- 9 hours ago
John examines the Azusa Street Revival by returning to the original newspapers, social conditions, and historical context surrounding the events of 1906. Rather than defending or attacking Pentecostalism, he walks listeners through how mythology forms, why Azusa Street became elevated as a sacred origin story, and what contemporary observers actually recorded.
By comparing later Pentecostal narratives with primary sources, this episode explores false prophecies, social chaos, leadership failures, and the suppression of inconvenient facts. The goal is not to dismantle faith, but to separate documented history from later legend so listeners can evaluate Azusa Street with clarity and honesty.
0:00 Introduction
00:31 Why Azusa Street Still Matters
02:46 Mythology and How Religious Movements Evolve
09:34 The Social and Cultural Climate of 1906 Los Angeles
13:46 National Anxiety and End-Times Expectation
18:00 Charles Fox Parham and Zion City Connections
29:45 Tongues as Initial Evidence Explained
35:52 The “Weird Babble of Tongues” Newspaper Coverage
40:49 Holy Rollers, Public Reaction, and Controversy
49:26 False Prophecy and Early Problems
52:52 Recruitment, Myth, and the Sinner Who Was Ejected
55:04 Final Reflections on Azusa Street
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
By comparing later Pentecostal narratives with primary sources, this episode explores false prophecies, social chaos, leadership failures, and the suppression of inconvenient facts. The goal is not to dismantle faith, but to separate documented history from later legend so listeners can evaluate Azusa Street with clarity and honesty.
0:00 Introduction
00:31 Why Azusa Street Still Matters
02:46 Mythology and How Religious Movements Evolve
09:34 The Social and Cultural Climate of 1906 Los Angeles
13:46 National Anxiety and End-Times Expectation
18:00 Charles Fox Parham and Zion City Connections
29:45 Tongues as Initial Evidence Explained
35:52 The “Weird Babble of Tongues” Newspaper Coverage
40:49 Holy Rollers, Public Reaction, and Controversy
49:26 False Prophecy and Early Problems
52:52 Recruitment, Myth, and the Sinner Who Was Ejected
55:04 Final Reflections on Azusa Street
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:31Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:40at william-branham.org, where history proves that truth, or at least their version of it,
00:46is truly stranger than fiction. Today, I am looking at the Azusa Street Revival,
00:52which is something that I've actually been asked many times by many different types of people to
00:59talk about. And it's always interesting to me, the types of people that ask me, because
01:03the most common actually are people who want to find fault with something that I have in my research.
01:10They've been programmed to believe that Azusa Street was the greatest thing that happened since
01:14the Book of Acts in the New Testament. And so they want to see what I have to say about
01:19it. So they
01:20can, I guess, trap me or something like this. But the problem is the history is just the history.
01:26Whenever you present the facts that have been recorded, that's all they are. They're simply
01:30facts. And I do get from time to time people who were either in the Pentecostal or charismatic
01:37movement, or one of the cults that developed from that type of movement. And they want to know
01:43because the Azusa Street Revival has been just mystified in their minds. They were also taught that
01:51it was the greatest thing since the Book of Acts. But they began to notice that some of the fruits
01:56that
01:56come from that type of religion aren't such good fruits. I'll just say it like that. And so today,
02:04I'm going to try to tackle it, but not in the way that everybody wants me to tackle it. I
02:09know that,
02:09you know, you've got both sides, you've got people wanting me to speak against it,
02:13people want me to speak for it. And what I want to do instead is try to explain both sides
02:20in such a way
02:21that both sides can understand each other, while also understanding the Azusa Street Revival,
02:27because there is a lot to learn. And there's a lot that I think, if you're in either side of
02:33that
02:33equation, there's a lot that has really not been explained, and quite frankly, has been just simply
02:40covered up. And so I'll never forget, I was reading a book by Eusebius, who is known as the father
02:48of
02:49Christian history. He's the first guy who really compiled an authoritative work on the birth of
02:56Christianity and its impact on the world. The thing that really floored me, because I was learning how
03:03mythologies work, and I was trying to answer this one question. My family had just left a destructive
03:10cult. It was a dangerous cult, if you understand the fruits of that cult. People like Jim Jones,
03:17who were part of that cult, created very destructive and deadly stacks of religion that
03:25it just developed into something that was very destructive. And I was trying to answer the
03:31question, well, how did it work in the ancient world? How did a person go from the natural human
03:38instinct to love one another, and especially to love your family unit, to people who would actually
03:44willingly sacrifice children to it? And I was just, this was a puzzle for me. And I remember reading
03:53that book, and it answered the human question for me. Because people, in the way that they think,
04:01and they try to relate the world around them to their worship and to their deity, they try to
04:08understand and make sense of events that, in many cases, have no good explanation. For example, there
04:17were, there were droughts in the ancient world, and people who were devoted to their gods, maybe even
04:23before human sacrifice, believed that God would provide for them. And then suddenly, there's a drought and
04:29a famine, and no crops are growing and producing, the people are starving, there are people dying. And you have
04:37to
04:37answer the question, well, if this God is all powerful, and he's providing for us, how do you
04:42explain my children who are suffering and dying because they're starving? Well, the problem is, because
04:50the way the human brain wants to reconcile that question, it can augment a mythology, to the extent
04:59where humans start to bring their own ideas into the mythology, as explanations. And the, the
05:07best example, I've mentioned this on the podcast before, there was a man who came into a scenario
05:14like this, the people are starving, they live near a body of water. And this man taught them how to
05:19go
05:20out and how to fish, I guess he cut out a log or something and taught them how to throw
05:25a hook and
05:26catch a fish and save the town, the village, whatever it was. And I can't remember the deity that he
05:32became mythologized as. But what happens over time, he was a respected figure, while he was human,
05:39then he died. After he died, the people venerated him, they probably made statues to him, eventually
05:48idols to remember this man. Well, over time, you kind of forget the memory, and you start to inject
05:54your own ideas. The man became a god, the god became all powerful, the god became vengeance,
06:01a vengeful god, whenever the famine struck, and people tried to appease the god. So what literally
06:08started on one hand is just simply a man with a good intention, turned into an all powerful deity
06:14that people would sacrifice their children to. How does that apply to the Azusa Street Revival?
