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The modern Pentecostal movement is characterized by the belief in the possibility of receiving the same experience and gifts as did the first Christians ‘on the day of Pentecost’ (Acts 1:1-4).
Its adherents emphasize the corporate element in worship (often marked by great spontaneity) and lay special stress on the practice of the gifts listen in 1 Cor. and recorded in Acts (e.g. speaking in tongues or ‘glossolalia’, prophecy, healing, and exorcism).
Most of them claim that the ‘power’ to exercise these gifts is given initially in an experience known as ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit,’ normally regarded as distinct from conversion and from sacramental (or water) baptism, and the movement came to be distinguished by the claim (first made in 1900) that ‘Spirit baptism’ is normally signified by the recipient’s breaking into tongues.
[…]Since c. 1960 the Pentecostal movement has come to be widely represented not only by the ‘classical Pentecostal Churches, but also within the main Christian denominations, incl. since c. 1967 the [Roman Catholic] Church.
– Source: Pentecostalism, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press, New York, 1989. page. 1062.– Article continues after this advertisement –
Pentecostal: Persons, churches, movements, etc., affirming the belief that speaking in tongues is the primary or exclusive initial evidence of the spiritual blessing known as the baptism in the Holy Spirit; or, those in historical continuity with and general agreement with the twentieth-century movement characterized by this initial-evidence doctrine. These persons, churches, and movements are generally part of institutions and denominations that originated out of the original Pentecostal movement in the early 1900s.
– Source: Definition from: “A Biblical Guide To Orthodoxy And Heresy Part One: The Case For Doctrinal Discernment” (an article from the Christian Research Journal, Summer 1990, page 28) by Robert M. Bowman.
Articles
- How Pentecostalism went global Joshua Keating, Foreign Policy, March 26, 2013. Largely summarizes the thoughts of Allan Heaton Anderson, author of the book “To the Ends of the Earth: Pentecolstalism and the Transformation of World Christianity,” which traces the history of the movement’s rapid growth and influence of other denominations.
One major theme of the book is that as Pentecostal movements around the world take on local characteristics and merge with other churches, the movement becomes much harder to define.
- The Origins of the Pentecostal Movement by Vinson Synan, Ph.D.
Books
- Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements by Stanley M. Burgess (Editor), Gary B. McGee (Editor), Patrick H. Alexander. Avoids apologetics and polemical approaches, and focuses mostly on North America.
- Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity by Allan Heaton Anderson, a former Pentecostal minister, and currently Professor of Global Pentecostal Studies at the University of Birmingham.
- To the Ends of the Earth: Pentecostalism and the Transformation of World Christianity [Paperback] [Kindle] by Allan Heaton Anderson
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Related topic(s): Pentecostalism
First published (or major update) on Wednesday, December 20, 2006.
Last updated on December 24, 2013. Original content is © Copyright Apologetics Index. All Rights Reserved. For usage guidelines see link at the bottom.
