| What is Truth? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour (Exodus 20:16). *1
Irecently received a copy of a newsletter entitled DIAKRISIS that is published on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Its two editors, Mike Claydon and Terry Arnold, published a supposed rebuttal of an article about the early roots of the Pentecostal Movement written by Philip Powell in the CETF September 2003 edition. After reading the article a number of times I could see that those who wrote it were extremely biased and in many cases omitted facts that would have shown what they were trying to say was false; so much for honest and scholarly truth in print. Trial by MediaThe classic case of trial by media in Australia was that of Lindy Chamberlain in the early 1980s. Another more recent case was that of Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge. Yes trial by media is alive and well today in Australia, with our armchair judges ready to make judgment without the full facts. In the both cases that I have cited all three were AQUITTED and their convictions quashed. Their innocence was vindicated.In the DIAKRISIS newsletter a piece caught my eye on page three about an early Pentecostal by the name of Charles Fox Parham. I quote from the newsletter: As to Parham’s questionable character, let the reader judge: Parham in early life was refused ordination by the Methodist Church. He was well known for the sexual overtones in his sermons ... He was later charged with Sodomy and considered by his own movement to be a fallen prophet. What you have here is the Classic “Trial by Media” scenario. Messrs Arnold and Claydon would want you to believe that Parham was of “questionable character” t r u t h and therefore the root of Pentecostalism is bad, so therefore the movement is bad. That is the underlying logic in what they have written. BUT is it true or is it a smear campaign waged by these two biased men? Let them be judged by their words and by the facts that are available to us. I will supply you, the reader, with the details they have conveniently left out so you can judge for yourself. Firstly and foremostly let us look at the serious charge of sodomy. (Here in my references to Parham and associated historic events I am quoting in the main from the very same sources that are used by Arnold and Claydon in their article.) For a person in Australia, and more so in the United States, to have a conviction record he or she must have gone to trial and been found guilty by a jury of 12 good men/women. In both countries a person is presumed INNOCENT until proven guilty. This is the foundation of our laws and dates back to 1215 AD when the great charter of English liberties was granted by King John of England and was modified and entrenched as the Magna Carta in 1225 under King Henry III. If a person goes to Court and a case is not found against him then he is INNOCENT. I want to make that point very clear. The questions then are these: Was Charles Fox Parham ever convicted of sodomy? Did he go to trial before a judge? If he was convicted did he go to jail? To answer these questions let us look at the facts. By 1906 Charles Fox Parham was at the height of his popularity. He had previously set up the Apostolic Faith Movement in Texas, Missouri and Kansas and had between eight to ten thousand followers. He then launched an organizational program to link together all of the churches under the Apostolic Faith banner. The emphasis of this organization was to promote evangelical activity and to train missionaries for the coming revival. Late in 1906 Parham turned his attention to securing the factionriddled Zion City (Illinois) as a Pentecostal Capital *2 John Alexander Dowie, a Scotsman, built Zion City around the turn of the century. Interestingly, J. A. Dowie had immigrated to Australia in 1860 where he commenced his ministry in 1872. He was referred to as a man with a Mighty Healing Ministry. He left Australia for the USA in 1888 to promote his healing message. In Zion City there was much factional infighting taking place. Towards the end of his life Dowie lost his focus on Jesus Christ and placed it on himself. He declared himself to be the prophet Elijah and actually went around dressed like an Old Testament high priest. Zion City went into debt to the tune of approximately 2.5 million dollars. There were rumours abounding concerning Dowie’s infidelity and mismanagement of finances. Let this be a chilling reminder to all who aspire to or are in ministry that their focus must be solely placed on the Lord Jesus Christ and His work. It is His work Not ours!! James R Goff Jnr in his book FIELDS WHITE UNTO HARVEST on page 134 says this: Parham’s return to the city of Dowie (ZION CITY) in mid December created a local media blitz. At the height of the controversy in Los Angeles, he had unexpectedly resign-ed his position as Protector of the Apostolic Faith. Perhaps in an effort to combat Azusa claims {that} he craved power, Parham gambled that control of the developing movement could be achieved through the role of general evangelist. It was a direct reversal of his organizational efforts from earlier on in the year. The move created considerable disarray in ZION City where VOLIVA (Wilbur VOLIVA took over from Dowie on April 1st, 1906) and his associates leaked rumours that they had paid Parham off. Voliva was an interesting character. He believed the Earth was flat! He preached many sermons on the subject. If you have internet access just type in his name on one of the search engines and