Part III  –  Application to Pentecostal Theology

Subpart A  –  The Pentecostal Renewal

 Article 8 – The Declension of Pentecostal Holiness

Section (a)  –  THE FOURSQUARE GOSPEL OF AIMEE SEMPLE MCPHERSON

Section (a) may be viewed in video format through the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI1HGNt1epw

i.    Disciple of William Durham

ii.   Powerful Anointing & Charismatic Presence

iii.  Personal Testimony

iv.  Prophetic Aspect of Her Ministry

v.  Her Foursquare Message; An Expansion Upon Finished Work Theology

Section (a)  –  THE FOURSQUARE GOSPEL OF AIMEE SEMPLE MCPHERSON

  i.  Disciple of William Durham

At about the same time that Durham began his Pentecostal-message, Aimee Kennedy was a seventeen-year-old student living on a farm in Ontario.    Her mother, Minnie Kennedy, had been raised under the guardianship of  the Salvation Army.  After the birth of Aimee her mother continued as an active devotee of this hyper-evangelistic organization.  She raised her daughter within this same passionate-evangelistic-ethic.

When Aimee was seventeen a Pentecostal-evangelist came to town by the name of Robert Semple.  Aimee began attending his meetings, and received the message of Pentecost and the baptism in the Holy Spirit through his preaching.  She married Robert Semple shortly thereafter, and the newlyweds[1] traveled to Chicago to join Durham’s ministry, becoming disciples of William Durham.   The following-year while traveling with William Durham on his evangelistic-campaigns, Aimee suffered a violent-fall down a flight of stairs and broke her ankle so severely that the doctor  tending to the injury indicated it would never be fully-functional again.[2]  While convalescing, God spoke to her, telling her that if she went back to the mission where Durham was preaching and had him pray for her ankle, it would be healed.  She returned to the mission on crutches and took a seat where Durham was preaching.  Durham walked up to where she was sitting,  uttered a few sentences in tongues, and laid his hands on her foot, saying; “In the name of Jesus, receive your healing”.  She describes a feeling like that of an electrical-shock in her foot, that began to flow through her entire body, causing her to shake and tremble.  Feeling the pain give-way to a strange-coolness, she asked that the cast be cut away.  Her ankle had been healed, which she demonstrated by leaping, dancing and giving testimony.  We should bear in mind that the time and place of this healing represented ground zero of the Pentecostal re-advent givenDurham’s key-role in Pentecost. Several months later, her husband announced they would be traveling as missionaries to China.

They arrived in Hong Kong in June of 1910 and began traveling within China, but their mission came to a quick and tragic end.  Both pregnant and miserable due to her living conditions, Aimee was becoming frantic with her husband.  After a few months of pregnancy both of them became deathly sick with Malaria.  Robert contracted dysentery on top of his malaria.  He died on August 17th in Hong Kong.  Aimee remained in the hospital several more weeks to deliver a 4 ½ pound baby-girl.  She was thereafter returned by steamer to San Francisco, and thence to her mother in New York City.  Her experience as a Pentecostal missionary proved as disastrous as one could imagine.

Aimee Semple passed through several difficult years, during which she married a man by the name of Harald McPherson.  After a second child, she began to suffer acutely from  depression.  Mr. McPherson took his wife to a sanitarium on March 13, 1913.  During this time, Aimee maintained that she had a call to preach the gospel that was not being fulfilled.  She then took her children, and left her new husband, commencing upon a life of itinerant evangelistic preaching.  Several months prior to her breakdown, William Durham, the man whose ministry was the focus of doctrine for the Pentecostal movement, died unexpectedly at 39 years of age.

ii.  Powerful Anointing & Charismatic Presence

In the years that followed, Aimee Semple-McPherson would minister what seems to have been the most dramatic gift-of-healing since apostolic-days. Her ministry was intensely-evangelistic and accompanied by an awesome sense of the presence of God.  With the power that attended her meetings, the Pentecostal-baptism was freely and copiously poured forth from city to city.  Dramatic-displays of the blind recovering sight, the deaf their hearing, the crippled walking, and the diseased recovering, brought her meteoric success as an evangelist as well as national-prominence.  Her ministry may have been the most spectacular-demonstration the world has seen in modern times.  Hundreds were sometimes healed in a single meeting, while at other meetings there might be one deaf child who suddenly received her hearing, or another child who could suddenly run off the platform after having to be carried up by a weeping father; a testament and metaphor for what God would do through the means of the baptism of the Holy Ghost to bring forth the kingdom of God. The miracles were clear, well-documented, widely attested-to, and often dramatic.  Her labors were exhaustive and her gifts extraordinary.

