In Heaven Below, Grant Wacker stated, “Dense networks of personal friendships, especially among leaders, facilitated spreading the word in ways that are only beginning to come to light.”[1] Wacker cited the “multiple personal connections revealed in William H. Durham’s account of his transcontinental evangelistic travels in Missionary World” published in April 1906.[2] Wacker was convinced that Robert Mapes Anderson had a “persuasive case that some of the friction in the infant Assemblies of God, for example, stemmed from status differences between men and women who came from the Christian and Missionary Alliance on one hand and those who came from the (Texas–Arkansas) Apostolic Faith on the other.” [3] For Wacker, “the evidence leaves little question that a large part of the wrangling grew from each faction’s conviction that it alone knew God’s mind.”[4]
Part of the reason for this study is to confirm, survey, and analyze the many personal relationships that pre-date the formation of the Assemblies of God in 1914 as well as survey the shifts within these ministry networks. The shifting loyalties within these “dense networks,” as Wacker described them, led to significant turbulence within the Assemblies of God and changed the organization’s credentialing, licensing, and ordination processes completely. Conflicts in the Assemblies of God should be viewed from a doctrinal lens, but they also should be viewed as the shifting of loyalties based in great part on previous cooperation, established friendships, mutual connections, and even train rides.
[1] Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 3.
[2] Ibid., 274, notes 11 and 12.
[3] Ibid., 179.
[4] Ibid.
Part of the reason for this study is to confirm, survey, and analyze the many personal relationships that pre-date the formation of the Assemblies of God in 1914 as well as survey the shifts within these ministry networks. The shifting loyalties within these “dense networks,” as Wacker described them, led to significant turbulence within the Assemblies of God and changed the organization’s credentialing, licensing, and ordination processes completely. Conflicts in the Assemblies of God should be viewed from a doctrinal lens, but they also should be viewed as the shifting of loyalties based in great part on previous cooperation, established friendships, mutual connections, and even train rides.
[1] Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 3.
[2] Ibid., 274, notes 11 and 12.
[3] Ibid., 179.
[4] Ibid.
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Any history project is prone to errors or lack of thoroughness. I still need to spend some time tracking location markers for international ministers from 1913-1916. That will be something I will be working on in the coming days.
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