The History of Pentecostal Persecution

Jennifer Thome

March 1, 2004

"Holy jumpers", "Pillar of Fire", and "Holy Rollers" are some of the names Pentecostals have been called by the press, critics and conservative churches. Since 1906, when the Azusa Street Revival sparked a worldwide Pentecostal movement, people have looked with skepticism at the emotional outpouring during Pentecostal services. But today it is one of the fastest growing religions on earth. Over the past century, the church members have gone from outsiders to mainstream.

"My father was a bishop and he would be preaching when rowdies and drunks would cut ropes, honk their horns, and put dog excrement around," says Vinson Synan, Dean of Regent University in Virginia and author of several books about the Pentecostal movement.

The Holy Jumpers appear in The New York Times for the first time in August of 1907 to describe their "religious crusade" and their "invasion" of Broadway Avenue in New York. "In costumes consisting for the men of helmets and bloomers, and for the women of flannel dresses and helmets the Jumpers will gather in Times Square," writes the New York Times, Aug. 12, 1907.

They gathered to tell people about a pillar of fire coming to Broadway to destroy it. "It will be a consuming, reformative force that after it has seared away the works of iniquity will leave room for rebuilding upon jumping lines," writes The New York Times, Aug. 12, 1907.

The Holy Jumpers appear again six days later in The New York Times. The story makes reference to a New Jersey farm called: The Pillar of Fire. On a farm in Weston near the Delaware River, sixty members worked and prayed in accordance to the way of life described in the Bible. The writer describes their sacred dance: jumping in unison. "Seeking to live according to Biblical injunction, they work themselves into a frenzy, march, dance, and leap high in the air, hence their name, the Holy Jumpers," writes The New York Times, Aug. 18, 1907.

The article says that the community sent one member to the insane asylum for her "religious insanity." Apparently, the group could not control her anymore.

The members of the Holy Jumpers referred to themselves as the Pentecostal Union. Alma White of Denver, Colo. started the Union in 1901. White wanted to be a preacher like her husband, a Methodist minister, but the Methodist Church forbade women ministers. White then joined the Holiness movement and started her own church.

Holiness believers think it is possible to attain a sinless life on earth. To them, dancing was evidence of sanctification.

Just as the Holiness movement grew out of the Methodists, Pentecostalism developed from Holiness. There are similarities between Pentecostalism and Holiness, like divine healing and emotionalism, however, White denounced the Pentecostals because she thought the new movement was primitive and undisciplined, particularly the belief in speaking in tongues, the ability to talk in either another language or one only God can understand. White and her husband split over this issue. Not because she was a preacher, but because he became a Pentecostal. White, however, thought that speaking in tongues was Satan's work, and some critics agreed with her. G. Campbell Morgan, a Congregationalist minister and Biblical scholar in the 1900s, reportedly said Pentecostals were the "last vomit of Satan."

In 1927, a scandal in the Calvary Baptist Church, on 57th Street in New York City, erupted in the papers. Five deacons resigned from the church because of behavior in the church they described as "Pentecostalism." The deacons were leaders in the church and their departure was scandalous to the public. The newspapers say the rituals were emotional and followers would "...lay prone on the floor muttering unintelligible sounds and singing..." writes The New York Times, June 27, 1927. A pastor involved in the scandal called the newspaper accounts misleading and inaccurate.

In the early stages of the Pentecostal movement, women held positions of leadership, like White, and the churches were integrated. Women and men, blacks and whites worshipped together. Pentecostals believed the Bible declared services to be interracial, citing Acts 2:5: "Now there were dwellings in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven." The passage refers to the day of the Pentecost, when for the first time the Holy Spirit filled men and spoke in tongues.

Critics saw this integration as abnormal. In the early 20th century, American society exerted social pressure to conform to segregation, especially in the South, says Synan. At times, the social pressure turned to violence. "Tents were burned down by mobs of local rowdies. Preachers were threatened with death," Synan says.

"People were kicked out of services, things thrown at them," says Dale Irvin, Academic Dean and World Christianity Professor at New York Theological Seminary. Irvin says in the South, husbands who did not want their wives attending the Pentecostal church would interrupt services to pick a fight with the preacher. The preacher and the husband would go out side and have a fistfight. After the fight, the preacher would return and begin preaching again. "If you didn't make it on your own you couldn't be a Pentecostal minister," Irvin says.

However, World War II brought growing acceptance for Pentecostalism. They grew more prosperous, attracted better-educated members and moved into the upper-middle class, says Synan. Irvin points to another milestone: the acceptance of the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination, into the National Association of Evangelicals, in 1941. "The Assemblies of God downplayed their speaking in tongues to become accepted," Irvin says. Pentecostals were further accepted with the advent of televangelists and the popularity of Pat Robertson. It brought evangelicalism into people's homes. In addition, the charismatic movement started to be integrated into mainstream churches. Now, Pentecostalism is one of the fastest growing religions on earth. "The Catholic Church chose the poor but the poor chose the Pentecostals," Synan says.

Latin America has one of the greatest conversion rates from the Catholic Church to Pentecostalism. Irvin says many people left with the decrees of Vatican II, when the church became more scientific and less spiritual. Pentecostal churches are being burned down and the Vatican has set up an office specifically for relations with the Pentecostal church.

But the Pentecostals are not free from persecuting others. "Evangelicalism is considered a form of persecution. There are a lot of negative things being said about other churches," Irvin says.

(Updated April 24, 2004)