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Introduction

Pentecostalism

New Testament Church of God, Harehills, Leeds ©

According to research published in December 2006, Pentecostals are the fastest-growing grouping of Christians in the UK. The research was based on an analysis of the English Church Census, carried out by the charity Christian Enquiry and was funded by the Economical and Social Research Council.

Pentecostalism is a course of Christianity that emphasises the work of the Holy Spirit and the direct experience of the presence of God by the believer.

Pentecostals believe that organized religion must be powerfully experiential, and not something found but through ritual or thinking.

Pentecostalism is energetic and dynamic. Its members believe they are driven by the power of God moving within them.

Pentecostal churches stress the importance of conversions that amount to a Baptism in the Spirit. This fills the laic with the Holy Spirit, which gives the laic the forcefulness to alive a truly Christian life.

The directly experience of God is revealed by gifts of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues, prophecy and healing.

Pentecostalism is based on a key outcome in the life of the early Christians: the baptism of the twelve disciples past the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

Inspire Church building, Sydney ©

Nearly Pentecostals think that their movement is returning Christianity to a pure and uncomplicated form of Christianity that has much in mutual with the very earliest stage in the life of the Christian church building.

Denominations and a movement

Pentecostalism is not a church building in itself, only a movement that includes many different churches. Information technology is as well a move of renewal or revival within other denominations.

Information technology's non always easy to see if a church building is Pentecostal considering many Pentecostal denominations don't include the give-and-take 'Pentecostal' in their name.

In the West, Pentecostalism is stiff in the Black churches and the American and Australian 'mega-churches' such equally Hillsong Church building. I of the globe'south largest churches - the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea, where up to 250,000 people nourish each Dominicus - is a Pentecostal church.

Bible-based

Although Pentecostalism is often said to be rooted in experience rather than theology, Pentecostals base their theology on the text of the Bible which they believe to exist the give-and-take of God and totally without mistake.

The twenty-four hour period of Pentecost

Pentecostalism gets its name from the twenty-four hour period of Pentecost, when, co-ordinate to the Bible, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus' disciples, leading them to speak in many languages as testify that they had been baptised in the Spirit. Pentecostals believe that this was not a 1-off event, but something that can and does happen every day.

Growing strongly

There are just under ane million Pentecostals in the United kingdom, and over 20 meg in the U.s.. (March 2006)

During the last three decades of the twentieth century Pentecostalism grew very strongly and there are now over 250 million Pentecostals around the world, who make upwards more than ten% of all Christians. (Some writers suggest the number is more like 500 million.)

Pentecostalism is peculiarly strong in the developing world where it poses a serious challenge to other, more established, denominations.

Pentecost in scripture

The story of Pentecost

Fire imagery is often used to represent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost ©

The story of Pentecost is told in the Bible, in the Volume of Acts of the Apostles chapter 2.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

Suddenly a audio like the blowing of a violent air current came from sky and filled the whole firm where they were sitting.

They saw what seemed to exist tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Acts 2:1-four

And so Peter stood upward with the Xi, raised his vocalization and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you lot who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.

"These men are non boozer, as you suppose. It'due south but nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

'In the concluding days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men volition meet visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
I will bear witness wonders in the heaven higher up
and signs on the globe below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The dominicus volition be turned to darkness
and the moon to claret
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls on the proper name of the Lord will be saved.'

Acts 2:fourteen-21

Peter was quoting this prophecy in the Old Testament Book of Joel, which he claimed was being fulfilled at Pentecost:

And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your sometime men will dream dreams,
your young men volition meet visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

Joel 2:28-29

Behavior and baptisms

Pentecostal beliefs

Crawley New Life Church, W Sussex ©

Most Pentecostals have all mainstream Christian behavior. (The exception is the Oneness movement, which does not accept the Trinity.)

Pentecostal churches are highly diverse, which makes information technology difficult to provide a definitive list of Pentecostal ideas. Nonetheless, this section covers a range of ideas and customs that are common to many Pentecostal churches.

Are Pentecostals fundamentalists?

Pentecostal churches aren't 'fundamentalist', although they're sometimes described as such.

