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Speaking in tongues hit the front page of a California Newspaper in 1901. An African women who had practiced voodoo all her life began speaking in tongues like she had always done.
Are you talking about the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles? It began in 1906 and is a well-known part of Los Angeles history. You are the one and only person I've heard make the claim that the speaking in tongues began with a woman who had practiced voodoo.
One of the reasons it is so well known is the fact that the revival meetings were inter-racial and people of many faiths (including Quakers who aren't exactly known for being noisy during church) attended the services. Which were held for nearly nine years.
Free place name lesson: Azusa means "Everything from A to Z in the USA"
Last edited by DewDropInn; 05-09-2016 at 02:07 PM..
The whole rationale for the rise of pentecostalism and its gentler cousin, the charismatic movement, was a desire for a direct experience of god. There's a long tradition of conjuring unusual experiences and attributing them to god (snake charmers, for example, or the Oracle of Delphi). There are a lot of people who want tangible experiences to "validate" their beliefs via what seems to them like experiences that are both attention-grabbing and seemingly coming from outside themselves. Put those two things together and you have things like you're describing.
Darbyism in the 1830s gave rise to what become modern Christian fundamentalism and it was based on the assertion that the mainline denominations lacked a "vital", "living" "relationship" with god because of empty formalism. Fundamentalism did away with high church ritual, fancy buildings, and the like. But it split somewhere around the turn of the 20th century into branches that valued quasi-intellectual, non-emotional belief grounded in a supposedly objective reading of scripture, with an experience-seeking style. Or put another way, a branch that defined itself more by what it wasn't (ritualist, traditionalist) and a branch that that defined itself by what it was (experiential, emotional). One group says signs and wonders aren't for today and stopped in the distant past when the "canon of scripture was closed", leaving us with all we need for faith and practice: the Bible. The other group says god still "moves" today among his people, although you have to know where and how to look ;-)
Part of pentecostalism is an abreaction to the notion non-pentecostals have that god no longer actively provides new revelation to us. This is hard for some people to sit with. They still usually revere scripture and don't want to contradict it, but feel that god will actively provide, through the prophetic gifts, interpretation and application of scripture relevant to today. For a pentecostal it is not just about active guidance from god for personal decisions -- even non-pentecostals expect god to "impress" this or that on them to nudge them in a certain direction when they seek guidance, or to give them "peace" about one choice vs another. It is also about keeping scripture relevant and "alive" rather than static.
I rather think that pentecostal / charismatic ideology provides a richer repertoire of ways to "experience" and interpret their faith, at the expense of some embarrassing conflicts between people claiming a "word from the lord" that conflicts with other "words". You also have to be willing and able to act the fool, which I was never remotely able to do.
Are you talking about the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles? It began in 1906 and is a well-known part of Los Angeles history. You are the one and only person I've heard make the claim that the speaking in tongues began with a woman who had practiced voodoo.
One of the reasons it is so well known is the fact that the revival meetings were inter-racial and people of many faiths (including Quakers who aren't exactly known for being noisy during church) attended the services. Which were held for nearly nine years.
Free place name lesson: Azusa means "Everything from A to Z in the USA"
No, I am talking about a headline in 1901 as I remember.
Maybe I remembered it wrong or what I had read a decade ago flipped around in my head, but in was in Topeka.
I suppose I read something somebody took from it being an African Methodist church and got voodoo somewhere from that. I still come to the same conclusion, it was unheard of until it began in Topeka, and they tell no good tales of those events, but it took 40 years of my life to get it.
The most disturbed sounding preachers I've ever heard are those who discount the spiritually active churches like these. Fundamentalist Christianity which discounts the ancient rituals is the worst imaginable type of religious faith.
There are even mainstream/traditional pastors who give acknowledgment to this type of ritual, though it may not be a part of their own church.
The most disturbed sounding preachers I've ever heard are those who discount the spiritually active churches like these. Fundamentalist Christianity which discounts the ancient rituals is the worst imaginable type of religious faith.
Well I don't know that pentecostals are "spiritually active" and everyone else isn't. Depends on how you define "spiritually active" I suppose. I don't personally believe ANYONE is spiritually active, of course. But don't try to tell a non-charismatic evangelical who prays, studies their Bible, attends and participates at church that they are not "spiritual". They might take umbrage to it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OzzyRules
There are even mainstream/traditional pastors who give acknowledgment to this type of ritual, though it may not be a part of their own church.
Of course, the "charismatic movement" was in part an unbranded Pentecostalism that could be tolerated within more sedate church settings. There were charismatic Catholics, charismatic Lutherans, etc. It had a revolutionary, gently subversive feel to it in its early heyday in the 1960s. It seems to have faded a bit since then and I don't hear nearly so much about it ... but then again I have been out of touch with these trends since at least the mid 1990s.
Sure, I can explain it easily:
1. It's a scam.
2. Lots of people are easily suckered...and will even go along with the scam and swear it isn't a con-game.
3. There will never be a shortage of those that will run a scam the easily suckered.
Aint fake, people really get drunk, they really pass out, they really get the shakes, it just aint from God in my opinion.
But imagine you are standing there and you really believe it and you actually get drunk and fall down, you might think it was God.
It happens, it's not fake, it's just cause they believe in it so much.
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