06:20Well, you have to understand that there was an event, and it was a very unusual event. And that
06:27event, if you are Pentecostal, becomes a mythological story. I tried to say that word, it didn't work.
06:37Becomes a mythology, and people inject their own ideas into that mythology. And what happens is today,
06:43you have people who are saying things about the event that just simply is not true. But yet there's an
06:50actual event that you have to go back and focus upon. So much like in the ancient world, when I
06:56came
06:56across the link between Azusa Street and what happened later, and I'm trying to like the people
07:05on the one category, how do I answer the fruit problem of this thing? How do I say that this
07:11produced good fruit? How do I say this movement is of God? And what I came to learn is, you
07:17really have
07:18to first separate that question. Ignore the question, is this a movement by God? Or is this a movement
07:24that's not by God? First ask the question, is what I'm being told about the event correct? Because if it's
07:31not
07:32correct, then it is in fact mythology. And if it's mythology, because of the human problem that I just
07:38mentioned, mythologies tend to grow and grow and grow over time. So what I did instead was I tried to
07:46dissect it much
07:47like Eusebius did as the father of church history. I wanted to do it not as a father of Pentecostal
07:54history, but one who is answering the questions of history that you're not going to find in the
08:00textbooks because unfortunately, history of the Pentecostal and charismatic faith is often written
08:08by people who will give you the facts they want you to see and cover up, conceal, hide, shield the
08:15facts
08:15that they don't want you to see. And their intentions are probably good. If you're in the crowd who is
08:20wondering, is this a movement by God? They probably had good intentions by not giving you all of the
08:26facts. But the problem is, if you don't have all the facts, you can't really answer the questions.
08:32And so it is this, this will be a problem that I can say truly exists in the movement. It
08:38is a movement
08:39that suppresses questions by eliminating critical thinking. You cannot critically think about many
08:48events in Pentecostalism and the fruits of Pentecostalism because if you do, they see it as
08:55as a demon and they will demonize you. You're not allowed to critically think. I no longer look at it
09:01like this, so I'm free to critically think. And hopefully if you're listening, you are free to critically
09:07think a bit to whether you believe in it or whether you don't, because I'm not going to really come
09:14out
09:14against it or for it. I just want to explain the facts and I'm going to explain it in such
09:19a way
09:20that if you are looking at Azusa street positively and you want more history about it, these are simply
09:27facts. You should not be scared of the facts as they were recorded in history. So the first thing that
09:33I
09:33did much like Eusebius and in my example of the village, I wanted to know at the Azusa street revival,
09:41what was the mentality of the people? What would, if you were going to suddenly have a revival and
09:49everybody's going to come together in that revival and they're going to suddenly break out in dancing and
09:56religious ecstasy, which did happen? It's recorded, documented history. What background scenarios could
10:04augment that if it were, whether it's a movement by God or not, what would augment this situation?
10:11So I looked at the first local area in Los Angeles, what was happening? And it, for a people who
10:20were most,
10:22mostly poor, who were joining into the revival, this was a difficult time for these people.
10:29Los Angeles was exploding in city growth and cultural dislocation. You had one area of the
10:36city that's just literally exploding with population and the wealthy are moving in, the wealthy are creating
10:43jobs. The jobs are creating more wealthy people. Middle class people are rising. Well, lower class people
10:49were either diminishing or being culturally dislocated because Los Angeles was swelling fast and kind
10:58of pushing the, pushing the poor people out. You also had the racial tensions. This was, like it or not,
11:07this was the peak of the Jim Crow period and Azusa street. One of the things that they can proudly
11:13boast of
11:14correctly is that it was an interracial, non-segregated body of people who was defying the rest of the
11:23nation during the peak of the Jim Crow laws. And so this became very unique to this body of people.
11:32And everybody looking on the outside, looking in can look at this and say, this is unusual. What is this?