Pentecostals share with Christian fundamentalists their acceptance of the status of the Bible as the inerrant word of God, but they as well accept (which fundamentalists practice not) the importance of the believer'due south straight feel of God through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Sanctification

A person is sanctified when their life is dedicated to God and they are separated from their past sinful life. When a person is sanctified, they are born over again to Christ through the Holy Spirit and turn away from the bad behaviours and thoughts of their erstwhile life.

The word holiness is also used by some churches for this concept. Whatever the discussion, information technology is something that is essential to living a Christian life:

Brand every try to alive in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no 1 volition see the Lord.

Hebrews 12:14

Some Pentecostals teach that believers must experience a once-for-all spiritual upshot which leads them to "consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" Romans 6: 10-one. The work of sanctification is carried out by the Holy Spirit.

Other churches teach that believers continue to abound closer to God in a continual process of sanctification, which helps them to alive a Christian life.

While some Pentecostals believe that sanctification is a necessary precondition for a person to be baptised in the Spirit, others believe that baptism in the Spirit is available to anyone who sincerely gives their life to Christ.

This distinction may be lost on non-specialists and it may be simpler just to say that Pentecostals believe that human beings must accept come up to salvation in Christ before they can receive the baptism of the Spirit.

Water Baptism

Pentecostal churches follow scripture in practising baptism by immersion. For Pentecostals water baptism is an outward symbol of a conversion that has already occurred. Information technology is the conversion that is essential; the water baptism is an additional element.

Infant baptism is non practised in Pentecostal churches.

Crawley New Life Church, West Sussex ©

Child Dedication

Pentecostal churches do not baptise infants. They regard water baptism as an outward expression of an internal work of grace following an individual'southward choice to follow Christ. Young children are not able to brand such a option because they do not recognise their need for salvation.

Instead, infants in Pentecostal churches are dedicated to God and blest. This remembers the Bible stories of young children being brought to Jesus to exist blessed.

Some Pentecostal churches believe that near children tin can be prepare for h2o baptism between the ages of seven and 10, and that parents or pastors are able to decide whether a particular child is able to understand the significance of water baptism past discussing it with them.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is the central event of Pentecostalism. The proper name of the movement commemorates the get-go baptism in the Spirit, of Jesus' disciples on the solar day of Pentecost.

Baptism in the Spirit is not a conversion experience; a person must already accept been converted before they can receive baptism in the Spirit.

Pentecostals believe that baptism in the Spirit is an essential function of conservancy. Traditionally this is a 2nd baptism that follows conventional water baptism, although some passages of scripture reverse this sequence.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is an experience in which the believer gives control of themselves to the Holy Spirit (although not in a fashion in which they lose their ain identity and autonomy). Through the feel they come to know Christ in a more intimate way and are energised with the ability to witness and grow spiritually.

Spirit baptism is believed to be an activeness of God'due south grace, only one that is available only to people who put themselves forwards to receive it:

Grace makes Spirit Baptism possible but people must seek the experience or information technology will non happen.

Clark H.Pinnock, Flame of Dearest: A Theology of the Holy Spirit, 1996

Analogous with water baptism, a person baptised in the Spirit feels themselves to have been totally immersed in the Holy Spirit. Merely the illustration fails at that betoken, considering a person who is baptised in the Spirit is also completely filled with the Holy Spirit, in the same way every bit the disciples of Jesus on the day of Pentecost.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the give-and-take of God boldly.

Acts 4:31

The proof of having been baptised in the Spirit is speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues is the only consistent event associated with baptism in the Spirit in the various Biblical accounts of the miracle.

"All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Acts two:4

... the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out fifty-fifty on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.

Acts 10:45-46

Being filled with the Holy Spirit

Beingness filled with the Holy Spirit is not a temporary state of affairs; a person who has been baptised in the Spirit is believed to have the Holy Spirit within them to empower and guide them for the residue of their life.

The Assemblies of God puts it like this:

The Baptism is the entry experience introducing the laic to the beauty and power of the Spirit-filled life.

Assemblies of God

The Holy Spirit will enable the believer to plow away from their sometime worldly life and live a new Christian life. As St Paul put it:

Practice not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

Ephesians five:eighteen

But too every bit giving a new beginning to the believer, baptism in the Spirit gives them gifts of the Spirit which they are expected to use to bring others to faith, and generally to further Christian work.

