385 - Theological Roots of Pentecostalism

Theological Roots of Pentecostalism

By Donald W. Dayton

Metuchen, N.J., Scarecrow, 1987. 199 Pp. $22.50.

Donald Dayton, who has collected over four thousand primary sources on the holiness and pentecostal movements, distills that research in his current book. Rejecting the notion that the gift of tongues by itself constitutes the essence of Pentecostalism, Dayton sees glossolalia as part of a larger theological gestalt that portrays Christ as savior, sanctifier, healer, and coming king. Methodism, with its emphasis upon sanctification, was the primary source of this theology. As Methodism spread rapidly in nineteenth-century America, it prompted widespread perfectionist stirrings. Various movements espoused the higher Christian life, and believers expected a fuller outpouring of God's spirit as foretold by Peter on the day of Pentecost. By the end of the century, a number of holiness preachers were also calling divine healing a sign of that outpouring; and many spoke fervently of an imminent premillennial return of Jesus. All of these things occurred before Agnes Ozman received the gift of tongues in 1901 and before William Seymour made glossolalia the hallmark of the famous 1906 Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles. In short, important sectors of American Protestantism had already become, in Dayton's words, "a prePentecostal tinderbox awaiting the spark that would ignite it." This book will annoy some Pentecostals who prefer to think that God inaugurated the movement de novo in 1901, and it may irk scholars who wish to attribute the "tongues" phenomenon chiefly to the social deprivation of its adherents. But for persons seeking to relate Pentecostalism to broader currents of religious history, Dayton's work will prove a much needed tool. He makes it possible for us to see Pentecostals, so often dismissed as a fringe group, as intimately connected with the socalled mainstream of American religion.

James H. Moorhead, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J.