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Pentecostalism from soup to nuts: A (near) complete history of this movement in America

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Pentecostalism from soup to nuts: A (near) complete history of this movement in America

In early January, The Conversation, an academically oriented website affiliated with Religion News Service, ran an explainer with this headline: “What is Pentecostal Christianity?”

That’s a big, complicated question. While I appreciated the article’s emphasis on how Pentecostals are a little-noticed component in American Christianity, it was very much a Cliffs Notes version of a complex, 123-year-old movement. And it didn’t even mention the Charismatic Renewal movement, a massive spiritual shift in the 1960s that brought millions of mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics into the wider Pentecostal fold.

Pentecostalism has hit the news in recent years with revelations of the “Trump prophets,” but their rise has a long back story that few journalists understand. For many years, pentecostals have been seen as evangelicalism’s crazy sister and media coverage has hardly been incisive.

Thus, tmatt suggested that we post the following comprehensive look at the history of the movement here in the United States. I wrote this as a backgrounder for a meeting of religion reporters at the University of Maryland in 2000. I have updated it twice because the movement keeps on shifting. Some of this will sound very basic, but it’s important to know who the main players have been.

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Without a doubt, the portion of Christianity known as Pentecostalism was — by far — the fastest-growing movement of the 20th century, going from zero members on Jan. 1, 1901 to 644 million adherents worldwide now. It is the primary expression of Christianity in the Global South. It is the one form of Christianity to mount a serious challenge to the growth of Islam, mainly because of its appeal to the very poor and its reliance on the miraculous.

During my travels in places like India and Egypt years ago, I was told by religious leaders that the heavy hitters in evangelism in Hindu and Muslim contexts were the Pentecostals. When I was in Israel researching a piece on the country’s messianic Jews, my sources told me half of them, at least, were charismatic. The world’s largest churches in Korea and Nigeria are Pentecostal.


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News-media theater? Seattle Pacific University sues state attorney general in LGBTQ fracas

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News-media theater? Seattle Pacific University sues state attorney general in LGBTQ fracas

Well, at least the Seattle Times ran the piece atop A-1.

The topic: Leaders at Seattle Pacific University, an evangelical Christian campus, had sued Washington State Attorney Gen. Bob Ferguson, essentially for interfering with their religious rights.

Bob Ferguson, for those of you who don’t live in Washington state, is an attack dog for the legal and cultural left. This is the guy who went after the owner of Arlene’s Flowers, the florist shop in south-central Washington that faced years of litigation after the owner declined to arrange flowers for a gay friend’s wedding. Ferguson went after owner Barronelle Stutzman like she was the devil incarnate, suing her professionally and personally in a case that bounced back and forth between the Supreme Court and lower courts, finally getting settled late last year.

Sensing they were in his crosshairs, SPU decided to strike first. From the Seattle Times this past Saturday:

Seattle Pacific University has filed suit against state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, charging that his investigation into possible hiring discrimination against LGBTQ+ people violates the school’s constitutionally protected right to religious freedom.

“The attorney general is wielding state power to interfere with the
religious beliefs of a religious university, and a church, whose beliefs he disagrees with,” reads the 22-page complaint, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.

Ferguson fired back in a Friday statement that SPU’s lawsuit “demonstrates that the university believes it is above the law to such an extraordinary degree that it is shielded from answering basic questions from my office regarding the university’s compliance with state law.”

SPU has been in the news recently because of a large group of students who’ve been holding a sit-in on campus this past spring to protest the school’s refusal to hire actively gay faculty. The school’s policy is that employees must confine their sexual activity within heterosexual marriage, thus honoring the school’s doctrinal statement of identity.

In a militantly secular and pro-gay city like Seattle, that’s an open declaration of war. The fact that SPU is a private religious institution that should be allowed to defend its belief system never comes across in the articles I’ve been reading about this controversy.


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Seattle's de-policed CHAZ district is a religion-free zone, even in mainstream press

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While coverage of religion during the protests surrounding the death of George Floyd has revolved around the antics of President Donald Trump hoisting a Bible, there’s been no mention of it here in “occupied” Seattle.

Living in the suburbs as I do, I wondered if there is some faith-based news happening on Capitol Hill –- the part of the Emerald City that’s been taken over by protestors and devoid of police for more than a week. If so, journalists are not mentioning it. After scouring the pages of the Seattle Times and other publications, I only found one mention, by the Wall Street Journal’s religion reporter, of a group of chaplains on site.

So on Sunday afternoon, I decided to repair to what was known as CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) –- a six-block area -– to see for myself. (As of Sunday, the area is also known as CHOP for Capitol Hill Occupied Protest to signify these folks aren’t leaving the area any time soon. I’ll use the CHAZ moniker).

I’d hung back before, mainly because (1)I didn’t know if I’d be welcome as a white person; (2) The weather has been rainy for weeks here; and (3) I don’t know that area of town very well. Then #VisitSeattle ran this post on their Facebook page last Friday telling everyone to drop on by.

