Jeff Oliver has taken on the ambitious task of chronicling the charismatic work of the Holy Spirit throughout church history. He has done this by writing a three volume book, Pentecost to the Present. He begins in volume one by writing about the activities of the Holy Spirit in the days of the apostolic church of the first century AD. By volume three his focus is the work of the Holy Spirit in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Because I am interested in the more recent history of the work of the Holy Spirit I began by reading volume three.

Volume three is divided into six sections: “Pentecost … Again (c. 1901-1910),” “The Pentecostal Movement (c. 1906-1945),” “The Healing Revival (c. 1946-1960),” “The Charismatic Renewal (c. 1951-1980),” “The Charismatic Explosion (c. 1971-2000),” and “Into the Twenty-First Century (2001 and Beyond).”

The majority of the first section “Pentecost … Again (c. 1901-1910)” focuses primarily on two people, Charles Parham and William Seymour, and one mission, the Azusa Street Mission. The text contains information about the events leading up to beginning of the Azusa Street Mission and some of the things that took place there. Two of the things mentioned about the mission were the flames of fire that appeared over the building and the healings that took place inside.

The second section “The Pentecostal Movement (c. 1906-1945)” deals with the spread of Pentecostalism after the Spirit fell at the Azusa Street Mission. Some of the countries that it spread to were Argentina, South Africa, and Russia. Prominent Pentecostal figures from this time period are also discussed: Smith Wigglesworth, F. F. Bosworth, and Aimee Semple McPherson.

The third section “The Healing Revival (c. 1945-1960)” focuses on the ministries of some of the key individuals who were used by God to bringing healing to many. William Branham, Oral Roberts Jack Coe, and A. A. Allen are mentioned in this section.

Section four “The Charismatic Renewal (c. 1951-1980)” deals with outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant churches. Some of the people God touched and used in a mighty way to spread the work of the Spirit in these churches are mentioned in this section: David Du Plessis, Harald Bredesen, Dennis Bennett, Oral Roberts, and Katherine Kuhlman. The parachurch ministry Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International, which was founded by Demos Shakarian, is also mentioned for its impact in spreading the Pentecostal message.

Section five “The Charismatic Explosion (c. 1971-2000)” includes information about a number of significant individuals and ministries that were active during this time period. In this section the author writes about the controversial Shepherding Movement, The Trinity Broadcasting Network, CBN, The 700 Club, the PTL Club, Pat Roberston, Jimmy Swaggart, the Word of Faith Movement, and the Prosperity Teaching among others.

Leah Payne speaks with PneumaReview.com about her book, Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism.

PneumaReview.com: For your book, Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism, why did you concentrate on the ministry of two revivalists?

Leah Payne, Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism: Making a Female Ministry in the Early Twentieth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), xii+223 pages.
From the Publisher’s page: This innovative volume provides an interdisciplinary, theoretically innovative answer to an enduring question for Pentecostal/charismatic Christianities: how do women lead churches? This study fills this lacuna by examining the leadership and legacy of two architects of the Pentecostal movement – Maria Woodworth-Etter and Aimee Semple McPherson.

Leah Payne: I wanted to explore how gender (as well as race and class) shaped Pentecostal Revivalism over time, so I chose revivalists who were powerful and influential representatives of the first two generations of the movement. Maria Woodworth-Etter is an example of how Pentecostal revivalism originated in holiness revival circles and then morphed into its own distinct set of practices and theologies. A generation later, Aimee Semple McPherson represented a shift in Pentecostal revivalism from its rural, tent-revival practices into the middleclass mainstream of American evangelicalism. Both revivalists toured extensively, wrote prolifically, pastored mega-churches, had many imitators, and used mass media to distribute their messages. Thus, they are ideal subjects to study the formation and reformation of the movement over the years.

PneumaReview.com: How would you introduce Maria Woodworth-Etter and Aimee Semple McPherson to someone who is not familiar with their stories?

Leah Payne: Good question!  Woodworth-Etter and McPherson were two of the most influential and innovative revivalist ministers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Like a lot of powerful revivalists, they were famous for their preaching and infamous for their ministry careers and personal lives. Like a lot of celebrity pastors, they had sex and money scandals. What makes them especially interesting to me is that they created and maintained authority as celebrity ministers in an era when the categories of “woman” and “minister” were perceived to be discreet. How they negotiated those two identities, how and why Pentecostals accepted them, and how their careers shaped the movement is the focus of Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism.

PneumaReview.com: Others often refer to your two primary subjects as Sister Etter and Sister Aimee. Has it been a conscious decision to refer to these pioneers as Woodworth-Etter and McPherson instead?