see for yourself. Voliva was also in charge of the ZION HERALD, which was a Christian newspaper. This newspaper will become significant later on in this article. From the accounts of the day, we learn that Parham set up meetings and started to gather quite a large number of people around him. By early January 1907 he had nearly 1000 followers and was the second most powerful religious influence in the city. If Parham’s success continued it looked as though the Apostolic Faith may have toppled Wilbur Voliva from his leadership position. For reasons unbeknown to anyone, Parham left the city in the heat of the battle to go on a threemonth tour of the Northwest of USA *3 Parham’s organization was itself having trouble with power struggles. A close associate named W. Faye Carothers abruptly broke contact with Parham. It is not known why this happened. Carothers went back to Texas and immediately entered into another power struggle. By April there was bitter rivalry in Texas. The key issue of the struggle was about Parham himself. Rumours of immorality had been circulating for some time. The question is, did they have any basis or solid evidence? The answer is NO. Like most churches today we have good Christians who are gossips and rumour mongers. Sometimes unfortunately churches end up splitting on the basis of “gossip” and rumourmongery. This is all too common and is a sad indictment on today’s Church. Rumours can be seen as a sort of trial by media. Goff states in his book FIELDS WHITE UNTO HARVEST on page 136: Parham defectors made vague references to their former leaders “failure” and “awful sin”. Would this evidence stand up in a court of Law? No. As it would be deemed as hearsay evidence and not first hand evidence. By the summer of 1907 Parham’s name was anathema and he was “disfellowshipped” by a large segment of the Texas organization, which was by then directed by Carothers and Howard Goss.This is the classic case of trial by media. In April 1907 Parham reached Texas and on July 19 1907 he and another fellow by the name of J.J. Jourdan were arrested in San Antonio and charged with sodomy. This is a felony under Texas statute 524. The local secular newspaper THE SAN ANTONIO LIGHT broke the story, and Charles Fox Parham received widespread news coverage. Throughout the whole ordeal Jourdan remained silent. His association with Parham both prior to and after this event cannot be substantiated. On Tuesday July 23rd Parham was released from jail after two Houston friends paid bail of $1000. Parham secured a lawyer named C.A. Davis and announced to his followers that he was a victim of an elaborate frame up devised by his old rival WILBUR VOLIVA. He also stated that he would fight the charges. While Parham had been in San Antonio he had been preaching at a mission run by Lemuel C HALL who was a former disciple of John Alexander Dowie. Parham convinced Hall to separate himself from Voliva’s organization, which was known as The Christian Catholic Apostolic Church (set up by Dowie) and to ally himself with the Apostolic Faith. Parham claimed that Voliva was fighting back. Had Voliva attacked Parham through the press previously? The answer is YES. In Goff’s book FIELDS WHITE UNTO HARVEST on Page 225 there is an interesting point under footnote 43. I quote: In addition to Parham, Voliva launched a direct attack on “Parham’s associates” in ZION. Among them were Bingley, a self confessed dirty old kisser, Fockler a self-confessed adulterer and Brudder Tom, ... an immoral man, caught ... hugging and kissing Sister Hall.
From this we can clearly see that Voliva was prepared to fight dirty at the expense of a man’s reputation so as to hold onto his position of Power. Goff goes on to say in the footnotes that the ZION HERALD (Voliva’s newspaper) and two other Christian newspapers deliber-ately distorted the truth in what they reported to show Parham in a bad light. I will gladly send copies to anyone wishing to view these. This all seems to be reminiscent of why I am writing this article. Now concerning Parham’s court case, all charges were dropped with no explanation given by the Texas Police. No formal indictment was ever filed! This simply means that the case did not go to trial and under the law Charles Fox Parham was a free man. It meant that he was not tried by a jury of his peers and was therefore never found guilty of any crime. The charge sheet does not exist because it is procedure in Texas that documents relating to cases that do not go to trial are destroyed. To put things now into perspective let us see why DIAKRISIS did not mention these facts in their article. Firstly, did they have the same evidence that I had? The answer to that question is YES. Mr Arnold and Mr Claydon quote directly from Goff’s Book FIELDS WHITE UNTO HARVEST from which I have quoted. I have emails from Mike Claydon who sent me his data and this data contains the facts that Parham had no case to answer. Anyone wishing to view these please contact me and I will be only too willing to give you a copy. The book itself is available from Terry Arnold! You may be asking yourself why didn’t Mr Arnold and Mr Claydon mention the above facts in their newsletter? The answer to that is Trial By Media! They would prefer their readers not to know the whole truth. They would prefer their readers to have a distorted view of Charles Fox Parham and have them think that Parham was a sodomite thus throwing a bad light on the man’s reputation. How would God view this deceit by Mr Arnold and Mr Claydon? Proverbs 11 verse 1 says this: “A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.” What these two men have written in their newsletter is a false balance. Again the Bible speaks: Exodus 20:16: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour (c/f Matt 19:18; Rom 13:19) By their own words they have broken the commandment of God!! Was Charles Fox Parham refused ordination? Let us see what Goff says about this – FIELDS WHITE UNTO HARVEST
