Pentecostalism grew out of the Holiness movement, and thus drank deeply from the populist movements in Methodism and Baptist and African-American circles. Charles Fox Parham (1873–1929), is usually credited with the beginnings of the movement. He was born in Muscatine, IA, and claimed a revelation of light at age 13. Parham associated with Methodism, but rejected their hierarchy, and moved toward holiness theology. He broke with Methodism in 1895 and established his own ministry, Bethel Bible College, in October 1900. He emphasized “primitive Christianity.” 

An easy error for a historian to commit is to equate or link events or movements in history that are similar, while ignoring or underplaying their differences. One example of this is when historians of worship note that modern negative reactions to contemporary pop-rock worship contain similar objections to ones leveled against the hymns of Luther, and later, Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts. Without question, there are similarities. What a lazy historian fails to notice is when the differences are greater than the similarities.
That can be said about the roots of Pentecostal worship, found in the populist religious mood that swept America in the late 1780s, through to the 19th century. Yes, there are many parallels to earlier reactions against ossified liturgical forms that sparked more colloquial and lay-driven worship (e.g., some Waldensians and Lollards, some Anabaptists, the Moravians). But there are differences to previous reformations of worship that far outweigh the similarities. When we examine those differences, we will find that the seedbed from which Pentecostalism grew in the 1900s was actually a considerable departure from prior worship reformers such as Luther, Wesley and Watts.
Nathan Hatch detects four waves of populist folk religious music in America from 1780 to 1830. The first was among Separatist Baptists in rural New England. Some of the early hymnals of these Baptists maintained continuity with the hymns of Watts and others, but a flood of hymnbooks published by Elias Smith between 1804 and 1820 contained no overlap with the accepted hymnals of the day. Original and catchy lyrics linked to popular folk tunes became the new tradition of rural New England Baptists.
The second wave of populist worship was Methodist revivalism. The Wesleys had taught the importance of the participation of all people, but had also insisted that hymns maintain dignity and reverence. But Methodism in America during the early 1800s went in a new direction. It included spontaneous song, shouting, jumping and seeking a rousing emotional response to the singing. These songs were the beginnings of the “gospel song”: simple, easily remembered lyrics, verses written in rhyming pairs with a chorus or refrain. Gospel songs were songs of testimony, marching songs of solidarity, humorous ballads, even appeals to repentance.
Read More
Related Posts:

The Bible is very clear that the elderly are due respect.  “You shall rise up before the gray-headed and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God; I am the Lord” (Lev. 19:32). Respect for aged parents is the way we give respect to God himself.  It’s probably more telling than worship on Sunday mornings.  Jesus, even on the cross, remembered how important it was for someone to take care of his mother after his death (John 19:26-27).  Your parents gave their lives to raise you, and they deserve respect for that. They deserve honor and not denigration.

No, this is not about politics; it’s about growing old.  Thanks to Joe Biden the image of the elderly in this country has taken a major hit.  Old people have become the target of abrasive comedians and callous television pundits. The elderly are now funny people, and even sometimes hilarious. They do silly things. That’s the persona of old people. They are entertaining at best and a nuisance at worst.  They are people to be tolerated, viewed as buffoons, and avoided as much as possible.
With aging comes a loss of memory, the inability to speak fluidly, and a dangerous gait in moving from place to place—and yes, there is much more that can’t be mentioned.  We cannot do what we used to do, and it’s difficult to admit it. Sometimes we do indeed embarrass ourselves.
My wife and I have had the privilege (and yes it was a privilege) of caring for an aging parent when the parent was unable to take care of herself. It was much more demanding than raising three children and sending them off to college. The physical exigencies were sometimes overwhelming, and it took a mental toll that at times put us on the edge of despair.  Sometimes we were tempted to be angry with God, but our faith kept us from doing that. When you bring an elderly parent into your home needing constant care, everything changes, especially when they are still mobile and yet unable to take care of themselves.
Thank God that on occasion there is a little humor that can be found in it all. I remember my mother who had dementia enjoying a visit from my son with his new fiancé. This was her first time being introduced to the family.  Since his fiancé resembled my daughter, Mom said to my son, with some embarrassment to us all, “So, you married your sister, did you!”  Then, later on that same day, as my son’s fiancé was introduced to my wife’s mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease, my wife’s mother pointed to the picture of a child mounted on the wall of her living room, and boasted to my son’s fiancé how proud she was that this was my son’s child, that is, the child of her soon-to-be-husband.  After explaining everything to her, she married my son anyway.
The Bible is very clear that the elderly are due respect.  “You shall rise up before the gray-headed and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God; I am the Lord” (Lev. 19:32). Respect for aged parents is the way we give respect to God himself.  It’s probably more telling than worship on Sunday mornings.  Jesus, even on the cross, remembered how important it was for someone to take care of his mother after his death (John 19:26-27).  Your parents gave their lives to raise you, and they deserve respect for that. They deserve honor and not denigration.
Now, on the other hand, as people do grow old, they need to realize their limitations.  I think most of us can see decline in ourselves.  It’s a wise old man who knows when to quit. Decline often comes slowly but we can see and feel it.
However, our pride sometimes prevents us from recognizing this fact.  We want to do things we did when we were young, but we should know better.  When we are unwilling to change with our age, then it is not pleasing to God and it’s not fair to others.  It can be humiliating.  It’s a little like taking Grandma to the beach and she still thinks she can wear a bikini, or like Grandpa who still thinks he can still jump over a four-foot fence.
When old people refuse to admit the limitations of their age they disappoint us.  They can become angry and dangerous.  So can we!  I remember when it was time to take my mother’s car keys away from her.  Everywhere she drove in the car she always came home with dents in the car (which she covered with duct-tape). She was a danger to others on the road and we children had to recognize that. She was furious with us.
Now the problem with Joe Biden, regardless of his politics, is that he is too old to be President of the United States.  He has become an embarrassment.   He is not up to the job. He is dangerous.
When some large corporations require retirement of management at 55 years of age, what does this say about the man in the White House?  What is needed is humility on the part of the man himself to step aside.  But it appears that he does not have either the wisdom or the humility to do what is needed.  Therefore, rather than hiding his shortcomings from the public, as a loving family would do, he is paraded around as an oddity out of a circus.
Too, he is now the prototype for old people.  Rather than honoring old people as the Bible demands, we (I’m including myself) are now the butt of humor as just silly old people. Sometimes we can laugh at ourselves along with others who are laughing at us, and sometimes we can’t.
It’s time for Biden to step aside, not only for his own sake, but for the sake of our country.  And not only for the sake of the country, but for sake of the image of old people in this nation.  Being old is now a joke thanks to Joe Biden.  It should not be that way.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
Related Posts:

