Overview
In 1906, William J. Seymour (1870–1922) preached Pentecostal revival at the Azusa Street mission in Los Angeles. From these and other humble origins the movement has blossomed to 631 million people around the world. GastÓn Espinosa provides new insight into the life and ministry of Seymour, the Azusa Street revival, and Seymour's influence on global Pentecostal origins. After defining key terms and concepts, he surveys the changing interpretations of Seymour over the past 100 years, critically engages them in a biography, and then provides an unparalleled collection of primary sources, all in a single volume. He pays particular attention to race relations, Seymour's paradigmatic global influence from 1906 to 1912, and the break between Seymour and Charles Parham, another founder of Pentecostalism. Espinosa's fragmentation thesis argues that the Pentecostal propensity to invoke direct unmediated experiences with the Holy Spirit empowers ordinary people to break the bottle of denominationalism and to rapidly indigenize and spread their message. The 104 primary sources include all of Seymour's extant writings in full and without alteration and some of Parham's theological, social, and racial writings, which help explain why the two parted company. To capture the revival's diversity and global influence, this book includes Black, Latino, Swedish, and Irish testimonies, along with those of missionaries and leaders who spread Seymour's vision of Pentecostalism globally.
Full Product Details
Author: Gastón Espinosa
Publisher: Duke University Press
Imprint: Duke University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 3.00cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.753kg
ISBN: 9780822356288
ISBN 10: 0822356287
Pages: 277
Publication Date: 11 August 2014
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
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Reviews
The life story of black Pentecostal founder William J. Seymour is complex, ironic, engrossing, and little known, except among a small circle of scholars. Given the vast expansion of global Pentecostalism in recent decades, there has been a need for a new and thorough investigation of Pentecostal origins, one that reckons with both Charles Parham and William J. Seymour, the white and black pioneers of Pentecostalism who had a conflicted and, in many ways, tragic relationship with one another. Gaston Espinosa has put together the book we need, directly and judiciously addressing the conflict between Parham and Seymour. --Michael J. McClymond, Saint Louis University
This book marks a watershed in scholarship about the origins and early spread of Pentecostal faith and fire around the world. Gaston Espinosa's illuminating historical portrait of the one eyed preacher and spiritual giant, William J. Seymour is joined to an invaluable documentary history of theological topics and the drama of the Asuza Street revival movement. Espinosa has presented a truly multi-cultural portrait with early testimonies from Mexican, African, Middle Eastern, U.S. and European voices. Not by might but by Espinosa's deep historical work and balanced insights will readers come to grasp the fuller human story of this twentieth century reformation story. --Dav d Carrasco, author of The Aztecs: A Very Short Introduction
Author Information
GastÓn Espinosa is Arthur V. Stoughton Associate Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Claremont McKenna College. He is the author of Latino Pentecostals in America: Faith and Politics in Action and editor of Religion, Race, and Barack Obama's New Democratic Pluralism and Mexican American Religions: Spirituality, Activism, and Culture, which is also published by Duke University Press.