As you can clearly see Parham was a supply Pastor with the Methodist Church and although “technically not ordained” he still served in that role. As to the charge made by Messrs Arnold and Claydon that he was refused ordination let the facts shown above speak for themselves. It once again shows how Terry Arnold & Mike Claydon have deliberately tried to besmirch a man’s character and distort the truth. They had the same source material that I have used. The technical term used is character assassination! In Charles Fox Parham’s case when you throw enough mud some always sticks, and he never gained prominence again. He died in 1929 in Baxter Springs, Kansas. His ministry had a few thousand followers at the time of his death. Bad rootsPreviously I mentioned in my article the underlying tone throughout the DIAKRISIS newsletter was one of bad roots. Mr Arnold and Mr Claydon go on extensively to point to the major leaders in Pentecost who have gone bad. We do NOT excuse them, but their failure does not mean that the whole movement is false or corrupt. TA & MC fail to tell of the tens of thousands of pastors who did the right thing and who did not fall because of morality or money. What they fail to tell you is their achievements for God. They cite John G Lake as having a healing ministr y and they use some nonsense concerning bubblegum and healing.They fail to tell you that in the five years of Lake’s ministry in Africa from 1908- 1912 over 1 million souls were saved under his ministry. They fail to tell you of the 625 churches he planted (of which 125 were white and 500 black). They fail to tell you that he raised up 1,250 preachers in five years. They also fail to tell you that over a 23-year period (1913-1935) he saw 100,000 people healed and that Spokane where he settled is documented by the US Government as the nation’s healthiest city. A new book is out, in which secular newsmen tell the story of the life of John G Lake during his time in Spokane. If you were to follow Messrs Arnold’s and Claydon’s logic about “root” and “fruit” in respect of moral failure then a few surprises may come up. Let us look in the Bible for examples. By their thinking I am compelled to tear out the first five books of the Bible written by Moses. God’s Word is infallible and God says Moses murdered an Egyptian. By God’s standard he was a murderer!
David is another example. He was an adulterer and had the woman’s husband Uriah set up to be killed. By their logic I must rip out Psalms. What about Solomon? He was an idolater, who presented offerings to other gods. By their logic I am compelled to rip out Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. God condones none of these men in his wrongdoing, but neither does the wrongdoing corrupt the entire movement of God to which each is linked. Lets look at the New Testament, for a moment. We have Matthew, the tax collector, who ripped off many people. Peter was a liar who denied the Lord (after he was cleansed by the word). Paul, formerly Saul, was a persecutor of the church who actually witnessed and maybe even instigated the death of Stephen the first martyr. You may say, “Ah but Mathew and Saul weren’t Christians when they did those things.” Yes, but Peter was “cleansed” and was following the Lord and you must take into account the fact that both Saul and Matthew, as Jews, were highly religious and were under the jurisdiction of the Law as were Moses, David and Solomon referred to above. What about King James, who authorized the 1611 edition of the Bible? Much has been said about him being a sodomite! I now must go and throw out my beloved King James Bible if the “root” determines the “fruit” in the way that Claydon & Arnold apply the idea, which incidentally is not how Jesus applied it — see Matthew 7:15-23. There is NO suggestion of a movement being in view in those verses. Can you now see the ridiculousness of their logic? This is always what happens when you “go beyond that which is written” and use verses in the Bible to extrapolate ideas that are not contained in Scripture. The fact is we were all sinners and God is certainly big enough to forgive and willing to forgive. I know of no movement that can claim to be squeaky clean, not even that of the so-called Reformers. The Word of God is true, Romans 3:23 – “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” And that must be remembered at all times. Classic PentecostalismFinally I would like to address one last issue from the DIAKRISIS newsletter concerning what they call the Baptism in the Spirit as an “experience”. I am positive that the authors Mr Arnold and Mr Claydon try to link this “experience” to what we see in today’s modern Charismatic and Pentecostal churches. What we see today is definitely not what happened over 100 years ago. Today’s neo-Pentecost-alism is based on experiential theology. (That is to say if it feels good then it must be God and judging everything by feelings instead of judging by the Word of God.)After doing research I came across this interesting item, which was found, on Page 75 of a book called DICTIONARY OF PENTECOSTAL AND CHARISMATIC MOVEMENTS in which