Bridge explains there is a world of difference between the genuine peace enjoyed by the Christian and the false peace counterfeited in the heart of the wicked. “True saving peace,” wrote Bridge, “is the child of grace, and the mother of grace… True saving peace, is such a peace as is wrought by faith. “Being justified by faith, we have peace,” Rom. xv. “The Lord give you peace in believing,” says the apostle.” Most importantly, Bridge explains that: True saving peace, will live in the sight of sin.

Jesus most assuredly promised a great peace to his children with the words, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). However, it is no secret that though Jesus promised peace to his saints, yet Christians are often afflicted by great trials of disquietness, discontentment, and discouragement. Rather than quietness and stillness, the soul feels it is engaged in a most ferocious conflict. While many congregations sing Horatio Spafford’s hymn, It is Well with My Soul, and with loud voices like the tumultuous roar of rushing waters, joyfully shout the words,

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
“It is well, it is well with my soul.”

Yet, many of those voices singing have no true peace. They do not feel like they have peace within themselves, with others, or with the Lord Himself. What is the Christian to do when, instead of his inward frame of spirit shouting, “It is well with my soul!” he instead dejectedly laments, “I am downcast and disquieted”?
William Bridge, as a good physician of the soul, pinpoints some of the problems that contribute to this lack of peace and despondency in his work of collected sermons, A Lifting Up for the Downcast (preached at Stepney, A.D. 1648). In the first sermon of this work, he examines the lack of peace that is often encountered in the hearts of even the most seasoned of Christians by examining Psalm 42:11. In this Psalm, King David laments his own sad countenance and disposition, brought about by various outward afflictions, and asks the question: “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”
Bridge takes this verse and carefully dissects it, noting a multitude of ways that peace may be lost, reasons why a Christian may lack peace, and various remedies that may, like a healing balm, be applied to the weary saint.

Christians may, for a time, lose their sense of additional peace with God, but will never lose their fundamental peace with God.

As Bridge considers the various losses of peace that a Christian may experience, he is careful to instruct his readers that the Christian who has been justified by the blood of Christ, through faith in Jesus, according to the grace of God, will never lose their fundamental peace with the Lord. That is to say, Christians enjoy a most “Fundamental peace, which does naturally arise and flow from their justification: ‘Being justified by faith, we have peace with God,’ Rom. v. And then there is an additional peace, which arises from the sense of justification.” In other words, the one who has been justified in the sight of God is truly at peace with the Lord. Whereas before God was angry with him because of his sins, and ready to unloose the arrow of just wrath He had aimed against him as a sinner, now, through faith in Jesus, he has been justified and God’s wrath has been exhausted. God has not merely lowered the arrow to only raise it again at a later date; He has both lowered and broken the arrow, never again to raise it against the one who has been justified in Christ. There is genuine forgiveness and eternal reconciliation between the repentant sinner and God. This is the foundational peace that every Christian now enjoys.
Read More

Related Posts: