Product Description

Pentecostalism is one of the most dynamic forces in twentieth-century Christianity. From fast-growing denominations such as the Assemblies of God to popular television ministries such as "The 700 Club," the fruits of Pentecostalism can be seen throughout modern Christian life.

In this landmark study, Dr. Dayton explains how Pentecostalism grew out of Methodism and the nineteenth-century holiness revivals. He finds evidence of Wesleyan teaching in the classic writings of many Pentecostal leaders. He shows how Pentecostalism is rooted in the Wesleyan theological tradition, rather than being a contrived system of modern revivalistic ides. Martin E. Marty says in his foreword that Pentecostals "have no choice, it is clear from this book, but to see that there were . . . roots to the growth they reaped." He calls Theological Roots of Pentecostalism "a very important statement . . . one without which subsequent commentators on Pentecostalism are not likely to give intelligent accounts."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #460333 in Books
• Published on: 1991-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

About the Author
Donald W. Dayton is Professor of Theology and Ethics at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Illinois. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago in 1980.

Customer Reviews

Good history but with several flaws
Donald Dayton clearly shows a vast knowledge of the Holiness and Pentecostal movements. This book was very informative and traced the Wesleyan roots that eventually birthed into the Pentecostal movement.
Dr. Dayton's thesis, however, lacks an holistic historical view. He sees through myopic lenses when evaluating the Pentecostal movement. The only roots he sees in Pentecostalism are Wesleyan ones. He completely fails to differentiate between the Wesleyan Pentecostals from up until 1910, and the non-Wesleyan Pentecostal denominations that formed after 1910 (the Assemblies of God, Foursquare, etc.). These groups did not emerge from Wesleyanism. Rather, they were the result of a more Reformed/Keswick theological theological system.
Just as the Holiness movement itself cannot be grouped together, the Pentecostal movement cannot be either. The Holiness movement had two sub-groups: the Wesleyan movement and the Keswick movement. Just the same, the Pentecostals must be separated into two groups: one being Wesleyan and the other being more baptistic/congregational/keswick in theology.
It is true that up until 1910 the Pentecostal denominations that emerged were Wesleyan. But after 1910 virtually all Pentecostal denominations were formed by Baptists or Reformed people who had received the Pentecostal experience. Dr. Dayton fails to realize the difference between the Assemblies of God and Church of God! Instead, he categorizes both denominations as being Wesleyan. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Although Donald Dayton is correct in identifying Wesleyanism in Pentecostalism, he is wrong when asserting that this was the strongest influence on modern-day Pentecostalism. In fact, over half of Pentecostals today are part of the stream of Pentecostals that emerged AFTER 1910.
Prior to 1910, the Pentecostal denominations were formed by people who came from Wesleyan groups. However, once this Pentecostal experience spread to Baptists, Presbyterians, and members of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, they also came into the Pentecostal movement, BUT without a Wesleyan theology.
These non-Wesleyan Pentecostals did not believe in entire sanctification and brought a pre-millenial eschatology to the movement. They were linked with their Wesleyan friends by an experience they commonly shared, but not by a common theological system. Therefore, although both groups were Pentecostal, both were started from different ends of the Christian spectrum. Prior to 1910, Pentecostals held the same views of the millenium held by Wesley. Therefore, a pre-millenial view of the return of Christ was NOT a Wesleyan extraction but a dispensational one.
I did like this book because it was informative, but it only really tells half the story. The truth of the matter is that Pentecostals cannot all be grouped together. To this day, there are both Wesleyan Pentecostals and non-Wesleyan. Sadly, Dr. Dayton has missed this and grouped all of them together as having the same heritage and roots.
[...]

For Fluent Pentecostals
Professor Donald Dayton's "Theological Roots of Pentecostalism" (2004, 199 page paperback) presents Pentecostal theological history. The book is adequately documented with extensive chapter endnotes and helpful indexes of persons, subjects, and Scriptures.

