Alfred Garr Archives - Charles A. Sullivan

An indepth look at the development, expansion, and failure of Pentecostal missionary tongues and a critical public that called it gibberish.

Early Pentecostalism and especially the Azusa Street outbreak of tongues in 1906 caused a revival in the practice of speaking in tongues. The outbreak initially continued a traditional one that parallels Christian history for over 2000 years. The early Pentecostals understood that certain individuals were inspired by the Holy Spirit to miraculously speak a foreign language. When this occurred, there was some perceived divine revelation on what language the person spoke. They understood this knowledge as a sign for the person to go to the people group or nation to tell the Good News. Unfortunately, this fervor was badly hit by a dose of reality. These Pentecostal missionaries arrived at their destinations and found that they did not have this ability.

Alfred Garr, a pioneer missionary of the Azusa Street Revival in the early 1900s explains why his conferred supernatural gift of the Bengali language did not work upon arrival.
Surely, such a condition would threaten one’s theological opinions but not Mr. Garr’s. He believed that the gift had switched to another language while in voyage and Bengali never reappeared. He then side-stepped the issue and focused on other miraculous demonstrations.

This case is one of the earliest documented examples of the tongues crisis facing Azusa missionaries. Many traveled the world thinking they were endowed with a certain foreign language and upon arrival, did not. The resolution of this theological crisis became a foremost problem to solve.
The Pentecostal movement had a number of choices to address the issue, admit they were wrong, redefine, or ignore. Garr chose the third option, ignoring the theological crisis by giving a weak apologetic.

Early Pentecostal Tongues in Crisis

Garr's Missionary Crisis on Speaking in Tongues