Azusa Street—Bartleman

Azusa Street
by Frank Bartleman
[orig. published as Another Wave Rolls In (1969) also as, Another Wave of Revival(1982)]

Whitaker House, 1982, 171pp. with epilogue by Arthur Wallis

The roots of the world’s fastest growing religion lie in the revival that came to Azusa Street, Los Angeles just over 100 years ago—in the wake of the San Fransisco earthquake. If you’ve ever been curious what that revival looked like from the inside, this is the book for you! The ‘Azusa Street Revival’ spawned the Pentecostal movement and its many modern day off-shoots. Azusa Street is the eyewitness account by Frank Bartleman,of this revival in the Los Angeles area from 1905-1911. Bartleman was an itinerate holiness preacher who wrote many tracts and hundreds of articles. He drew from his own and selected others’ written accounts to roughly piece together this unusual time in church history and to preach to the reader his views on revival in general and the various manifestations of this revival in particular. By his own profession (and the book is replete with the “I” word) Bartleman was very involved praying, preaching, and overseeing various groups during these fervent times.

The book may not deliver all that the back cover promises—an explosive faith, a transformed prayer life or a personal experience of God’s presence for yourself—but it is worth reading for the historical first-person perspective it brings to a movement that has been very controversial from its incipience. It was this movement that brought the ‘tongues’ issue to the foreground as the primary evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit, and as the means for evangelizing the world quickly. It was believed that this manifestation of ‘tongues’ signified the imminence of the Second Coming and would greatly hasten cross-cultural evangelization. Though ‘tongues’ did not after all eliminate the need for language learning, this movement did provide impetus for foreign missions that continue to impact the world, making Pentecostalism in its various forms the world’s fastest growing religion.

I appreciate Bartleman’s admission of the pitfalls and vices that attended the revival. He cites rivalry between churches, much counterfeiting, interference of spiritualists and hypnotists, religious pride and quackery, quasi-spiritual ‘mental intoxication’, power-seeking, and carnal controversy. But despite all the negatives he sees God at work to restore His church to the state of the early church in preparation for Christ’s soon return.

Meetings were held daily, all night Fridays and all day Sundays in some places during this time. Bartleman describes these meetings as ones where prayer was not formal. There was true worship, often ‘singing in the Spirit’ and tongues… Conviction of sin was strong (at least in the initial years) in these meetings. People would fall to the ground and lay unconscious for long intervals. “We had no human program, platform or pulpit” (no ecclesiastical hierarchism). Bartleman describes the presence of the Lord as being so real at times, he felt it two blocks away and he professed: “I would rather live six months at that time than fifty years of ordinary life.” (58)

Bartleman’s account of events raises some disconcerting questions regarding the effectiveness of this revival.

· For one, it is not clear whether many people were actually saved or whether the ‘revival’ consisted in church folk flocking to whichever building housed the most dramatic services. Thousands from all over the country (and the world?) came to see what was happening, but only a small corpus of church folk seemed to be constants in the movement. How many new believers were actually added to the churches?

· Another item, the Body was splintered from the very beginning into separate groupings under distinctly favored leaders. This seems to defy the nature of the Spirit’s work, which is to create unity in the Body.

· The revival was opposed by many local churches and well-known theologians. This was largely due (according to Bartleman) to the manifestation of ‘much slaying power’. Opposition was viewed as rebellion against God rather than taken as a caution to avoid extremes and verify scriptural precedent. This led to additional divisions in the Body.

· Bartleman viewed any hierarchy in leadership or adherence to creeds as corrupt and enslaving, attributing the early church’s loss of power over time to her ‘theories, creeds, doctrines, schisms, issues, movements, blessings, experiences, and professions’. He said: “We need no more theology or theory. Let the Devil have them. Let us get to God. Many are cramped up in present experiences. They are actually afraid to seek more of God for fear the Devil will get them. Away with such foolish bondage! Follow your heart! Believe in your own heart’s hunger, and go ahead for God”100) While appearing spiritual this stance lacks accountability to the Word of God and to those called to shepherd and protect the flock from error.

Overall, I found the narrator, Bartleman, to be a curious combination of sage insights on revival and personal ambition cloaked in self-castigation. His judgmental attitudes toward fellow preachers and his boasting of all he said and did run contrary to his own best sermons. Alas, he too was human but his book stands as a testimony to this very unusual time in human history, when God worked despite the weakness and failings of men. As Bartleman himself said: “God’s perfect work is brought about in human imperfection.”

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No book review is complete without a sampling of morsels from the author himself. I leave you with these favorites of mine, to which I add only a hearty ‘Amen!’…

“A body must be prepared, in repentance and humility, for every outpouring of the Spirit.” (40)

“Nothing hinders faith and the operation of the Spirit so much as the self-assertiveness of the human soul, the wisdom, strength, and self-sufficiency of the human mind.”(76)

“A true Pentecost will produce a mighty conviction for sin, a turning to God. False manifestations produce only excitement and wonder. Sin and self-life will not materially suffer from these.” (91)

“Any work that exalts the Holy Spirit or the gifts above Jesus will finally end up in fanaticism.” (91)

“Men must come to know their own weakness before they can hope to know God’s strength.” (105)

“We are determined to fight nothing but sin and to fear nothing but God.” (110)

“Error always leads to militant exclusion. Truth evermore stoops to wash the saints’ feet.” (127)

“When…the church becomes 100 percent for God again, we will have the same power, the same life—and the same persecution from the world. The reason we have so little persecution now is that the Spirit cannot press the claims of God home on the world through us. When that happens, men must either surrender or fight.” (132)

“Heaven was real to the early church—far more real than earth…. This present life, after all, is the true saint’s purgatory. It is the sinner’s heaven—his only heaven—and that is sad beyond words to express! But, glory to God, it is our only hell!”(133)

“When an individual stops going forward for God, he begins to go in a circle, just as a man when lost in a forest ceases to go straight forward but wanders in a circle.” (134)

“…a movement is no longer a movement when it stops moving—be it the Holiness Movement, the Pentecostal Movement, or any other movement. It may continue to increase both in numbers and in wealth, but that is not necessarily a sign of life and power with God.” (137)

“We must work for the kingdom of God as a whole, not for some pet individual party, organization, or movement…We have worshipped certain doctrines, party standards, partial experiences, and blessings, all fine as far as they go, but abnormal in themselves and only a part of the whole. Most of these have been unbalanced, exaggerated misstatements of truth at best. In the end, they have generally brought bondage in place of blessing. They have broken fellowship, divided the children of God, and put the church in bondage to men and their ideas, standards, understandings, and opinions.” (138)

“We have been recovering the whole in parts, without seeing the whole—thus we so often distort and overemphasize the truth or experience that our particular movement has recovered. I trust you grasp this, for it is very important.”(141)

A great word picture!...

“Each oncoming wave of the sea toward high tide must fight its way through the last receding one. So it is with the different movements toward a final restoration of the church. The immediately receding one especially hates and opposes the next oncoming one.” (142)

And a chuckle!!!

“Hymnals today are too largely a commercial proposition, and we would not lose much without most of them. Even the old tunes are often violated by change, and new styles must be gotten out every season for added profit. There is very little real spirit of worship in them. They move the toes, but not the hearts of men.” (55)