- Feb 5, 2002
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Fr. Dwight Longenecker
Growing up in an Evangelical Protestant environment in the USA in the 1970s, my first encounter with the charismatic movement was the television evangelists who yelled and sweated and promised healing if only their viewers would place the affected part of their body on the TV set and send the preacher twenty dollars. It was not a promising start.
Later on I learned about classic Pentecostal churches where the faithful would speak in tongues and be ‘slain in the Spirit’ – passing out when the preacher laid hands on them or just tapped them on the forehead. I also learned about the snake handlers in Appalachia who (in literal obedience to Mark 16:18) would go into a trance and pass live rattlesnakes around the congregation. Things were now in the ‘ugly’ category.
Later on I met some Anglicans and Catholics from the charismatic movement who evidenced authentic holiness, a genuine prayer life and Christ-like charity – so there was the good as well as the bad and the ugly.
The American Pentecostal movement got its start in 1906 when William J. Seymour – a one-eyed son of former slaves – started a church in a derelict stable on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. Services at the makeshift church on Azusa Street ran non-stop for years. There was no formal liturgy, preaching or choir. Instead there was spontaneous singing, prophecy, personal testimonies, prayer, speaking in tongues (glossolalia), interpretation, healing and falling under the power of the Spirit. People reported deep joy, heavenly singing and miracles.
Over the next fifty years the movement exploded as visitors to the Azusa Street church from around the world received the ‘gifts of the Holy Spirit’ and took them home and shared them. New denominations like the Church of God in Christ and the Assemblies of God were established. Bible schools and missionary training academies started up and by the 1950s travelling evangelists had caught the fire and were conducting huge campaigns with the ‘gifts of the Spirit’ – prophecy, healing, glossolalia and trances – on display.
Continued below.
Growing up in an Evangelical Protestant environment in the USA in the 1970s, my first encounter with the charismatic movement was the television evangelists who yelled and sweated and promised healing if only their viewers would place the affected part of their body on the TV set and send the preacher twenty dollars. It was not a promising start.
Later on I learned about classic Pentecostal churches where the faithful would speak in tongues and be ‘slain in the Spirit’ – passing out when the preacher laid hands on them or just tapped them on the forehead. I also learned about the snake handlers in Appalachia who (in literal obedience to Mark 16:18) would go into a trance and pass live rattlesnakes around the congregation. Things were now in the ‘ugly’ category.
Later on I met some Anglicans and Catholics from the charismatic movement who evidenced authentic holiness, a genuine prayer life and Christ-like charity – so there was the good as well as the bad and the ugly.
The American Pentecostal movement got its start in 1906 when William J. Seymour – a one-eyed son of former slaves – started a church in a derelict stable on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. Services at the makeshift church on Azusa Street ran non-stop for years. There was no formal liturgy, preaching or choir. Instead there was spontaneous singing, prophecy, personal testimonies, prayer, speaking in tongues (glossolalia), interpretation, healing and falling under the power of the Spirit. People reported deep joy, heavenly singing and miracles.
Over the next fifty years the movement exploded as visitors to the Azusa Street church from around the world received the ‘gifts of the Holy Spirit’ and took them home and shared them. New denominations like the Church of God in Christ and the Assemblies of God were established. Bible schools and missionary training academies started up and by the 1950s travelling evangelists had caught the fire and were conducting huge campaigns with the ‘gifts of the Spirit’ – prophecy, healing, glossolalia and trances – on display.
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... just kidding ... er, maybe). I'd think about going more often but the particular church is a long way from where I live, plus I would have to drive in peak hour traffic on a Friday night.
