The first century Church witnessed various erroneous cults that insisted the gifts, including tongues and miracles, were still in existence and operating through them. The second century saw the rise of a man named Montanus, a self-proclaimed prophet from Phrygia, who gave utterances as if God Himself were speaking through him, not unlike the false prophets of the Charismatic movement that abound in our own day. Montanus believed that he was a prophet sent from God to reform Christianity through asceticism, tongues and prophetic revelation, which he believed to be equal to that of Scripture. Many of today’s Charismatic ‘prophets’ also claim that their words are coming directly from God and should be adhered to accordingly. Such ‘prophecies’ are often published and can be purchased, and are often placed inside Bibles as if they were equal to the Word of God. "Montanus opposed formalism in the Church and boldly intimidated Christians by claiming his followers were more spiritual than those who had only the ‘dead letter’ of the Scriptures. In most respects, Montanists were orthodox. But the movement was schismatic, believing only themselves to be the true Church. The rest of professing christendom branded Montanism as a serious heresy to be rejected (cf. Rom. 16:17). Augustine wrote against the movement, and the Council at Constantinople decreed that Montanism was tantamount to Paganism." Much of what history has taught us has been lost, and most Charismatics today have absolutely no idea of what has preceded their movement, or of how indistinguishable the practices of universally recognized cultic and heretical groups of the past were to their own group. Charismatics need to become informed, just like this author was over a decade ago, of the origins and spiritual forefathers of the Charismatic movement.

 

The prophecies of Montanus were false, and the tongues that he spoke were not the biblical gift but the mere ecstatic speech which prevailed in many pagan tribes or cults. This, coupled with the fact that he did not preach the Gospel of God but another, showed clearly that he was not a man of God. None can be of God if they abide not in the Gospel of God (2 Jn. 9). No true miracles and signs can ever come from one who promotes a false gospel, just like black can never be white and white can never be black. "The contemporary Charismatic movement is in many ways the spiritual heir of Montanism. In fact, it would not be at all unfair to call today’s Charismatic movement neo-Montanism. At least one leading Charismatic writer, Larry Christensen, agrees, and even claims the Montanist movement as a part of the Charismatic historical tradition." (L. Christensen, ‘Pentecostalism’s Forgotten Fore-runner’, from ‘Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins’ by V. Synan, ed., pp. 32-34).

 

Two brief quotes from early ‘Church’ fathers Chrysostom and Augustine, both of whom lived in the fourth century, provide some interesting insight into what was occurring in their day. Firstly, Chrysostom, commenting on 1 Corinthians 12:1,2 and specifically alluding to the gifts, states: "This whole place is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place". Augustine asserted, "For who expects in these days that those on whom hands are laid that they may receive the Holy Spirit should forthwith begin to speak with tongues?" This latter quotation has been used in a most cunning and deceptive way by some in the Charismatic movement, being purposely misquoted so as to show that Augustine testified that there were genuine signs of the biblical gifts, including tongues, being performed in his day. The first three words of Augustine’s statement have been changed from ‘For who expects...’ to, ‘For we expect...’

 

Throughout the following centuries there arose a cavalcade of claimants to the gifts. Many of these were from the Roman Catholic Church. All such signs and wonders that occurred in the Roman Catholic Church then, as now, were attended by false teachings and therefore could not possibly have come from God. Moreover, the very characteristics of Roman Catholic ‘miracles’, as with those of the Charismatic movement, show clearly that they are not of the same type, they do not have the same characteristic features as those that Jesus or the apostles performed. For example, ‘Transubstantiation’ is a miracle, according to the Roman Catholic Church, in which the bread and the wine of communion literally become the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, though it remains indiscernible to the human senses! No miracle of this type is recorded in Scripture. In contrast to this, every miracle of God was obvious and apparent to all, believer and unbeliever alike. It had tangible evidence to support it. One could readily see that a change had occurred: the blind man could see; the crippled man could walk; the deaf could hear and even the dead became alive again. One did not merely hear about a true miracle of God; people were not forced into believing it with some blind ‘faith’ at the threat of being excommunicated or by fear of committing the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit if they did not believe, for they could all see it for themselves. Even the enemies of God could not deny a miracle of God. Such is the evidence of a true miracle from God (see Jesus turning the water into wine in John 2).

