Foreword. Don Meyer, PhD President Valley Forge Christian College

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1 F OREWORD When I first received the manuscript for this book, I was somewhat taken aback by the title. I certainly had not realized the extensive evidence documenting the depth and breadth of racial issues within the Assemblies of God. I was raised in a denominational church which did not look very kindly toward the Pentecostal experience in the early 60 s. After a brief sojourn for about a year in an independent Pentecostal church, our family joined the Assemblies of God. During the past 38 years I have studied at an Assemblies of God College (4 years), pastored an Assemblies of God church (7 years), and served at two Assemblies of God colleges North Central University, formerly North Central Bible College, (Professor; Vice President of Academic Affairs, 21 years) and Valley Forge Christian College, (President, 9 years). Needless to say, I have been a part of the Assemblies of God most of my adult life. And, as I read Dr. Newman s careful research, I realized there were dark realities within the Assemblies of God that I did not know.

2 x Foreword I would not want to give the impression that I am naive or blind. Often I have heard colleagues, including my friends here at Valley Forge Christian College, say that we are too male, too white, and in many places, too old. We are taking strategic initiatives to address those concerns, yet, we have much to do. But as Dr. Newman led me on the journey from Azusa Street to Memphis, I must confess there were many parts of the trip I did not like. This was new territory for me and it was deeply troubling. His work is the result of his approximately 12 years of careful research and writing in this field. Each chapter is thoroughly documented and, though the reader may question a few observations, it is virtually impossible to deny the facts. The evidence is clear: The Assemblies of God has not had a good track record on race. Whether one looks at this issue ecclesiastically, theologically, sociologically, or biologically, we have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. Perhaps one of the most disturbing realities involves how little our theology influenced decades and decades of racism and bigotry. While the Assemblies of God was exploding overseas to every tribe and tongue and nation, here at home we were making deliberate decisions to exclude certain ethnicities from the fellowship. Of course, we were not alone. Just about every denomination has its own sad stories regarding racial problems. Most of them, however, took steps to do something about it long before the Assemblies of God did. It is hard to understand how the Assemblies of God affirmed its position on the ordination of women but for decades refused to ordain Blacks. When these kinds of problems are exposed, I am often as concerned about tone as I am about content. We have all heard correct positions being presented with such poisonous negativity that even the truth becomes unpalatable. And that helps no one.

3 Foreword xi As a physician working to remove a tumor, Dr. Newman s words expose the problems of the past with a goal in the present to excise this sad reality of the Assemblies of God so it never happens again. Years ago I read an essay by Dr. Gordon Fee on Loyalty. He spoke of three kinds of loyalty: blind loyalty; i.e. when one shows blind support no matter how wrong a person or organization may be; disloyalty; i.e. when one publicly shows support but privately one s position is negative. The Assemblies of God has never asked for blind loyalty, nor should it ever tolerate disloyalty. The third kind of loyalty which Dr. Fee described was critical loyalty; i.e. the degree to which one affirms his or her support for a person or organization, that individual thereby earns the right to be critical. No human organization is perfect and improvement only comes with honest, transparent revelation. As the Bible says, Faithful are the wounds of a friend. All organizations need those who are critically loyal. Dr. Newman has shown the craftsmanship of a Pentecostal scholar who is critically loyal to the Assemblies of God. We desperately need to know this part of our history. And as we all know, The truth shall set us free. No one can read this work without acknowledging the Assemblies of God has made important progress in recent years but there are still many miles to go before we sleep. Yes, the Assemblies of God is farther along on the journey than ever before but the journey must not stop at Memphis. It must continue. May it be! May it be! Don Meyer, PhD President Valley Forge Christian College

