THE JACOBUS ARMINIUS CENTRE
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Christ died for all
John Wesley
Charles Wesley
The Wesleyan and Methodist Movement through the ministry of John and Charles Wesley and Hugh Bourne's Primitive Methodists are the bridge between Jacobus Arminius, the Remonstrant in Holland, the Holiness Movement of the nineteenth century and the global explosion of Revivalist Preaching, General Booth's Salvation Army and the Pentecostal Movement world wide. This is true particularly in Great Britain and Ireland where the pictures and short biographies below that we post are just a few of the personalities who had a massive influence on the establishment of Classical Pentecostalism in the United Kingdom.
Thomas Myerscough
Above all others he is the forgotten Pentecostal Pioneer. A Bible teacher of great quality who taught and prepared in his Bible School some of the main pioneers who effected the land as well as a number of other countries.
A. A. Boddy
His church was where the Pentecostal Revival in Britain began. He was an Anglican minister most of his life with a strong influence on his life from the Keswick Convention. His annual Sunderland convention and his publication of 'Confidence' the first Pentecostal magazine, paved the way for a move of God in the land.
Smith Wigglesworth
Today most have built his sepulchre because of his miracles, but few follow his example. A humble man, who laid not up riches on earth. Had no mailing list, wrote no books, took no photographs but loved the Word of God.
George Jeffreys
He pioneered and raised up the Elim Alliance movement. He proclaimed a clear four square Pentecostal message in power. Holding conventions across the UK of 10,000 people and baptizing 400 in a service.
Stephen Jeffreys
A fiery Evangelist in every sense. He broke the ground across Britain in Pioneering churches both for Elim and AOG. Mighty miracles confirmed his powerful rugged preaching and he could probably be said to have had the greatest healing ministry of any of these Pentecostal Evangelists.
D. P. Williams
D. P. Williams was converted through the ministry of Evan Roberts during the Revival of 1904. He was greatly used of God in raising up the Apostolic Church of Great Britain and Ireland. He had a real vision to establish the ministries of Apostle and prophet back to the church. This work would eventually belt the globe.
Stanley Frodsham
It was in the home of A.A. Boddy in 1908 that he received his baptism in the Holy Spirit (the very same place and blessing as Wigglesworth). He moved to America and became the editor of the Evangel for the Assemblies of God Pentecostal Church of Great Britain and Ireland. His writing had national and international effect. In his latter days he arose with a prophetic warning to the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.
The Jacobus Arminius Centre is the Higher Religious Educational wing or our Sister College to the local churches Pentecostal Bible Institute programme, here in the United Kingdom. Lecturers include D. Leonard Davies, David Griffiths, E. M. Lindsay Griffiths, Stephen J. Houston, David M. Owen who have proved themselves faithful to Scripture and the historic Pentecostal and Revivalist faith.
The purpose of the Jacobus Arminius Centre directing students to these courses is to increase the student's knowledge of Arminian theology, which was the driving force that promoted the Revivals of the Wesleyan Era, Charles Finney and the formative Revivalist beliefs of the Classical Pentecostal periods and is we believe the theological driving force for revival today.
The aim of directing students to the courses is also to enrich the student's pastoral and preaching ministry through the study of some of the major influential personalities of Protestant non-conformist and dissenter's Revivalist history. For some these courses may prepare the way for post graduate doctoral study. These courses are aimed especially at theology graduates, ministers and missionaries.
Besides directing students to the availability of the courses, Jacobus Arminius Centre runs study days with workshop tutorials and conferences all to serve the same end in helping the student to fulfill the course work requirements in order that they achieve the credits necessary to graduate.