 

 

There are multiplied millions of people who are now on the broad way that leads to destruction whom Jesus speaks of in Matthew 7, who are following leaders or movements that promote false gospels and which titillate and seduce them with signs and wonders that could not possibly be coming from God, lest God be found to confirm doctrines of demons with true signs and wonders. We should not be surprised at this, for the Bible says that in the last days "...there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders..." (Matt. 24:24) and, "...some shall depart from THE faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils" (1 Tim. 4:1).

 

The late Seventeenth century saw the emergence of a group known as the Cevennol prophets. This "...group of militant protestants in the Cevennes region of southern France began to prophesy, experience visions, and speak in tongues. The group...are remembered for their political and military activities, not their spiritual legacy. They were rabidly anti-Catholic, and advocated the use of armed force against the Catholic Church. Many of them were consequently persecuted and killed by Rome. At the other end of the spectrum, the Jansenists, a group of Roman Catholic loyalists who opposed the Reformers’ teaching on justification by faith, also claimed to be able to speak in tongues in the 1700's. Another group that practised a form of tongues was the Shakers, an American sect with Quaker roots that flourished in the mid-1700's. Mother Ann Lee, founder of the sect, regarded herself as the female equivalent of Jesus Christ! She claimed to be able to speak in 72 languages. The Shakers believed sexual intercourse was sinful, even within marriage. They spoke in ‘tongues’ while dancing and singing in a trance-like state".

 

Edward Irving, whom many consider to be the fore-runner of the modern-day Charismatic movement, led a church in the 1800's which practised so-called speaking in tongues and included those who also claimed to be prophets and prophetesses. Irving not only preached a false gospel, but he also taught erroneous tenets such as the heretical concept that Christ’s flesh was sinful. Many at the centre of Irvingism believed in the restoration of the sign gifts but later recanted and confessed that they had been deceived and used by the Devil. One such person, Robert Baxter, a confidante of Irving’s, experienced many things that he initially deemed to be of God, but later renounced. His lengthy testimony states in part: "The whole work is a mimicry of the gift of tongues—and so of prophesying and all the other works of the power. It is Satan as an angel of light, imitating as far as is permitted, the Holy Spirit of God". (’The Charismatics and the Word of God’, p. 219).

 

 

THE ROOTS OF PENTECOSTALISM AND THE CHARISMATIC MOVEMENT

 

The Pentecostal/Charismatic movement owes a very great deal to the early Black Holiness Churches. Black Holiness Pentecostalism, which formed between 1885 and 1916 "... is not a denomination but rather a movement encompassing several denominations professing belief in Spirit baptism accompanied by several signs including speaking in tongues, with historic roots embracing, but not always restricted to, both a Wesleyan-Arminian and finished work of Calvary orientation. Participants believe that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a normative postconversion experience available to all Christians for the purpose of becoming more effective witnesses in carrying out the Great Commission" (‘Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements’, p. 77). This is rather ironical to say the least, since the true Gospel of God was never preached by this movement. These Black Holiness Churches were the breeding ground from which sprang the modern-day Pentecostal/Charismatic movement: "Perhaps more than any other twentieth-century religious movement in the West, Black Holiness-Pentecostalism is regarded by many as a highly significant catalyst and spawning ground for scores of denominations including the Charismatic renewal, all emphasizing the centrality of the Holy Spirit. So little attention had been given to Black Holiness-Pentecostalism by historians that Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, while visiting the U.S. from Germany, referred to its participants as the ‘step-children of modern church history’" (‘Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements’, p.77).

 

Very few publications, be they Christian or secular and for reasons known only to them, have ever touched on the curious connection between those early Black Holiness Churches, from which Pentecostalism and Charismaticism emerged, and the Voodoo religion of those very black men and women that made up these early gatherings. The word Voodoo is derived from a West African word for God. The above mentioned Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, a pro-Charismatic and Pentecostal publication, admits: "...it appears from the evidence that Black Holiness-Pentecostalism shares the legacy of black slave religion, whose historic roots are anchored deep in African and Afro-Caribbean religion" (p.77), the most prominent African and Afro-Caribbean religion being Voodoo. And this is the movement that fathered the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements of today! Not only was the Black Holiness movement filled with false signs and lying wonders, it also promoted the satanically inspired gospel of John Wesley’s Arminian way, and had within its constitution all sorts of traditions and practices carried over from the Voodoo religion.