'Gifts' and 'ordinances'

Gifts of the Spirit

Healing by 'laying on of easily' at the Pentecostal Church of God, Harlan County, Kentucky, 1946 ©

The gifts of the Spirit are supernatural abilities given to believers by God. These gifts demonstrate the power of God and are used for detail purposes such as healing the ill, and generally helping the believer in their Christian ministry.

St Paul listed the gifts of the spirit as love, prophecy, healing, wise spoken language, faith, miraculous powers and ecstatic speech.

St Mark offered a different list:

In my name they will drive out demons; they volition speak in new tongues; they will choice upward snakes with their hands; and when they drink mortiferous poison, information technology will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will go well.

Marker 16:17-xviii

Speaking in tongues

Speaking in tongues means speaking miraculously in a language unknown to the speaker, "as the Spirit gives utterance". It beginning happened to the disciples on the solar day of Pentecost.

Speaking in tongues can be either evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, or a demonstration of the gift of tongues.

Theological texts also use the word glossolalia to refer to speaking in tongues. This give-and-take is sometimes restricted to ecstatic speech in non-existent languages.

Miracles

Pentecostals believe that God can and does work miracles today.

Sacraments

Pentecostal churches tend to avert annihilation that might be seen as sacramentalism.

They exercise, of course, accept rituals and ceremonies like communion and water baptism that other churches care for as sacraments, but Pentecostals refer to these equally ceremonies or ordinances. Ordinances, like sacraments are visible representations of invisible realities.

Pes washing

Some Pentecostal churches do foot-washing every bit an ordinance of humility in their services. In doing so they follow the instructions of Jesus, who washed the feet of his disciples at the Final Supper.

Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, accept done your feet, you besides should wash one another'southward anxiety. I have set y'all an example that you should do as I have washed for you lot. I tell you lot the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. At present that you know these things, you will exist blessed if you do them.

John thirteen:14-17

Prayer cloths

Prayer cloths are small-scale cloths like handkerchiefs that are used in healing. The practise is based on this passage of scripture:

God did boggling miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.

Acts 19:11-12

The healer prays over the textile which is given to the sick person, who may bring it close to the afflicted office of their body.

The cloth is seen as conveying the prayers and the divine healing power to the ill person.

The famous American Evangelist, Oral Roberts, had a "ministry of prayer cloths" in which he sent anointed cloths to anyone who asked for prayer. Each cloth carried this message:

I prayed over this cloth for God to evangelize you--utilize as a indicate of contact (Acts xix:11-12). Oral Roberts, Tulsa 2, Oklahoma.

Information technology is not necessary to clothing the material unless y'all feel you should. It tin be used more than once or for more than one person. If you wish to request more, I will be glad to transport them to y'all.

The of import thing is to employ the cloth equally a signal of contact for the release of your faith in God, and so that when you lot pray and put the cloth on your trunk, you will believe the Lord will heal yous at that moment. I accept prayed over this cloth in the proper name of Jesus of Nazareth and asked Him to heal you when you lot use information technology to your body.

From a cloth in the ORU Archives, every bit printed in David E Harrell Jr, Oral Roberts: An American Life, 1985

Prayer cloths were especially popular in the first part of the twentieth century, but they are still used today. Prayer cloths are also used by Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists.

Handling serpents at the Pentecostal Church of God, Harlan County, Kentucky, 1946 ©

Tithing

Many Pentecostals tithe 10% of their income directly to their church.

Latter pelting

Latter rain is a term referring to the new outpouring of the Holy Spirit on today's Pentecostals. The events of Pentecost are known equally the former rain.

The idea of latter rain comes from this One-time Testament text, which precedes Joel's prophecy that God volition pour out his Spirit on all people:

Exist glad, O people of Zion,
rejoice in the LORD your God,
for he has given you
the fall rains in righteousness.
He sends you abundant showers,
both fall and spring rains, equally before.

Joel 2:23

The early Pentecostals were peachy to connect their own experience of the Spirit with that of the disciples, so they interpreted Peter'southward quoting of Joel'south prophecy in Acts ii: 16-21 as a further prophecy that God would pour out his Spirit again at a later fourth dimension.

They interpreted the pouring out of the Spirit on the mean solar day of Pentecost as the early autumn rain, and the second pouring out of the Spirit, that they were experiencing, equally the after bound rains; the Latter Rain.

