Charles Fox Parham facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Charles Fox Parham
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Pioneer of Pentecostalism
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| Born | June 4, 1873 |
| Died | January 29, 1929 (aged 55) Baxter Springs, Kansas, U.S.
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| Occupation | Evangelist |
| Spouse(s) | Sarah Thistlewaite, 1896–1929, (his death) |
Charles F. Parham (born June 4, 1873 – died January 29, 1929) was an American preacher and evangelist. He was a very important person in the early days of Pentecostalism in America.
Parham was the first to teach that speaking in tongues was a special sign. This sign showed that someone had received the "baptism in the Holy Spirit". This idea was key to how Pentecostalism grew into its own distinct Christian movement.
Contents
Personal life
Charles Parham was born in Muscatine, Iowa, on June 4, 1873. He was one of five sons. In 1878, his family moved to Cheney, Kansas, by covered wagon. His father owned land and raised cattle.
Charles's mother passed away in 1885. The next year, his father married Harriet Miller. Harriet was a very religious Christian. The Parham family often welcomed people into their home for religious gatherings.
In 1896, Charles married Sarah Thistlewaite. Sarah was the daughter of a Quaker family. They were married on December 31, 1896.
Ministry
Early ministry
Parham started leading religious services when he was just 15 years old. In 1890, he began studying at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. This school was connected to the Methodist church.
He left college in 1893. He believed that too much education would stop him from preaching effectively. He then worked as a temporary pastor in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
In 1895, Parham left the Methodist church. He did not like its strict rules and how it was organized. He felt that Methodist preachers were not free to preach as they felt inspired.
He decided to start his own traveling ministry. He preached ideas from the Holiness movement. People in Kansas welcomed his messages.
Topeka, Kansas
After his son Claude was born in 1897, both Charles and Claude became very sick. They later got better, and Parham believed God had healed them. Because of this, he decided to trust only in divine healing and prayer for the sick.
In 1898, Parham moved his main office to Topeka, Kansas. There, he ran a mission and a healing center called the Bethel Healing Home. He also started publishing a magazine called Apostolic Faith.
Parham ran his ministry based on "faith." He did not collect money during services. Instead, he prayed for God to provide what his ministry needed.
In 1900, Parham took a break from his work in Topeka. He wanted to learn more about other religious movements. He spent a lot of time at Shiloh, a ministry run by Frank Sandford in Maine.
When he returned, others had taken over his healing home. Instead of fighting, Parham started Bethel Bible College in Topeka in October 1900. This school was like Sandford's "Holy Ghost and Us Bible School."
Parham did not charge tuition for his Bible school. He invited Christians who were ready to give up everything to join for study and prayer. About 40 people came, including their families. The only textbook was the Bible. Parham taught that the Holy Spirit was the main teacher.
Before starting his school, Parham had heard about people speaking in tongues. He believed there was a deeper experience with God beyond what others taught. By the end of 1900, he asked his students to study the Bible. He wanted them to find out what signs were present when the early church received the Holy Spirit.
On New Year's Eve, December 31, 1900, and the next evening, January 1, 1901, students held worship services. On January 1, 1901, a student named Agnes Ozman asked to be prayed for. She wanted to receive the Holy Spirit fully. Right after prayer, she began to speak in what they called "tongues." They believed she was speaking in a real, known language.
Christian Faith Movement
Parham's strong beliefs and direct style made it hard to find support for his school. Local newspapers made fun of his Bible school. Many former students also called him a fake. By April 1901, Parham's ministry had ended.
His luck changed in 1903. He preached about Christ's healing power at El Dorado Springs, Missouri, a popular health resort. A woman named Mary Arthur said she was healed by Parham's ministry. She and her husband invited Parham to preach in Galena, Kansas.
He preached there through the winter of 1903-1904 in a large warehouse. A newspaper reported that 1,000 people were healed and 800 became Christians. In the small mining towns nearby, Parham gained many followers. These followers became the main support for his movement.
From the meetings in Galena, Parham gathered a group of young helpers. They traveled from town to town in "bands," sharing the "apostolic faith." Parham encouraged his followers to dress nicely. He wanted them to show how appealing the Christian life could be.
In 1904, the first church built specifically for a Pentecostal group was constructed in Keelville, Kansas. Other "apostolic faith assemblies" started in the Galena area. Parham's movement quickly spread across Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
In 1906, Parham started a Bible school in Houston. Many African Americans were greatly influenced by his ministry there. One of them was William J. Seymour. Parham and Seymour both preached to African Americans in Houston. Parham even planned to send Seymour to preach to black communities throughout Texas.