The courses that the Jacobus Arminius Centre directs students to study range from Bachelor to Doctoral. The student studies the courses through The Pentecostal Holiness Christian College and Theological Seminary, USA, established in1992, a religious degree granting religious educational programme. In directing students to the courses that are on offer, we make it clear that these are courses that relate to religious degrees as opposed to secular academic degrees. Religious degrees are used solely for religious vocational purposes and are to be recognised solely for vocational purposes. The Jacobus Arminius Centre also makes it perfectly clear that these religious degrees are to be treated as such. However, these courses demand a high level of competency, study, preparation, reading, with a final hefty dissertation or submission of thesis and they will take from two to six years to complete, with home study, organised local Church's Bible Institute study days and conferences. This is designed in order that every potential future church minister or leader can find some way that will advance their own personal education in the Word of God, a way that works for them, given their particular circumstances.
The courses themselves consist of credits gained through student assignments, research papers and finals (or in post graduate courses, a thesis), individual local Pentecostal Holiness Churches Bible Institute teaching programmes, study days and workshops taught by visiting lecturers from the Jacobus Arminius Centre or adjunct faculty members from the Pentecostal Holiness Christian College and Theological Seminary.
Credentials for admission to the courses should include a student recommendation from the Pastor or Ministerial leadership team of their local Church. Students applying from countries where the academic structure is different from that in the United States should provide full details of any prior theological studies for credit consideration when they apply. This will enable the Pentecostal Holiness Christian College and Theological Seminary to determine whether the studies form a suitable equivalent basis for admission.
I trust that you will find out more about the Pentecostal Holiness Church of Great Britain and Ireland, the local churches with their Pentecostal Bible Institutes and course of study that will be tailored to the needs that the Lord has called you to if He has included in your training some higher religious educational courses. Please click on the buttons below for further details.
The Local Pentecostal Holiness local Churches Bible Institute Network Website
The Pentecostal Holiness Christian College and Theological Seminary Website
Evan Roberts, the revival preacher in Wales. But there was more to the story of the development of Pentecostalism.
Pentecostal historians have a tendency to focus on Azusa
Street and those pioneers who were associated with that glorious work. The
British counterparts connected to Sunderland and the early British
Pentecostal denominations also enjoy a high profile.
While this may be understandable, as most other places in the world were in
some way influenced by early Anglo-American Pentecostal people and groups,
it is not the whole picture.
There were hundreds of lesser known servants of God who may have caught the
fire from western hands but who became apostolic leaders in their own
nations, with mighty signs and wonders following their ministry, resulting
in countless conversions and the planting of innumerable churches.
The beginnings of the Pentecostal Movement can be traced to several different sources. Earlier movements involving revivalism (in 1859 and 1904-05); the Wesleyan and Holiness tradition; Healing Movements embracing A. J. Gordon, A. B. Simpson, John Alexander Dowie and others; a revived interest in the return of Christ. Though this had never been entirely lost sight of it became a subject of increasing interest on both sides of the Atlantic. From the first Albury Conferences held between 1826 and 1830.1 Later in Chicago in November 1886 the second American Bible and Prophetic Conference was held (the first had been in 1878). It is my view that each of these elements helped to make the conditions necessary for the creation of that which was to become known as the Pentecostal Movement.
Writing in 1900 Dr A. T. Pierson in his book, Forward Movements of the Last Half Century, has a chapter entitled “The Pentecostal Movement.” This turns out to be on the life and ministry of the missionary martyr, George Lawrence Pilkington (1865-1897).2
When Pilkington was still a schoolboy in the spring of 1875 a
conference was held in Brighton. The subject was under the
heading of the promotion of Scriptural Holiness.3 The
local corporation provided the Town Hall, the Corn Exchange, the
Dome and the Royal Pavilion free of charge. Four businessmen
offered up to £500 each to cover the cost but this was not
needed. The meetings had followed the more sedate and
selective gatherings at Broadlands, Romsey beginning in 1873 and
at Oxford 4 in 1874. At Oxford things were very sedate (as one
might expect). There were prolonged times of silent prayer. At
Broadlands small groups would gather under the trees. The larger
gatherings in Brighton that ran from May 29th to June 7th in
1875 attracted up to 8,000 people. The written record describes
the meetings as:
“…singularly exempt from the insidious attraction of pleasurable
religious emotion, and the character of the hymns chosen did not
admit of purely aesthetic gratification.”