The thought of latter rain is plant throughout Pentecostalism, simply the Latter Pelting Move, founded in 1948, teaches that the second coming of Jesus is due to happen before long and that latter rain is bear witness for this. They justify this using scripture.

Serpent handling

Some Pentecostal churches appoint in the dangerous practice of handling poisonous snakes during services; instruction that doing so successfully was a souvenir of the Spirit. They base of operations this practice on Marker sixteen:18; "they volition pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink mortiferous poison, it volition not hurt them at all".

Although this exercise has been given sensational publicity in the media, it was e'er extremely rare, restricted to pocket-size sects, and largely disapproved of by the larger Pentecostal denominations.

History

History

Pentecostalism began among poor and disadvantaged people in the USA at the start of the Twentieth century.

Roots

Although the movement is a modernistic one (its foundation is unremarkably taken to be the American Azusa Street revival in the starting time decade of the 20th century), its roots become back to the 18th century Wesleyan Holiness tradition, the 19th century Holiness motility and the late-Victorian Keswick Higher Life movement.

Elim Pentecostal Church, Langley Green, Crawley ©

The Wesleyan Holiness movement was a reaction confronting the formality and ritualism of the traditional Christian churches of the time. Information technology taught that Christians needed to be transformed by a personal experience of the truth of Christ which they could merely get through the ability of the Holy Spirit.

Members of this Methodist tradition experienced baptism in the Holy Spirit (which was given that name in 1771 past John Fletcher). Baptism in the Spirit was an important feature of all the Holiness churches.

The difference between these earlier traditions and the Pentecostal motion was, on the surface, speaking in tongues equally a physical sign of baptism in the Spirit. The theological disharmonize underlying this was that members of the Holiness tradition believed that the Pentecost story did not need to exist interpreted absolutely literally in modern times, while the early on Pentecostals were committed to seeing baptism in the Spirit as an absolute re-enactment of the twenty-four hour period of Pentecost.

Early twentieth century

Modern Pentecostalism began on Jan 1, 1901, when Agnes Ozman, a student at Charles F. Parham'south Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas, spoke in tongues (actually, the story is that she spoke in "Chinese", and did not speak English once again for several days). On Jan 3, Parham and a dozen other students also spoke in tongues.

Parham and his followers later moved to Texas and began a spiritual revival in 1905.

This was followed past what became known as the Asuza Street revival, centered on the Apostolic Organized religion Gospel Mission in Azusa Street, Los Angeles, led by the African-American preacher William Joseph Seymour, who had studied with Parham.

In 1906 Seymour preached that God would "send a new Pentecost" if people prayed for one, and was rewarded when he and his congregation began speaking in tongues.

This event, greatly helped by apocalyptic thoughts prompted by the San Francisco Earthquake which happened soon after, sparked a powerful religious revival driven by the iii doctrines of conservancy, sanctification and baptism in the Spirit, and in which the gifts of the Spirit were seen on a large scale. Over thirteen,000 people are said to have spoken in tongues in the first year.

At starting time the Pentecostal ideas flourished in individual church building groups across North America, and it was not until 1914 that the beginning Pentecostal denomination, the Church of God in Christ, was founded.

The commencement Pentecostal church building in the UK was founded by William Oliver Hutchinson in 1908 at the Emmanuel Mission Hall, Bournemouth. It became the headquarters of a network of Pentecostal churches which became known as the Churchly Faith Church.

Some other early on European Pentecostal denomination was the Elim Pentecostal Church, which was founded in 1915 in Republic of ireland by a Welshman, George Jeffreys.

Worship

Worship

Congregation at Inspire Church building, Sydney ©

Pentecostal worship is less formal and more emotionally expressive than that of other Christian traditions. Participants worship with trunk, heart and soul, equally well as with their minds.

Much Pentecostal worship is designed to bring most an experience of God's presence, and to this cease the atmosphere, worship-leading and music encourage openness to the presence of the Holy Spirit. The gifts of the spirit are often demonstrated during church services, sometimes quite dramatically.

In Pentecostal churches in that location is a groovy deal of agile congregational interest: the worshippers may dance and clap. Personal testimonies may be given. Preaching may rely more on stories and less on textual assay.

Services can incorporate healings, trances and speaking in tongues.

The congregation is likely to respond actively to the sermon, with adulation, or, in some churches, shouts of amen and hallelujah.