 

Several years ago a little-known, yet highly significant, article entitled, ‘Hear That Long Snake Moan’, appeared in the progressive L.A. Weekly. Written by Michael Ventura in the Spring of 1987, it shed much light on the origins and ancestry of the modern-day Pentecostal/Charismatic movements. Here are some extremely revealing excerpts from this article: "W.E.B. DuBois described black Christianist religion as a meeting of three elements: ‘The Preacher, the Music, and the Frenzy.’ It is in the frenzy that, with both black and white fundamentalists, we find African Voodoo absolutely intact, with merely the symbols changed. The object of the Voodoo ceremony is possession by the god. Possession by the Holy Ghost is as much ‘a formal goal of the religion’ in Holiness and Pentecostal churches as possession is in Voodoo. Writes Paul Oliver in his ‘Songsters and Saints’: ‘Placing himself in the hands of God, the supplicant sought possession by the Holy Spirit...Glossolalia, or uttering unintelligible syllables believed to be the language of the Holy Ghost, was evidence to many that the speaker was possessed by the Holy Spirit...and this was an essential part of the process of sanctification. People possessed of the Spirit in church might ‘fall out’ in a trance and might even require to be forcibly held down or controlled until they came around.’"

 

Ventura adds that one man named Metraux, "...observed the relationship, too, saying that ‘a pentecostal preacher describing his feelings when ‘the spirit was upon him,’ listed to me exactly the same symptoms as those which I heard from the mouths of people who had been possessed by the ‘loa’ (gods)...Undeniably the ecstasy which breaks out during the ceremonies of certain Protestant sects in the South of the United States reflects a survival, if not of the rites, then at least of religious behaviour" (p.43). Voodoo customs and traditions were kept very much alive by the black slaves who had been shipped to America in the nineteenth century. They would often drum the voodoo rhythms in the cotton fields and sing. When the slave masters discovered what they were doing, they outlawed the drumming. In place of this, the Voodoo-devoted black slaves turned to tapping out the voodoo beat using their feet through what we know today as tap-dancing. This satanic, beat driven music is continued today in Charismatic assemblies through its use of Rock ‘n’ Roll, a style of music which has indisputable links with Voodoo, as is attested by some of the world’s leading secular musicians. It was from this very Voodoo slave religion that a "...’black style’ of worship developed in an unstructured way....It was the slave’s adaption to Christianity without being completely divested of his native religious worship style that later proved to be significant in its impact on black religious lifestyle" (‘Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements’, p.77).

 

Michael Ventura makes a further comment on the disturbing similarities between the manifestations and occurrences during Voodoo ceremonies and early Black Holiness-Pentecostal gatherings: "The wild movements of the ‘horse’ mounted by the godly ‘rider’; the wild speech, including speaking in tongues which in Haiti is sometimes referred to as ‘talking with Africa’; the unpredictability of the possession, how, excited by the music, the frenzy can strike people who don’t want it and don’t believe in it (this is a common occurrence in Charismatic meetings, especially the Toronto Blessing meetings where many who doubted and disbelieved the veracity of the phenomena occurring in those meetings suddenly found themselves rolling about on the floor in hysterical and uncontrolled laughter), you find all of these central Voodoo phenomena in most black and white fundamentalist churches (needless to say the author here is referring to those Pentecostal and Charismatic Fundamentalist churches). Maya Deren tells of first resisting and then being overpowered by a god during a ceremony she was observing..." (p. 43). Interesting to note that it has been reported by some people who have been present with those who were experimenting with drugs such as LSD, but who had not themselves partaken of it, that suddenly and without warning they, too, began to experience the effects of the drug which others had taken but which they had refused, showing that a spiritual experience was taking place. This same phenomena is reported by many who have attended charismatic meetings as mere observers. Suddenly, they too experienced being ‘slain in the spirit’ or speaking in ‘tongues’, unable to control their mouths (one woman needed to have a towel stuffed in her mouth in order to stop her ‘tongues’ speaking!), or rolling about on the floor in hysterical laughter, some people even trying to divest themselves of their clothing. A spiritual experience is taking place, but the spirit behind it all is NOT the Holy Spirit of God.

