| Chapter 1: | Pre-Twentieth-Century Roots of Pentecostalism |
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By the 1660s, the colonial legislatures adopted laws that decreed that “Christian conversion did not affect the outward state or condition of slaves.”32 Afterward, virtually all official efforts to introduce slaves to Christianity were designed to protect the southern culture’s economic interest in the institution of slavery. The chief means of accomplishing this objective was the maintenance of white control over all aspects of slave Christianity. Free African Americans confronted the reality that all organized churches were led by white men who ordained only white ministers.
In 1786, during a Sunday morning worship service at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, two white ushers walked to the front of the sanctuary and tapped Absalom Jones and Richard Allen on their shoulders. The ushers informed the two men that they, and all other African American worshippers, were now required to sit in the balcony. Although they were members of St. George’s congregation, Jones and Allen walked out in protest. The two men formed the Free African Society which was dedicated to the improvement of social conditions for African Americans. However, Jones and Allen chose different paths to establish Christian congregations directly controlled by African Americans. Absalom Jones left the Methodist church and successfully appealed to William White, the Episcopal Bishop of Philadelphia, to allow Jones’ followers to establish a parish in the city. Allen, believing that the simplicity of Methodism was more appealing to African Americans, remained with the Methodist church until 1816 when he organized the African Methodist Episcopal Church and became its first bishop.33 At the same time, important developments related to the rise of the African American church occurred in the Baptist tradition as well. A short summary of the African American experience in the Episcopal, Methodist, and Baptist churches through the late 1800s will aid in understanding the ways in which African slaves, and their descendants, adapted to Christianity and eventually formed their own Christian denominations. While doing so, they laid important foundations for the rise of Pentecostalism.