The result may well be that participants feel that the service is actually led by the Spirit. Consequently Pentecostals are able to come across the church building every bit a community of God's people working to create the context for a directly experience of God.

Some Pentecostals also utilize 'worship' to refer to their everyday life which they dedicate as a gift to God.

Entreatment in the developing globe

The appeal of Pentecostalism

Pentecostalism offers attractive spiritual certainties in a world where religious truths are nether attack, because a straight experience of God is unarguable to those who receive information technology: "if it happens to you, you know it'due south truthful".

Appeal to the poor

Pentecostalism began among the poor and disadvantaged in Northward America. This tradition of being both of the poor and for the poor has given the movement detail appeal among the poor in S America and Africa, where its growth is partly rooted in continuing anger at widespread poverty and inequality.

Adaptability

Pentecostalism adapts hands to local traditions and incorporates local music and other cultural elements in worship, enabling people to retain elements of their own spirituality when they move to a Pentecostal church. This adaptability has made it easy for non-Pentecostal churches to include Pentecostal elements.

Congregation at Igreja Universal exercise Reino de Deus, São Paulo ©

Non-literary

Walter Hollenweger has pointed out that Pentecostalism offers 'oral' people the same chance to take part in the life of religion as it does to 'literary' people.

Pentecostalism is revolutionary because it offers alternatives to 'literary' theology and defrosts the 'frozen thinking' within literary forms of worship and committee-debate. It gives the aforementioned chance to all, including the 'oral' people.

Walter J. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism and Black Power, Theology Today, Oct 1973

Developing globe Pentecostalism

Pentecostalism is particularly strong in South America, Africa, and Asia. It has a unique character on each continent - which is i reason why it's and so successful.

Developing-earth Pentecostalism has been particularly successful amid the poor (similar its success in the USA which has as well generally been among the less well off).

Pentecostal denominations accept been particularly successful in Latin America among largely unchurched and nominal Roman Catholics, specially those at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy. In this sense Pentecostalism is a Christianity for the underclasses of the earth.

Paul K. Conkin, American Originals: Homemade Varieties of Christianity

Pentecostalism's success in the developing world is partly due to energetic missionary work past Pentecostal churches and partly due to history, politics, flexibility and empowerment.

History

Historically Pentecostalism grew out of African-American churches which retained many stylistic elements that nevertheless resonate with the developing world (and with the contemporary West too).

These were things such as an accent on the interconnection of body, mind and spirit, which it displayed in its highly physical worship, and in healing, speaking in tongues, and the acceptance of dreams and visions equally valuable tools of spiritual insight.

Politics

Politically and socially, Pentecostalism originated in churches filled with people who were poor and oppressed and information technology has never forgotten those roots. Its early leaders were working class Christians with a very similar life experience to the people they led. These factors give Pentecostalism great appeal in parts of the earth where people continue to endure from poverty and injustice.

Pentecostalism approaches the predicaments of the poor very practically; churches work as 'common aid communities' to deal with poverty and sickness, and provide alternative solutions to problems that might otherwise be 'solved' with witchcraft or other superstitious practices.

Flexibility

Pentecostalism, more than than any other course of Christianity, is willing to fit in with local cultures and use local music and other cultural elements in worship, and sees the value of teaching the Christian message through religious ways of thinking and talking that are already familiar to local people.

... the great strength of the Pentecostal impulse [lies in] its power to combine, its bent for the language, the music, the cultural artefacts, the religious tropes... of the setting in which it lives.

Harvey Cox, Burn down from Sky: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Faith in the Twenty-First Century

Because Pentecostal worship is spontaneous and oral, rather than anchored in a liturgical text, it allows all members of the congregation to play their function without any fearfulness of doing the wrong thing, and enables each 1 to share their particular experience of God and take information technology valued past the whole community.

Secondly, the Pentecostal acceptance of the value of the trunk/mind/spirit connections fits well with the not-Christian spiritual background of many developing cultures, and allows Pentecostal churches to incorporate without difficulty the elements of those cultures that are compatible with Christianity. The issue is that Pentecostalism tin can take on a completely local costume:

It may be advisable to consider Korean Pentecostalism as a culturally ethnic course of Korean Christianity interacting with shamanism, merely as African Pentecostalism is in constant interaction with the African spirit globe, and as Latin American Pentecostalism encounters folk Catholicism and Brazilian spiritism.