11:37Why are they acting like this? And what this did was it raised the curiosity, which is another factor
11:44that I'll get into later. But as you see this unusual event happening that is defying the cultural
11:51standards, people are going to get interested. They want to know why. At the same time, from a religious
11:58standpoint, the ecosystem had already been primed right here in the heart of Los Angeles. You had all of
12:06the holiness networks, the healing campaigns, many of which have gone through Los Angeles. You had
12:13the spirit baptism and the expectations of what happens when that baptism occurs. It was already
12:21circulating in Los Angeles before Azusa street. John Alexander Dowie, who will play a big factor in
12:28this as we'll get into later, had came from Los Angeles and had swept through Los Angeles,
12:35Oakland, San Francisco, that whole region from San Francisco to Los Angeles in his revival healing
12:44campaigns. But before they would have been called revivals, they were just simply healing lectures
12:50where people would come and suddenly they would break out into miniature spiritual ecstasies because,
12:56oh my gosh, he claimed that he healed this person in this other city. It must be of God. And
13:01I'm going to
13:02trust him that he healed this other person in this other city. That was the kind of thing that was
13:07happening here. So these people had expectations and many of them had not yet seen the fruits of the
13:14expectation. So whenever Azusa street revival starts to break out, now they're starting to get into this
13:21frenzy and they view the frenzy as the thing that they're looking for. So from a religious standpoint,
13:27this became a phenomenon that kind of self-fulfilling augmentation. I'll just say it like that.
13:38Nationally, you had many things that were occurring that would have also fueled this. So John Alexander
13:46Dowie and many others like him had a end of days focus in their ministry, which is a key component
13:53to
13:53revival culture, if you understand how revival culture works. And in 1906, there was a massive
14:02earthquake and fire that struck San Francisco. And it was an enormous destruction. I think there were
14:10like 3000 deaths that were happening in San Francisco on April 18th, 1906. So this is right in the midst
14:20of
14:20what was going to take place at Azusa street. And people saw this as in revival culture. You see
14:27this as a judgment sign. So suddenly there's an apocalypse that's happening right here before us.
14:32This must be the end of days. That is, that is the mindset religiously. The labor unrest and the anxiety
14:42about modern life played a factor because the 1900 had frequent strikes, very harsh working conditions.
14:52If you've seen any of the photographs, you've seen all of the children who are working in the factories
14:57and the social order that should have never been was here at the heart of the cities, the large cities
15:04in the United States. So people, whenever they felt like the end of the world is coming,
15:10now we're seeing the judgment strikes. It's because this nation has put business and technology and
15:19pop population growth over the Bible. That was the mindset of the people. And so
15:26what they were trying to do from a, from a civil and a religious standpoint, they're trying to
15:34create moral reform. They wanted to fight the things that were rising up against them,
15:41especially the things that brought rapid change, because this movement like it or not is a movement
15:47that does not like change. And many of the changes were very bad. Again, children working in factories
15:53should have never been. So whenever you look at the world around them in this way,
15:59you have to understand that from a national standpoint, they needed a revival of some sort.
16:06Worldwide, you had global conflict that was starting to break out. You had the Russian Japanese war,
16:15which had a sudden Japanese victory over Russia, and it shocked the world. You had the Russian
16:21revolution. I think that was 1905. You had mass unrest and revolution talk about political violence,
16:29that the nations are in turmoil. We see all of this, this conflict growing. And eventually,
16:35because we're end of days focus, this is going to hit the United States. Be ready people. And then
16:41suddenly the earthquake happens and boom, God has struck vengeance against our world. Again, go back to the
16:48works of Eusebius. If you're creating mythology and you start to see the world events around you,
16:53you start to bring in your own ideas of what is that mythology into the picture. Whenever you hear
17:00Azusa Street today, they won't talk much about the environment around them and what they thought about it.
17:07But it played such a key factor into the revival itself that there were prophecies breaking out
17:14about each of the things that I just described. And that's not something that you find in the history
17:20books because many of those prophecies did not come to pass. They were false prophecies. So it was a
17:26movement that was filled with false prophets. And as cover-up culture has came to evolve, cover-up
17:34culture will suppress the false prophecy. But Azusa Street did have this, which I'll get into
17:39that a bit later. But from an environmental standpoint, you can see that this was just prime
17:47time for something to break out, whether it was revival or just simply people rising up saying,
17:53we're not going to take it anymore. But anyway, to understand the Azusa Street revival,
17:59you must first understand Charles Fox Parham. And he is a key figure that you may find in the history
18:06books related to Azusa Street revival. But by and large, many of the historians want to eliminate
18:12him for obvious reasons that I'll mention later. Charles Fox Parham was the person who trained William
18:19Joseph Seymour in the revival culture that existed in that day, the end of days focus, the apostolic faith,
18:29etc. And Charles Fox Parham is known by many as the father of modern modern Pentecostalism. You won't
18:37find him called this by the people who are Pentecostal leaning historians because they want to totally erase
18:46that history. But you do have to understand the history to understand the Azusa Street revival. But
18:51more specifically, you have to understand Charles Fox Parham's relationship to the cult that was founded in
18:58Zion City, Illinois, after cult leader John Alexander Dowie, who I mentioned earlier, was in the Los
19:05Angeles area from Los Angeles to San Francisco, priming the region for what would eventually break
19:12out into the Azusa Street revival. So John Alexander Dowie, in the 1890s, he amassed somewhere in today's
19:21money, it's almost a half a billion dollars. And he was able to get this in only just 10 years
19:27with
19:27his revival mentality, faith healing, and his entire array of different unique things that would later
19:36be built upon even today in the new apostolic reformation. Dowie was convincing people that if
19:43they had sick loved ones, or if they themselves were sick, they could forfeit all of their possessions to
19:49him. And they could come be in his healing homes, and he would heal them of their various diseases,
19:56sicknesses, ailments, etc. And so he was amassing this massive amount of money just from robbing the
20:02rich to heal the poor, to heal the poor that he created poor. And people were actually doing this.
