The digital copies of these recordings are available for free at First Fruits website. place.asburyseminary.edu/firstfruits The lightning bolts of the Bible and of this book are destructive only to error and its adherents. Those whose souls are protected by the lightning rods of God's truth are safe, and can shout and sing while the lightning leaps and the cyclones of Pentecostal purity and power sweep the earth. We live in the electric age in both the material and spiritual worlds. Light, heat and motion have been drawn from electricity until old customs and appliances have been revolutionized. From the Pentecostal dynamo there has also burst forth into the spiritual world, light and love and power which is causing multitudes to rush from the old candle-lighted stage-coaches of forms and ceremonies and dry creeds and crooked experiences into the brilliantly lighted, swiftly propelled cars of full salvation, which, by divine power, are bearing their inmates triumphantly on and up from '' glory unto glory.'' Martin Wells Knapp

This is book four of a six volume series that focuses on the salvation experiences of the people called Nazarenes. This book covers the years 1895-1928. We examine every book of theology used in the Ministerial Course of Studies. We examine the hymnals used and songs sung during each period of Nazarene history. We listen to the testimonies of the people involved. We discuss the liturgy and worship patterns. We ask scores of “Crazy Good Questions” for discussions. The book includes hundreds of Scripture verses and references to over two hundred academic journals and articles on Nazarene theology.

Called "a pioneer contribution" by Church History when it was first published in 1971, this volume has now been revised and enlarged by Vinson Synan to account for the incredible changes that have occurred in the church world in the last 25 years.

The Pentecostalisation of African Christianity has been called the “African Reformation” of the past thirty years. African Pentecostalism is a diverse movement characterised by its emphases on Spirit baptism, divine healing, charismatic worship and eschatological expectations. This work investigates its eschatological systems in terms of its unrealised expectation of the second coming of Christ, and suggestions are presented for the movement to keep its eschatology at the heart of its impetus. This is accomplished through a hermeneutical awareness of the distinctiveness of Pentecostalism as a restorationist movement. Written for pastors, church leaders and believers, this book discusses the literalistic way of reading the Bible in most of the classical Pentecostal components of African Pentecostalism, supporting their premillennialist and even dispensational eschatological views. It suggests a new Pentecostal hermeneutics developed by scholarship in the past forty years, in line with significant elements of the way in which early Pentecostals read the Bible. This new hermeneutical awareness implies new and exciting ways of thinking about eschatology that will enrich and enlighten African Pentecostalism in its hope for the second coming of Christ.

In this groundbreaking book, William Kostlevy presents a fascinating study of the Metropolitan Church Association (MCA), a religious community founded in Chicago in the early 1890s. The MCA was one of the most controversial societies of the era. Its members were called "jumpers" because of their acrobatic worship style, and "Burning Bushers" after their caustic periodical, the Burning Bush. They objected to the concept of private property, rejected "elite" denominations, and professed an alternative, radical vision of Christianity, using modern music and folk art to spread their message. A product of the holiness revival of the late nineteenth century and a catalyst for Pentecostalism, the MCA played a vital role in the twentieth century growth of evangelical Christianity, yet it has long been ignored in studies of American radicalism, of communal societies, and even of holiness and Pentecostal Christianity. Kostlevy rectifies this omission, providing a valuable new context for understanding the origins of Pentecostalism. He investigates the internal struggles of the Holiness Movement, showing how radically divergent theological currents came to dominate a major segment of the American evangelical community. He also shows how deeply the MCA impacted the lives of twentieth century evangelists Bud Robinson and Seth C. Rees, self-designated first woman bishop Alma White, and Pentecostal evangelists A. G. Garr and Glenn Cook. As Holy Jumpers demonstrates, Holiness Christians, and the MCA in particular, played a profoundly formative role in the development of modern evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity.