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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Early Pentecostal Tongues in Crisis

Two missionaries speaking in tongues to two Japenese people who do not understand them

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.

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Early Pentecostal Tongues: Intro

This five-part series (including the introduction) covers how the traditional definition of tongues all but died and replaced by a wider set of expressions; the language of adoration, singing and writing in tongues, and a private prayer language. This series was started to settle a mystery – why the doctrine of tongues had changed so …

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V. P. Simmons on the Church History of Tongues

The early Pentecostal writer V. P. Simmons on the Church history of tongues–an important and early contribution to the Pentecostal doctrine of tongues. V. P. Simmons is an unknown name in the annals of Pentecostal history and even more so in the general historical records. However, the impact of his historical thesis which connects the …

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Garr's Missionary Crisis on Speaking in Tongues

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.

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Early Pentecostal Books on Speaking in Tongues

A brief survey of books on speaking in tongues from the early 1900s on speaking in tongues from a holiness/pentecostal perspective Early Pentecostal Books These books were selected because the authors were either contributors or eyewitnesses to the Pentecostalism of the early 1900s. This fits in with the goals of the Gift of Tongues Project …

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Early Pentecostal Tongues: Notes and Quotes

Quips and quotes taken from early Pentecostal based newsletters, papers, digests, and other material found about the doctrine of tongues.

Early Pentecostal writings are essential historical pieces concerning a significant shift in this doctrine. They demonstrate the change from the traditional idea of miraculously speaking or hearing in a foreign language to a variety of expressions under the umbrella of glossolalia.

These early pentecostal citations are given to show the problem and resolution that early Pentecostals faced regarding this doctrine. Their original concept of tongues as a miraculous endowment for missionary purposes had miserably failed. A shift in emphasis and definition was eagerly sought for.

The following quotes work through this early tension. They are not homogenous, and it is often difficult to trace continuity. However, they do work towards embracing the thoughts of higher criticists such as Philip Schaff. The majority of dictionaries and commentaries were dominated by these academics who much favored tongues as glossolalia. Glossolalia is a frenzied condition that produced inarticulate sounds. Sounds that may or may not correlate with language. Pentecostals eventually redefined the higher criticism definition according to their own experience and religious symbolism.

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Delphi Prophetesses and Christian Tongues

Did the ancient Greek prophetesses, especially the Pythian priestesses in Delphi, speak in tongues and the Christians later adapted it?

The alleged connection between the two is an important one in the speaking in tongues debate. A dispute which this article seeks to look deeper into.

The approach used to find an answer is to locate the primary Hellenistic texts that make this connection and evaluate them. The article provides English translations along with the majority having Greek or Latin sources. Each reference contains a brief analysis. The reader is not required to know either one of these languages to examine the works and can easily skip over these foreign texts.

Table of Contents

  • Conclusion

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    A Catholic History of Tongues: 30 to 1748 AD

    A Catholic history of speaking in tongues from the first Pentecost until the rule of Pope Benedict the XIV, 1748 AD.

    The following are the results of a detailed study of early church, medieval and later medieval Catholic writers through seventeen-centuries of church life.

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    An Analysis of Gregory of Nyssa on Speaking in Tongues

    Gregory of Nyssa on divine speech, human languages, and Pentecost. Gregory of Nyssa, along with Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, and Gregory Nazianzus, set the framework for the christian doctrine of tongues from the fourth-century and onwards. Although there are other narratives during this period such as John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, and …

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