4 I NTRODUCTION There was a general spirit of humility manifested in the meeting. They were taken up with God. Evidently the Lord had found the little company at last through whom He could have right of way. Others were in the hands of men, and the Holy Spirit could not work. Others, far more pretentious had failed. That which man esteems had been passed by once more, the Holy Spirit choosing a humble stable outside ecclesiastical establishments. 1 Frank Bartleman, participant in the Azusa Street Revival The early twentieth century interracial religious revival among the lower and middle classes of the American South, West, and Midwest, known as the Pentecostal movement, spread around the world as a result of the racially integrated revival services held in an abandoned warehouse at 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California during April Over the next 3 years, hundreds of people came from across the United States to receive its signature experience, the baptism in the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other, or unknown, tongues. 3 It drew upon such varied

5 2 RACE AND THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CHURCH religious traditions as Wesleyan-Holiness sanctification and the intense emotionalism of slave religious experience to produce a fervent evangelical movement that promoted a renewed emphasis upon the Holy Spirit and personal devotion. 4 Pentecostals sought to restore their perception of New Testament Christianity to the modern church they believed to be spiritually corrupt. They differed from Fundamentalists in that Pentecostalism was not concerned with social or historical issues because they believed the end of all things was at hand. However, they agreed with the Fundamentalist view of biblical inerrancy. Pentecostals are experiential and speaking in unknown tongues, demonstrations of the gifts of the Spirit, and acts of divine healing and miracles are central to their belief and practice. The largest Pentecostal denominations trace their origin to the Azusa Street Revival. By the end of the 1970s, Pentecostalism was considered a major worldwide religious movement and the fastest growing segment of the Christian faith. 5 Early Pentecostals usually belonged to the poorer and less educated segments of American society. Prior to 1920, white Pentecostals generally lived in the rural areas of the South, particularly on the small farms and communities in the mountains of the Ozarks and Appalachia. Most of them lived in primitive conditions with few modern conveniences. Travel and communication were difficult. As a result, revival meetings and church services presented the greatest opportunities for socialization. When the movement spread to California in 1906 it acquired an urban following in the African American community. William J. Seymour s Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles brought Pentecostalism into the Church of God in Christ in Memphis, Tennessee and led to the establishment of numerous independent Pentecostal missions to ethnic groups in Chicago, Illinois. By the end of World War I, white Pentecostal organizations, such as the Assemblies of God and Church of God,

6 Introduction 3 had established headquarters operations in small mountain towns of the South such as Springfield, Missouri, and Cleveland, Tennessee, respectively. The majority of their constituency was southern and rural. 6 In contrast, most African American Pentecostals were found in urban areas in the South, Midwest, and California. This study is concerned with the impact of racial issues on the history of Pentecostalism, and particularly the Assemblies of God church, in the United States. Specifically, it will document how men of God joined together, without regard to racial differences, during the early years of the twentieth century to pursue a unique religious experience. In 1914, many of the white ministers among them withdrew from the interracial fellowship and created a segregated denomination, the Assemblies of God. Over the years, their response to racism, defined as actions dictated by the belief that one race is inherently superior to other races, and the inclusion of African Americans was based upon approval by southern churches and ministers in the denomination rather than scriptural principles or the actions taken by other American church groups. 7 Some Assemblies of God leaders ignored theological differences regarding the doctrines of sanctification and the baptism of the Holy Spirit in order to justify the claim that the Church of God in Christ was identical to the Assemblies of God. Consequently, beginning in 1939, African Americans who sought recognition as ordained ministers in the Assemblies of God church were officially referred to the colored organization. Social developments during the 1950s and 1960s initiated gradual changes in attitudes toward race in the Assemblies of God that ultimately resulted in the church s official disavowal of its racist past in However, there is little evidence that the leadership s effort to reconcile with the African American Pentecostal community has fostered any substantial effort to do so among the local churches in the denomination.

