Menzies William W - Bible doctrines: a pentecostal perspective

The Assemblies of God came into being as a result of the Pentecostal revival that began early in the twentieth century. This revival came as Gods mighty supernatural answer to Modernism, the antisupernatural religious liberalism that was taking over the major Christian denominations in America and around the world. Books written to defend the faith were being ignored by the seminaries that trained their ministers. The possibility of God-given miracles was denied. A spiritual vacuum was developing. As Dr. William Menzies points out:

The United States in the years between the Civil War and the close of the [nineteenth] century was in social and religious ferment. Moral, political, and economic corruption increased the stresses occasioned by urbanization, industrialization, and immigration. The great denominations, successful in Christianizing the frontier, had become complacent and sophisticated, lacking the vision and vitality to meet the changing needs of a distressed populace. Varying degrees of accommodation to popular ideas, newly imported from Europe, which assaulted orthodox Evangelicalism, further weakened the great communions. Against the erosion in the church

The current Pentecostal movement traces its origin to a revival at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas, that began on January 1, 1901. Students, from their studies of the Bible, concluded that speaking in tongues (Acts 2:4) is the initial outward evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. One of the students, Agnes Ozman, said she felt as though rivers of living water were proceeding from [her] innermost being.

The revival became a Pentecostal explosion when, in 1906, W. J. Seymour secured an old two-story frame building at 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California. For about three years services ran almost continually, from ten in the morning to midnight. Many of those who received the Pentecostal baptism in the Holy Spirit there scattered to spread the message. Many independent Pentecostal churches sprang up. Then,

After the Pentecostal outpourings began, numerous publications appeared advocating its teachings and serving as channels for teaching information, and the support of missionaries overseas. One of these publications, the Word and Witness edited by Eudorus N. Bell, issued a call in 1913 for a conference of Pentecostal believers to convene in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the following year. This became the founding meeting of the General Council of the Assemblies of God.

It was adopted with the following preamble:

This statement of Fundamental Truths is not intended as a creed for the church, nor as a basic of fellowship among Christians, but only as a basis of unity for the ministry alone (i.e., that we all speak the same thing, 1 Cor. 1:10; Acts 2:42). The human phraseology employed in such statement is not inspired nor contended for, but the truth set forth in such phraseology is held to be essential to a full Gospel ministry. No claim is made that it contains all truth in the Bible, only that it covers our present needs as to these fundamental matters.

The original statement served the Assemblies of God well for many years. There was little dissatisfaction with any of the sixteen points.

The concern for the preservation of doctrinal integrity within the Movement has also resulted in a number of position papers. These papers were called for by ministers of Assemblies of God churches from time to time, as the need for further help and clarification on various subjects was felt on the field. Most of them were prepared by the Commission on Doctrinal Purity, a standing committee appointed by the Executive Presbytery of the Assemblies of God. A number of pastors, district officials, and professors of the Bible colleges and seminary have served on that committee at various times. The papers were approved by the Executive Presbytery and the General Presbytery, the leadership bodies of the Assemblies of God, and then printed. All papers up to 1989 have been collected and published under the title