Contrary to what you may have seen in some news reports, Seattle is not under siege. We are healing. We are growing. We are coming together to learn from each other and support our neighbors. This is our community. And it's beautiful.

Then I saw a widely distributed video showing a white preacher getting beaten by a vicious crowd at CHAZ (shown below). The preacher was hoisting a sign and yelling “Sin is worse than death!” Yes, a mob congregated, flung themselves on him, forcibly kissed him (sexual assault anyone?) and stole his phone. I am not excusing his horrible treatment, but I wondered at the wisdom of this guy trying to use the #BlackLivesMatter space as a Gospel-preaching platform.

CHAZ is not a space for white folks to do street preaching at this point. The emotions are too raw. Why didn’t he team up with black Christian friends and have them preach instead of him? What he did was just stupid.

Yes, he had a First Amendment right to be there, but remember, dear readers, that the mayor has ceded this area to CHAZ, so forget about constitutional rights and police protection as well.


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Podcast: Stop and think. How will coronavirus affect nurseries, worship and last rites?

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At this point, it’s clear that the coronavirus story has moved past concerns about whether members of ancient Christian churches can catch the disease from wine in golden Communion chalices.

People will debate that issue for one simple reason — people have researched that issue for centuries and argued about the results. That story is the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to reporting on how religious congregations — past and present — have reacted during times of plague.

So read up on the “common cup” issue and then move on. Oh, and resist the temptation to spotlight the inevitable proclamation from the Rev. Pat Robertson. And there will be more to this story than Episcopal bishops turning a scheduled meeting into a “virtual” gathering.

That’s the message at the heart of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). And while many journalists tend to focus on Catholic churches — lots of people in sanctuaries that photograph well — I think that editors and producers need to consider how this crisis could impact highly independent Protestant megachurches and institutions linked to them. Mosques and synagogues will be affected.

Everyone will be effected. Reporters will need to focus on specific facts and broad trends.

While we were recording the podcast, I told host Todd Wilken that journalists may want to note that spring break is not that far away. In addition to sending legions of young people to jammed beaches and crazy watering holes, this is also a time when churches and colleges organize short-term mission trips to locations around the world. Sure enough, I saw this notice on Twitter a few hours later, from a campus in Arkansas:


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Muslim reporter helps the Seattle Times grasp the complexity of Ramadan in schools

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While zipping through the Seattle Times website for stories about religion, which are usually scarce, what should appear but a piece about how local schools are adapting to students who observe Ramadan while playing sports and attending graduation ceremonies.

The article showed an insider knowledge of local Muslims, a group most reporters would not have access to. It's pretty obvious when you are dealing with a reporter who is getting the details and facts right.

Investigating further, I saw one of the writers, Dahlia Bazzazz, is not only Muslim herself, but her family was from Iraq. She was born in Oregon, grew up close to my alma mater (Lewis & Clark College in Portland) and was editor-in-chief of the Daily Emerald, the student newspaper for the University of Oregon.

More recently, she’s been covering the education beat for the Seattle Times, which is how she came to write this:

As Renton High School seniors walked across the graduation stage on Wednesday, fellow graduate Sawda Mohamed stayed home with her family.

The 18-year-old had purchased her cap and gown, but earlier in the school year decided to skip the ceremony. Despite her mother’s protest, Mohamed described her choice as a fitting end to years of frustration she experienced in a school system she felt had little respect for her Muslim faith.

“Honestly, because everything I’ve dealt with in the past, just let it be,” Mohamed said earlier this week. “I bought the cap and gown for memories of the hard work and everything I accomplished, but it’s just not worth it at this point.”

This year, the most stressful time of the school year coincided with the holiest time for Mohamed: Ramadan, when Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset for a month in order to focus on spiritual growth, family and charity.


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Another faith angle with a Detroit Tigers pitcher: Free Press nails how Matthew Boyd raised his game

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Apparently, I'm not the only journalist interested in the faith of Detroit Tigers pitchers.

To refresh those who haven't committed all my baseball stories to memory: A few years ago, I interviewed Tigers pitcher Daniel Norris about his baptism in his uniform as a high school player.

Just a few weeks ago, I interviewed a different Tigers pitcher — Michael Fulmer — about the role of faith in his approach to baseball and life, including his offseason job as a part-time plumber.

And now — thanks to my friend Ron Hadfield, one of the world's most devoted Detroit fans — I have come across a feature about the faith of yet another Tigers pitcher: Matthew Boyd.

The recent Detroit Free Press story notes that Boyd has "raised his game."

How'd he do it?

Let's check out the subhead:

Family, faith, fatherhood have helped take Matthew Boyd to a new level over his eight starts for the Detroit Tigers this season

Alrighty. That sounds like a religion story.

Often, we at GetReligion complain about holy ghosts in sports stories. But in this case, give the Free Press credit for its willingness to focus on that angle.

