Early Pentecostal Embarrassments, Part 1
Charles Fox Parham (1873–1929) is the founder of Pentecostalism, which started in Topeka, Kansas, in 1901.¹ He was an influential teacher impacted by 19th-century Methodism and its offshoots, including the Holiness Movement, the Higher Life movement, and Faith Cure. Each of these branches of Christendom contributed to the rise of Pentecostalism at the dawn of the 20th century.
Parham can also be seen as the father of the whole charismatic renewal, including its many interdenominational developments in the 20th century. Thereby, church historians distinguish between three different waves of development. Hyatt explains:
…there has been a veritable explosion of charismatic Christianity. Beginning with the Pentecostal movement in 1901, and revitalized by the Charismatic movement beginning in 1960 and the Third Wave beginning around 1980, this explosion of charismatic Christianity has gained momentum and permeated every facet of church life. Not since the first century has there been such a widespread emphasis on the Holy Spirit and His gifts.²
I once had an interesting dialogue with a pastor regarding Pentecostalism and the charismatic movements. This pastor acknowledged the many questionable excesses and claims of charismatic enthusiasts. He mentioned things such as the supposed glory cloud and gold dust manifestations, feathers falling from the sky, and other strange phenomena. But in his estimation, these are merely later developments of the charismatic renewal. Early Pentecostalism did emphasize the supernatural, but it was overall orderly and not characterized by any excesses or grossly misguided beliefs, he explained. Many Christians prefer a romanticized view of the founding of Pentecostalism. However, when doing some genuine research, without merely relying on Pentecostal propaganda literature, it can easily be seen that the movement was a mess from the get-go. Larry Martin, the biographer of Parham, acknowledges:
It is important to examine the actual records to uncover the truth about Parham, honestly acknowledging both his contributions and his shortcomings. However awkward the facts may be…³
Parham’s Early Life
Charles Fox Parham was born in Muscatine, Iowa, on June 4, 1873. As a child, Parham suffered from numerous physical and psychological maladies. In his personal testimony, Parham writes:
I have been invalid nearly all my life. Many times my life was despaired of. My parents expected a charge to fall to their lot, and that they would have to care for me all my life. When 18 I suffered for months from inflammatory rheumatism. … four times I almost died from heart failure (Angina Pectoris). Then I will say I was a wreck on the shores of despair: catarrh, sick headaches, abscess on my liver, stigmatized eye etc. Sat up nights to nurse my dyspepsia: the least exertion produced nervous prostration.⁴
Please note that this information is not meant to be a mockery. I am heartbroken for everyone who experiences such things. These are life circumstances no one wants to be in. Nevertheless, the information will be helpful in a later analysis of Parham’s character development.
Martin writes that Parham was converted when he was 13 years old, several years after the family had moved to Illinois. In 1889, he started taking classes at Southwestern Kansas Conference College in Winfield. However, Parham’s spiritual life took a drastic change. He backslid to such a degree that his colleagues “no longer recognized him as a Christian.” After a lengthy period of suffering from rheumatic fever, he repented and was allegedly healed.⁵ Parham’s healing testimony includes the errant belief that the Holy Spirit does not indwell a sick body:
When finally I discovered that there was a cleansing promised for the body as well as for the soul, and that the Holy Ghost would not dwell in an unclean temple, and my body full of corruption and disease was unfit for the Holy Ghost and fire, I took the Promise in 1 Thess. 5:23, where it says He will sanctify us, spirit, soul and BODY, and by repentance, humiliation and fasting I neared Him, until “by the Faith of the Son of God” I was entirely cleansed, and, as Joel says, my blood was purged.⁶
Martin explains that Parham eventually dropped out of the university without a diploma. In fact, he was not even able to start his theological education. And after a short attempt as a young preacher, he likewise dropped out of a Methodist congregation due to internal conflicts. He complained about the narrow-mindedness and morally loose lifestyles of the Methodists. Parham was an independent thinker, which often brought him into conflict with higher authorities. The narrowmindedness of traditionalism is also what eventually led him to the less restrictive revival meetings.⁷
Bethel Bible College
After Parham got married to Sarah Thistlewaite, he and his wife decided to open a Bible school outside of Topeka, Kansas, on October 15, 1900. For that purpose, they rented a well-known and monumental building called “Stone’s Mansion.”⁸
The opening ceremony of Parham’s school took place with only the highest spiritual expectations. Hyatt writes:
At the dedication of Bethel, one of the students, Captain Tuttle, saw a vision. Hovering over the school was, as it were, a great body of water about to overflow. He understood this to mean that the outpouring of the Spirit about to occur at this school would be so abundant as to quench every spiritually thirsty soul on earth.⁹
It is possible that all of that created a preconditioned environment. High religious expectations can also be the soil for social phenomena that do not require a supernatural explanation.
I will now summarize the events around the Topeka Outpouring as reported in the “Life of Charles F. Parham: Founder of the Apostolic Movement.” This book was authored by Parham’s wife and is the primary source to use on this subject.
In late December 1900, Parham had preaching appointments in Kansas City. While he was absent, the students were asked to find the external evidence of a second experience with the Holy Spirit, known as the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. This search was done independently from each other. After three days in Kansas City, Parham returned and gathered the students. To his surprise, each student concluded that Speaking in Tongues is the evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.¹⁰
At this point, it is important to understand that Parham and his students correctly understood the gift of tongues as the supernatural ability to speak in previously unlearned intelligible human languages (xenolalia) for the purpose of evangelism in the foreign mission field. They did not identify the gift of tongues as ecstatic speech or free vocalization (glossolalia). This understanding came later in Pentecostal history. This is a fact of which many contemporary Pentecostals and Charismatics are unaware.
A Second Pentecost
In the Watchnight Service of 1900–1901, about 75 seekers gathered in the chapel. Agnes Ozman, one of Parham’s students, eventually asked Parham to lay hands on her. She hoped to receive the gift of tongues in order to go on missions.¹¹ What happened next is best described in Parham’s own words:
…humbly in the name of Jesus, I laid my hand upon her head and prayed. I had scarcely repeated three dozen sentences when a glory fell upon her, a halo seemed to surround her head and face, and she began speaking in the Chinese language and was unable to speak in English for three days.¹²
Vinson Synan explains, “Ozman’s experience thus became the prototype experience for all the millions of Pentecostals who were to follow.”¹³
After the incident of Agnes’ tongues speaking, the whole school entered a period of seeking God. For that purpose, they removed the furniture from an upstairs room.¹⁴ This room would soon remind followers of the Biblical “Upper Room” of Acts 2, where “tongues as of fire” appeared, gifting the early disciples to speak in other languages (Acts 2:1–13).
On January 3, 1901, Parham‘s students went to the “Upper Room” of the mansion. There, they remained praying, eagerly expecting another Pentecost. Parham, however, left the mansion to preach as a guest speaker at another church in Topeka. When he returned, he immediately went up to the room and opened the door. He then claims he could see “a sheen of white light above the brightness of the lamps.”¹⁵
Sister Stanley approached Parham and said, “Just before you entered tongues of fire were sitting above their heads.”¹⁶ The worshippers in the room then began to sing the song “Jesus Lover of my Soul,” allegedly in multiple languages. Parham, who already knelt, eventually asked God to give him this Pentecostal blessing as well.¹⁷ He explains:
He [God] distinctly made it clear to me that He raised me up and trained me to declare this mighty truth to the world, and if I was willing to stand for it, with all the persecutions, hardships, trials, slander, scandal that it would entail, He would give me the blessing. And I said “Lord I will, if You will just give me this blessing.” Right then and there came a slight twist in my throat, a glory fell over me and I began to worship God in the Sweedish [sic] tongue, which later changed to other languages and did so until the morning.¹⁸
News about these strange events began to spread quickly. Many of the headlines were critical. Nevertheless, an increased number of sincere seekers came to Bethel.
Parham‘s Spirit of Exaggeration
One of the problems with these astonishing claims by Parham and his students is that they are difficult to verify. However, an element that should caution us from blind belief is Parham’s character. Parham acknowledges that he was often tempted to exaggerate. This is what he confessed 2 years before the Topeka Outpouring:
I felt I had obtained a complete victory over telling funny anecdotes, etc., in the pulpit, and I have battled a spirit of exaggeration that had always been in my life, ...¹⁹
Since people usually hide such things, it might point to a bigger problem in Parham’s heart. I personally believe that Parham was a fraudulent attention-seeker. But I draw my conclusion not only from his confession above. No. This issue is also revealed in one of his most outrageous claims. Parham wanted his audience to believe that he knew the exact location of the Ark of the Covenant, the most sacred relic of ancient Israel. Daniel Long points out two articles that document Parham’s claim.²⁰ The first is Democrat and Chronicle, which reported the following on February 1, 1902.
Rev. Parham is a student of ancient Hebrew and he recently came into possession of a document written in ancient Hebrew which gives the description of the cave in which the ark and the tabernacle were hidden by the prophet [Jeremiah]. Rev. Parham says he believes he can easily find the mountain in which the cave is situated. He is greatly encouraged at the interest displayed by Christians here in the plan.