Through roughly the first half of the book (chapters 1 through 3) Dayton describes the 17th century Pentecostal origin with John Wesley and John Fletcher. Second blessing theology of sanctification (Wesley from St. Paul) and Spirit baptism (Fletcher from Acts of the Apostles) are thoroughly explained. The remainder of the book suggests origins for additional Pentecostal doctrines (i.e. divine healing, premillennialism, etc.).

Dayton's reviews of the 19th Century American revival impulse, Holiness Movement, and post Civil War class divisions are particularly informative and noteworthy. Also interesting is the author's opening each chapter with a page from, presumably, a Pentecostal hymnal. (One wonders if these songs are known, across the author's faith community, while pondering their purpose herein.)

The book is somewhat technical. Dayton assumes reader familiarity with North American Christian history. His target audience could very well be theologically sophisticated collegians and seminarians.

The book, is therefore, recommended only to the theologically well read with fluency in Pentecostalism.

A Major Contribution to 20th C. Pentecostalism's Pre-History
In the first chapter, Dayton notes that Pentecostalism is generally interpreted according to its most characteristic feature: glossolalia ("speaking in tongues"). However, he sees this as too restrictive and argues, instead, for a "constellation of motifs" that recur throughout the Pentecostal tradition, involving a five-fold pattern of Christological themes for Wesleyan Pentecostals that later became a four-fold one for non-Wesleyan Pentecostals. The five-fold pattern involves Jesus as Savior, Sanctifier, Baptizer in the Holy Spirit, Healer, and Soon-Coming King. Non-Wesleyan Pentecostals, influenced by the Keswick Movement, dropped the second one (associated with the Wesleyan doctrine of 'entire sanctification' or 'Christian perfection' as a second, definite work of grace after conversion), preferring instead a Reformed understanding of sanctification as a process rooted in Christ's 'finished work' of atonement. Two Pentecostal denominations that embraced the four-fold pattern were the Assemblies of God and Aimee Semple McPherson's International Church of the Foursquare Gospel (see page 21). It may come as a surprise to some that the classical Pentecostal doctrine of 'speaking in tongues' as the "initial physical evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit" is NOT one of the four cardinal doctrines of the Assemblies of God, although it as well as they are included in their 16 fundamental truths. The historical development of the four cardinal doctrines is what Dayton chose as his primary theological focus.

Although Dayton recognizes the important distinction in Pentecostal history between Wesleyan and non-Wesleyan Pentecostals, he doesn't provide early 20th century details regarding the latter. The reason is stated in the last paragraph of his Epilogue: The split of Pentecostalism into Holiness and non-Holiness segments "and related issues are a part of the history rather than the prehistory of Pentecostalism. They belong to a study of the theological history of the movement, not to a search for the theological roots of Pentecostalism." Therefore, no mention is made of William Durham as the one who, according to Edith Blumhofer, "provoked the first serious division in American Pentecostalism" in 1910 (from Chapter 9, page 275, of Reaching Beyond: Chapters in the History of Perfectionism [1986], edited by Stanley Burgess). According to Blumhofer, it was Durham who focused on Christ's atoning work "like his non-Pentecostal contemporaries in the Keswick and 'higher life' movements of the day." She adds: "By 1910 he articulated the 'finished work' teaching that rejected the perfectionism that many regarded as a cardinal Pentecostal truth and that would permanently divide the nascent Pentecostal movement, eventually aligning more than half of its adherents with a non-Wesleyan American evangelical heritage." For more details regarding this 'sanctification schism' in Pentecostal history, see Pentecostalism: Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism (1979) by Robert M. Anderson (Chapter IX, The Sanctification Schism) and Thinking in the Spirit: Theologies of the Early Pentecostal Movement (2003) by Douglas Jacobsen (Chapter 3, Holiness and Finished-Work Options).