7 4 RACE AND THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CHURCH The study of the history of the Pentecostal revival is relatively new. The earliest accounts were written by participant-observers such as Frank Bartleman, present at the Azusa Street Revival, and Agnes Ozman, reported to be the first person to speak in unknown tongues. 8 Alice Reynolds Flower related how itinerant evangelists typically spread the Pentecostal message across the country in How Pentecost came to Indianapolis. 9 Ministers in the movement, such as Charles Parham, William Seymour, B. F. Lawrence, and Maria Woodworth-Etter, wrote doctrinal and historical essays. 10 Charles Parham s autobiography, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, contains a mixture of biographic information and doctrinal discourse. Wayne Warner edited a collection of eyewitness accounts of the Pentecostal revival in Touched by the Fire, and Lester Sumrall s Pioneers of Faith recounted the author s personal experiences with many early leaders of the movement. 11 Objectivity was not the goal of these early personal accounts. Their primary purpose was to promote the Pentecostal message. Historians began to investigate the historical roots of Pentecostalism in the 1960s. In Suddenly from Heaven, Carl Brumback cast the history of the movement in a spiritual light and contended that Pentecostalism had no earthly founder. 12 Klaude Kendrick, The Promise Fulfilled, and Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States, explored the connection between Wesleyan-Holiness and Pentecostalism. 13 William Menzies Anointed to Serve: The Story of the Assemblies of God, is a concise insider account of the denomination s history, and Walter Hollenweger s The Pentecostals, studied the spread of Pentecostalism around the world. 14 Beginning in the late 1970s, published histories of the movement focused on individual biographies and sociological interpretations. In Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism, Robert M. Anderson broke

8 Introduction 5 new ground by examining the social origins of Pentecostalism. He concluded the earliest Pentecostals were among the poor and powerless in American society. 15 Grant Wacker s Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture, disagreed with Anderson s thesis and emphasized the role of the middle class in the rise of the movement. James Goff s Fields White Unto Harvest: Charles F. Parham and the Missionary Origins of Pentecostalism, was the first scholarly biography of a major figure in the Pentecostal movement. Goff s work, along with Edith Blumhofer s The Assemblies of God: A Chapter in the Story of American Pentecostalism, reinterpreted the importance of Seymour to the origin of the movement and emphasized Parham s role. 16 Ithiel Clemmons Bishop C.H. Mason and the Roots of the Church of God in Christ, and German Ross History and Formative Years of the Church of God in Christ, emphasized the importance of Mason s pivotal role in the early years of the Pentecostal movement. In addition, David Tucker s Black Pastors and Leaders provided helpful information on Mason. In the absence of a biography on William Seymour, see Leonard Lovett s Black Origins of the Pentecostal Movement, in Synan s Aspects of Pentecostal- Charismatic Origins for information on the leader of the Azusa Street Revival. William Joseph Seymour: Father of Sixty Million Pentecostals, a paper presented by James S. Tinney in 1981 to the annual convention of the Association for the Study of Afro- American Life and History, contains additional helpful biographical information on Seymour. 17 General information on the people and events in the early history of Pentecostalism can be found in Portraits of a Generation: Early Pentecostal Leaders, edited by James Goff and Grant Wacker. Pentecostal Currents in American Protestantism, Edith Blumhofer, Russell Spittler, and Grant Wacker, editors, shows

9 6 RACE AND THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CHURCH specific ways Pentecostalism has influenced American religious history. Finally, Stanley Burgess and Gary McGee edited the Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, a very helpful guide to this field of study. 18 Cecil Robeck, Howard Kenyon, and Douglas Nelson have written significant papers concerning race, Pentecostalism, and the Assemblies of God. Robeck s Historical Roots of Racial Unity and Division in American Pentecostalism, was presented at the Memphis Colloquy of the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America in It included both a succinct summary of the early history of Pentecostalism and a review of Assemblies of God treatment of race. Kenyon s dissertation, An Analysis of Ethical Issues in the History of the Assemblies of God, looked at the denomination s record on women, race, and pacifism. Both men recognized the Assemblies of God denomination s failure to address racism among its ministers and churches. They contended the church s early leaders made practical decisions on race based on the realities of segregation in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Nelson s For Such a Time as This: The Story of Bishop William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival; A Search for Pentecostal/ Charismatic Roots, sought to resurrect Seymour s place in Pentecostal history. He contended bigoted white Pentecostals, such as Charles Parham, vilified Seymour. As a result, contemporary white historians of the Pentecostal movement tend to diminish Seymour s contributions to the movement s development while placing too great an emphasis upon Parham. 19 The present study asserts that the evidence indicates that some key Assemblies of God leaders deliberately attempted to exclude African Americans from full participation in the denomination because they were racist and did not want to desegregate the ministerial ranks or the local churches. Furthermore, the effort made since the 1960s to bring African Americans into the mainstream of