20:10The problem was, he wasn't actually healing them, many of them died, and they would be
20:15under the cover of darkness, they would be snuck out by the undertaker and go to the morgue. So
20:20hundreds of people were dying as a result of the cult following of John Alexander Dowie.
20:27So let's talk timelines just a bit. You've got in the 1890s, Dowie becomes internationally famous as
20:34one of the wealthiest people in the United States. He was labeled the richest man in the West
20:39through religion. And you had a large number of copycats wanting to do the same exact thing,
20:45because he just amassed in today's money half a billion dollars. In 1905, the world was shaken
20:54whenever it was learned that he had suffered a major stroke. And he went later to Mexico to recoup,
21:01recover from this stroke. But there was a period of time in which Dowie was not meeting the public,
21:07and he was even recording his sermons and passing them to the leadership in Zion City,
21:14while he was off where people could not see that the faith healer could not heal himself.
21:21Over time, what happened is, people began to realize something's wrong here.
21:26He has taught this end of days theology. People had sold everything that they had. They were taking
21:32out leases for land that he owned for thousand year leases, because he had taught them that the
21:38end of world is coming. We're going to live in the new millennium here in Zion City. This is the
21:43place.
21:44And the large numbers of people who had adopted either his theology or variations of it
21:51were watching as he suffered a stroke and goes off the scene. And so what happened was,
21:58according to the newspapers in Chicago, Chicago is suddenly flooded with prophets who were wanting
22:03to take over what would be called today the mantle of John Alexander Dowie. Dowie claimed that he was
22:11the Elijah of the Old Testament. If you read the last chapter of Malachi, the book of Malachi,
22:18it talks about, behold, I will send you Elijah. And under his framework of theology, that wasn't
22:25John the Baptist, according to his doctrine. And instead, he was this Elijah that was to come to
22:32his people. So you had all of this influx of prophets in Zion City, wanting to take over his empire.
22:41One of those people was Charles Fox Parham. So according to the timeline, Dowie amasses this
22:49massive amount of fortune in 1890. In late, it was October, I believe 1905, he suffers the stroke.
22:58During this time, Charles Fox Parham is building his apostolic faith missions and network, basically
23:05forming a denomination. And he is holding these meetings in the school, prepping people to become
23:12leaders in what would eventually become his organization. One of those leaders that he was
23:18priming was William Joseph Seymour. So this was key to understand. In the south, this was in Houston, where
23:27Parham is holding these big meetings, massive meetings, with William Joseph Seymour as a black preacher
23:34for outreach to the black communities. And he is helping Parham kind of divide and conquer. Parham
23:41speaking to the white audiences, Seymour to the black audiences. And whenever this thing happens with
23:49John Alexander Dowie, Parham closes the Houston Bible School, and he begins credentialing all of the
23:57workers who are working with him. So this would have been where William Joseph Seymour received his
24:02credentials, which would have in fact been required to have the prestige that he had in Azusa Street.
24:11So through those credentials, and through people that he met in that school, Seymour had a connection
24:17to Los Angeles, that connection would not have existed without Charles Fox Parham. Parham himself goes to
24:25Zion City to try to establish himself and key figures, who would later be part of the Pentecostal faith,
24:34the heroes of the what are they called the God's generals of the New Apostolic Reformation. FF Bosworth,
24:42who was William Branham's mentor in the latter rain revivals, was in Zion City, a leader underneath
24:50John Alexander Dowie, but joined the Parhamite group, as it was developing in Zion City. John G. Lake,
24:59who later went to the apostolic faith missions in South Africa, was also a member of the Parhamite
25:05sect. So you had these key figures who start in Zion City, casting out demons holding what would
25:12eventually evolve into the deliverance ministries, and started killing people accidentally. One of the
25:19ladies who had an alleged demon they were trying to deliver her from, had arthritis and was had
25:26crooked bones. And they tried to eliminate the demon by straightening her bones until they snapped. And
25:33through the pain, the woman actually died. But all of that took place at the height of the Azusa Street
25:40revival, not the early years. So let's put it, let's talk about the timeline and put this together
25:47in proper perspective, knowing all of these connections. Late 1905, Parham uses William Joseph
25:54Seymour as a black minister for his outreach. So he becomes in, in today's world, New Apostolic Reformation,
26:01he becomes an apostle for Parham, if you understand how all of this works. February 1906,
26:07William Joseph Seymour receives an invitation to go to Los Angeles. And with Charles Fox Parham's
26:13blessing, he goes to begin what would eventually evolve into the Azusa Street revival. March 1906,
26:20I believe it was, Parham closes the Houston Bible School, and he begins credentialing the workers,
26:27and he still has his heart set on attaining Zion City. So as you've got this network of people that
26:35are
26:35now credentialed, you have essentially built a denomination of faith, and you're watching
26:42another denomination topple, the central figure is soon to be out of the scene, he's actually started
26:48to be replaced by members of Zion City. Parham seizes this as an opportunity that he can bring
26:54those people into the into his network of his apostolic faith. So as William Joseph Seymour is
27:02out in Los Angeles, and the Azusa Street revival is growing to full steam, Parham is building his
27:09network of leadership, which included John G. Lake, F.F. Bosworth, Tom Hesmohouch, the figures who are seen in a
27:17photograph with William Joseph Seymour at the Azusa Street revival, which becomes part of a key element of
27:23Pentecostal history. Connecting all of this together, you can see that there is a collaboration
27:29of the networks. And the problem is, the reason Parham has been kind of scrubbed from the Pentecostal history,
27:38after the Parhamite murders happen, which is in 1907, and the sect is under scrutiny for their deadly
27:46deliverance, Parham actually evades this because he's in Texas fighting a battle after several parents, not just
27:53one, but several parents claimed that he was having inappropriate relations with their children in
27:59the children's school, one of which Parham did admit to. And he said something to the effect of,
28:06I can't help what I did in my sleep, but I did the thing. And so Parham is sort of
28:14scrubbed from the
28:15Pentecostal histories, because the accusations, which I won't mention on this podcast, are very,
28:21very bad accusations, and not somebody that you want to be the father of modern Pentecostalism.