Rev. Mr. Parham claims to have made an exhaustive study of his subject during the past ten years and carries with him a copy of what purports to be an ancient Hebrew writing or refers to another writing of an earlier date from which he learned the name of the mountain wherein the ark is hidden and almost absolute directions for finding it. He refuses to divulge the name of the mountain to persons not in his confidence. The writing in which Parham found the information is in part as follows: “It was also contained in the same writing that the prophet became warned of God, commanding the tabernacle and the ark to go with him into the mountain, and when Jeremy came thither, he found a hollow cave, wherein he laid the tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense and so stopped the door.”²¹
The second article that Long mentions was published in The Galena Evening Times on August 25, 1908:
Chas. F. Parham, whose permanent address is Tonganoxie, Kansas, has issued a circular letter from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to his followers and telling of plans he has to make a trip to the Holy Land in search of the Ark of the Covenant. He claims that by diligent search he now has guides and maps which promise to make the search succesful and he is endeavoring to raise funds to sail for the Holy Land next January.²²
So, Parham claimed to possess a mysterious writing in which the location of “The Lost Ark” was revealed. This makes him the Pentecostal Indiana Jones.
Long believes that Parham’s claim was in fact a scam to elicit donations. He also notices that “the writing in which Parham found the information” is not really that mysterious. Parham actually used a quotation of 2 Maccabees, a book of the Apocrypha.²³ Below is a comparison between 2 Maccabees and Parham’s quotation:
Parham’s quotation : “It was also contained in the same writing that the prophet became warned of God, commanding the tabernacle and the ark to go with him into the mountain, and when Jeremy came thither, he found a hollow cave, wherein he laid the tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense and so stopped the door.”
2 Maccabees 2:4–5: It was also contained in the same writing, that the prophet, being warned of God, commanded the tabernacle and the ark to go with him, as he went forth into the mountain, where Moses climbed up, and saw the heritage of God. And when Jeremy came thither, he found an hollow cave, wherein he laid the tabernacle, and the ark, and the altar of incense, and so stopped the door.
But finding the ark was not all that he claimed. Parham added that the discovery of the ark would usher in the Second Coming of Christ, which would be his achievement. Espinosa explains:
Parham also embraced aspects of Zionism and Theodore Herzl’s Jewish Congress’s work in Vienna to reclaim Palestine and turn it into a Jewish state. He did not believe that orthodox Jews had to convert to Christianity. In order to help hasten Christ’s Second Coming, he set out on a journey to find the Ark of the Covenant (and later Noah’s Ark) in order to attract the Jewish Diaspora back to Jerusalem, where they would rebuild the Temple, though without success. This series of events would usher in the Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ to set up His thousand-year millennial kingdom prophesied in Revelation 20:1–6. Anglo-Saxon Americans played a special role by fighting against the Anti-Christ, a view Parham based on the Apocrypha (II Esdras 11–12), despite also arguing that most Roman Catholics were not true Christians.²⁴
The topic of the imminent return of Christ has always been characteristic of charismatic groups in church history. The recovery of spiritual gifts is seen as a direct link to the last days. This is probably also why Parham claimed to be Elijah III. The Independence Daily Reporter wrote the following on November 6, 1906:
A short time ago Parham received another vision from his spiritual source, and announced himself to be Elijah III, as Dowie had declared himself to be Elijah II.²⁵
Larry Martin mentions another amusing claim in his book “The Topeka Outpouring.” Parham bought biblical costumes and boasted that he possessed “the world’s largest collection of clothing from the Bible lands.”²⁶
Parham also bragged to numerous newspapers that his students would go on missions without any need to learn foreign languages. Instead, the students would be given the gift of tongues, and, therefore, the supernatural ability to speak foreign languages. This is what Parham claimed in the Kansas City Times, on January 27, 1901:
A part of our labor will be to teach the church the uselessness of spending years of time preparing missionaries for work in foreign lands when all they have to do is ask God for power.²⁷
A similar claim is found in the Hawaiian Gazette from May 31, 1901:
The students of Bethel College do not need to study in the old way to learn the languages. They have them conferred upon them miraculously. Different ones have already been enabled to converse with Spaniards, Italians, Bohemians, Hungarians, Germans, and French in their own languages. I have no doubt that knowledge of Chinese, Japanese, the various dialects of the people of India and even the language of the savages of Africa will be received during our meetings in the same way. I expect this gathering to be the greatest since the days of Pentecost.²⁸
Failure on the Mission Field
Parham’s bragging was followed by one of Pentecostalism's greatest historical embarrassments. The missionaries confidently skipped any language training and arrived in different Eastern countries. However, they eventually had to learn that not a single person was able to understand them. Robert Mapes Anderson gives further details:
S. C. Todd of the Bible Missionary Society investigated eighteen Pentecostals who went to Japan, China, and India “expecting to preach to the natives in those countries in their own tongue,” and found that by their own admission “in no single instance have [they] been able to do so.” As these and other missionaries returned in disappointment and failure, Pentecostals were compelled to rethink their original view of speaking in tongues.²⁹
I want you to imagine that you were one of these missionaries. You are in a state of mind where you genuinely believe you have the supernatural ability to speak in Chinese. You then travel to China and begin to speak what you believe is Chinese. You keep doing that with great confidence until you realize that no one understands you. This is evidence that every other supernatural claim of early Pentecostalism should better be questioned. Parham managed to create a following that could no longer distinguish between fantasy and reality.