 

In more recent times, there appeared on the scene a woman named Agnes Ozman who, on January 1, 1901, whilst enrolled at the Bethel Bible College of Pentecostalism co-founder Charles F. Parham, in Topeka, Kansas, claimed to have received the gift of tongues just as it was given on the day of Pentecost. What ensued was what would later become known as the Azusa St. meetings, which began in 1907 and were attended by people from all over the world, much like the infamous ‘Toronto Blessing’ meetings in our own day to which people foolishly flock. Even now many, if not most, Charismatics believe that the series of meetings at Azusa St., which were held three times a day, seven days a week and went on for years, was a second Pentecost, but as the following quotes from the very founders of Pentecostalism no less and other eye-witnesses will show, these venerated meetings were far from godly and in accordance with biblical order or precedent. The following is an eye-witness account of what occurred at Azusa St. one evening: "When I visited the Azusa St. Mission, the first person to attract my attention was a woman with a thin, white silk waist on, who stood shaking from head to foot...There were several rows of chairs in front of her that were filled with seekers. The coloured leader, Seymour, was preaching; but I could not keep my eyes off the woman who continued to shake until a man in front of her slid down out of his chair and became unconscious. I then lost sight of the woman. The man who fell in a vision was pale and thin, and under high nerve pressure, and continued in the same position on the floor until after a number of seekers had gathered around the altar. Then he arose, staggered to them and began to shake his hand in front of their faces and wave his arms over their heads and moan. He was still apparently in a half-conscious state. Then he put his hands on the heads of the women and began to shake their hair. Some of them lost control of themselves and went under a hypnotic spell. He rubbed a man’s jaw until the victim tumbled over on the floor and lay for half an hour, then suddenly began to jabber. Those who had received their ‘Pentecost’ cried out, ‘He has the baptism, he has the baptism!’" I challenge anyone to find for me a biblical precedent for any of this that was Holy Spirit-inspired and not a display of demonic-inspired lunacy! Only the naive, the gullible and the ignorant could possibly be deceived by such madness into thinking that they were in the presence, and under the influence, of the Holy Spirit.

 

The eye-witness account continues: "A young colored woman, doing her best to get the gibberish, went through all kinds of contortions in her efforts to get her tongue to work. While work among the seekers at the altar was going on, a colored woman had her arms around a white man’s neck, praying for him. A man of maturer years leaped out of his chair and began to stutter. He did not utter a distinct syllable, but as fast as tongue would work, he said, ‘tut-tut-tut-tut-tut.’ This was evidence he had his ‘baptism’. The woman who had on the silk waist appeared again, this time singing a far away tune that sounded very unnatural and repulsive....When the altar call was made, a woman walked up to the front and kissed a man...kissing between the sexes is a common occurrence in the tongues meetings." (‘Demons and Tongues’, pp. 71-73, A. White).

 

Another witness to these meetings, where disorder and confusion reigned, had this to report: "Our missionaries have been stationed at Los Angeles (where the Azusa St. meetings were held), during the whole history of the Tongues movement, and have watched it closely from the very first outbreak in Seymour’s meetings; and truly, conditions have been such that it would be impossible to publish the things that have occurred there. The familiarity between sexes in the public meetings has been shocking, to say the least. Hell has reaped an awful harvest and infidelity has become more strongly rooted on the Pacific coast than ever before." (‘Demons and Tongues’, p. 82).

 

