New Order of the Latter Rain: A New Perspective, by John R. Miller

Identify Representative Characters

George Hawtin

George Hawtin is the point man for the NOLR in both its origin and controversy. A decade previous to the NOLR outpouring, he helped found a Bible school with the PAOC. His leadership was characterized as maverick. Undoubtedly, this served as a constant source of conflict with the PAOC leadership. After being pressured to resign from the leadership of the Bible school, Hawtin, his co-laborers, and most of the student body relocated at a recently de-commissioned (post WWII) Canadian Air Force base in Battleford, Saskatchewan. Through their earnest seeking of God and their obedience to the urgings of the Holy Spirit, the revival outpouring and aforementioned signs began to emerge. It is noteworthy, that although Hawtin was the point man, he quickly receded, and several others moved forward.

George Hawtin was given a letter of invitation from the AG Archivist to write a brief account of the NOLR from his personal perspective, which he readily answered.¹⁰ He recalled that it began on the morning of February 13, 1948 and that he had perfect recollection of the events. Hawtin wrote with the tone and habit of a long-time preacher, who cannot help but formulate his thoughts in a sermonic format. He insisted that, even as all good things come from God, so also is this NOLR movement from God and was in the mind of God from the foundation of the world. He recollected that the “reproach and envy”¹¹ stemmed from the jealousy of General Executive office of the PAOC and AG, thereby causing him to be dismissed from his previous position. Setting aside this ecclesiastical dynamic, Hawtin proceeded to narrate the events of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He began by telling about the prophetic calling and instruction, progressed through the school semester with the telling of repeated disruption of normal class schedules, and continued in his narration about invitations to minister in Minnesota and Vancouver, as the news of this outpouring spread. It is to this Vancouver meeting that Myrtle Beall traveled to, from Detroit, Michigan, to receive her special anointing and encounter with the Holy Spirit.

In the midst of this account, Hawtin digressed for a few paragraphs to allude to the Manifest Sons doctrine, which came to the forefront later―as it was not yet clearly articulated in the revival. Here he stated that it was for this purpose that they experienced the persecution and expulsion from the denominations―that God desired to “get the sons out” of the “bondage of the denominations.”¹² The teaching on the Manifest Sons has become the lightning rod for the condemnation of the NOLR movement, even though this doctrine eventually died away. In contrast to this, one can easily recognize the fruits of the oft-ignored aspect of the NOLR, which is the heart of the Charismatic Renewal―missions, evangelism, worship, and various forms of charismata.

Tags: Azusa Street Mission, Bethesda Missionary Tabernacle, Carlton Spencer, Elim Bible Institute, George Hawtin, Ivan Q. Spencer, John Miller, latter rain, manifest sons, Myrtle Beall, New Order of the Latter Rain, NOLR, Pentecostal Fellowship of North America, PFNA, Stanley Frodsham

Category: Church History, Fall 2013, Pneuma Review