10 Introduction 7 the church occurred only because of the social changes arising out of the aftermath of the civil rights movement. From its inception, issues of race have heavily influenced Pentecostalism. For example, disagreements over the movement s founder and the location of its birthplace are framed in a racial context. White Pentecostals usually refer to Charles Parham s Topeka, Kansas, Bible school when discussing the location of the origin of Pentecostalism in the United States because the first widely publicized episode of tongues speech in the twentieth century occurred there around midnight on January 1, Parham, a white minister, is also credited with the formulation of the doctrine of initial physical evidence. It holds that speaking in other tongues is the only physical proof that a person has indeed received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. In contrast, African Americans usually consider the Azusa Street Revival, led by William Seymour, a son of slaves, as the birthplace of the movement because the Pentecostal message spread around the world as a result of the missionaries and church organizations that originated from the Azusa meetings. Whites counter that Seymour received the Pentecostal message from Parham while attending the white evangelist s short-term Bible school in Houston, Texas, early in The men should be credited as joint founders of the Pentecostal movement because of their unique contributions. Parham s emphasis on tongues speech gave the movement a distinctive doctrine that was globally disseminated as a result of Seymour s Los Angeles ministry. William Seymour s early Pentecostal meetings were fully integrated. He began publishing The Apostolic Faith, a newspaper for the Azusa Street Revival, in September The first edition noted the cultural and ethnic diversity of the participants. It claimed the revival began among the colored people and eventually spread to the whites, Ethiopians, Indians, Mexicans, and other nationalities. 21

11 8 RACE AND THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CHURCH This mixture of culture and ethnicity produced a racially integrated Pentecostal revival during a time in American history when racial segregation was the law of the land. Beginning in the late 1890s, segregation laws were adopted across the South partly because African Americans were blamed for much of the economic, social, and political turmoil of the period. The earliest legislation provided for separate railroad and streetcar accommodations. Eventually, Jim Crow laws prescribed segregated living areas, recreational activities, and health care facilities. 22 Pentecostalism s ability to transcend racial barriers was noted by historian Edward Ayers. He asserted that, During the years that marked one of the lowest points in American race relations, the Pentecostal movement remained almost uniquely open to exchange between blacks and whites. Additionally, Ayers viewed Pentecostalism as a distinctive movement that successfully achieved a level of interracial cooperation unparalleled by any other institution of its day. He concluded: Indeed, the Holiness and Pentecostal churches violated more of the cultural shibboleths of the New South than any other organization in that time and place. In many ways, these churches inverted the cultural values being disseminated throughout the South. They stressed the ability of anyone, regardless of race, class, or gender, to experience the most thrilling manifestations of God s love, ignoring the distinctions that multiplied elsewhere in the New South. 23 However, the establishment of the predominantly white Assemblies of God denomination in 1914 at Hot Springs, Arkansas, signaled the demise of racial integration in the Pentecostal movement. Many of the members of the new organization possessed ministerial credentials issued by C. H. Mason, African American leader of the Church of God in Christ. At Hot Springs, the white ministers ended