Again, Dayton's focus is the theological development of classical Pentecostalism's four cardinal doctrines. The first one of Christ as Savior places Pentecostalism "within the conversionist-oriented revivalist tradition." The second doctrine - the Baptism in the Holy Spirit - is, according to Dayton, "the key one". He states in the Epilogue that "chapters 2, 3, and 4 have been devoted to tracing the evolution of the Wesleyan doctrine of entire sanctification into the Pentecostal doctrine of baptism in the Spirit." Integral to this evolution is the notion of Christian experiences distinct from, and subsequent to, conversion. The Wesleyan doctrine of 'entire sanctification' or 'Christian perfection' as a definitive experience after conversion became linked with Pentecostal imagery and rhetoric so that some started associating it with Spirit Baptism. However, a transition occurred later in the 19th century which distinguished Spirit Baptism as empowerment for service from sanctification, although the notion that one must be 'consecrated' before receiving Spirit Baptism was prevalent. D. L. Moody, R. A. Torrey and J. Wilbur Chapman, for example, are identified as among those who taught a Spirit Baptism subsequent to conversion for empowerment. None of these teachers, however, associated speaking in tongues with the experience. It was only through Charles F. Parham and William J. Seymour in the early 20th century that tongues became associated with Spirit Baptism as evidence of it. Since they fall within the beginnings of Pentecostal history proper, Dayton doesn't incorporate them into his study, although he mentions Parham in Chapter 1 and the Epilogue. Both Parham and Seymour were among those who embraced a Wesleyan type of sanctification experience subsequent to conversion but distinct from Spirit Baptism. As mentioned earlier, it was Durham that spearheaded the schism within Pentecostal history between Wesleyan and non-Wesleyan Pentecostals. Durham's 'new teaching' was opposed by both Parham and Seymour, among others.

Chapter 5 explores the rise of faith healing which, Dayton notes, had broader roots but "may be seen largely as a radicalization of the Holiness doctrine of instantaneous sanctification in which the consequences of sin (i.e., disease) as well as sin itself are overcome in the Atonement and vanquished during this life" (page 174). However, he also shows that some had second thoughts about whether Christ's atonement could be used to guarantee healing in this life. Lack of healing may be due to God's inscrutable will. R. Kelso Carter is shown as a case in point. His book The Atonement for Sin and Sickness: or, A Full Salvation for Soul and Body (1884) was a popular defense of healing available in this life through the atonement. However, after personally struggling with health problems, he had second thoughts about the subject and published in 1897 a book titled "Faith Healing" Reviewed After Twenty Years which took a more cautious position. An insightful book that provides more information on the divine healing movement is Faith Cure: Divine Healing in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements (2003) by Nancy A. Hardesty.

Chapter 6 explores the rise of premillenialism which ties into the Pentecostal theme of Christ as soon-coming king. Dayton shows how this links into the Pentecostal emphasis on the Holy Spirit being poured out prior to Christ's return. In Chapter 2 (Methodist Roots of Pentecostalism), he shows how John Fletcher, John Wesley's designated successor, opened the door to future Pentecostal pneumatology as well as eschatology by his teaching that history may be divided into three dispensations, each associated with a person of the divine Trinity. "The third dispensation, that of the Spirit, looks forward to the return of Christ" (page 51). Dayton also shows that after the Civil War, the social optimism within "revivalist postmillenialism was dealt lethal blow after lethal blow" through such disturbing developments as biblical criticism and Darwinism as well as "harsh urbanization and industrialization" (page 160). These developments helped make premillenialism acceptable. For more details regarding these changes, I highly recommend George Marsden's Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism 1870 - 1925. Chapters 8 - 11 are particularly relevant to the history and ideas covered by Dayton.

Dayton's book is a major contribution to 20th century Pentecostalism's pre-history and is required reading for all those who are seriously interested in it. However, for the development of Pentecostal history, I recommend reading the books mentioned above by Anderson and Jacobsen, among others.