William J. Seymour

Part of a series on Pentecostalism
Background Christianity The Reformation Methodist revivals Restorationism Holiness movement
Early history Bethel Bible College 1904–1905 Welsh Revival Azusa Street Revival Charles Fox Parham William J. Seymour
Key beliefs Baptism with the Holy Spirit Finished Work Latter rain Spiritual gifts Speaking in tongues Prophecy Divine healing Visions
Key people Asa A. Allen Joseph Ayo Babalola William M. Branham David Yonggi Cho Jack Coe Margaret Court Benny Hinn Rex Humbard George Jeffreys Kathryn Kuhlman Gerald Archie Mangun Charles Harrison Mason Aimee Semple McPherson Charles Fox Parham David du Plessis Oral Roberts William J. Seymour Smith Wigglesworth Maria Woodworth-Etter Pat Robertson Bishop Ida Robinson Category:Pentecostals
Major denominations Apostolic Church Assemblies of God Church of God in Christ Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) International Church of the Foursquare Gospel International Pentecostal Holiness Church United Pentecostal Church International
Related movements Charismatic Movement Evangelicalism Oneness Pentecostalism

William Joseph Seymour (May 2, 1870 – September 28, 1922) was an American minister, and an initiator of the Pentecostal religious movement.^[1]

Early life and career

Seymour was born to former slaves Simon and Phyllis Salabar Seymour in Centerville, Louisiana.^[2] Though he was baptized at the Roman Catholic Church of the Assumption in Franklin, he and his family attended the New Providence Baptist Church in Centerville.^[3] The racial violence in the American South at this time — Louisiana had one of the highest rates of lynchings in the nation — would have a huge effect on Seymour's later emphasis on racial equality at the Azusa mission.^[4]

In the 1890s, Seymour left the South in order to travel north, to places such as Memphis, St. Louis, and Indianapolis.^[5] In doing this, he escaped the horrific violence aimed at African Americans in the south during this period; even though he would continue to face racial prejudice in the north, it was not at the violent level that he faced in the South.^[6] In 1895, Seymour moved to Indianapolis, where he attended the Simpson Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church.^[7] It was at this church where Seymour became a born-again Christian.^[8]

During Seymour's travels, he was influenced by Daniel S. Warner's Evening Light Saints, a Holiness group dedicated to racial equality—their view of a racially egalitarian church would influence his theology for the rest of his life.^[9] In 1901, Seymour moved to Cincinnati, where his views on holiness and racial integration were shaped by a Bible school he attended.^[8] It was during this time that he contracted smallpox and subsequently went blind in his left eye; after overcoming the smallpox, Seymour was ordained by the Evening Light Saints. ^[10] Seymour then traveled to Jackson, Mississippi, where he visited Charles Price Jones, and left the South with a very firm commitment to his beliefs.^[11]

In 1906, Seymour joined a newly formed Bible school founded by Charles Parham in Houston, Texas.^[12] Parham's teachings on the baptism of the Holy Spirit stuck with Seymour and influenced his later doctrines; however, Seymour did not agree with some of Parham's more radical views.^[13] He developed a belief in glossolalia ("speaking in tongues") as a confirmation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit when he witnessed it from one of his followers. He believed this proved that the person was born-again and could then go to Heaven. Seymour did not remain at the school for very long — he spent just six weeks there, and left before his studies were complete.^[14] In late January or early February 1906, Neely Terry asked Seymour to pastor a church in Los Angeles.^[15] Feeling called by God, Seymour took the opportunity against Parham's wishes, and moved to Los Angeles.^[15]

Azusa Street Revival

Seymour arrived in Los Angeles on February 22, 1906, and began preaching at Julia Hutchins's Holiness Church two days later.^[16] Less than two weeks later, Hutchins, outraged by Seymour's claims on tongue-speech, padlocked the church door, thereby expelling him from the mission.^[16] Without a place to go, Seymour began staying at the home of Edward Lee, and before long a prayer group began meeting at their house.^[17] The group quickly grew too large, and it was moved to Richard Asberry's house. On April 9, 1906, Lee reportedly spoke in tongues after Seymour laid hands on him, and the Azusa Street Revival began.^[18] Seymour himself received the Holy Spirit baptism three days later, on April 12.^[19] Soon the group grew too large for the Asberry's house as well, and the weight of the attendees caused the front porch to collapse, causing Seymour to look for a new location.^[20] The mission moved to an old African Methodist Episcopal church building on Azusa Street, thus giving the movement its name.^[17]

The movement was, at the outset, racially egalitarian. Blacks and whites worshiped together and at the same altar, against the normal segregation of the day.^[21] In September 1906, the leaders of the revival began printing the Apostolic Faith newsletter, and argued through it that the Spirit was bringing people together across all social lines and boundaries to the revival.^[19] Seymour not only rejected the existing racial barriers in favor of "unity in Christ", he also rejected the then almost-universal barriers to women in any form of church leadership. The movement transgressed many of the social boundaries of the time, bringing blacks and whites into worshiping together, and Latinos soon began attending as well after a Mexican-American worker received the Spirit baptism on April 13, 1906.^[22]