28:27So he becomes erased, but before that happens, the Azusa Street revival, there's some history that
28:34really needs to be explained. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started,
28:39or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic,
28:45and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on
28:51William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the
28:58website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,
29:04John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can
29:11also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
29:17If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute
29:22button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that
29:29you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for
29:34your support. Now that we've talked through the religious landscape, the historical landscape, the
29:41culture, the environment, and some of the key figures, let's talk about the revival itself. Now, as a, as
29:49another background, which should be obvious, but some people may not be aware, part of the doctrine that
29:55Charles Fox Parham was teaching whenever William Joseph Seymour was in attendance was the idea that
30:02glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, was initial evidence of the Holy Spirit. From a world history
30:11religion, this is a little bit unique in a Christian ideology because in world religion, this already has
30:20existed for millennia. If you even ask some of the people who are in deliverance ministries who claim that they
30:29cast out demons, those people will tell you that we saw a demon and this demon was causing the person
30:36to
30:36talk in a low, unrecognizable speech pattern. And what they're describing basically is glossolalia, just in a
30:44different way. You can find all through the shaman religions, through the ancient
30:50Mediterranean ecstatic speech patterns, Kundalini Hinduism, many different religions have something
30:59that is very similar, where the brain and the speech pattern disconnects and something else comes out.
31:07If you were in the Pentecostal faith, and if you're in the deliverance ministry type faith, it's
31:13interesting because you see the speech patterns that are spoken with the King James dialect,
31:20from people who read the King James Bible. You see that as a thing of God, while those who might
31:27be in
31:27another religion who are speaking speech patterns that you claim as an elemental spirit, it's just a
31:35different speech pattern that is something that's recognized by that culture. The two are actually the
31:40same from a mechanics standpoint. So the question becomes from a spiritual standpoint, is it real? Is it one of
31:49God and one of the devil? I can't answer that question. But that's the question that really comes out from
31:55this. Because the point is speaking in tongues pre existed, the Azusa Street revival. Even in
32:04Christianity, speaking in tongues did pre exist. There were examples in the Welch revival, where people were
32:13speaking in tongues, the differences, they did not see it as an initial evidence. There were examples
32:20even I believe I read in Frank Sanford's Colton Shiloh, the one that Charles Fox Parham also visited,
32:28along with John Alexander Dowey's Zion City. It is allegedly pre existed in that cult as well. But in
32:38Christianity, it became mainstream, popularized and into the holiness faith, because of the Azusa
32:45Street revival. So that's the reason many people mistakenly think it was not until Azusa Street that we
32:51had speaking in tongues, because it was popularized. And more to the point, it was claimed to be a part
32:58of the initial evidence that you, in fact, had the Holy Spirit. Christians who don't believe this way
33:05argue that there is no Bible precedent for saying that there is a specific sign of what is the initial
33:12evidence. And the question and the debate will never end. So I don't, I don't really go down the pathway
33:19of
33:19that debate. But the point is, it did pre exist. Now in the training that Parham would have taught
33:27Seymour, Parham believed that there was a precursor to this, which was writing in tongues. And if you're
33:35watching the video version of this, I will put this on the screen. But in Parham sect, there was this
33:41strange gibberish of writing that they claimed was writing from God. Oddly, in one part of it, it
33:48honestly looks like a tic tac toe game to me. But to those people who believe that this is faith
33:54driven writing, they might say that what I just said was grieving the Holy Spirit. So I'm just saying
34:02what it looks like to me, you can make of it what you will. But there was this writing in
34:05tongues,
34:06then Parham tried to accelerate this by sending out missionaries who did not know the languages for the
34:14countries that he sent them to. The missionaries went expecting that they could speak in tongues and
34:19speak the dialect of whatever is the nation that they went to. I think one of them was China. And
34:25they came back because nobody could understand a word that they said, in the same way that nobody
34:30could read a word that was written on this piece of paper of writing in tongues. So there's some strange
34:36history that would have been taught to William Joseph Seymour prior to starting the Azusa Street Revival.
34:44But nevertheless, William Joseph Seymour in Houston while working with Parham was in Parham's network
34:50as a minister. He may have had his credentials before the school was closed, I'm not sure. But he was
34:58teaching in some of the black churches. One of the churches that he taught in was Lucy Farrow's Church.
35:05Lucy Farrow was a Houston minister who's teaching a black sect in Houston. And a visitor from Los
35:14Angeles named Neely Terry came to Houston and heard William Joseph Seymour preach, apparently.
35:20Neely Terry went back to Los Angeles and invited, in 1906, invited William Joseph Seymour to come preach.
35:30They were very excited to hear more about this initial evidence of the Holy Spirit.
35:36So William Joseph Seymour goes to preach, and he eventually invites Lucy Farrow, who he admitted
35:42as a minister in Houston, and invited her to be his helper. And on April 18, 1906, while all of
35:51this is
35:51happening, Seymour's participating in these meetings, speaking in tongues began to break out in the
35:57revival. And the Los Angeles Daily Times printed an article on the front page that is entitled,
36:04Weird Babble of Tongues. Now, if you study any Pentecostal history that gives you any access to
36:10information, this is the article that they usually will include with their publication,
36:16Weird Babble of Tongues. And the way that they interpret this, the Los Angeles Times are coming
36:23as reporters who are skeptical of what is happening here, which is true. But they point to it as evidence
36:31that the outside world can see that this group of people is different than the rest. They're different
36:39than the other Christians. And therefore, they have something that's special. Very few of those
36:45histories, I've read several of them, very few of them mentioned that it's not special within the
36:50broad scope of humanity. Because other, like I said, other religions have this, other Christians had
36:57this. But what it is, this is the first time that it became recognized with a centralized to a specific
37:04group of people who were there for a revival, who were believing that this is the evidence of the
37:10Holy Spirit being sent. That would be newsworthy, right? So if you read through this newspaper,
37:16they're not very good at painting William Joseph Seymour in a good light, you can tell that they're
37:25very, very skeptical. And they're even more skeptical because you had the breakdown of racial barriers.
37:35William Joseph Seymour is preaching, there are white people, and it is written,
37:40colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation. So you can tell that the article
37:47was written by people who are skeptical, not only of the religious ecstasy, but also of the
37:53intermingling, as they would call it, of blacks and whites. Four days into that revival, as I mentioned
37:59before, the San Andreas Fault violently settled and the city of Los Angeles was set ablaze. So here are
38:07people believing that they have just experienced the evidence of the Holy Spirit, and then suddenly
38:13the wrath of God comes down on the San Andreas Fault. And you can imagine what this would do to
38:19people,
38:19not only those who are participating in the Azusa Street Revival. In fact, if you read through some of the
38:25articles, you find that there's this weird array of spiritualist mediums, occult people who are
38:31attending this revival wondering, did we just witness something of another world? And so people
38:39who are skeptical of the Azusa Street Revival, they will often point to this, let's say, this revival
38:45did have Pentecostal holiness people, but look at the others who attended, you had the occult people,
38:50the seances, the trances. I don't really give that much credence, because if you understand what was
38:59happening around the revival, this would have put fear into the hearts of many people who are thinking
39:05that there's something otherworldly happening. Now, the fact that they did attend the revival,
39:10it gets weird, which I'll get into that in just a bit, because of the way that the revival was
39:16handled. From my perspective, if I were a historian and I were to try to write about the occult people
39:23who were attending the revival, I would instead say, is not God powerful enough to convert those who
39:29attend the revival who don't believe in God into Christianity. And it's a good thing that those
39:36occult people came, because they could be converted, right? That's how a Christian should think about
39:41this. The problem that I have found, if you study the Pentecostal historians' views on this, they see
39:48it as this offensive thing that unbelievers came to the revival and disrupted things. You find the skeptics
39:55who are looking at it saying, oh my gosh, there are occultists here. This thing was of the occult.
40:01And I'm simply thinking, well, if it's a move from God, wouldn't it want to attract sinners and convert
40:06them? That was the first thought that went through my head. So I put that off to the side and
40:12I wanted
40:13to see if it is a movement by God, how would the leadership react whenever this happened? And that's
40:20where this gets really interesting. When you hear about the Azusa Street revival, generally,
40:25the historians who are favorable of the event, who are Pentecostal historians, they will focus on the
40:31speaking in tongues, because that was the big event. But they don't often tell you of the other
40:36things that were happening in that revival, many of which sound eerily similar to what you hear when
40:42people describe the Toronto blessing, because people were getting themselves worked up into a religious
40:48frenzy that went far beyond just speaking in tongues. People were having holy rolling,
40:55they would literally get on the floor and start rolling, and also holy kicking. There were people
41:01who would kick and I think even a few people got injured because of the holy kicking. There were people
41:07who were just acting as though they were completely insane to the extent that some of the people actually
41:15did get taken to jail locked up for insanity during the event. Well, as the holy kickers began to carry
41:23on what newspapers described it as mad orgies, you had people who were in the surrounding neighborhoods
41:32listening to this all night ruckus and just did not want, they wanted their sleep. They did not want this
41:38going on. And so the police would continually be called to quieten these people down, let the people
41:44sleep. The leadership of the revival weren't going to take part in calming the situation. And in fact,
41:51did like some of the ministers might do today, they began to pray for curses from heaven on the heads
41:57of
41:57all of those people who weren't participating in the revival. And it was not just the skeptics who were
42:03wanting to stop all the commotion that the wrath of the leadership came down upon. Even the sinners
42:09were subject to the wrath of the leadership. In fact, there's an article in the Los Angeles
42:16Herald Sun entitled Unsaved Sinner Thrown Out by Holy Rollers. There was a man named E.P. Harlan, 62 years
42:24old, who had attended the revival. And during the course of the revival, one of the speakers said,
42:30we want no sinners in the house. And Harlan examining his own hearts felt, well, this must be me.
