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Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism

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I was born and raised in a Pentecostal home. I left home and Pentecostalism when I was 20. For the past 34 years I have felt the persistent need to understand just what it is about Pentecostalism that has captured the soul of my family since about 1923. Robert M. Anderson provides a treasure trove of information about foundational aspects of Pentecostalism. His is a scholarly work, but written in a clear, straightforward style. He treats his subject with respect, and offers an uncluttered view of the original "Vision." His ample footnoting and extensive bibliography are a gold mine of resource material. I am indebted to Mr. Anderson for this work which has help me immensely in understanding my roots and the underlying beliefs of my own family system.

Pentecostalism is arguably the most important mass religious movement of the twentieth century. As it grew out of revivals in Topeka, Kansas and Los Angeles, California in the early twentieth century it rapidly gained adherents across the U. S. and throughout the world. Today, it is the second largest sub-group of global Christianity. It has over 30 million American adherents and a worldwide following of 430 million. Before 1970 there were few scholarly histories of the movement. Academics' unfamiliarity with the world of ecstatic religion might have been one reason for this oversight. But just as likely, scholars thought the conservative religion of pentecostalism, like Fundamentalism, was regressive, entrenched, and not worthy of their interests. Because of the paucity of historical research on pentecostalism, Robert Mapes Anderson's exploration of the movement's origins in 1977 was a seminal study. Anderson applied the newest methods in social history, psychology, and religious studies in his effort to trace the roots of American pentecostalism. What he found was that extreme social strain was the source of pentecostalism. Following Eric Hobsbawm and E. P. Thompson, Anderson located social tension (such as class conflict and class stratification) in industrialism. The shift from an agrarian to an industrial society fed estrangement. "Status anxiety" demonstrates how individuals affected by these changes became pentecostals. Accordingly, when asking who pentecostals were, Anderson answers: those cut loose from their roots in the soil, the highly mobile and unstable in residence, occupation, and religious affiliation, who hovered uncertainly between working and middle class (113). He begins his study by examining the rise of the Holiness movement during the second half of the nineteenth century. Holiness advocates were unsatisfied with the lack of piety in mainline denominations and were put off by the growing wealth and elaborateness of the of their churches. Dozens of holiness sects left the mainline denominations in protest, establishing their own fellowships that ministered to common laborers and farmers. The holiness revival spawned a new zeal for "spirit baptism" or a divine empowerment of believers. Pentecostalism took spirit baptism one step further. In 1901, holiness minister Charles Fox Parham asked the students at his Topeka Bible school to study the scriptures and determine what evidence might be given of spirit baptism. Using the pentecost account of Acts chapter two, they concluded that speaking in tongues was the confirmation of holy spirit baptism. The first practitioners of tongues speaking thought they were speaking in known human languages. They reasoned that God had given them the ability to preach the gospel in other countries. Slowly this view changed, and pentecostals came to believe they were speaking in a divine language, which God alone understood. Even though pentecostals were uneducated and poor, speaking in tongues meant that in God's eyes they were powerful citizens of a higher kingdom. The 1906 revival at Azusa street, Los Angeles marked the second phase of the pentecostals' origins. William Seymour, a black student of Parham's, initiated the revival amidst an impoverished urban setting. The Azusa street revival gathered the "ethnic minority groups of Los Angeles," who discovered a "sense of dignity and community denied them in the larger urban culture"(69). Anderson illustrates Pentecostalism's appeal to the dispossessed by analyzing forty leaders of the early movement. Of these he finds that most came from the lower economic ranks of society and had shifted from job to job throughout their lives. Pentecostalism was a release for these individuals. The ecstatic experience of speaking in tongues offered an escape from their "status anxieties" and gave them a sense of divine significance. Equally important, pentecostals' apocalyptic view of the end times allowed them to explain the past and present in terms equal to their social experience. "From the Pentecostal perspective, history seemed to be running down hill . . . and the world seemed to be at the point of collapse." Pentecostals looked for Christ to return and rescue the faithful from the fallen world (80-81). Anderson concludes that pentecostalism represented a dysfunctional and maladjusted reaction to social pressures. Because of the pentecostals' negative appraisal of society and their pessimistic outlook for the future, they were an apolitical, "conservative bulwark of the status quo." They channeled their social protest "into the harmless backwaters of religious ideology"(239). For Anderson, the radical social impulse inherent in the vision of the disinherited was squandered away in escapism and conservative conformity. This is the tragedy, says Anderson, of pentecostalism. This conclusion is one-sided. Anderson assumes that the pentecostals' faith is irrelevant if it does not foment social and economic protest. He also assumes that religious rewards are less satisfying than material ones. Anderson's materialist reading neglects the religious functions of faith for pentecostals and overlooks the importance of pentecostals' internal religious lives. But for the disinherited, speaking in tongues and partaking in healings and other miracles opened new vistas that improved and transformed their lives. Anderson's use of status anxiety to explain the ascendence of pentecostalism is also problematic. Status anxiety, as someone like Richard Hofstadter used it, supposes that the dispossessed sought upward social mobility. According to Hofstadter, status anxiety occurred among Fundamentalists because they desired social and political clout, but were unable to achieve it. Did pentecostals want to climb social and political ladders? By Anderson's own account pentecostals had removed themselves from politics and society. Their quest for religious enrichment rather than social and economic security, calls into question the status anxiety model. Although Anderson's work suffers from a rigidly functionalist model, it is still the best comprehensive history of early pentecostalism. Perhaps future studies, following Grant Wacker's work, will correct his account by emphasizing the positive functions of faith for pentecostals.

