The Assemblies of God

Godly Love and the Revitalization of American Pentecostalism

Margaret M. Poloma, John C. Green

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780814767849
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

The Assemblies of God (AG) is the ninth largest American and the world's largest Pentecostal denomination, with over 50 million followers worldwide. The AG embraces a worldview of miracles and mystery that makes“supernatural” experiences, such as speaking in tongues, healing, and prophecy, normal for Christian believers. Ever since it first organized in 1916, however, the “charismata” or “gifts of the Holy Spirit” have felt tension from institutional forces. Over the decades, vital charismatic experiences have been increasingly tamed by rituals, doctrine, and denominational structure. Yet the path towards institutionalization has not been clear-cut. New revivals and direct personal experience of God—the hallmarks of Pentecostalism—continue as an important part of the AG tradition, particularly in the growing number of ethnic congregations in the United States.

The Assemblies of God draws on fresh, up-to-date research including quantitative surveys and interviews from twenty-two diverse Assemblies of God congregations to offer a new sociological portrait of the AG for the new millennium. The authors suggest that there is indeed a potential revitalization of the movement in the works within the context of the larger global Pentecostal upswing, and that this revitalization may be spurred by what the authors call “godly love:” the dynamic interaction between divine and human love that enlivens and expands benevolence.

The volume provides a wealth of data about how the second-largest American Pentecostal denomination sees itself today, and suggests trends to illuminate where it is headed in the future.

1
Congregational Overview

The first thing you will likely notice is that our facility is rather large, but you will be met immediately by greeters at the doors who can point you to the right direction. As you enter the church lobby you will also see a lot of younger people, a lot of older people, and a lot of people in between like me. You will also notice that some like to dress up for church and others like to come casual. We have it all—so come as you are! (www.centralassembly.org; accessed on February 24, 2009)

The above epigraph was penned by Pastor James T. (Jim) Bradford of Central Assembly of God in Springfield, Missouri, one of the twenty-one congregations included in our study. Bradford has since relocated to the nearby U.S. Headquarters of the AG, where he serves as General Secretary and a member of the denomination’s Executive Presbytery. If Springfield is (as some have affectionately and humorously called it) “Rome on the Ozarks,” Central Assembly has been the AG’s St. Peter’s Basilica. But as we will see, Central Assembly has been in transition, providing an excellent illustration of what sociologist Malcolm Gold (2003) has called a “hybrid church,” a synthesis between traditional Pentecostal beliefs and practices and those of the wider evangelical movement. Bradford left his mark on Central Assembly, just as he left his imprint on another congregation in our study, Newport Mesa Church (NMC) in Costa Mesa, California. As Gold’s work reminds us, congregations do not stand still and our static typologies can be illusive. Central Assembly can serve as a prototype, however, of the most common type of AG congregation, which we call “evangelical AG.” While remaining loyally Pentecostal and committed to the Assemblies of God, evangelical AG congregations have moved or are moving (in varying degrees) away from the unique experiences that were once important markers of Pentecostal identity. “Traditional” congregations, on the other hand, exhibit a strong commitment to the AG (or at least to being Pentecostal) while retaining wider and more intense experiences of charismata, or gifts of the Holy Spirit (especially “baptism in the Spirit” and the paranormal experience of glossolalia, as well as those of healing, miracles, and prophecy).

Central Assembly is an historical landmark, so to speak—a largely white congregation that traces its history to the earliest days of Pentecostalism. It is a church that reflects well the crossroads between charismatic experience and institutional routinization. Although Central represents perhaps the most common type of AG congregation, its distinct identity is colored by its unique history, as well as its emergence as a twenty-first-century mega-church with strong ties to the denominational leadership. (Three of its former pastors have become General Superintendents of the denomination.) Although it is but one AG church among the thousands that dot the American landscape, in many ways it is prototypical of the ongoing transformation of the denomination.

Pentecost Comes to Springfield

It was the latter part of May in the Spring of 1907. The rain was falling on the trees in front of our white clapboarded farm house on Division Street, out beyond the city limits of Springfield, Missouri. My sister, Hazel (age 10), and I (age 7) were playing on the front porch when I heard a sound of wagon wheels coming up the road. We were expecting a visit from my Aunt Rachel Sizelove, who had been to the Azusa Street meetings in Los Angeles, California. Hazel and I ran through the front door into the farm house, “Mama, Mama, she’s here! She’s here!” (Corum and Bakewell 1983, 1).