it states what actually happened in 1900 at the Topeka Bible School which was founded by Charles Fox Parham and I quote: Time and time again the early historians allowed their theological desires to shape, if not create, their facts, rather than the reverse. One especially clear example of this tendency was the way that events took place in Parham’s Bible school in Topeka, Kansas in the fall and winter of 1900 was reported (sic). As the conventional story went, the students in the school first read the account of the Day of Pentecost in the Book of Acts, and then sought the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. There is however substantial evidence, which was simply ignored until non-Pentecostal historians such as Robert Anderson started to examine the record in the 1970’s —that the events in the Topeka Bible School followed the reverse sequence. After sustained prayer and fasting, the students first started to speak in tongues, and then, in a frantic effort to figure out what it might mean, they started to search the New Testament for similar occurrences in apostolic times. From this account we see a completely different picture as to what went on. It is obvious that these people had a deep hunger for God and desired a closer relationship with Him. The Word of God not the experience was used as the measuring stick. One man who saw much at AZUSA Street was Frank Bartleman and to his credit he reported the good along with the bad. Have you ever noticed that the Bible does the same thing? God shows our good side and the bad side of our human nature throughout His Holy Word. It is interesting to note that when an earthquake struck San Francisco on April 18, 1906, God was pouring out his Holy Spirit on Azusa Street on the very same day. Frank Bartleman in his book AZUSA STREET on Page 53 says this: The San Francisco earthquake was surely the voice of God to the people of the Pacific Coast. It was used mightily in conviction, for the gracious after revival. In the early “AZUSA” days both Heaven and hell seemed to have come to town. Men were at the breaking point. Conviction was mightily on the people. They would fly into pieces even on the street, almost without provocation. A very “dead line” seemed to be drawn around “Azusa Mission” by the Spirit. When men came within two or three blocks of the place they were seized with conviction. Bartleman continues on Page 54 and note what he says: The false was sifted from the real by the Spirit of God. THE WORD OF GOD ITSELF DECIDED ABSOLUTELY ALL ISSUES. The hearts of the people, both in act and in motive were searched to the very bottom. It was no joke to become one of the company. No man “durst join himself to them” except he mean business, to go through. It meant a dying out and cleaning up process in those days to receive the “baptism”. We had a tarrying room upstairs for those especially seeking God for the “baptism” though many got it in the main assembly room also. In fact they often got it in their seats in those days. On the wall of the tarrying room was hung a placard with the words “no talking above a whisper”. We knew nothing of “jazzing” them through at that time. The Spirit wrought very deeply. An unquiet spirit, or a thoughtless talker, was immediately reproved by the Spirit. We were on “ Holy ground”. The atmosphere was unbearable to the carnal spirit. They generally gave this room a wide birth unless they had been thoroughly subdued and burnt out. Only honest seekers sought it, those who really meant business with God. It was no “lethal chamber” nor place to throw fits, or blow off steam in. Men did not “fly off their lungs’’ in those days. They flew to the mercy seat. They took their shoes off, figuratively speaking. They were on “holy ground.” “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” This Baptism was one of refiner’s purifying fire and to my understanding has always been one of empowerment for service that is HIS Service — The Lord Jesus Christ. Many fall into the trap of seeking the gift when they should be seeking the Giver. It is not in real terms a “feel good experience” and anyone who has been through the refiner’s fire knows that it costs you everything, but how sweet it is after you have passed through the cleansing fire. Some years ago one wise pastor gave me these words of advice which have remained with me to this day: “Men will deceive and cheat you, but never take your eyes off Jesus because He never will let you down.” The Azusa Street Revival/outpouring sent hundreds if not thousands into the mission fields. From it, millions upon millions have come into the Kingdom of God and God still continues to this day to say, “Come”. As for the DIAKRISIS newsletter let the reader beware. The two editors Terry Arnold and Mike Claydon have now been exposed as having been misleading. I pray for these two men that they will come to repentance because they have led many astray. I would like to acknowledge Dr Paul Harder from the Southern Texas Bible Institute. Paul was invaluable in his help in supplying me with background data on Charles Fox Parham. NOTES: *1 Compare Matt 19:18 & Romans 13:19. *2 — information from FIELDS WHITE UNTO HARVEST by James R Goff Jnr— The University of Arkansas Press 1988. *3 Ibedem *4 Other references come from AZUSA STREET by Frank Bartleman, and THE DICTIONARY OF PENTECOSTAL AND CHARISMATIC MOVEMENTS by Stanley M Burgess and Gary B McGee. Appeared in CETF 10.1 March 2004 |
Details HERE...  Order HERE.. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
-Last revised-