12 Introduction 9 their official relationship with Mason and accepted new credentials with the Assemblies of God. The primary motive for their action was a desire to create a properly chartered Pentecostal church organization that was devoid of African American leadership and influence. A difference over the doctrine of sanctification, or the God-given ability to live above the power of recurring sin, was a secondary factor. The Assemblies of God rejected the Wesleyan-Holiness understanding of entire sanctification as a distinct work of grace apart from salvation and the baptism of the Holy Ghost as the third experience for which all believers should seek. Seymour, Mason, and A. J. Tomlinson s predominantly white Church of God (Cleveland, TN) held this view. Instead, the Assemblies of God taught that sanctification occurred simultaneously at salvation and continued throughout the life of the believer. Accordingly, the baptism of the Holy Ghost was only the second work of grace. Soon after the church was organized, Assemblies of God publications reflected the denomination s acceptance of segregation and the leadership s lack of desire to address racism. From 1919 through the 1940s, African Americans were stereotyped as uneducated and simple minded in the pages of the denomination s official magazine, the Pentecostal Evangel.24 The denominational archive contains many letters, minutes, publications, and other documents that attest to the deliberate actions taken by denominational executives to prevent the ordination of African Americans, thus excluding them from participation in the church. Over the next 30 years, the Assemblies of God exhibited a paternalistic attitude toward African Americans as the church s leadership struggled to cope with society s changing racial mores. The civil rights movement in the United States precipitated a change in the denomination s racial policy. Beginning in the 1950s, several events occurred that awakened American society

13 10 RACE AND THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CHURCH to the reality of the nation s racial problems. The Supreme Court s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education ordered an end to segregation in the public schools. In 1955, Rosa Parks refusal to sit at the back of a city bus led to the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the elevation of Martin Luther King Jr. as the African American leader of the effort to extend civil liberties to all Americans. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 injected the executive branch of the federal government directly into the struggle with the establishment of a Civil Rights division inside the Justice Department charged with protecting the voting rights of African Americans. Later, that same year, President Eisenhower ordered federal troops to protect African American students seeking to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. In addition, African American activists infiltrated segregated lunch counters and other places of public accommodation in the South. Many protestors were physically beaten and verbally abused. As late as 1958, Assemblies of God leaders proclaimed that integrated churches could not reach the spiritually lost. They clearly stated integration would be accepted only if it did not interfere with the progress and expansion of the movement. 25 The church s national executives did not officially condemn racism and segregation within the Assemblies of God until the televised images of physical oppression against peaceful protestors were broadcast into the homes of American citizens. The 1960s were particularly violent. Civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi, peaceful demonstrators were attacked with dogs and fire hoses, King was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, and eventually killed in Memphis, Tennessee. The state universities of Mississippi and Alabama were desegregated despite the public protests of governors Ross Barnett and George Wallace. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 swept away much of the remaining

14 Introduction 11 legally sanctioned areas of segregation in American society. However, the fight for racial equality continued. Harvard University professor James MacGregor Burns wrote of the effect of the protestors sacrifices upon American society: Day after day, for weeks at a time, the national media especially television and the picture magazines brought into tens of millions of homes images of helmeted troops with upraised clubs, snarling police dogs lunging at protestors, black persons kneeling in prayer for their persecutors as well as for themselves. The black protestors and the student and women activists who would follow for a decade would stir the conscience of the nation. 26 During the 1970s and 1980s, the Assemblies of God began to publicize new ministry initiatives among African Americans. The Pentecostal Evangel reported the establishment of outreach efforts targeted toward urban centers across the United States. Attempts to minister to African Americans in suburban and rural areas developed at a much slower pace. Under the leadership of General Superintendent Thomas Zimmerman, the church s colleges and universities began to aggressively recruit African American ministerial students. In addition, Zimmerman opened a dialogue with the small group of African American ministers licensed and ordained by the Assemblies of God in the 1960s in an effort to understand their concerns. Less than 10 African Americans were listed as Assemblies of God ministers before the early 1960s when, after a protracted effort, Robert Harrison was finally ordained and became the first African American Assemblies of God missionary since the 1920s. Finally, in an historic gesture, General Superintendent Thomas Trask, the highest-ranking officer in the Assemblies of God, participated in a ceremonial footwashing designed to demonstrate the church s recognition of its racist past during the Memphis Colloquy of the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America in

