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PENTECOSTALISM.

Written by Abdun Nur

Preachers of Pentecostalism use the internet to openly attack Islam, they express half truths and out right lies, to convince people of dubious intellect, that Islam is evil, and that they are pure, and only there religion is worth following.

If people wish to follow Pentecostalism I do not care in the slightest, I wish only to present the history of Pentecostalism to expose these men, preaching hate, to the light of physical evidence of their own foundations, and demonstrate that they are peddling lies, and extract enormous wealth from those who are foolish enough to follow them.

The Pentecostal movements trace their beginning to meeting that began in an abandoned building on Azusa Street. The meetings went on for more than three years, and large numbers of people visited Azusa Street to seek their own Pentecost, subsequently taking the Pentecostal theology and experience back to their homes.

The father of Pentecostalism is Charles Parham, and the place of the real birth of the movement is Azusa Street.

When Parham arrived in Azusa Street in 1906, he began his first sermon by telling the people that "God is sick at his stomach" because of the things which were occurring at Azusa. He never changed his opinion. To the end of his life, Parham, often called "the father of Pentecostalism," denounced Azusa Street as a case of "spiritual power prostituted."

The "father of Pentecostalism", roundly rejected the Azusa Street meetings as phoney, manipulated, and demonic, even though practically all Pentecostal denominations trace their heritage directly from those meetings!

What is Pentecostalism?

It is based on the Christian festival that purportedly commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, on the 7th Sunday after Easter, because it falls fifty days after the second day of Passover, hence Pentecost meaning fifty.

This festival is plagiarised from the Jewish religious festival of Shavuot, that occurs on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan (late May or early June). Shavuot commemorates the anniversary of the day God gave the Torah to Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai. The date of Shavuot is directly linked to that of Passover. The Torah mandates the seven-week Counting of the Omer, beginning on the second day of Passover and immediately followed by Shavuot, when they were given the Torah and became a nation committed to serving God.
Pentecostalism is based on this holy spirit belief, and a belief in the gifts presumed within each individual, based on prayer.
Let us examine these presumed gifts.
(1) Healing the sick.
It all began in 1888 when John Alexander Dowie moved to the United States, and in 1896 founded the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion, Illinois, with himself as First Apostle. In 1899, he announced plans for the establishment of Zion, Illinois: a city to be free from the evil influences of modern society.
Though Dowie himself did not accept the Spirit-baptism with tongues theology, he is called ‘the father of healing revivalism in America’.
His latter days miracle theology helped pave the way for Pentecostalism, and Pentecostal theology did quickly permeate his institutions even before his death.
Many influential Pentecostal leaders came out of his movement. His magazine, Leaves of Healing, had a worldwide distribution.
Dowie taught that healing is promised in the atonement and insisted that those who sought faith healing give up all medical care. He viewed druggists and physicians as instruments of the devil.
When his own daughter was severely burned after accidentally knocking over an alcohol lamp, he banished one of his followers for trying to alleviate her pain with Vaseline. He refused to allow her any medical treatment and she died in that condition.
Many others who came to his faith cure homes died of their illnesses without any medical attention. In 1895 he was charged with manslaughter and neglect by the city of Chicago and convicted, but the higher courts ruled that the conviction was unconstitutional.
He required that his followers give up the use of all pork products. He ruled his City of Zion with an iron hand and was noted for financial irresponsibility and a love for personal luxury.
This belief of healing using the channelling of the Holy Spirit is still held today by Pentecostal Evangelists, one example of this belief is present below in this news story:
A man accused of killing his 11-year-old diabetic daughter by praying instead of seeking medical care has been found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide.
Dale Neumann, 47, was convicted over the March 23, 2008, death of his daughter, Madeline, from undiagnosed diabetes.
Prosecutors argued he should have rushed the girl to a hospital because she could not walk, talk, eat or drink.
Instead, Madeline died on the floor of the family's rural home as people surrounded her and prayed. Someone called an ambulance when she stopped breathing.
Neumann stared at the jury as the verdict was read out in the courtroom in Wausau, Wisconsin.
Defence lawyer Jay Kronenwetter said they will appeal against the verdict.
Neumann, who once studied to be a Pentecostal minister, testified that he believed God would heal his daughter and he never expected her to die. God promises in the Bible to heal, he said.
"If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God," Neumann testified. "I am not believing what he said he would do."
The father testified that he thought Madeline had the flu or a fever, and several relatives and family friends said they also did not realise how ill she was.
Leilani Neumann, 41, was convicted of the same charge in the spring.
Another example:
"A little girl wore a pair of glasses one-half of which was entirely black. I gathered that she was totally blind in one eye and almost blind in the other. I sat upon the stage very close to the whole procedure.
While prayer was being made for her, the little girl, who appeared to be about 11 years of age, wept and sobbed and writhed in her eagerness to secure the help that she had been led to expect. She left the platform and public claim was made by one of the workers that she had been healed, and the little girl verified the claim by a nod of the head given in reply to the question of the workers. An hour later, when the meeting was out, I noticed a small cluster of women near the platform. I thought I saw the blind little girl in their midst, so I asked my wife to go over and investigate and talk to her if necessary.
She found the erstwhile 'cured' girl flat on her face on the floor, sobbing, with shattered hopes and a breaking heart. Her disappointment was complete, and so was her disillusionment. The improved sight that she seemed to have had in the midst of the excitement on the platform had disappeared, and with it the hope of the little girl" (Arno Clemens Gaebelein, The Healing Question, New York: Our Hope Publications, 1925, p. 93).
　
(2) The ability to predict the future, or prophecy.
This was founded by Maria Beulah Woodworth-Etter (1844-1924) who had a vast influence in the early Pentecostal movement. Her meetings were characterized by spirit slaying, prophesying, trances, and general pandemonium. "She often went into trances during a service, standing like a statue for an hour or more with her hands raised while the service continued". She was thus dubbed the "trance evangelist" and the "voodoo priestess.".
She falsely prophesied that the San Francisco Bay area would be destroyed by an earthquake and tidal wave in 1890.
MUSIC AND MASS HYPNOTISM