It was later during that visit, on June 1, 1907, that Lillie Harper Corum was baptized in the Spirit in her living room while praying with her sister, Rachel Sizelove—an event Central Assembly of God celebrates as its birth date. Sizelove brought with her the power of the Holy Spirit that she had experienced at the famed Azusa Street Revival (1906–9) in Los Angeles. Reinforcements from the Azusa Street Revival would come and go in Springfield over the years that followed, increasing the number of believers who eventually would be counted among AG adherents. Sizelove would return to Springfield in 1913 to preach and rekindle the faith of this small band of followers. By this time the little church had a young pastor, Bennett Lawrence, who would represent it at the first gathering of the Assemblies of God in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914. Within two years Brother Lawrence would break with the AG to join the schismatic “Jesus only movement,” but the church that became Central Assembly of God remained with the General Council and the emerging AG denomination.

Fred Corum, a descendent of Lillie Harper Corum, recounts in Sparkling Fountain (Corum and Bakewell, 1983, 249) how “the foundation stones were hewn and laid” for Central Assembly by ordinary folk, with his mother playing a central role:

We were just laymen, beholding the hand of God as the fountain began to bubble forth. Mother was the first pastor of Central Assembly. We just called it the Pentecostal Church then. Preachers would come through and stay at our home. As we look back, we believe that at times we have entertained angels unaware. God blessed us with the miraculous. Mother couldn’t preach. She was only an exhorter. She would get up and say, “Glory to God! Hallelujuh! [sic] I’m so glad I’m saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost.” And then they would have testimonies and sing and sing.

By the time Poloma first encountered Central Assembly of God in the 1980s, the congregation had grown into an unofficial flagship for the denomination. In terms of the typology we are presenting, Central Assembly of a generation ago would have fit what we are labeling “traditional Pentecostal,” higher than average on AG identity and on expressions of the supernatural, especially speaking in tongues or glossolalia. There were signs, however, both in this congregation and in the larger denomination, that the “routinization of charisma,” in which charisma succumbs to institutional forces, was gaining ground in the last half of the twentieth century. The early “charismatic moment” in which the Pentecost came to Springfield is now part of history, and doctrine, set rituals, and institutional programs threaten to eclipse the felt movement of the Spirit. On Poloma’s visits to Springfield in the 1980s to gather data for Crossroads, she observed that Central was the church home of many of the denominational leaders. Although culturally Pentecostal, the church seemed stalled in once meaningful rituals of an earlier era and lacked the effervescence of many emerging neo-pentecostal groups. When she revisited the congregation two decades later for the present study, there were ample signs of cultural adaptations that made the church more appealing and more culturally relevant to a new generation of young members, with outreach programs that served to attract the churched and unchurched alike. It has adapted further to the larger Springfield culture with its extensive out-reach to the community in benevolent ministries, a move that has come to be known as “progressive Pentecostalism” (see Miller and Yamamori 2007).

The Sunday that Poloma arrived at Central to conduct our survey was “Small Group Celebration Sunday.” The church lobby was lined with several dozen booths reflecting the diversity of the congregation’s groups, from those focusing on hobbies or sports to more traditional Bible study. As promised in the epigraph, greeters were there to welcome and direct new visitors. At the time Pastor Bradford had reported that approximately half of regular attendees were also church members, a figure that reflects the relaxed attitude that the AG has toward formally joining a congregation. Our survey figures support Bradford’s report, with 66 percent of the congregation indicating that they had become members, while 32 percent were regular attendees but not members. The overwhelming majority of the congregational survey respondents (96 percent) were non-Hispanic whites, 2 percent were Asian, and 2 percent Hispanic. It is worth noting that Central is but one of approximately fifty AG churches within a twenty-mile radius, with some thirty inside Springfield proper. Since Bradford had arrived as pastor in late 2003, the congregation had reportedly increased in size by more than 50 percent.

Although a generation ago Central Assembly would clearly have been considered a traditional AG congregation, high on both Pentecostal experiences and Pentecostal identity, our evidence suggests that the congregation has slowly been shifting toward the type we are calling “evangelical AG.” According to results from the congregational survey, Central remains higher than average with regard to the importance placed on Pentecostal identity, but slightly lower than average on distinctly Pentecostal experiences. A slight majority (52 percent) of the respondents indicated that it was extremely important to them that their church had a strong Pentecostal identity, but only 24 percent reported that it was extremely important for them “to walk in the supernatural.” Although a clear majority of the respondents reported praying in tongues at least on occasion (89 percent), only 37 percent were regular users of glossolalia who prayed in tongues “most days” or more.

