Pentecostal Movement

Pentecostal Movement, Christian revivalist movement that originated in the United States in 1906. Spiritual renewal is sought through baptism by the Holy Spirit, as experienced by the apostles on the first Pentecost.
The movement represented a reaction against the rigid theology and formal worship of the traditional churches. Glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, often occurs. Pentecostalists believe in the literal word of the Bible and faith healing. They disapprove of alcohol, tobacco, dancing, the theater, and gambling. It is an intensely missionary faith, and in-person recruitment as well as through television has been very rapid since the 1960s. Worldwide membership is more than 20 million, and it is the world's fastest growing sector of Christianity.
The Pentecostal movement dates from April 4, 1906, when members of the congregation of the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles, California, experienced 'baptism in the Spirit.' Its appeal was to the poor and those alienated by the formalism and modernist theology of established denominations. It combined a highly emotional, informal approach to worship with an ethical emphasis on sobriety and hard work, and it became a way for poor and marginal groups to improve their economic and social status while retaining their religious faith.
The movement grew rapidly in the American South and in impoverished urban areas, meanwhile dividing into dozens of small, contentious sects separated by doctrine and by such practices as faith healing. In the 1950s, faith healing, represented most prominently by Oral Roberts, was at its peak among Pentecostalists. After the 1960s, prosperity through faith became a dominant theme, taken up by Roberts and other television evangelists. But all the Pentecostal sects—ranging from the largest, the Assemblies of God, to small storefront churches—shared an ecstatic tone that continued to have a powerful appeal in the United States, Latin America, and Africa. The movement in Europe, after rapid growth in the early 20th century, had stabilized by mid-century. A similar movement within the Roman Catholic Church, the charismatic movement, won large numbers of followers beginning in the 1960s.
Black and white denominations within the U.S. Pentecostal Church voted in 1994 to create a national multiracial association, ending 88 years of racial segregation.
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