Everything in these meetings is driven by the music. When the music is going strong and loud the people are literally mesmerized. The music helps to put them in a state where they are susceptible to childish notions like being “slain in the Spirit.”, it ties into hypnotism and high emotionalism. Woodworth-Etter among others had discovered the ancient art of mass hypnotism, popularized almost a century earlier by Anton Mesmer, the father of hypnotism or mesmerism, as it was also known, and an occultist faith healer.

(3) Speaking in tongues.
　
This can be traced back to the Charles Parham’s Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas, where Agnes Ozman began to speak in "tongues" in 1901 when hands were laid on her. It was claimed, though never credibly confirmed, that Ozman spoke in Chinese for three days, unable to speak English, and on the second day she spoke in Bohemian, again never established as true. Soon, most of the others at the school were speaking and singing "in tongues." Parham claimed that language professors and other linguistically educated people confirmed that the tongues were languages, but this has never been established outside of the movement.
Newspaper reporters of the day described the phenomenon merely as "gibberish."
In 1914, Charles Shumway diligently sought evidence to prove that early Pentecostal tongues were real languages. He failed to find even one person to corroborate the claims which had been made, so establishing they were talking gibberish.
Parham's Bible school students jotted down strange writings which they claimed were the product of the gift of tongues. They claimed these writings were foreign languages, such as Chinese, but when they were examined by knowledgeable people, they were found to be mere indecipherable scratching’s. The press called these writings "quaint and indistinguishable hieroglyphics".
Parham was so enthused that he said missionaries would go to the ends of the earth and would not have to learn the languages. In fact, most of the early Pentecostals believed this. It didn't work that way, though. When A.G. Garr travelled to India and attempted to speak to the people in supernatural tongues, he quickly found that he could not communicate.
(4) God speaks to them directly.
One of Charles Parham's mentors was FRANK SANDFORD, who operated the Holy Ghost and Us Bible School in Lancaster, Maine. Sandford promoted a latter rain type theology and was striving to return to "apostolic life and power." Sanford purchased two ships and attempted to make a missionary trip to Africa. One ship was wrecked off the African coast, and everyone was transferred to the other ship.
Sanford was in charge, but due to foolish decisions which he attributed to God's guidance, nine of his crew members died on the return trip for lack of food and water. This was in 1911. The ill-fated missionary journey lasted four months. Sandford was subsequently charged with manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in a federal penitentiary.

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