Bradford is personally committed to the ministry of the Holy Spirit that has been a distinctive feature of the AG. In a recent online interview with Dr. George Wood, General Superintendent of the AG, on the occasion of the announcement of Bradford’s appointment as General Secretary for the denomination, Bradford shared his sense of divine calling into ministry and his experience of divine guidance throughout the major changes in his ministerial career. When asked about the focus on the “person and ministry of the Holy Spirit,” Bradford (who holds a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, but no bible college or seminary degrees) noted how he may be even more dependent on the Spirit than some because he has “not had the training in ministry that others have been privileged of doing. That made me a little extra desperate—for whatever progress I have had in ministry, I have had to lean on the Holy Spirit.” Bradford elaborated about the Holy Spirit:

He is not old fashioned—the Holy Spirit is not archaic. I don’t think that we need to relate the Holy Spirit to stylistic subcultures of 40 or 50 years ago because the culture is different, but yet the tangible evidential power is not—and we need to keep giving place to this in new wineskins.¹

As we will see, these “new wineskins,” as mirrored in the congregational diversity found in our sample of churches, come in various sizes and shapes, colored by ethnicity and region, sometimes with unusual missions, and most importantly, with significant differences in what it means to be Pentecostal. All evangelical Christians would profess the Holy Spirit to be the third person of a triune Godhead, but they differ from pentecostals in the degree to which affect plays a role in this doctrinal confession. While evangelicals and pentecostals are united in their cognitive profession of an unwavering belief in the Holy Spirit, historically Pentecostals have been more likely to expect affective or primal experiences to accompany the work of the Spirit. Contemporary AG congregations represented by the four-fold typology differ widely in their openness to overt emotional responses and somatic manifestations commonly found in the “stylistic subcultures” of a half century ago.

Overview and Typology of AG Congregations

When Crossroads was published in 1989, it was accurate to describe the Assemblies of God as a largely white, working-class denomination with most of its churches having fewer than one hundred members. By 2006, the Assemblies of God, USA, numbered 12,311 American congregations, including more than one hundred megachurches scattered around the country, and numerous suburban churches with memberships of several hundred members, as well as small urban and rural congregations representing a wide array of ethnic groups and social classes.² The average size of an AG congregation as reported in 2006 was 132 members (230 when including regular adherents who are non-members). Yet there are scores of congregations—including Central Assembly—with a thousand or more adherents, the largest of which is Phoenix First Assembly of God in Arizona, with an average Sunday attendance of 9,500.

Perhaps even more important than the increase in size of the AG denomination and its congregations are changes in its ethnic and racial composition. In 2006 less than 70 percent of AG churches were predominantly white congregations; increasingly, AG congregations, especially large ones, are multicultural. Ethnic congregations are also on the rise, with AG churches that identify as Hispanic (18 percent), Asian or Pacific Islander (3.8 percent), African American (2.5 percent), Native American (1.5 percent), or “other” (4.7 percent). Although for decades African American Pentecostals were excluded from the AG and encouraged to join its “sister church,” the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), efforts are now made to woo persons of color into the denomination (Rodgers 2008). At the fifty-second General Council in 2007, Zollie L. Smith, Jr., was elected to serve as Executive Director of Assemblies of God U.S. Missions, becoming the first African American member of the six-man Executive Presbytery.

Ethnic churches, on the other hand, could always be found within the AG, though until recently they had a low profile in the denomination.³ The fifty-first General Council, held in Denver, Colorado, in 2005, seemed to mark a watershed in this regard. Of the event that celebrated the cultural diversity found in the AG, John W. Kennedy (2005, 6) wrote:

The Assemblies of God provided an unprecedented high-profile forum for diversity last month at its biennial General Council, featuring various ethnic and foreign language leaders at a U.S. Missions Intercultural Ministries luncheon followed by a two-and-a-half-hour service at the Colorado Convention Center. The August 5 activities provided a significant and joyous unification of culturally and linguistically distinct elements within the Fellowship that never had gathered in one spot before. General Superintendent Thomas E. Trask said ethnic minorities are a unique contribution to the Fellowship that will enable the Assemblies of God to reach the entire nation with the gospel.

Although it has long been noted that without the steady growth of its ethnic churches the AG would be declining in membership, until the past decade or so the majority Anglo constituency seemed oblivious to their presence (see Tinlin and Blumhofer 1991).

As significant as increasing church size and ethnic/racial diversification are, other changes are afoot that may be even more telling about the Assemblies of God in the twenty-first century. These markers suggest ongoing erosion of the decidedly Pentecostal identity that has characterized the AG since its inception in 1914. Political scientist Eric Patterson, for example, has noted a decline in the emphasis on Spirit baptism and its attendant charismata (the paranormal “gifts of the Holy Spirit”) in AG congregations.⁴ According to Patterson (2007, 207), “It is simply impossible to be Pentecostal without the charismata, and yet classical Pentecostal denominations seem to have handed off their gift to the younger movements such as the Vineyard and non-denominational charismatic churches.” Patterson’s observation resonates with our own findings, but a review of the 2006 statistics suggests an important modifier.