McPherson was universally-regarded as an extraordinarily charismatic individual, gifted with an unusual command of audiences and power in her words.  Oddly, film-footage of her speaking presents a rather melodramatic-delivery bordering on the pretentious.  She would always appear in costume of some form, sometimes a nurse’ uniform, sometimes in flowing-liturgical robes.  In the latter days of her ministry in the Angeles Temple, her movements were observed with pomp and ceremony; her coming and going with parades and fanfare.  Her manner and methods were entirely unfamiliar to anything seen in early Pentecost.

iii.  Personal Testimony

In the midst of her phenomenal early-ministry wherein hundreds of thousands were witness to dramatic-healings, miracles, and the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy concerning the Pentecostal baptism of the Holy Spirit, the life and ministry of the evangelist, began a chaotic-spiral into;  financial irregularities, scandal, in-fighting, moral disorder, and worldly-demonstration.  In fact, it would be hard to gain a full-sense of the turmoil and disorder of her life and ministry without reading a full biographical-account.  In a strange and tragic irony, McPherson’s ministry and personal-life were pulled into such scandals as:

–   bitter controversy over property-ownership between the Angeles Temple and                            and its branch congregations in other towns,[3]

–  charging money for baptisms[4]

–  in-fighting and litigation with church officers and fellow-preachers,

–  incidences of accepting money and gifts from persons that had been healed,

–  bitter in-fighting and litigation between herself, her mother and her daughter,[6]

–  remarriage after divorce,

–  criminal-prosecution for (allegedly) reporting a false-kidnapping-story in order to conceal an (alleged) extra-marital affair,

– incensed-denunciations from the pulpit of public officials for having prosecuted her for the kidnapping-story,

–  preoccupation with fashion, travel, and luxury following the kidnapping-scandal,

–  self-promotion, [7]and nepotism in church affairs,[8]

What began as a dramatic-witness of the power of God to intervene in men’s lives pursuant the gospel of Jesus Christ, proceeded into scandal and vice that is seldom found in the secular arena.   These brought a reproach upon her ministry and tore at the faith of many that had believed.  The public approbation and admiration she once enjoyed for her powerful message accompanied by miracles of healing, turned into contempt and ridicule.[9]  The 1960 Oscar-winning movie Elmer Gantry clearly attempts to recreate her persona in the character played by Shirley Jones who appears as an hypocritical-evangelist dressed as a milkmaid dispensing the “milk” of the word overdubbed with a distinctly McPhersonisque voice; a mockery of the evangelistic-message that became increasingly- prevalent following the healing-revivals of the 1940’s and 1950’s.

In spite of the tragic direction her ministry took, the fact that her ministry was used in a profound and nearly-unprecedented way cannot be reasonably-refuted.  The McPherson-ministry and proclamation of Pentecost (although not always consistently-resonating) truly constituted a sign to the world.

iv.  Prophetic Aspect of Her Ministry

Of the most glorious of her campaigns in terms God’s presence were those in San Jose and Denver in 1921 and 1922.  Crowds came from all over the country to witness such things as the blind recovering their sight, deaf children being made to hear, the crippled rising to their feet, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit being poured out upon whomever would take to asking as a result of what they saw.  When asked by a reporter about her gift.  She responded:

There is no miracle woman here at all, only a simple little body whom the Lord has called from a milk-pail on a farm, bidding her tell the good news of a Savior who lives and loves and answers prayer.

This sounds a quaint and humble thing to say; but it was misleading.  McPherson was not just called off the farm for a simple message of salvation; rather, she was a direct understudy to William Durham; the man that had been given the message of Pentecost for the world; a message that he effectively proclaimed for only a few years until his untimely-death; a message that her husband, Robert Semple proclaimed for only a few years until his own untimely death; a message that seems to have been obscured by the failings of her own life and ministry.  Nonetheless, the Spirit was poured out almost in spite of the failings of her ministry, and there is probably no ministry that so openly and powerfully declared Pentecost to the secular world than Amy Semple McPherson’s whose life stood as a depiction of the church, commanded by the Spirit to . . .

Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth.                                                                                      Joel 1:8

The church of Jesus Christ holds precious promises knowable only through faith in the lost  “bridegroom of her youth”.  But there is something about the Lord’s baptism that we tend to forget, and which was expressed in prophetic form by McPherson at one of her early meetings.[10]   After a message in tongues, she took a vase and strewed its flowers on the platform.  She then watered the flowers while singing that God would revive the saints of heaven with the Latter Rain.  She then pantomimed the nailing of a person upon a cross.  She then spoke in tongues again and (as related in Daniel Epstein’s biography of her):

. . . she interpreted the scene that just transpired; “Behold the Lord is calling.  He is searching for a people for Himself.  Who will be willing to go all the way?  Such a one will reign with me . . .Wilt thou, wilt thou follow me?   . . . Behold, the way is long; the night is dark; the road is thorny; yet trust thou me.  I will be with thee . . . Behold thy hands, thy hands that are busy with the cares of the world . . . they must be nailed to the cross!  Art thou willing to have they hands nailed to the cross?  Thy busy feet that have walked for this world must be pierced for me.” [11]

The Lord’s baptism which flowed so freely in her meetings is a baptism into His death.  Pentecost necessarily leads to this place.  We may therefore conclude that the Spirit of Prophecy was at least present in her ministry at some point.

 v.  Her Foursquare Message; An Expansion Upon Finished Work Theology

McPherson’s preaching was in an affectionate and anecdotal style that was never threatening and seldom demanding.  In fact, she would sometimes criticize other preachers (e.g. Billy Sunday) whose method was to denounce sin in uncompromising and hell-fire terms.  Hers’ was a stark distinction to the tradition of the anointed Pentecostal preacher who spared no adjective in the condemnation of sin and insistence upon outward moral righteousness.  She distanced herself from the “Pentecostal”-label.[12]

Her doctrine seems to have been substantially orthodox concerning the fundamental articles of the Christian faith.[13]  She preached the Person and work of Jesus Christ with clarity and strength.  If there was anything that could be described as overtly non-orthodox about her theology it would have to regard the application of this orthodoxy in terms of its meaning to the church.

Her message is best remembered for its declaration of the return of the gifts of the Spirit and of the miraculous.[14]  Her best-known Scripture quotation was the one inscribed upon the proscenium arch in the Angeles Temple:

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, & today, & for ever.                                                                                     Heb 13:8 

This was a particularly relevant verse for her, given that her ministry occupied a place in time when Pentecost was being restored and Christendom for the most part stood in rejection of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Pentecost was attacked from every quarter.  Nonetheless, the thrust of her message was “believe in the power of Jesus Christ.”  And those who did received the Lord’s baptism.

If there is a peculiar doctrine that arose from McPherson’s ministry, it would have to be the doctrine of the “Foursquare Gospel,” by which her denomination is named.  The Foursquare Gospel perceives the work of God in the ministry of Jesus as having a four fold emphasis, proclaiming “Jesus Christ, the Savior, Baptizer in the Holy Spirit, Healer and the Soon-Coming King.”  This became the emphasis of her ministry as the result of an inspiration she claimed to have received while under the Spirit’s anointing in her Oakland campaign of 1922.  Foursquare theologian, Nathaniel Van Cleave describes the event:

She was preaching from Ezekiel 1:4-10 on the four faces of the living creatures in Ezekiel’s vision – those of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle.  She describes the inspiration as follows:  “I thought upon the vision of the prophet Ezekiel; I stood still for a moment and listened, gripping the pulpit, almost shaking with wonder and joy.  Then there burst from the white heat of my heart the words, ‘Why – why it’s the Foursquare Gospel.  The Foursquare Gospel!’  Instantly the Spirit bore witness.  Waves, billows, oceans of praises rocked the audience, which was borne aloft on the rushing winds of the Holy Ghost revival.”[15]

According to Van Cleave, this concept is also credited with the dramatic growth of the Foursquare denomination:

There is no question that the Foursquare Gospel message itself was a significant factor in the Church’s growth.  The nation was ready for a return to apostolic power and practice, as set forth in the book of Acts.  The Foursquare Gospel focused on the fourfold emphasis of Jesus’ redeeming ministry, proclaiming “Jesus Christ, the Savior, Baptizer in the Holy Spirit, Healer and the Soon-coming King.”  It was a message that met the needs of every person wherever they lived. . . .Furthermore,  she believed it to have been given her under the Spirit’s anointing to describe the full gospel.  Second, in her understanding, the title, ‘Baptizer in the Holy Spirit’  implied the giver of power for service, rather than for sanctification.[16]   [emphasis mine]