Dr Allan H Anderson, The Pentecostal Gospel and Third Earth Cultures

But flexibility is valuable to a church in other means too: since developing countries are now changing far faster than Europe or America ever did, Pentecostalism's ability to modify, and its devolution of power to individual church building communities allow it to arrange to the needs and desires of the people better than more rigidly hierarchical churches.

Empowerment

Pentecostal churches have apartment power structures, and allow a very dandy corporeality of participation by the laity, both in worship and in the organisation of their institutions.

This has an obvious appeal to groups of people who are largely deprived of any power or influence in their working or political lives. Information technology is a great contrast to the early missionary churches which had come to bring a Western version of Christianity, or to the hierarchical established churches which in some countries were seen equally besides closely allied to regime or to employers.

Other denominations

Pentecostalism and other churches

For the first 60 years of the 20th century, Pentecostalism was largely bars to specifically Pentecostal denominations, but in the 1960s Pentecostal ideas became a source of renewal in other Protestant churches, and this extended to some Roman Catholic churches before long afterwards.

The emphasis given to feel of the divine distinguishes Pentecostals from other Evangelical Christians who would say that the Bible is the but foundation of their organized religion. Some people feel that because Pentecostalism is based on a directly experience of God information technology is in some way purer and more like the faith of the early on Christians.

Pentecostal churches are not very influential in the Christian establishment, despite having very large numbers of very active members. (In fact it's almost unthinkable that a person could be a passive Pentecostal.)

This may exist because many of these churches have a minority racial profile, and their members are generally poor and not in positions of secular ability. Still given the energy and growth of the movement it's likely that their influence will grow significantly in time to come.

In recent years, Pentecostals have engaged in creative and supportive discussions in the International Roman Cosmic-Pentecostal Dialogue.

Pentecostal churches and congregations

Pentecostal churches in the Due west include the following:

• Apostolic Church
• Assemblies of God
• Association of Vineyard Churches
• Church of God (Cleveland)
• Church of God in Christ
• Church building of God of Prophecy
• Elim Pentecostal
• Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship
• Hillsong Church
• International Church of the Foursquare Gospel
• International Pentecostal Holiness Church
• Pentecostal Assemblies of the World
• United Pentecostal Church International (UPCI)

Oneness movement

The Oneness move

Some Pentecostal churches have moved abroad from the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity. They believe that in that location is only one person in the Godhead - Jesus Christ.

The United Pentecostal Church International explains it like this:

Male parent, Son, and Holy Ghost are not names of separate persons, but titles of positions held past God. . .

The apostles understood that Jesus was the name to utilise at baptism, and from the 24-hour interval that the church building of God was established (the Day of Pentecost) until the end of their ministry, they baptized all nations . . . in the proper noun of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Apostles' Doctrine, United Pentecostal Church International

History

This idea adult from a 1913 sermon by R. E. McAlister (who had founded the starting time Canadian Pentecostal church).

McAlister showed that in the volume of Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles baptism was always carried out only in the proper name of Jesus Christ and non using the Trinitarian formula given in Matthew 28:19.

Therefore get and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Male parent and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 28:xix

Others joined McAllister, and later on close study of the Bible they came to the conclusion that Christ independent the totality of the Godhead and that baptism in the name merely of Jesus Christ was fully constructive.

They noted that when Jesus used the Trinitarian formula in Matthew 28:19 he used the singular word name rather than the plural names.

Frank J Ewart (1 of the study group) wrote:

In the four records of administering the rite of Christian baptism in the Volume of Acts, we have the name Jesus mentioned in every one of them, merely the words, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are conspicuous past their absence.

Frank J Ewart

Scriptural justification

The texts that supported their views included these:

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form

Colossians two:9

Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptised, every one of yous, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the souvenir of the Holy Spirit.'

Acts 2:38

Salvation is constitute in no ane else, for in that location is no other name nether heaven given to men by which we must exist saved.

Acts 4:12

Oneness churches

Membership of the Oneness churches totals about 17 million around the world.

Oneness churches include:

• United Pentecostal Church International
• Pentecostal Assemblies of the Globe

The Oneness movement is sometimes referred to as the "Jesus Only" churches, but this is a somewhat derogatory proper name and should be avoided.

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Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/subdivisions/pentecostal_1.shtml