While English-speaking congregations in the United States may be experiencing a dilution of Pentecostal identity, this may not be the case for most Latino congregations (and probably not for many other non–English-language churches either). In reporting on the number of Spirit baptisms by English-language and non–English-language districts, for example, most categories show a clear decline between 2005 and 2006. Overall the Great Lakes region reported a decrease of 43 percent; the Gulf Region of 29 percent; and the Northwest of 16 percent. However, the non–English-language districts reported an 80.5 percent increase in Spirit baptisms, with the Spanish-language district reporting a 100 percent increase. The Southwest Region (which also includes many Hispanic congregations) showed a sizable increase of 37 percent.

Reflecting Patterson’s concern about the general decline in a distinct Pentecostal identity, our four-fold typology of AG congregations is created from two variables found in our congregational survey—one measuring the importance of “Pentecostal identity,” and another, the importance of “walking in the supernatural.” Thirty-seven percent of the total sample responded that “a strong Pentecostal identity” was extremely important, with individual congregational scores on this response ranging from 12 percent to 64 percent. Twenty-seven percent of the respondents “strongly agreed” that “walking in the supernatural” was “very important,” with particular congregational scores ranging from 10 percent to 66 percent. Those we labeled “traditional” churches scored above the mean or average on both Pentecostal identity and the supernatural; those (including Central Assembly of God) that were above the mean on Pentecostal identity but below it on the supernatural we termed “evangelical AG” churches; churches high on the supernatural experiences but low on Pentecostal identity we called “renewalist” or “charismatic” churches; and finally, those congregations low on both dimensions we categorized as “alternative” churches, an innovative category that includes “seeker-sensitive” and “emerging” churches. The labels “traditional,” “evangelical AG,” “renewalist,” and “alternative” reflect the differences that any observant visitor would soon note in visiting AG churches around the country. A caveat is in order: significant variance exists within each of these ideal typical categories, with some churches being more (or less) “traditional,” “evangelical,” “renewalist,” or “alternative” than others. This is especially important to keep in mind as we provide profiles of select congregations. It is also important to remember, as we have already seen with Central Assembly, that congregations are not static; they can and do shift from one cell in the typology to another.

Traditional English-Language Churches

Traditionalists are not only proud to be part of the Assemblies of God, with church signs and symbols openly proclaiming this affiliation (including Websites that contain information about the AG), they also allow room for distinctly Pentecostal exuberance, teaching, and experience within their rituals. These rituals have a unique acoustical feel, with occasional messages in tongues (glossolalia) followed by a prophetic interpretation; persistent altar calls (often with “tarrying” or waiting expectantly in God’s presence); loud, fervent prayer for special needs; shouts of praise that can be heard from the parking lot; and opportunities for testimonies that model experiences and expectations. The services of traditional congregations often are less bound by time constraints—particularly the Sunday or Wednesday evening services, which increasingly have been abandoned by other types of congregations. In traditional ethnic churches the sense of community is strong, and it is not unusual for many members to spend all of Sunday together in prayer, including Sunday morning and evening services, Sunday school, and fellowship.

Traditional congregations are the most likely of the four types of AG churches to uphold many of the moral taboos brought into early Pentecostalism from the Wesleyan Holiness movement that sought to revive Methodism after the Civil War. They are least likely to approve of the use of alcohol or tobacco under any circumstances, or to approve of gambling (even the lottery), social dancing, or even (for some older Pentecostals) going to movies. Their adherents are more likely not only to be glossolalic but also to profess that “speaking in tongues” is the “initial physical evidence of Spirit baptism,” a core doctrine of the AG. It is significant that all of the Latino and other ethnic churches (one Ghanaian and one Caribbean) included in our survey registered higher than Anglo churches on valuing a strong Pentecostal identity, with congregants who also reported high scores on “walking in the supernatural.” We present below a profile of First Assembly of God in Akron, Ohio, to illustrate one variant of a traditional congregation.

Akron First Assembly of God (Akron, Ohio)

Like Central Assembly in Springfield, Missouri, First Assembly in Akron, Ohio, has roots that can be traced to the beginning of the denomination. The congregation now known as First Assembly of God (Akron) was founded in the 1890s by Christian Missionary Alliance pastor C. M. McKinney. McKinney became a charter member of the AG, and his congregation was incorporated as an AG chur...