The concept of a Fourfold Gospel, however (as Van Cleave acknowledges) was not original with McPherson, but was taken from the philosophy of A.B. Simpson.  This was the C.M.A.’s originally stated belief system during the time Simpson and his organization remained of the few to affirm the modern day legitimacy of the charismatic gifts and to accommodate the possibility of their restoration.  Simpson framed this thematic statement in conjunction with his belief that the restoration of truth from the time of the Protestant Reformation would culminate in a Latter Rain of the Spirit’s outpouring.  Thus in Simpson’s mind, his “Fourfold Gospel” contemplated the Spirit’s outpouring in proclaiming Jesus Christ as; “Savior, Baptizer in the Holy Ghost, Healer, and Coming King.”   However, amid the upheaval within his organization caused by his rejection of the  Pentecostal doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, he ultimately revised this statement.  Robert M. Anderson writes:

Despite the deteriorating situation, decisive action was not taken until the 1912 Council meeting.  A new constitution was then adopted that included a doctrinal statement which pointedly revised the earlier formula of faith in Jesus Christ as “Savior, Baptizer in the Holy Ghost, Healer and Coming King” by substituting “Sanctifier” for “Baptizer in the Holy Ghost”.[17]

McPherson’s inspiration to restore “Baptizer in the Holy Spirit” in place of “Sanctifier” was simply a reversal of Simpson’s 1912 reaction against the Pentecostal teaching.   But given that she proclaimed the matter to be of divine inspiration, this leads to the question of what new truth did McPherson receive and propound by replacing “Sanctifier” with  “Baptizer in the Holy Spirit?”  This is apparently the circumstance that Foursquare theologian Van Cleave tries to reconcile for us when he writes further:

According to Foursquare doctrine, sanctification is imparted with regeneration initially, and in three ways progressively.  The process of sanctification is brought about through

1) the indwelling of the Spirit,

2) the devotional reading of the Word,[18] and

3) the cleansing blood of Christ. 

The use of the name  ‘Baptizer with the Holy Spirit’ does not imply an oversight of sanctification, but focuses on the need of  empowerment for service.  It implies that sanctification is a “work” of both regeneration and the Spirit’s continuous indwelling. [19] [emphasis added]

Nonetheless, it is difficult to dismiss the logical implication of McPherson’s divinely-inspired edit as an implied disregard for Christ’s work as “Sanctifier.”  The focus upon “power for service” does not seem to alleviate this implication.

Van Cleave’s rationale for McPherson having dispensed (by claim to Divine revelation)  the role of Christ as “Sanctifier” in the Fourfold Gospel is that sanctification is already contemplated in initial regeneration,[20] and is progressive thereafter.  In so stating, he has expressed an accurate summation of Durham’s Finished Work doctrine, though he has still to rectify the concern.  No matter how we approach the issue, Van Cleave’s rationale must fail, as:

1)       If we maintain that sanctification is contemplated within initial regeneration, then why is “initial regeneration” itself absent from this Fourfold Gospel?

                        (or)

2)       If we maintain that sanctification is entirely contemplated as a progressive-work, then how does said-progressive-work evade the office of Christ?

(or)

3)  If we accept Van Cleave’s construction (consistent with Durham’s Finished Work) that sanctification involves both, then why do neither sanctification, nor either of its asserted component-parts (ie. initial regeneration or progressive holiness) find      representation in McPherson’s Foursquare Gospel model?

Recognizing the theological disorder of McPherson’s inspiration certainly warrants caution in its acceptance.  We might first consider the arbitrary nature of her new doctrine.  She does not cite to the words of Christ, nor to any apostolic writing for this doctrine.  Rather her inspiration was rested upon Ezekiel’s vision of the four-faced cherub; a tremendous leap of doctrine without any place to plant one’s foot in the apostolic gospel. But remember, this arbitrarily derived arrangement did not originate with her, but rather with A.B. Simpson.

Simpson’s theoretical view of Pentecost did not contemplate the event as having a sanctifying-purpose.  Rather, he viewed Pentecost as an empowering-event enabling the Christian to lead an outwardly moral and upright life, and to evangelize for Christ.[21]  The reason Simpson perceived the two principles (ie. sanctification and the baptism of the Holy Spirit) as so unrelated would seem to arise from the perception of his day that sanctification was in present operation, while Pentecost  was something of a mystery; something still being waited upon – a future event.  It was also the position of the Holiness movement (of which Simpson’s organization was a part) that sanctification was the common experience of all true believers, while the concept of a Pentecostal baptism was subject to a variety of theories, most of which limited its meaning to an anointing of power for service – particularly evangelistic-service.