From his base on Azusa Street he began to preach his doctrinal beliefs. This revival meeting extended from 1906 until 1909, and became known as the Azusa Street Revival. It became the subject of intense investigation by more mainstream Protestants. Some left feeling that Seymour's views were heresy, while others accepted his teachings and returned to their own congregations to expound them. The resulting movement became widely known as "Pentecostalism", likening it to the manifestations of the Holy Spirit recorded as occurring in the first two chapters of Acts as occurring from the day of the Feast of Pentecost onwards.^[23] It is believed Charles Harrison Mason, founder of the Church of God in Christ, received the Holy Spirit at the revival.^[24]

Later life

As the revival went on, issues began to pop up that would take a toll on Seymour's leadership. It took only a couple of years before race issues within the movement started to become divisive — Seymour's habit of leaving white pastors instead of black pastors in charge whenever he left Los Angeles caused the black members to feel neglected, and as though the mission was in danger of being taken over.^[25] Unfounded accusations by some members about embezzlement weighed heavily on Seymour, and affected his influence in the mission.^[26] Other missions, affiliated with Azusa, began to open, and drawing people away from the main revival.^[27] Race was quickly becoming an issue in the movement, and the issue only grew as the time went on.

On May 13, 1908, Seymour married Jennie Moore Evans.^[27] This came as a shock to some in the church, who saw it as a violation of sanctification and as going against the mission's message of the end-times. As a result of the wedding, Seymour's coeditor of the Apostolic Faith newsletter, Clara Lum, left Azusa very suddenly with the newsletter and the mailing lists in hand, and moved to Portland.^[28] She refused to give the paper back to Seymour when he came to see her, and with no recourse left to him, he no longer had the newsletter to spread his ideas.^[29] The loss of the newsletter was a crippling blow to the Azusa revival.

The biggest blow to Seymour's authority in the later movement, however, was the split between Seymour and William Durham. During one of Seymour's revival tours in 1911, he asked Durham if Durham would serve as the visiting preacher; Durham agreed, and through his more extreme views on sanctification caused a schism in the budding Pentecostal church.^[30] Seymour was asked to return to Azusa immediately, while his wife Jennie padlocked Durham out of the mission.^[31] Durham began to attack Seymour publicly, launching an extreme polemic by claiming that Seymour was no longer following the will of God or fit to be a leader, devastating Seymour.^[32] Even after Durham's sudden death in 1912, the Pentecostal community in Los Angeles remained split.^[33]

On September 28, 1922, Seymour suffered two heart attacks, and died in his wife Jennie's arms.^[34] He was buried in Evergreen Cemtery in East Los Angeles, near influential Pentecostal preacher Francisco Olazábal. Jennie Seymour died on July 2, 1936, and was buried next to Seymour.^[35]

Legacy

The spirit of revival spread from Azusa all over the United States, and many missions modeled themselves after Azusa, especially the racially integrated services.^[36] By 1914, Pentecostalism had spread to almost every major U.S. city.^[36] The egalitarian message was very attractive to many people experiencing some sort of racial division, all over the world.^[37] The mission spread all around the world quickly: from Liberia, to the Middle East, to Sweden and Norway, the Pentecostal message flourished rapidly, and many of those missionaries had themselves been at the Azusa revival.^[38] Seymour's global influence spread far beyond his direct interactions with missions.

Protestant Pentecostals trace their roots back to early leaders such as Seymour, and estimates of worldwide Pentecostal membership ranges from 115 million to 400 million.^[39] Most modern Charismatic groups can claim some lineage to the Azusa Street Revival and Seymour.^[39] Pentecostalism is the second largest Christian denomination in Latin America, behind Roman Catholicism, and many African churches are Pentecostal or Charismatic in practice.^[40] While there were many other centers for revivals, such as Topeka, India, and Chicago, it was the socially transgressive and egalitarian message of Azusa that appealed to many converts.^[41][42] The specific doctrines taught at Azusa, such as glossolalia, are still taught today, as opposed to Parham's insistence that tongue-speech had to be a recognizable language.^[43] While the movement was largely to fracture along racial lines within a decade, the splits were in some ways perhaps less deep than the vast divide that seems often to separate many white religious denominations from their black counterparts. Probably the deepest split in the Pentecostal movement today is not racial, but rather between Trinitarian and Oneness theologies.

The current worldwide Pentecostal and charismatic movements are generally agreed to have been in part outgrowths of Seymour's ministry and the Azusa Street Revival.^[39]

References

External links

• Bishop William J. Seymour, Pastor of the Apostolic Faith Mission