Leah Payne: Most people (including many historians) refer to Woodworth-Etter and McPherson by their “churchy” names like Mother Etter or Sister McPherson. For example, Edith Blumhofer’s excellent biography of Aimee Semple McPherson, Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody’s Sister does this in part to demonstrate the warmth and feelings of intimacy that McPherson evoked from her followers. I choose to refer to them the way academics & theologians typically refer to important thinkers/activists: by their last name. I do this because I want to give them credit for being architects of Pentecostal theology and practice. I want these women to be talked about alongside other important Pentecostal-Charismatic theologians and practitioners like Whitefield, Wesley, etc. Referring to them in this way is my way of recognizing their accomplishments.

In this Fall 2007 conversation with a reader, Executive Editor Raul Mock, asked some questions of a recent subscriber.

Image: Samuel Zeller.

What you have been studying lately?

Lately, I have been studying church planting and church growth strategies.  I been studying Pentecostal & Charismatic history in the last two-thousand years, Revivals through history especially modern ones (Shearer Schoolhouse, Welsh, Topeka, Azusa Street, etc.).  Also, I am doing an expository study of the Sermon on Mount.

What topics or conversations have inspired you or irked you recently?

I have been inspired recently of sudden re-interest in the Azusa Street Revival. I have been interested in Azusa for years and it’s nice to see it getting so much attention lately. I have been irked by conversations about Pentecostals & Charismatics are becoming institutionalized. I have been irked by secular news stories about Pentecostals & Charismatics and about some of our fallen leaders.

If you could sit down with a group of theologians and Bible teachers, what questions would you want to ask?

Where are we going as a movement? If we are going in a wrong direction, how do we get back on the right path. If we are going in the right direction, how do we maintain? I know the obvious answer is to trust and obey the Lord through the power of the Holy Ghost, and live a Spirit-filled life, keeping that in perspective what can we do as individuals, as churches, and as denominations.

Thanks for your time.

God bless you in Jesus’ name,

Pastor Ben

Elmer Towns and Douglas Porter, The Ten Greatest Revivals Ever: From Pentecost to the Present (Destiny Image Publishers, 2000), 231 pages.

I like history and I like revival history most of all. For this reason, I found this book enjoyable. It is an easy-to-read presentation of ten revivals that the authors selected as the greatest to have occurred since the Church began. The revivals were put in the order of importance based upon the opinions of 17 of the best-known preachers in the world.

The greatest revival is cited as the 1904 revival that began in Wales, touched Korea and Manchuria, and ended at Azuza Street. If you are a Pentecostal, you will not be content with the scope accorded the greatest revival for you will not read it culminating in 600,000,000 full gospel adherents across the globe. Indeed, to my viewpoint, the book suffers from its lack of a Pentecostal perspective.

Putting aside my preference, Towns and Porter list the first Great Awakening from 1727 to 1750 with Zinzendorf, Wesley, Whitefield, and Edwards as the second greatest revival. The third greatest was the post independence revival from 1780 to Cane Ridge in the early 1800’s. Then we go to Finney and the Hawaiian Revival lead by Titus Coan in the first half of the 19^th century. The book also cites the Layman’s pre-civil war prayer revival, the Second World War revival, the Jesus people/baby boomers of the 1960’s and 70’s, the pre-reformation Lollards and Savronarola, the 16^th Century reformation and the original revival of Acts 2 called Pentecost.

Dr. Elmer Towns is a college and seminary professor and an author of popular and scholarly works. He co-founded Liberty University with Jerry Falwell in 1971.

I found much new material in the book, including little told stories of people and places that added to my overall knowledge of this fascinating subject. I also found the insights of the authors to be provoking and valuable. My own treatment of the history of revival starting in 1300 AD is a continuum of a loving God calling people who for some reason were compelled to initially seek or to offer to others His blessing into periods of visitation that changed much of the community forever and builds ever more upon what has passed.

Treating revivals as unrelated and uncommon incidents as this book does, in my view, takes away from the purposes of God in his never ending efforts to bring man to salvation. Revivals are wonderful periods in the life of believers. They also are demanding and exhausting periods and—as with any move of God—bring all sorts of controversy and scorn to the fore for discussion and absorption. Revivals mean lack of sleep, time for everyday things and all sorts of consequences.

May the Lord revive us all again and again.

Reviewed by H. Murray Hohns

Read an excerpt from Elmer Towns’ website: http://elmertowns.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/10_Greatest_Revivals_EverETowns.pdf