Hitchhiker's Guide to Religion
Black Church

William Seymour

Father of Pentecostalism

Black Church Pentecostal renewal, Spirit baptism, multiracial worship, the global Pentecostal movement
Attribute Value
Combat
ATK 35
DEF 70
SPR 99
SPD 50
INT 78
Rank Pentecostal founder / Apostle of the Azusa Street Revival
Domain Pentecostal renewal, Spirit baptism, multiracial worship, the global Pentecostal movement
Alignment Holy / Pentecostal
Weakness Largely written out of Pentecostal historiography by white-led successor denominations until the late 20th century; betrayed by white associates who reasserted segregation as Azusa cooled
Key Act Son of formerly enslaved Louisianans (born 1870). Blind in one eye from smallpox. Studied the Spirit-baptism doctrine through a curtain because Charles Parham would not let a Black man sit in his classroom. Led the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, April 1906 - 1909, which birthed modern global Pentecostalism. The revival was multiracial in an era of hardening segregation -- "the color line was washed away in the blood"
Source Frank Bartleman, *Azusa Street* (1925); Cecil M. Robeck, *The Azusa Street Mission and Revival* (2006)

“We are not fighting men or churches, but seeking to displace dead forms and creeds and wild fanaticisms with living, practical Christianity.” — William Seymour, The Apostolic Faith newsletter, 1906


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Combat Radar

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