HIS-102
Church History II: The Pentecostal Movement
Azusa Street, the 1913–1916 “New Issue,” and the founding of Oneness fellowships like the Apostolic Assembly and UPCI.
Topics: Azusa Street, New Issue, Denominational history
Suggested resource: Free public-domain firsthand accounts of Azusa Street; AAFCJ's and UPCI's own published histories.
Week 1: Azusa Street and the Modern Pentecostal Revival
Reading: General reading: the Azusa Street Revival (1906)
In April 1906, a series of meetings led by William J. Seymour, an African American Holiness preacher, broke out on Azusa Street in Los Angeles and became the catalytic event of the modern Pentecostal movement — marked by speaking in tongues, racial and social integration unusual for the era, and a conviction that the New Testament experience of Acts 2 was available again, not confined to the apostolic age. News of Azusa Street spread rapidly through testimonies, visitors, and a newsletter, seeding Pentecostal revival across the country and eventually the world within a few short years. Whatever specific doctrinal path a group later took, nearly every modern Pentecostal or Apostolic denomination, including the ones you're studying alongside, traces its root back to this outpouring.
Key terms: William J. Seymour, Azusa Street (1906), Restorationism, Racial integration at Azusa
Discussion Questions
- What does the racial and social makeup of the Azusa Street meetings tell you about what the Holy Ghost's outpouring looked like in practice?
- Why do you think this single revival spread so quickly compared to earlier, similar movements?
Challenge: Find one firsthand or near-firsthand public-domain account of the Azusa Street meetings and write down what struck you most.
Week 2: The New Issue and the Birth of Oneness Pentecostalism
Reading: Revisit Acts 2:38, Matthew 28:19 (THE-101, Week 3)
At a camp meeting at Arroyo Seco, California, in April 1913, a Canadian evangelist named R. E. McAlister preached a message pointing out that every baptism recorded in the book of Acts used the name of Jesus Christ rather than the words “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” A minister present, John G. Schaepe, reportedly spent that whole night in prayer over the observation and emerged at dawn shouting that God had shown him the truth of baptism in Jesus' name alone. Frank Ewart, another minister at that meeting, spent the following months working through the biblical and theological implications, concluding not only that baptism must be in Jesus' name, but that Scripture teaches one God who is fully revealed in Jesus Christ, rather than three eternally distinct persons. In April 1914, Ewart preached this publicly for the first time and was rebaptized in Jesus' name himself, then baptized others the same way — the formal beginning of what became known as “the New Issue.”
The controversy spread quickly through the young Pentecostal movement, and by 1916 it had become the central issue splitting the recently formed Assemblies of God, which adopted a specifically Trinitarian statement of faith partly in direct response, while ministers who embraced the Oneness position, including Garfield T. Haywood, an influential African American pastor and hymn-writer in Indianapolis, formed their own fellowships. Those who came to believe baptism must be performed specifically in the name of Jesus Christ, and that this pointed to the one God being manifest in the Son rather than three eternal persons, became known as Oneness or “Jesus' Name” Pentecostals. This is not merely academic history for you — it's the specific, datable theological event, with named people and named places, that produced the tradition you're studying inside of.
Key terms: Arroyo Seco camp meeting (April 1913), John G. Schaepe's vision and Frank Ewart's 1914 sermon, Garfield T. Haywood, The 1916 Assemblies of God split
Discussion Questions
- How does knowing the specific names, dates, and places behind your own tradition's core doctrine change how you hold or explain that doctrine?
- What does it mean that this was a live, contested debate among sincere Pentecostal believers, worked out in real time, rather than a settled matter from the beginning?
Challenge: Write a short, accurate account of the New Issue controversy, naming McAlister, Schaepe, Ewart, and Haywood, as if explaining it to a new convert who has never heard the term before.
Week 3: The Apostolic Assembly and UPCI — Two Branches, One Root
Reading: General reading: the founding of the Apostolic Assembly (1920s) and the 1945 formation of UPCI
Out of the broader Oneness Pentecostal movement, the Apostolic Assembly of the Faith in Christ Jesus formed in the 1920s primarily among Spanish-speaking believers, becoming a foundational Oneness fellowship in Latino communities across the U.S. and Mexico; the United Pentecostal Church International formed later, in 1945, through the merger of two earlier Oneness organizations, becoming the largest predominantly English-speaking Oneness Pentecostal fellowship in North America. Though organizationally distinct, both trace back to the same Azusa Street revival and the same New Issue conviction about the name of Jesus and the Oneness of God — which is exactly why their Bible college curricula, the ones this whole course of study is modeled on, look so similar.
Key terms: Apostolic Assembly founding (1920s), UPCI formation (1945), Shared theological root, Bilingual/bicultural Oneness heritage
Discussion Questions
- How does understanding both organizations' shared root change how you think about the differences between them?
- Given your own bilingual, bicultural background, what stands out to you about the Apostolic Assembly's specific history among Spanish-speaking believers?
Challenge: Write a short comparison of the Apostolic Assembly's and UPCI's founding stories, noting what's shared and what's distinct.
Course Exam
Five questions for review or self-testing.
Q: Who led the Azusa Street Revival, and when did it begin?
Reveal Answer
William J. Seymour, beginning in April 1906.
Q: What was distinctive about the Azusa Street meetings socially?
Reveal Answer
Racial and social integration unusual for the era.
Q: What sparked 'the New Issue' in 1913?
Reveal Answer
A camp meeting message on Acts 2:38 and Matthew 28:19 regarding the baptismal formula and the Godhead.
Q: When was the Apostolic Assembly founded, and among whom?
Reveal Answer
In the 1920s, primarily among Spanish-speaking believers in the U.S. and Mexico.
Q: When did UPCI form, and how?
Reveal Answer
In 1945, through the merger of two earlier Oneness organizations.