do things in the class-things like healings and deliverances.
Right now there are about 600 million Christians around the world who not only have trusted in Christ as their Lord and Savior and believe in the Bible as their final authority for faith and practice, but who also believe in and practice to some degree the gifts of the Holy Spirit and have experienced the Holy Spirit's filling.
In fact, by the year 2020 about 1 out of every 7 people in the entire world will be a charismatic Christian. The vast majority of them live in Asia, in South America, in Africa, and in China. The Holy Spirit-empowered wing of the church is the greatest religious story of the past century!
NOTE: During the Lenten season I will teach a series on the Holy Spirit titled "40 Days of Experiencing the Spirit." We will have special Holy Spirit training seminars during this series including:
Holy Spirit Empowerment Nights - February 24 and March 23rd at 7:30 p.m.
Holy Spirit Experience - February 25, March 17, and March 31 at 8:30 a.m.; March 4 at 2:00 p.m.; and March 26 at 7:00 p.m.
Healing 1 - March 10 at 9:00 a.m. and April 2-3 at 7:00 p.m.