15 12 RACE AND THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CHURCH The first chapter of this work will review the pre-twentieth-century roots of Pentecostalism. It will summarize the conditions and events within the Episcopal, Methodist, and Baptist traditions that led to the development of independent African American church groups and the connections between the characteristics of Pentecostal worship to African and slave religions. The rise of the Holiness movement and Pentecostalism will be framed against the backdrop of the revivalism tradition of the 1800s. Chapter 2 will explore specific theological foundations of the Pentecostal movement. Holiness teachings regarding entire sanctification as a distinct work of grace, separate from the conversion experience, contributed to the uniquely Pentecostal belief in a third event, subsequent to sanctification, known as the baptism in the Holy Ghost. This important concept of a series of experiences to be attained by every Christian as their spiritual life matured is an essential component of Pentecostal doctrine and opened the door for Parham to articulate the distinctiveness of Holy Ghost baptism. The inclusion of two other cardinal truths, divine healing, and the Second Coming of Christ, formed the foundation of Pentecostal theology and permitted the construction of a Pentecostal paradigm that influenced the way Pentecostals viewed the world and interacted with society. Chapter 3 assesses the contributions made by Charles Fox Parham and William Joseph Seymour to the Pentecostal movement. The effect both men and their teachings had on the fledgling movement will be analyzed to determine the impact each had upon the racial issues that eventually segregated Pentecostalism. Their relationship changed dramatically in as a result of a disagreement over racial integration. The various Pentecostal sects and denominations can be traced directly to the contrasting views held by these two influential men. The fourth chapter will analyze the formation of the Assemblies of God church in 1914 at Hot Springs, Arkansas. The issues,

16 Introduction 13 that a year previous led to published calls for an organizational meeting of Pentecostal believers, indicated a willingness to form some sort of official ecclesiastical body with very limited power over local churches. The actions of Eudorus N. Bell and particularly J. Roswell Flower, two of the prominent founders and leaders of the Assemblies of God, give evidence that racial segregation was the dominant factor in the church s creation. The early life and ministry of Charles Harrison Mason, his experience at the Azusa Street Revival, and the establishment of the Church of God in Christ as an integrated organization that ordained Bell and other white ministers who formed the Assemblies of God, will be examined. Mason made a significant appearance in Hot Springs where he signaled his disappointment over the racial division that was unfolding. Understanding his relationship with these white ministers is vital. Documentary evidence of efforts by denominational leaders to ignore, exclude, or in some way restrict African Americans from receiving the benefits of full membership and ministerial recognition in the Assemblies of God, is presented in Chapters 5 and 6. The memos, letters, minutes, and other sources from the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center confirm the existence of an intentional effort by executives, such as J. Roswell Flower and Ralph Riggs, to direct African Americans away from the Assemblies of God by referring them to the Church of God in Christ. In addition, the material attests to repeated attempts to institutionalize segregation in the Assemblies of God by creating a completely separate colored fellowship within the church. Pertinent articles in the Pentecostal Evangel that chronicled changing attitudes toward African Americans in the Assemblies of God will be analyzed as well. In addition, the Assemblies of God response to racism in the mid-twentieth century will be compared to that of selected American church groups. Particular emphasis will be placed on the white

17 14 RACE AND THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CHURCH factions within the Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopal traditions during the civil rights era. The actions of these groups will be contrasted with the role of the African American church during this period. The study concludes with an event known as the Miracle of Memphis, which occurred in 1994, and its implications for American Pentecostalism. The Pentecostal Fellowship of North America (PFNA) was established in 1948 at Chicago, Illinois. The original membership consisted of eight predominantly white Pentecostal denominations. During the Memphis meeting, the member church groups voted to dissolve the PFNA and replace it with an integrated fellowship known as the Pentecostal Charismatic Churches of North America (PCCNA). Bishop George McKinney, a Church of God in Christ pastor, currently serves as PCCNA co-chairperson. The primary focus of the group is to foster reconciliation between African American and white Pentecostal church groups. Acceptance of racial diversity, by the leadership at least, represents a major development in the history of American Pentecostalism and the Assemblies of God. It remains to be seen whether the membership of these denominations will genuinely accept and contribute to an effort to recapture the racial unity that was found in the beginning at Azusa Street.