In September 1906, Parham also went to Zion, Illinois. He tried to gain followers from the group of John Alexander Dowie. However, he left after his preaching tent was destroyed.
In 1906, Parham sent Lucy F. Farrow, a black woman who cooked at his Houston school, to Los Angeles, California. She had received the "Spirit's Baptism." A few months later, he sent Seymour to join Farrow in Los Angeles.
Seymour's work in Los Angeles led to the Azusa Street Revival. Many people consider this event the start of the modern Pentecostal movement. Seymour initially saw his work in Los Angeles as being under Parham's guidance. However, Seymour soon disagreed with Parham. Parham criticized the emotional worship at Azusa Street and the mixing of white and black people in the services.
Parham believed in separating races. However, some people note that he was one of the first to reach out to African Americans and Mexican Americans. He included them in the early Pentecostal movement. He preached in black churches. He also invited Lucy Farrow, the black woman he sent to Los Angeles, to preach at a camp meeting in Houston in 1906.
Death
When Charles Parham was a boy, he had a serious illness called rheumatic fever. This illness damaged his heart and affected his health for life. He almost died at one point.
Parham recovered and continued his active preaching life. He strongly believed that God was his healer. Although he recovered from the fever, it likely weakened his heart muscles. This probably led to his later heart problems and early death.
By 1927, he started showing signs of heart problems. In the fall and summer of 1928, his health got worse after a trip to Palestine. Visiting Palestine had been a lifelong dream for him.
In early January 1929, Parham took a long car ride to Temple, Texas. He was going to show pictures from his trip to Palestine. On January 5, he collapsed while showing his slides. His wife found that his heart was weak, and he could not eat.
Against his wishes, his family brought him home to Baxter Springs, Kansas. He wanted to keep preaching. Charles F. Parham passed away on the afternoon of January 29, 1929.
Beliefs
Parham's beliefs changed over time. He liked to think about religious ideas by himself. He believed the Holy Spirit spoke to him directly. He also did not accept the authority of established religious leaders.
He focused on several key ideas:
- Salvation by faith
- Healing by faith
- Laying on of hands and prayer
- Holiness by faith
- The coming of Christ (before a thousand-year reign)
- The baptism of the Holy Spirit, which he believed prepared people for Christ's return and gave them spiritual gifts.
Initial evidence
His most important idea was about the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Before 1901, some Christian groups, like the Camisards and Quakers, spoke in tongues. They also taught about an experience of Spirit baptism.
However, Parham was the first to say that speaking in tongues was the "Bible evidence" of Spirit baptism. It is not clear exactly when he started teaching this. But he was definitely preaching it by 1900.
At first, he thought this experience had a special meaning for the end times. He believed it "sealed the bride" for the "marriage supper of the Lamb." He thought the "bride of Christ" was 144,000 people from the church. These people would escape the terrible events of the tribulation. Parham wanted to be sure he would be included in the rapture. This led him to look for a clear sign of Spirit baptism.
Later, Parham emphasized speaking in tongues for evangelism. He said the purpose of Spirit baptism was to give people "power for service." Parham believed that the tongues spoken by those baptized were real human languages. This would mean missionaries would not need to learn foreign languages. This idea would help spread the gospel quickly.
Some of Parham's followers even traveled to other countries. They hoped to use speaking in tongues to talk with local people without learning their languages. But these attempts to speak in unknown languages did not work. Because of this, many of Parham's followers became disappointed and left his movement.
Other beliefs
Parham believed in annihilationism. This idea says that wicked people are not tormented forever in hell. Instead, they are destroyed. According to this belief, only those who accept Christ will live forever. He said in 1902 that God is loving and fair.
Parham also believed in British Israelism. This idea claims that people from Anglo-Saxon countries are descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. He also supported Theodor Herzl and the effort to create a Jewish homeland. He often gave talks on this topic.
Legacy
Parham started the idea of "initial evidence." This means that speaking in tongues is the first sign of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. This teaching made Pentecostalism different from other Christian groups. These other groups might have spoken in tongues or believed in a spiritual experience after salvation.
In 1914, Parham's Apostolic Faith Movement joined with other Pentecostal groups. They formed the General Council of the Assemblies of God in the United States of America. This was a move that Parham did not like. Today, the worldwide Assemblies of God is the largest Pentecostal group.
In 1916, the Assemblies of God met to decide how they would baptize people. Many ministers from Parham's movement, including Howard Goss, were baptized in Jesus' name by Charles F. Parham. After a vote, 133 ministers were asked to leave. This was because the majority decided to keep the traditional way of baptism. This event led to the creation of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. This group later formed the United Pentecostal Church International.
See also
In Spanish: Charles Fox Parham para niños
