A Land More Kind than Home

The church that Carson Chambliss leads is a charismatic Christian church. Charismatic sects exist in several denominations of Christianity. The most widely known charismatic movement, cited as the first charismatic belief system, is Pentecostalism (“The New Face of Global Christianity: The Emergence of ‘Progressive Pentecostalism.’” Pew Research Center, 12 Apr. 2006). This movement contends that the Holy Spirit (one of the three persons of God, in Christian theology) gifts abilities to church members that are described in the Bible by the apostle Paul. They contend that a person can experience one or more of these gifts when they experience a state called “baptism with the Holy Spirit.”

Pentecostalism began in 1901 in Topeka, Kansas, at Bethel Bible College. The college’s founder, Charles Fox Parham, sought to reverse what he and other members of the “Holiness Movement” deemed a shift toward indifference in Christian spiritual beliefs. He argued for a more immersive, consuming experience of the Holy Spirit. When one of Parham’s students began speaking in tongues, he interpreted it as the beginning of the spiritual revival he had longed for. Parham was able to grow the movement through his practice of faith healing, and Pentecostalism and other forms of charismatic Christianity quickly grew in popularity, particularly in the American South.