42:38So he stood up and he said, I guess that applied to me. And he was not going to get
42:44out because he
42:44said he wanted instruction. In other words, how can I be saved? And he was physically ejected and
42:51assaulted because he admitted that he was a sinner as part of the revival. So it was this one article,
42:57and this is one of several very curious articles about the Azusa Street revival that painted a
43:03picture inside that was different than the mythology that I had been told. I was picturing
43:09a revival where everyone who's attended saw the almighty power of God and the sinners who came to be
43:17to learn more about God could be saved within this revival. And they too could speak in tongues.
43:23That's how the mythology evolved in Pentecostal circles. So we were giving reverence to this
43:30event, thinking that this is suddenly this impartation of God in the building, and everybody
43:36who went are holy. In fact, if you understand how Pentecostalism spread, those people who attended the
43:44revival became instant accredited ministers and evangelists because they were in attendance.
43:53And in other words, because they were there, the power of God was so strong that it flowed through the
43:58building flowed through their veins. And now they have this double portion of power that they can go
44:03preach to other churches. That's how we were taught. And in fact, that's how Pentecostalism was structured.
44:10However, if you read this one article, you understand that no, it wasn't that powerful because this one
44:16sinner got physically ejected because of his sin. Now, that's just one article of several critical
44:24articles that you're not going to read in the history of Pentecostalism. The other one for me,
44:30which is really interesting and a little bit scary at the same time, is the fact that picture
44:38this event. You've got this event happening that to the outside world seems like a circus.
44:44You've got people, you could literally go for free and you could see people who were doing things that
44:51you've never ever seen before. And you can see it all for free. Just walk up and look at these
44:57people
44:58who were rolling on the floor, dancing, laughing in the spirit, kicking in the spirit, and more.
45:04So this became like a circus event to the non-holiness people. Well, interestingly, there were people who
45:13went to see more and decided that they would stay and participate and got caught up in the religious
45:19ecstasy to the extent that some women were leaving their husbands to join into this thing.
45:25And the husbands who didn't join because they weren't part of this, the group started to believe
45:32that those who did not participate, they were not part of the chosen few. I'll just say it like that.
45:40And there were women and husbands who were leaving their spouses and joining in with other people
45:46who were part of this revival. That's certainly something that you did not hear in the Pentecostal
45:52histories. And this unusual romantic aspect of the revival wasn't just centralized to the people
45:58within the revival. In fact, there's an article, Kicker Embraces Autoist, referring to the Holy Kickers.
46:06It describes this man who's driving an automobile and he gets out of his car and one of the women
46:13in
46:13the revival runs out to him and says that she loves him and that he's a sinner and he needs
46:20to come
46:20inside and get saved. And so she's trying to claim her mate right here in the revival. This is not
46:26the
46:27kind of thing that you hear about when you hear the histories of the the Azusa Street revival and
46:32Pentecostalism. But this was happening and you can't make this stuff up. If you want to read more about how
46:39this kind of thing occurred, just get a Newspapers.com subscription and type in Azusa Street, you're
46:46going to find all kinds of articles that just demystify this thing that has turned into a
46:52mythology. Now, was it something from God? And then all of this weirdness happened afterwards? It could be.
46:59But I go for me personally, I go back to the article about the center. For me, all of this
47:07that exists in
47:08the newspaper, it's not that problematic for me. But kicking out a sinner from a revival that is
47:15supposed to be giving people the fire that was lit at the day of Pentecost, for me, that is problematic.
47:22And I can't stress enough how problematic that is. Now, the woman who runs and tries to grab her mate
47:29from an automobile, it's weird, but it's not as bad as kicking out a sinner who's coming legitimately to
47:35learn more about Jesus Christ. However, if you're listening to this podcast and you're trying to
47:41learn more about the spiritual aspects of Azusa Street Revival, was this a spiritual thing and was
47:47it a spirit by God or some other spirit? The newspaper captures it well when it says,
47:52the horror of it. There's an article, this subsection is called, The Horror of It. And it's describing
47:59this event where women were openly confessing that they were telling people that they left their
48:06husbands and their children in order to enjoy what they called the full measure of faith.
48:13Leadership who were in the revival were hearing this thing. They're hearing how women were literally
48:18abandoning their families to come participate. And remember, this revival went on for,
48:24what was it, two, three years. So if you have this situation where people are abandoning their
48:29families, you would expect leadership who are in the correct spirit to say, no, don't do that.
48:36They can be saved too. Let's bring them or you can go home to them and teach them what you
48:41learned.
48:42In other words, spread the gospel. But it wasn't about the gospel. It was about the speaking in tongues.
48:48And really, that is the bottom line. If you're looking at this from a spiritual aspect,
48:53the speaking in tongues took the priority. Any mention of the gospel, in fact, you don't find it
48:59in any of the newspapers. There's no mention of the gospel. And the spreading of the gospel,
49:03you're not going to find this. And I want to say that many of the Pentecostal histories that I've read,
49:10not many of them, if any, mention the gospel as part of what happened at the revival.
49:15It's more about the tongues. I mentioned in the beginning that there were also false
49:20prophecies associated with this revival. And it's not after all of the weirdness became more weird.