The paper even quotes Boyd's pastor up high:


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For Amazon HQ: 'No gay, no way' cuts out those troublesome Bible Belt cities

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Living east of Seattle as I do, I don’t ordinarily hang out near the Amazon headquarters 17 miles away. Then I was recently deputized to do a freelance story on Amazon’s new cashless grocery store.

The story, which ran 11 days ago in the Washington Post, brought me face-to-face with lines of Amazon employees, the new downtown botanical garden space in huge glass orbs known as the “Amazon spheres” (see my photo with this article) and the company’s search for another city in which to expand.

Many Seattleites are kind of glad that Amazon may have a footprint elsewhere, as its well-paid employees have helped send housing prices soaring 53 percent here in the past four years. At first we all thought Amazon was just looking at cities with lots of available real estate, lots of skilled workers, good tax deals, etc.

But then USA Today came out with a list of supposedly homophobic cities that Amazon should avoid.

Who knew that Amazon’s second headquarters had to be in a blue state?  USA Today tells us why:

SAN FRANCISCO — Gay-rights advocates plan a "No Gay? No Way!" campaign Thursday to pressure Amazon to avoid building its second headquarters in a state that does not protect its residents from discrimination for their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Of the 20 cities on Amazon’s list of finalists, nine are in states with no anti-gay-discrimination laws, according to the campaign. They are Austin; Dallas; Nashville; Atlanta; Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis; Miami; Raleigh, N.C.; and the Washington suburbs of Northern Virginia.

Let’s see now, what do Austin, Dallas, Nashville, Atlanta and Raleigh have in common?

These are Bible Belt cities.


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Unitarian parking slots vs. the homeless makes for quirky story in The Seattle Times

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Just over a week ago, I was complaining about how the massive Seattle Times project on homelessness was not spotlighting the religious element.

I spoke too soon. On Wednesday, a delicious story appeared with a cast of unusual players.

The villains are local Unitarians who are more obsessed with how the local trees are faring than the poor at their door. Everyone involved is all eco-conscious blue-state folks, but in the end, the bottom dollar is the bottom dollar.

Headlined “When do churches stop caring about people more than SUVs?” the story dishes out irony in buckets.

When University Unitarian Church leaders asked their congregation for thoughts on its $17 million renovation of their almost 60-year-old church in Ravenna, the response was mostly typical of a liberal Seattle church.
Will it have all-gender bathrooms? Could it be solar-powered, with electric-car charging stations? Is the new sanctuary ceiling too high, contributing to a corporate, rather than spiritual, feeling during worship?
Only one of the UUs -- a casual term for Unitarian Universalists, whose roots began in Christianity but count many agnostic and atheist churchgoers among their numbers -- asked about a cluster of three cottages on the property, which house 10 formerly homeless people. What would happen to them?
Preserving the houses and bringing them up to code would cost an additional million. Instead, the church will tear them down -- and replace them with 17 parking spots.

The reporter then interviews Brendi London, a resident who suffers from depression and PTSD, who will be displaced by the remodel, then a mental health specialist who tries to find housing for the poor in the city’s skyrocketing housing market. 


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Seattle Times and Associated Press focus on West Coast homeless, but with little faith factor

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Twice in recent months I’ve had neighbors over to dinner in my small rented condo in a Seattle suburb. And the topic that we all talked about non-stop? The impossible cost of housing in this area (a typical home costs $735K; condos average $378K) and the armies of growing homeless people around the Pacific Northwest.

I was in Oregon about two weeks ago and noticed the large amounts of people camping out on the streets overnight, as Portland’s homeless problem is as invasive as Seattle’s. Cities up and down the entire West Coast are in agony over this, as the sheer numbers of people on the street are outstripping local governments' ability to deal with them. The spending in King County (which embraces Seattle) alone is $195 million in dealing with a problem that’s not getting any better and which is documented in this city site.

In a series of Seattle Times stories that are part of the paper's Project Homeless, a two-year concentration on the problem that kicked off earlier this month, I’m finding an odd split personality. You see, the photos show religious content (that is, church groups helping the homeless), but the reporting in the main news stories does not. What's up with that?

Photos by Alan Berner show a man praying at the Catholic-run St. Martin de Porres shelter in south Seattle: a memorial to homeless in St. Martin’s chapel and bunkmates at the Union Gospel Mission’s shelter near Pioneer Square. But I couldn't find mention of what these places do other than be available.

The Associated Press has jumped onto the issue, stating that the entire West Coast is overwhelmed.

That struggle is not Seattle’s alone. A homeless crisis of unprecedented proportions is rocking the West Coast, and its victims are being left behind by the very things that mark the region’s success: soaring housing costs, rock-bottom vacancy rates and a roaring economy that waits for no one. All along the coast, elected officials are scrambling for solutions.
“I’ve got economically zero unemployment in my city, and I’ve got thousands of homeless people that actually are working and just can’t afford housing,” said Seattle City Councilman Mike O’Brien. “There’s nowhere for these folks to move to. Every time we open up a new place, it fills up.”


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