The Azusa Street Revival and the Birth of Pentecostalism
- Date
- 1906–1909
- Category
- Religion & ideology
- Region
- Los Angeles, United States
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
Beginning in April 1906 in a converted building at 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles, a series of revival meetings led by the African American preacher William J. Seymour gave organisational and spiritual momentum to modern Pentecostalism.
Drawing on earlier outbreaks of glossolalia (speaking in tongues) associated with Charles Parham, the Azusa Street meetings emphasised baptism in the Holy Spirit, divine healing, and ecstatic worship. The gatherings were notable for their interracial character at a time of rigid segregation, mixing Black, white, Latino, and immigrant worshippers. Visitors from across the United States and abroad carried the movement's practices back to their home regions, seeding Pentecostal congregations and denominations worldwide. Over the following century Pentecostalism and the broader charismatic movement grew into one of the fastest-expanding forms of Christianity, with hundreds of millions of adherents concentrated in the Global South, including Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. The movement reshaped global Christianity by prioritising personal religious experience, lay participation, and emotive worship, and it later influenced charismatic renewal within established Protestant and Catholic churches. Azusa Street is widely treated by historians of religion as the symbolic origin point of a movement that became a defining feature of twentieth-century world Christianity.
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Empires active in 1906–1909
- Empire of Japan1868 CE – 1947 CE
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- German Empire1871 CE – 1918 CE
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
Related religion & ideology events
- Marx and Engels publish The Communist Manifesto21 February 1848
- Founding of the Tablighi Jamaatc. 1926
- Founding of the Muslim BrotherhoodMarch 1928
- Founding of the Baha'i FaithApril 21 - May 2, 1863 (Declaration of Ridvan)
- Abolition of the Kapu System in Hawaii (ʻAi Noa)October 1819
- Wahhab–Saud Pact Founds the Wahhabi Movement and First Saudi State1744
Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Religion
Accessible sweep of humanity's faiths and belief systems from prehistory to the present.
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