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CH A P T E R 1 2

The Twentieth

Century and

Beyond

od sent the twentieth-century Pentecostal outpouring to correct
some conditions in the church. However, in the providence of
GGod, the Pentecostal movement was not received by the church
as a whole. Many people who experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit
with speaking in tongues were asked to leave their traditional churches,
and this produced some bitter divisions. As I noted in the last chapter,
because Pentecostals faced doctrinal issues from within and opposition
from without, it seemed prudent to call for organization.

The Birth of the Assemblies of God

In the December 20, 1913 issue of the Word and Witness, E. N. Bell
published the first call to “Pentecostal Saints and Churches of God in
Christ” to a general convention to be held in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in
April of 1914.

For the next several months, writers and speakers debated the
matter with considerable emotional heat. As Booze indicates: “Some
were heartily opposed: ‘Let us hold to our first principles: to reveal an
unsectarian, untrammeled, fellowship for all true children of God.…

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