(Read the following article to learn everything about the Pentecostal missionary crisis and the redefinition of the gift of tongues: https://medium.com/@andreaswiget/alfred-garrs-failed-missionary-tongues-4d78da0a0232)
Parham’s Psychological Profile
Parham’s psychological profile seems to have been no different than that of today’s wildest charismatics (e.g., Kat Kerr, Sid Roth, Kenneth Copeland, or Benny Hinn). Please don’t take these observations as mere bitter accusations. I know there are many precious believers within the movement in scrutiny. Some of those who associate with the charismatic movements I also call my friends. However, I also want to be honest.
It is possible that Parham’s background as a severely sick and frail child had contributed to an inferiority complex that sought alleviation. This would at least explain why he had such a need to exaggerate and boast.
[1]: Larry Martin, Charles Fox Parham (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2022), 13; Eddie L. Hyatt, 2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2022), 135; Vinson Synan, The Century of the Holy Spirit (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2012), Kindle-version.
[2]: Eddie L. Hyatt, 2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2015), 1.
[3]: Larry Martin, Charles Fox Parham, 13.
[4]: Charles Fox Parham, The Apostolic Faith, March 30, 1899. Online source: https://www.newspapers.com/image/419936786/
[5]: Larry Martin, Charles Fox Parham, 43–47.
[6]: Charles Fox Parham, The Apostolic Faith, March 30, 1899. Online source: https://www.newspapers.com/image/419936786/
[7]: Larry Martin, Charles Fox Parham, 47–49.
[8]: Ibid., 66–67.
[9] Eddie L. Hyatt, 2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity, 136.
[10]: Sarah Parham, The Life of Charles F. Parham (Baxter Springs, KS: Fourth Printing, 2000), 51–52. Online source: https://nebula.wsimg.com/3b7517146035be31da2f51460361aa5c?AccessKeyId=837F2767E780E93FAC95&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
[11]: Ibid., 52.
[12]: Ibid.
[13]: Vinson Synan, “The Touch Felt Around the World,” Charisma and Christian Life, January 1991, quoted in John MacArthur, Strange Fire (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2013), 19.
[14]: Sarah Parham, The Life of Charles F. Parham, 52.
[15]: Ibid.
[16]: Ibid., 53.
[17]: Ibid.
[18]: Ibid.
[19]: The Apostolic Faith, April 14, 1899. Online source: https://www.newspapers.com/image/419936843
[20]: David Long, Long for Truth (podcast), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3wXEbzcuXM
[21]: Democrat and Chronicle, February 1, 1902. Online source: https://www.newspapers.com/image/135276235
[22]: The Galena Evening Times, August 25, 1908. Online source: https://www.newspapers.com/image/148801906
[23]: David Long, Long for Truth (podcast), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3wXEbzcuXM
[24]: Gaston Espinosa, William J. Seymour and the Origins of Global Pentecostalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014), 45; also compare Larry Martin, Charles Fox Parham, 133.
[25]: Independence Daily Reporter, November 6, 1906. Online source: https://www.newspapers.com/image/92735658
[26]: Larry Martin, The Topeka Outpouring (Joplin, MO: Christian Life Books, 2000), 176.
[27]: Kansas City Times, January 27, 1901.
[28]: Hawaiian Gazette, May 31, 1901. Online source: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025121/1901-05-31/ed-1/seq-8/
[29]: Robert Mapes Anderson, Visions of the Disinherited (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1979), 90–91. Online source: https://archive.org/details/vision-of-the-disinherited
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