But what was the message so clearly given at the commencement of the Topeka outpouring on New Year’s Day of 1901?   While the experience was the baptism of the Holy Ghost, the message of Topeka was the essential doctrine of Pentecost, ie. Initial Evidence!  The restoration of Pentecost was supposed to have removed ambiguity over whether one had been justified and brought into Christ, ie. whether one had, in fact, received the Holy Ghost!  And speaking in tongues was the evidence of having received the Holy Spirit.  Therefore Simpson was far too narrow in his perception of what Pentecost meant for the believer, which is why he disdained such an apparently pointless manifestation as that of tongues.  He did not perceive Pentecost as a work through which  God would sanctify men.  These assumptions were generally shared within the Holiness Movement.  But if any group should have perceived Pentecost as having purpose in sanctification, it was the Pentecostals, whose teaching of Initial Evidence identified the baptism as constituting even the gift of the Holy Ghost!  Therefore for McPherson to view the baptism in the same way the Holiness Movement (that had rejected tongues) perceived it, was a declension from revealed truth.   Do not forget Van Cleave’s explanation:

. . . in her understanding, the title, ‘Baptizer in the Holy Spirit’ implied the giver of power for service, rather than for sanctification.[22]

Although this misperception was an understandable-mistake of the Holiness movement, the same cannot be said for the Pentecostal movement that should have known better through its own restored theology; it having been established so clearly for them!

One of the most common Old Testament prophetic references to Christ is as “the Lord of Hosts.”  This title signifies His role as the Sanctifier of His elect.  To edit this out of a title for Christ must be regarded as theologically suspect.   While the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a work having purpose in the ultimate sanctification of the believer, it also has a purpose in the Witness of God irrespective as to whether redemption of the man be the outcome.  Christ’s role as Baptizer in the Holy Ghost does not contravene His role as Sanctifier.  Neither does it appear evident that Christ’s role as Baptizer in the Holy Ghost should be taken as presumptive of His role as Sanctifier so as to omit mention.

What is the real purpose that God gives us His Holy Spirit?   The answer is clearly sanctification!  But sanctification is not be be presumed upon because we have received His baptism; a point which Paul emphasizes:

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication:  That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification & honor;  Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:   That no man go beyond & defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you & testified.   For God has not called us uncleanness, but unto holiness.   He therefore that despises, despises not man, but God,  who has also given unto us his Holy Spirit.                                                         I Thess. 4:3-7

McPherson’s inspiration undermined the very purpose for receiving the Holy Spirit, as well as Paul’s warning to the Thessalonians that failure to pursue sanctification constituted a rejection of the very purpose for which God gives us His Spirit!   While Simpson’s formula was an apt statement for the Holiness Movement; ie. the looking unto Christ as their Sanctifier without looking unto Him as their Baptizer into things spiritual and the power to enter into His kingdom, McPherson’s formula set the Spirit-baptized upon looking unto their Baptizer without looking unto Him as their Sanctifier.  Therefore the moral breakdown of life and ministry would seem to have been emblematic of her hallmark doctrine.

Once the Pentecostal truth dawned upon humanity, the Holiness-movement represented no more light, but rather a darkness but-for receipt of that new revelation.  Likewise, had Simpson been asserting his erroneous theory on Pentecost subsequent to God’s revelation of the truth, his own ministry would have (as it did become) a source of stumbling.  This being the case, what is to be concluded when an individual whose roots are in Pentecost and who ministers under a powerful anointing of God’s Spirit, picks up said-arbitrary doctrine and edits away that portion which constitutes the very purpose for which we are given the Holy Spirit and presents it as divine-revelation?  Simpson may have originated an arbitrary doctrinal construct, but it was McPherson’s adaptation and prophetic-mantle that rendered it the more truly damaging in effect.

As we have observed from Van Cleave’s explanation, this Foursquare doctrine was by no means inconsistent with Durham’s more general Finished Work doctrine.   In fact, the Finished Work doctrine is even resorted-to for theological-cover providing McPherson’s innovation some semblance of correctness.  This raises an inference that Durham’s Finished Work may not be an entirely adequate explanation of sanctification in light of Pentecost, and suggests that his dispensing entirely with the Wesleyan view of sanctification may have been a mistake; one that diverted the greater part of the Pentecostal movement from its objective of sanctification.

In looking to the lamp-stand model we find there to be a truth that integrates both the Wesleyan view and Durham’s Baptistic view of sanctification.  Further treatment is afforded the issue of McPherson’s Foursquare Gospel and its relation to Finished Work theology in the following section of this article; The Declension of Pentecostal Holiness, as well as within a section of the earlier article entitled Consequence of a Disordered Theology.