This is the definitive work on Early Pentecostalism. I cannot imagine why it is out-of-print, with it's extraordinary insight, unbelievable size of Bibliography which is worth the price of the volume in itself, and if that's not enough, the insightful and perceptive original material from original sources. Get this volume if at all possible. Recommended

Although I read Robert Anderson's "Visions of the Disinherited" (1992) a number of years ago much of what he penned about American Pentecostalism has stayed with me. Hoping to order additional copies from Amazon.com, I am surprised to discover that it remains out of print!

Andersons' is a fascinating and erudite study about the birth, growth, struggles, and influence of the American Pentecostal movement. He begins with a brief history of the charismatic movement. He witnesses that the American Holiness movement, originally authored and then cast aside by Methodism, began to merge with charisma by the 19th century's conclusion. Pentecostalism, born in 1901, found itself at the apex of this convergence.

From the beginning, Anderson understands Pentecostals to be a reactionary holiness group from the lowest economic classes who gain strength during the 20th century's "economic dislocation". Through its 100-year history it has moved from social discontent to conservative conformity.

Anderson writes a compelling and interesting history. He speaks to Pentecostals' 312 Azusa Street founding, Parham's "steps of grace", England's Keswick Movement, Darby's dispensations, the 1916 Statement of Faith, the tongues only controversy, the psychology of Pentecostals' hostility, and much more. Anderson also convincingly shows that Pentecostals (as heirs of the holiness movement) are not fundamentalists (page 147). (Pentecostals have historically seen non-Pentecostals as "unregenerate".)

Through their history Pentecostals have taken to task Free Masonry, the YMCA, the League of Nations, the NRA, Roman Catholicism, and President Franklin Roosevelt to name only a few. As holiness conservative Pentecostals refute modern populism's progressive liberal movement while feeling a kinship with ostracized Jews (pages 218-25).

Andersons' scholarship includes 50 pages of endnotes and 35 pages of bibliography. Various charts assist Anderson in demonstrating his persuasive conclusions. This 334-page paperback is destined to become a classic for researchers of the world's largest Christian Protestant denomination.

This book is very recommendable to all who are curious about Pentecostalism, students of American religion, and denominational teachers. Its used book price is worth its purchase. One hopes that some group will soon reprint it!

Correction: Vision of the Disinherited was first published in 1979 by Oxford Univ. Press