Azusa Street Revival

Background

In the early twentieth century, a current within the American Holiness movement sought a deeper experience of the Holy Spirit beyond sanctification (the experience of being freed from sin and made holy). Charles F. Parham, a preacher active in Topeka, Kansas, and Houston, Texas, taught that speaking in tongues was the biblical evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit. News of the 1904–1905 revival in Wales is also said to have encouraged prayer for revival in the United States.

William J. Seymour (1870–1922) was born in Louisiana, the son of freed slaves. A Holiness preacher, he attended Parham's Bible school lectures in Houston. According to accounts, the racial segregation practices of the time prevented him from sitting inside the classroom, so he listened from the hallway.

Course of Events

• February 1906: On the recommendation of a Holiness church member in Los Angeles, Seymour was invited for a one-month engagement at a small church founded by Julia Hutchins. He arrived on February 22. However, when he preached that tongues were the initial evidence of being filled with the Spirit, the church rejected this teaching, and he was no longer permitted to preach there.
• Spring 1906: Seymour stayed in the home of church member Edward Lee, where he devoted himself to prayer. He then led prayer meetings at the home of Richard and Ruth Asberry on North Bonnie Brae Street.
• April 9, 1906: At these meetings, several attendees began speaking in tongues. The gatherings continued day and night for at least three days and drew large crowds.
• Mid-April 1906: The meetings moved to a former African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church building at 312 Azusa Street. The congregation took the name Apostolic Faith Mission.
• April 18, 1906: The Los Angeles Times published a critical report on the meetings under the headline "Weird Babel of Tongues." This is regarded as the first coverage in the general press.
• September 1906: The mission began publishing a newspaper, The Apostolic Faith, which was distributed free of charge. The first issue ran to 5,000 copies, and circulation reportedly grew to 40,000 by 1907.
• Around 1908: Seymour married Jennie Evans Moore. Afterward, he became involved in a protracted dispute with Clara Lum, who had co-edited the newspaper, over its operation and its mailing list.

The meetings continued almost around the clock. That Black and white people worshiped together was remarkable for the time. Attendees came not only from the Holiness movement but also from Baptist, Mennonite, Quaker, and Presbyterian backgrounds. The meetings are considered to have been at their most active for about three years, from 1906 to 1909. More broadly, they are thought to have continued until around 1915, though sources differ on when they ended.

Results and Influence

News of the Azusa Street Revival spread through visitors and The Apostolic Faith to many parts of the United States as well as to Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia. Because of this spread, the meetings are often called the cradle of modern Pentecostalism. Pentecostal denominations such as the Korea Assemblies of God also belong, broadly speaking, to this tradition.

Seymour himself, however, had been pushed out of the center of the movement by around 1912. The causes cited include the dispute over the newspaper, his retreat from his own teaching that tongues were the initial evidence of Spirit baptism, and racial conflict within the Pentecostal movement.

Assessment

Pentecostal and charismatic Christians regard the Azusa Street Revival as an event in which the gifts of the Holy Spirit were restored, and they highly value the fact that the meetings transcended race and class. In recent scholarship, the view that the Pentecostal movement had multiple origins, with the Azusa Street Revival being one of them, has gained ground. In some regions, the Welsh Revival is considered to have played a similar role.

The press of the day, along with some within the Holiness movement itself, criticized the meetings as fanatical. Doctrinally, the teaching that tongues are the evidence of Spirit baptism remains a point of contention. Pentecostal denominations accept this teaching. By contrast, some in the Reformed tradition reject it from a cessationist position and have expressed concern that experience is being placed ahead of the Word. This debate is treated in the article Cessationism and Continuationism. In Korean church history, the revival is sometimes compared with the Great Pyongyang Revival of 1907, which occurred at nearly the same time.