A Twisted Crown of Thorns ®

Charles Fox Parham (4 June 1873 – 29 January 1929) was  an American preacher originally from a Methodist and the Wesleyan Holiness Movement back ground. Together with William J. Seymour, Parham was one of the two central figures in the development and early spread of Pentecostalism (which initially emphasized personal faith and proper living, along with a belief of the imminence of the return of the gifts of the Holy Spirit) in 1901 in Topeka, Kansas. Parham left the Methodist church in 1895 because he disagreed with its hierarchy. He also complained that Methodist preachers “were not left to preach by direct inspiration”. Rejecting denominations, he established his own itinerant evangelistic ministry, which preached the ideas of the holiness movement and was well received by the people of Kansas.

Charles Parham’s Theological roots

Pentecostalism grew out of the Holiness movement roots. John Wesley, the eighteenth century Anglican minister and founder of Methodism, is in many ways seen as “the spiritual and intellectual father of the modern holiness and Pentecostal movements” because of the doctrine of sinless perfectionism. Perfectionism (sanctification) was the second blessing or experience of the believer.  This perfectionism would become something a believer must seek and strive for. Read More…