The ‘Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements’, reporting on William J. Seymour, co-founder of Pentecostalism and pastor of the Azusa St. Mission, said, "Seymour moved away from a theology of tongues as the initial physical evidence of baptism in the Spirit. In point of fact, Seymour ultimately repudiated the 'initial evidence' teaching (speaking in tongues) as providing "an open door for witches and spiritualists and free-lovism" (p.36). Strange, those who spoke in tongues in the Bible did not have any trouble with witches or the like at their meetings. "Azusa was typically described by the press as a ‘colored’ congregation that met in a ‘tumble-down shack’ and made the night ‘hideous’ through the ‘howlings of the worshippers’..." (p.36). Seymour’s co-founder, Charles Parham, concluded the following: "Never were God’s servants surrounded with more deceptive counterfeits of real divine experience than in this day and age...the magician’s work is so well nigh perfect, that it often is indeed hard to distinguish the true and the false...I have witnessed great dangers in the work here in Los Angeles, and in pointing them out I shall not refer to individuals, but to the work itself as a whole, so that we all may see the error of our way and get back to God." (‘The Life Of Charles Parham’, pp. 166-167). And this from the leaders of events that are held in as high regard today as those which occurred on the day of Pentecost, by those who have perpetuated such ungodly events. Now it is one thing to shrug off the critiques of those exposing Pentecostal or Charismatic movements, but to ignore, or choose to remain ignorant of, the very warnings of the leaders who co-founded Pentecostalism and to choose to continue the traditions and practices, which these leaders themselves condemned, is utter stupidity.

 

One of, if not the most, disturbing aspect of these meetings at Azusa St., which many today ignorantly and blasphemously hold to as equal to the events of the day of Pentecost as recorded in the Scriptures, may be seen in the following accounts: "...spiritualists and mediums from the numerous occult societies of Los Angeles began to attend and contribute their seances and trances to the service. Disturbed by these developments, Seymour wrote to Parham (his spiritual father) for advice on how to handle ‘the spirits’ and begged him to come to Los Angeles and take over supervision of the revival". (‘The Holiness Pentecostal Movement in the United States’, p.110). "W.J. Seymour was still writing urgent letters appealing for help, as spiritualistic manifestations, hypnotic forces and fleshly contortions as known in the colored Camp meetings in the South, had broken loose in the meetings." (‘The Life Of Charles Parham’, p.156). Does any of this sound even remotely like a description of meetings between true Christians in the Bible? Of course not! Unlike the Azusa St. meetings, which not only attracted spiritualists and mediums and the like, but saw them actually take an active and not insignificant part in the meetings, we see that the outpouring of God’s one and only Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost resulted in the following, as is recorded for us in Acts 5:12,13: "And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s Porch. And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them." No medium or witch dared to approach the Holy Spirit who was resident in the apostles who were performing genuine miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit. Rather than be a place to avoid, the meetings at Azusa Street were, in reality, a Mecca for spiritualists, witches and mediums alike! Merely because these facts are little known and rarely reported does not alter the fact that they are all documented and verifiable, historical FACT!!

 

The final comments from the pen of Azusa Street founder, Charles F. Parham, should resound in the minds of every charismatic today as they begin to see, and come to terms with, the corrupt foundation upon which their movement is based: "Let me speak plainly with regard to the work as I have found it here. I found hypnotic influences, familiar spirit influences, spiritualistic influences, mesmeric influences and all kinds of spells and spasms, falling in trances etc. All of these things are foreign to and unknown in the movement (the Apostolic Faith movement) outside of Los Angeles, except in the places visited by the workers sent out from this city". (‘The Life Of Charles Parham’, p. 168). Parham added: "After preaching two or three times, I was informed by two of the elders, one who was a hypnotist (I had seen him lay his hands on many who came through chattering, jabbering, speaking no language at all) that I was not wanted in this place" (‘The Life Of Charles Parham’, p. 163). I doubt whether there are very many Charismatics at all who are aware of the controversy and very un-Christian occurrences which characterized the infamous Azusa St. meetings.

 

The Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements informs us that: "There is now historical evidence to suggest that the Azusa St. revival was no more than confirmation of a phenomenon that had already begun among Black Holiness-Pentecostals" (p.80).

 

"Many former charismatics, including pastors, have renounced what they had at first believed were true gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is seldom realized that there are many former charismatics and pentecostals who have reassessed the whole issue in terms of Scripture, experience and history and have turned their back on the claims of a modern-day revival of biblical gifts." A former Pentecostal pastor of 25 years, G.E. Gardner, declared, "I have heard hundreds of messages in tongues, and interpretations. Not one has ever added anything of value to the meeting" (‘The Corinthian Catastrophe’, p.53). Gardner adds that the seeking of these modern charismatic experiences is ‘never harmless’ (‘The Corinthian Catastrophe’, p.55).