Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture

Pentecostals! From snake handlers in Appalachia to mega-watt speakers like Joyce Meyers,the Pentecostal tent is a big one and it has a very colorful history. In Heaven Below you will find pastors from the 1920s bemoaning the tight clothes, high heels and makeup women wore to church, sucking the poor innocemtn men in with their sexy wiles (p 174). You'll read of parents who believed only God could heal disease and watched their ill children die rather than take them to a doctor or give them any medicine (186). You'll see the remarkable tales of the dead risen again, the sick made healthy, the lame made to walk (chapter 3)! You'll gasp as tracts such as "Mormonism! A Survey of Its Blasphemous Pretensions and Evil Practices" show you how to stay away from heretical and apostate churches. Not even the Roman Catholic Church is treated with kid gloves as you read of a young woman's struggle to get out of convents beset with child sacrifice, tortured nuns , and stonings! (chapter 11). Mr. Wacker's history is not only fun to read and packed with information, it opened my eyes as to how much the present Pentecostal world is like the early one. Every stereotype is here: self-righteous, clean living, quarrelsome, bombastic, down to earth, Bible-reading, Jesus-loving, heresy hating. It turns out that other than allowing medicines and surgery now, the average Pentecostal has a lot of in common with her salt-of-the-earth Holiness Apostolic Church-attending great-grandma. Mr. Wacker takes the reader through the effect the movement had on individuals,families, neighborhoods, and cities. Giving up the evils of alcohol and meat brought health and stability to many families. Lives were changed for the better. On the other hand, many were frightened of a wife or child suddenly rolling around in seizures and babbling nonsensical words. Husbands dragged their wives from church services and parents threatened pastors with arson and death if they did not stop prosyletizing to their kids. Pentecostal preachers would preach through the night and keep the people in the neighborhood awake with their noise. When communities tried to get them to stop preaching before 9 or to keep it to the daytime, the Pentecostals would have none of it and seemed, as the author says, "constitutionally unable to empathize with other persons' point of view." If you are from a Pentecostal background, are a Pentecostal, or have lost a family member to Pentecostalism (and if you have, you know what I mean by "lost") then you will probably enjoy this book. It helped me more than I thought it would because it showed me that Holy Rollers have been the way they are since the beginning and there is nothing special about the obnoxiousness of their present population. It made me feel better to know that.

The first generation of American Pentecostals is presented by Grant Wacker's "Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture" (2001, 367-page paper back). This well-documented (with 79 pages of endnotes) and somewhat technical book introduces Pentecostalism's originators while informing about their early Holy Ghost doctrine and theology. Much of Wacker's engaging discussion documents long-held views appreciative and critical of Pentecostals. He speaks to the Pentecostal origins for Holy Spirit baptism, glossolalia, xenolalia, graphalalia, blood atonement, biblical literalism, fear of insulting the Spirit, primacy of Jesus, yieldedness, and much more. Founders' anathema for intellectualism, in particular their distrust of colleges and seminary learning, is also reviewed. Of equal interest is Wacker's name list for themselves prior to the adoption of "Pentecostal": "saints", "believers", "Spirit-filled", "enthusiasts", "Trinity-filled", "Holy Ghost Movement", etc. Additional lists for various taboos are presented. Earliest Pentecostals disapproved the usual sins (lying, swearing, smoking, dancing, drinking, etc.) and they constantly frowned on feminine short hair, eating too much, jesting with friends, chewing gum, using medicine, eating ice cream, and many more pleasurable activities taken for granted today. Wacker's is a fascinating discussion for the development of Pentecostal salvation process. His presentation is interesting and informative. The author assumes reader Pentecostal fluency. This book is intended to analyze early Pentecostals for contemporary believers. Therefore, much of the book is anecdotal reviewing the personal development and lives of Pentecostal patriarchs and matriarchs. Portions of the text, however, require familiarity with early 20th century American religion and theology. This book is recommended to those interested in early Pentecostalism, early 20th century American religion, Holy Ghost theology, and America's first "charismatics".

My sister speaks in tongues and so does her husband; they make me nervous. I have vague recollections as an immature teenage Christian of being schooled to speak in tongues, failing the test, and then feeling guilty that I was not as spiritual, as closely in tune with God as my tutors. But considered globally, as a non tongue-speaker, I will soon be in the Christian minority, if I am not already. From obscure beginnings at Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas in 1901, and at 312 Azusa Street in an industrial section of downtown Los Angeles in 1905, what is broadly known as charismatic or pentecostal Christianity has grown today to include some 525 million believers from virtually every denomination and country the world over. Apart from Catholics (and many Catholics are charismatic), they constitute the single largest distinct group of Christians, and they are getting larger. Social scientists predict that in fifty years they will number one billion believers. Grant Wacker, professor of history at Duke University, grew up in a Pentecostal family and so brings to this volume the critical detachment of a scholar but also the empathy of the consummate insider. Heaven Below focuses on the earliest years of the movement, from 1900 to 1925. Wacker's goal? "To rescue Pentecostals from the shadowy fate that EP Thompson once called (in another context), `the enormous condescension of posterity'" (p. 266). Scholars have struggled to explain how such a wildly enthusiast, anti-intellectual, counter cultural and divisive movement could not only survive and flourish but explode. Wacker offers a very specific twofold thesis. Early Pentecostals did two things extremely well. They encouraged the primitive impulse of a deeply felt and experienced relationship with God, and then devised pragmatic ways to "bottle the lightening" without "stilling the fire or cracking the vessel." They held emotional prayer meetings and built hospitals. They begged God for healing and founded colleges. They could be both credulous and shrewd. The pentecostal movement now enjoys a burgeoning scholarly literature. Charismatics have been good for the church, and this new literature should be good for the movement.

Grant Wacker has written a wonderful book. His scholarly treatment of early pentecostalism (1900-1925) is matched by his ability to write for a general audience with insight, sympathy for his subject, and a tremendous wit and appreciation. His views are balanced, his anecdotes are well-selected, and his writing is first-rate. He covers all aspects, races, and gender issues in early American pentecostalism. Anyone interested in American religion in general or penetcostalism in particular MUST read this book. A professor told me in grad school that the explosion of new books would only get worse. He advised me to buy only those books that would either change or advance my life: this is such a book.