ENG XR PRR] '(HTJP://PLAINSHUMANITIES.UNL.EDU/ENCYCLOPEDIA)) Great Plains (ntpJplainshumanities.un.edulencyclopedia) Home Introduction Contents Contributors About (hitp:/plainshumanitiedhith.plderetyatopeitiad tp.Apldaretyotopedinginte ier yoinpesdind imtoliteriny phopedieaanteiute PARHAM, CHARLES FOX (1873-1929) Charles Fox Parham, who was bom in Muscatine, lows, on June 4, 1873, is regarded asthe founder and doctrinal father ofthe worldwide pentecostal movement. A sickly youth, Pazham nevertheless enrolled in Southwest Kansas Colleye in 1890, where he became interested inthe Christian ministy. After receiving a call to preach, he lef college before graduating, and in 1893 accepted the pastorate of a Methodist church in Linwood, Kansas. {In Linwood, Parham soon became involved in the holiness movement, which was spreading in Methodist circles at the time, This movement stressed instant second-blessing sanctification as taught by John Wesley twas in the Pains thatthe most radical elements ofthe holiness movement took rot. By 1895, a controversy over the second blessing divided the church, Parham became so enmeshed in holiness theology that he left the Methodist Chureh to fallowa career as an independent holiness evangelist and teacher. He soon began to emphasize newer doctrines, such as divine healing and the instant premillennial second coming of Christ. For the rest of his lif, he also rejected any type of church organization In 1808 Parham opened hs own "Bethel Bible School” and healing home in Topeka, Kansas, where i 1899 he ‘began publication of a magazine called the Apostolic Faith. It was in this school that Parham and his students studied the differing teachings ofthe holiness movement relating to the "baptism in the Holy Spiet” described in ‘Acts 2:4, Through a student consensus, with sone elp from Parham, the student body concluded that speaking in tongues (glosslalia) was the "Bible evidence” of such an experience, On January s, 1901, student inthe school, Agnes Ozman, spoke in tongues, electrifying the school and the “Topeka area through sensational stories in leal newspapers. Parham's teaching that speaking in tongues was the necessary "Bible evidence” of baptism in the Holy Spirit becarme known as the “touch elt round the world” that, according to J. Roswell Flower ofthe Assemblies of God, “made the Twentieth Century Pentecostal Movement. Parham also began to teach that glosslalia also constituted zenolalia(., "missionary tongues"), whereby missionaries could go t the corners ofthe earth and preach miraculously in known human languages that they hhad not learned. In 2 short time, all Pentecostal except Parham dropped this belief due to unsuccessful efforts at ‘preaching in unknown tongues in India and other places. iy 908 the pentecostal movement had spread to Los Angeles through a black preacher, William Joseph Seymour, who learned pentecostalUneology as Parham’ student in another Bible school in Houston, Texas. From the Azusa Street Mission led by Seymour, the pentecostal movement spread rapidly throughout the world. In October 1906 Parham visited Azusa Street and denounced the Las Angeles meetings as being dominated by "holy rollers und bypaotists" that featured “darkey camp meeting stunts.” He was thereupon expelled from Azusa Street by Seymour and hs elders. For the rest of hs life, Parham denounced his former student and the Azusa Street revival as “spiritual power prostituted." In 1907 Parham was accused of sodomy in San Antonio during a Toca healing crusade. Although be was acquited ofthe charge, his influence asa major leader in the pentecostal movement was over. Inthe last two decades of his life, Parhacn retired to bis home in Baxter Springs, Kansas, where several thousand of his followers attended his annual camp meetings until his death on January 29, 1929, He is buried in Baxter Springs. [A century after Patham's movement began in Topeka, the Pentecostals had grown tobe the second largest family of Chrstins, with more than 500 million members in the pentecostal and charismatic churches and movements that had spread from Topeka to practically every nation of the world. Major Americen denominations produced by the pentecostal movement include the Assemblies of God, the Church of God in Christ, the Pentecostal Holiness Church, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), the United Pentecostal Church, and the Pentecostal CChureh of God. Vinson Synan Regent University Surges, Ste, Gry Mes, nd Patrick Alerter, Distonary of Penta and Charematic Movement, Gand Rap Mi- Zander Pubstag Howse, 1986 ot ses. 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