At Brighton, apart from the main meetings, Asa Mahan (1799-1889)5 addressed sectional gatherings in the Drawing Room. The theme of the meeting was the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. This was, “…a baptism not vouchsafed on conversion, but given ‘after we have believed.’”
Twenty years later, Pilkington writes to his mother on May
30th, 1895:
“ Next Sunday is Whit-Sunday, Oh, for another Pentecost here,
and at home.” The first Keswick Convention8 followed very
shortly after the Brighton Conference. It is however to an
earlier period that we have to look for the source of the
theological basis of the Pentecostal Movement. This was a follow
on from the Albury Conferences and the call for special prayer
by James Haldane Stewart (1776-1854)9 in 1826.
( Continued in the column on the right )
The Spiritual link with North America
Jonathan Edwards
Charles Grandison Finney
Charles Parham
J. Alexander Dowie
F. F. Bosworth
Evan Roberts
The place where speaking in tongues were first heard was in the West of Scotland at Gairloch in the parish of Robert Story (who was one of those who was present at the first Albury Conference).10 The first person to do so was Mary Campbell of Fernicarry, Gairlockhead that lies at the head of the loch beyond Faslane that is now Britain’s nuclear submarine base. The date was March 28, 1830.
The next parish adjoining was Row (pronounced Rhu) where John McLeod Campbell (1800-1872) was minister11 from 1825 to 1831. Edward Irving’s assistant, A. J. Scott preached in the area after visiting Greenock in the winter of 1829 following the death of his mother. He clearly taught that the church should be aware of and make place for spiritual gifts in its life and ministry. It was no coincidence that these gifts appeared in that vicinity so soon after. Among the many people who came to visit the area were some who subsequently became prominent in what became known as the Catholic Apostolic Church.
The manifestations were next seen in Port Glasgow on the other side of the Clyde. The subsequently appeared in London, first in a private house and later in Edward Irving’s Church in Regent Square.12
There was a strong reaction to these events and a large number of booklets and pamphlets were issued on both sides.13 The issues surrounding the fate of Edward Irving and the subsequent history of the Catholic Apostolic Church need not detain us now (though there has been a great deal of interest shown in him in more recent times). It should be recorded that the initial teaching that lead to some to accept the possibility of such gifts helped to prepare for their acceptance. When they appeared also in London they were exposed to a much wider audience. Unfortunately, Irving and those under whom he submitted himself did not handle these things very well. What had had begun as a revival and restoration of lost, neglected gifts became a reconstruction most notable for its ecclesiology. It is not without significance that the last of the Apostles of the Catholic Apostolic Church, Francis V. Woodhouse died at Albury on February 3rd, 1901 at the age of 90.14
On the other side of the Atlantic there had been an isolated
instance of speaking in tongues at meetings held in the Shearer
Schoolhouse near Camp Creek, Cherokee County, North Carolina in
1896. The leader was a Baptist layman, W. F, Bryant.15
Though this was an isolated case unconnected with a specific
theology at the time it involved up to more than 100 people.
Because of the lack of teaching, fanaticism, persecution and
other things these gifts did not continue. The significance was
only realised when a more publicised events occurred at the
beginning of the 20th century.
The next important date was on New Year’s Eve, 1900. The place was Topeka, Kansas. The location was Charles Fox Parham’s Bible School situated in a building known as “Stone’s Folly.” In the earliest published account Ages Ozman16 that some three weeks previously she had spoken three words in an unknown tongue. It was however on the first day of January 1901 that she spoke more fully after the laying on of hands. Two days later thirteen others also spoke in tongues. The local papers took a considerable interest in these events for a short time.
Desmond Cartwright
Unpublished paper given at the
Brighton Conference July 12 1991
Copyright The Pentecostal Holiness Church of Great Britain and Ireland. 2009