49:27During the early part of the revival, July 14th, 1906. So this is right at the heart of when this
49:35thing is beginning. In the article, The Holy Kickers Carry On Mad Orgies, there is a description of a
49:44prophecy that was given in this gift of tongues and interpretation that went out among the crowds
49:51that said, and the railroad shall bend, and the girders shall fall, and the cars shall stand for
49:56want of power. In other words, all cars in the United States are going to stop. Chicago will be
50:02destroyed. And there will be a terrible mangling in Los Angeles and Pasadena. This message from the
50:09Lord was conveyed to the Holy Kickers by a Negro prophetess Friday night. So if you understand
50:17what is happening, the people who are coming to this thing and they're hearing the tongues,
50:22they're believing that this is a word from God, and God tells them this thing that did not happen.
50:28So for me, this is problem number two. If you're looking for something to identify,
50:34was this a spirit of God or was this not a spirit of God? For me, something that is based
50:40off of
50:41speaking in tongues and the tongues that have an interpretation that humans can understand
50:47evolves into false prophecy. Well, this isn't from God. It clearly can't be from God because this did
50:54not happen. I can understand why they would think it might happen because they just came through the
51:00through the event, the destruction of San Francisco. But that was a part where mentally the brain had
51:08connected to the event that just happened, but the mouth was repeating it as though it came from God.
51:13So for me, this is the second problem that is huge when you think about the Pentecostal faith
51:19and the Azusa Street revival. Now, again, these kinds of histories you're not going to find in the
51:26Pentecostal history books because they are so highly problematic that anybody who is wanting
51:32to learn more, is this a movement by God or not? The moment they come across this, the question is
51:39going to be asked, well, if it's from God, how can you have a false prophecy? There is a lot
51:44of
51:44questionable things happening in the Azusa Street revival right there from the very beginning,
51:50not from years after people say that it might have gone down the wrong pathway. I'm talking
51:57right at the very beginning. There's some weird things happening that are very questionable.
52:02I don't have a problem so much even with the questionable things because if you believe
52:08God is all-powerful and you've got people with people problems coming in and suddenly there's an
52:13outpouring and they become better Christians, then that makes sense. I don't see that, but it would
52:20make sense if it did happen. For me, the bigger problem is somebody who wants to join the Pentecostal
52:27faith and they want to learn more about this because this is the epicenter. This is the thing that
52:33started the modern Pentecostal faith. I want to learn more about it. Tell me more and then the people
52:39telling them will tell you the parts that they want you to hear, but they don't tell you these
52:44parts that I've mentioned today. For me, this is a problem. Picture yourself if you go to a used car
52:50lot and you buy a used car and the car salesman comes out and tells you this is a great
52:54engine. It
52:55was just rebuilt two months ago. Some little old lady has had it in her garage, barely drove it,
53:03decided she was going to rebuild the engine and sell it, and this thing is really, really good. It's a
53:08good car for your family and doesn't tell you that the little old lady had her
53:16shade tree mechanic son do it in his spare time and he had no clue what he was doing when
53:21he rebuilt
53:21that engine. If you knew that, you wouldn't buy the car, right? Now, does it mean it's a bad car?
53:27Not necessarily. Maybe he got it right, but you would want to know the information before you make
53:32an informed decision about buying the car. The problem that I have with Pentecostalism
53:40as a recruitment engine, which it is, they don't always recruit telling you the things that might
53:48make you skeptical. They'll tell you the things that might make it appealing and they leave out all
53:53of the rest. For me, this is a problem because inwardly, you must not really believe it solidly,
54:01because if you believed it, you would have enough confidence in the good parts that you could also
54:06talk about the bad. And there's some bad. When you talk about women leaving their husbands and all
54:12kinds of weird things happening, that's pretty bad. But for me, it all goes back to that one article
54:19that I read that I mentioned where a sinner legitimately wanted to know more. He stood up,
54:26he confessed, I'm a sinner. I'm in this revival. I want to know more. And he was injured as they
54:32kicked him out of the meeting. That's not something that you're going to hear in a Pentecostal history
54:37book. That's not something that I would put up with. If I watch this and I'm in the revival,
54:42that's the moment that I leave. I don't stay there when I watch a sinner being kicked out.
54:47Absolutely not. And that's not the part that they tell you. So for me, that is the biggest problem
54:52of the entire event, in my mind, is the sinner who wants to learn more, and he's ejected from the
55:00revival. So, so much more I could get into. This is just a highlight of all of the weirdness that
55:06happened. Again, if you want to learn more, you can get a newspapers.com subscription and just
55:12start reading daily in the Los Angeles Times, because this was a circus. You could read daily
55:18of what was happening and people, they even called it like a carnival. It was like a vaudeville show,
55:24I think was one of the terms that they use. They use different terms. And it's kind of funny when
55:28you
55:28read it because you're picturing all of these black and white movies where the risque crowd are doing
55:33the risque things. That's how the city of Los Angeles saw the Azusa street revival from the outside,
55:40looking in women, leaving their husbands, ecstasy, women running out and grabbing men from the streets and
55:46taking them in. And all of this weirdness that, you know, if you, if you were a Christian back then
55:52and you saw this happening, you would think, truly, there's something odd about this group of people.
55:57And I don't know that this is a movement from God. So I'll let you decide. I'm not going to
56:02give my
56:02opinion whether it was or not. If you've enjoyed the show and you want more information, you can check
56:07us out on the web. You can find us at william-branham.org. For more about the dark side of
56:12the new
56:12Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
56:17Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
56:51See you next time.
57:10To cover our questions if use many questions, we'll see you.
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