Utterance Versus Gift of Tongues

Image of four early Pentecostal leaders and three magazines

An analysis of early Pentecostal theology and their distinction between utterance and the gift of tongues.

This article is an addendum to Solutions to the Pentecostal Crisis. An exploration about why early Pentecostals changed the definition of tongues. One from miraculously speaking a foreign language to an alternative version.

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Edward Irving’s Defense on Unknown Tongues: Part 2

Irving's 2nd defense in Fraser's Magazine

A digitization of Edward Irving’s second defense in Fraser’s Magazine on his promotion of unknown tongues.

Reverend Edward Irving and his central London congregation (1830s) were the center of world-wide religious attention on the topic and practice of speaking in tongues. The result was that he received heavy criticism from a variety of sources.

Irving sought to counter claims against him and his church by publishing three articles in a popular English publication called Fraser’s Magazine. All three works are digitally captured for the Gift of Tongues Project. The following is his second entry.

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ON RECENT MANIFESTATIONS OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS.
No. II
BY THE REV. EDWARD IRVING.

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The Pentecostal Rewrite of the History of Speaking in Tongues

Two Pentecostal Missionaries listening to Philip Schaff Cartoon

How Pentecostals built their historical framework for their doctrine of tongues from Higher Criticism literature–a necessary but unlikely relationship.

This merging of two opposed systems, one dependent on the supernatural, and the other focused on the rational and logical with no reference to any divine entity, makes for one of the most major shifts in the history of the christian doctrine of tongues.

As shown throughout the Gift of Tongues Project, tongues as an ecstatic utterance was a new addition to the doctrine of tongues in the 19th century. There is no historical antecedent for ecstatic utterance, glossolalia and their variances before this era. Nor is there a connection with the majority of ecclesiastical writings over 1800 years which had a different trajectory.

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Solutions to the Pentecostal Tongues Crisis

Pentecostal solutions to the missionary tongues and gibberish crisis. Early Pentecostal excitement and enthusiasm for missionary tongues in foreign nations failed. They also had a serious challenge on the home front. The general public mocked them for speaking gibberish. These circumstances created an urgent need to build a Pentecostal apologetic for their speaking in tongues. …

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A History of Glossolalia: Origins

Image of the five pioneers of the glossolalia doctrine
*There are a few more but these ones are the best documented

How glossolalia entered the christian doctrine of tongues vernacular and became the entrenched form of interpretation.

The 1800s was the era of a significant transition in the interpretation and understanding of the doctrine of tongues. This epoch was the time when the traditional interpretation which consisted of a supernatural spontaneous utterance of a foreign language gave way to enigmatic themes such as ecstatic utterances, prophetic utterance, ecstasy, and glossolalia.

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Introduction to the History of Glossolalia

An examination on why the traditional interpretations of the miracle of tongues all but died and was replaced by tongues as ecstasy or ecstatic utterance.