Elim Pentacostal

[fellicia]

My boyfriend is Elim Pentacostal and we constantly try to find the difference between the Catholic faith and the Elim pentacostal faith. So far we can not come up with much.

I want to tell him about the Catholic faith, but i really don’t know what is different. Can someone help me?

X X X FELLICIA X X X

 

[Fidelis]

Just as a starting point, since you haven’t found much yet, what have you found so we can help fill in the blanks?

 

[Irish_Melkite]

Fellicia,

As the Elim Pentacostals are pretty much a UK-based denomination (altho there are any number of other Foursquare Gospel Alliance denominations with which folks here are likely to be familiar), let me offer their website as a reference to those who will wish to reply and assist you.

Elim Pentacostal Church

Many years,

Neil

 

[kage_ar]

Agghhh - beat me to posting the website Google is an amazing tool.

They appear to be Sola Scriptura, Pentecostal, mainstream evangelical from the web site…

 

[DaveBj]

kage_ar:

Agghhh - beat me to posting the website Google is an amazing tool.

They appear to be Sola Scriptura, Pentecostal, mainstream evangelical from the web site…

Back in my Pentecostal days I was posted to England for four years, and we attended and joined (and I did some preaching in) the headquarters church of the Elim denomination. Your analysis, quoted above, is correct. Since we returned to the States in '91 they seem (my perception) to have shifted to the radical end of the spectrum (heavy on personal prophecy, the Toronto Blessing [holy laughter], etc.).

DaveBj

 

[Irish_Melkite]

kage_ar:

Agghhh - beat me to posting the website Google is an amazing tool.

Kage,

Actually, I had their website bookmarked from some prior venture. The topic isn’t one in which I have any particular knowledge or interest and others can answer it with much more expertise than me; just figured that posting the site would save folks some head-scratching wondering who the Elim are.

But, as one who does website searches on a daily basis, I highly recommend Yahoo over Google. For all of Yahoo’s flaws, it provides a much better return of relevant info than the over-rated Google.

Many years,

Neil

 

[Katholikos]

From the official website:

The Elim Pentecostal Church was founded in 1915 by a Welshman in Monaghan Ireland.

The Pentecostal denomination was established in Topeka, Kansas, by a Methodist Minister in the Holiness tradition, Charles F. Parham. It began at his school, which was dedicated to studying the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” when, on January 1, 1901, Miss Agnes Ozman “spoke in tongues” at a school prayer meeting. After that, Parham and other students “spoke in tongues.”

In 1906, preacher W. J. Seymour, who had attended a Pentecostal Bible school in Houston, started the
Azuza (California) mission, which became the worldwide center of early Pentecostalism.

The Assembly of God denomination of Pentecostalism, the largest, was begun in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914, by a group of ministers.

The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity; it was born at Pentecost with the arrival of the promised Holy Spirit in A.D. 33, in Jerusalem.

The comparison of Protestant groups to the Catholic Church is easy. Which Church was founded by God Himself, and which were made by man?

JMJ Jay

 

[DaveBj]

Katholikos:

From the official website:

The Pentecostal denomination was established in Topeka, Kansas, by a Methodist Minister in the Holiness tradition, Charles F. Parham. It began at his school, which was dedicated to studying the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” when, on January 1, 1901, Miss Agnes Ozman “spoke in tongues” at a school prayer meeting. After that, Parham and other students “spoke in tongues.”

In 1906, preacher W. J. Seymour, who had attended a Pentecostal Bible school in Houston, started the
Azuza (California) mission, which became the worldwide center of early Pentecostalism.

The Assembly of God denomination of Pentecostalism, the largest, was begun in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914, by a group of ministers.

The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity; it was born at Pentecost with the arrival of the promised Holy Spirit in A.D. 33, in Jerusalem.

The comparison of Protestant groups to the Catholic Church is easy. Which Church was founded by God Himself, and which were made by man?

JMJ Jay

The word “pentecostal” is a description, not a denomination. And pentecostal activity started in 1896 in the Appalaichians in a breakaway denomination known as the Christian Union, which later became the Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.). The Christian Union was a holiness breakaway from the big-name denominations of the time. Pity they couldn’t have “broken away back to” the Church that Jesus founded.

DaveBj

 

[asteroid]

fellicia:

My boyfriend is Elim Pentacostal and we constantly try to find the difference between the Catholic faith and the Elim pentacostal faith. So far we can not come up with much.

I want to tell him about the Catholic faith, but i really don’t know what is different. Can someone help me?

X X X FELLICIA X X X

I used to be in an Elim church. Great people usually with a pretty good sense of community in the congregations, usually pretty down to earth and able to reach out to the downtrodden of society without alienating them too often. Out of foolishness I left the first Elim I was involved in (in Bradford, Yorkshire) for another church. Leaving the other Elim I was involved in was a side-effect of getting married.

Anyway - a few things in Catholicism not in the Elim teaching:

Baptism as salvific and being born again through baptism
Confirmation being a necessary part of full Christian initiation
The Eucharist being a making present of the sacrifice of Jesus in which He is present in the host.
The place of tradition & the Magisterium in authority (as opposed to Scripture alone)
An infallible Pope. Come to that, a Pope.
Apostolic succession.
Purgatory
Veneration of Mary & the Saints.
Canonisation. (Aren’t all Christians called saints? No, don’t answer that, I know you know the answer)

That’s just off the top of my head. In other, important, things Catholicism and the Elim Church are identical - things like the Trinity, Jesus being fully God & fully human, Jesus being the way, the truth and the life. Many good things.

I always liked Elim and if lack of funds hadn’t got in the way I’d probably have ended up at their Bible college. Shame about the big influence Toronto is still having though - I was watching some of the 2004 (or was it 2003) conference on GodTV a while back and can agree with DaveBj about the shift in this direction. I hope it’s not seen in individual congregations and they’re still heavy on the Biblical preaching.

Blessings

Asteroid

 

[Katholikos]

DaveBj:

The word “pentecostal” is a description, not a denomination. And pentecostal activity started in 1896 in the Appalaichians in a breakaway denomination known as the Christian Union, which later became the Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.). The Christian Union was a holiness breakaway from the big-name denominations of the time. Pity they couldn’t have “broken away back to” the Church that Jesus founded.

DaveBj

My facts were from the standard reference work, Separated Brethren, by William J. Whalen, Bruce Publishing, revision printed by Our Sunday Visitor, 1979 (p 111-112).

In The Protestant Churches of America, John A. Hardon, S.J.(Revised Edition, Image Books, 1969) describes several divergent forerunners of Pentecostalism dating back to the early 19th century, attributing the earliest beginning of the movement to Edward Irving, pastor of a Presbyterian church in London, and tracing its beginning in the U.S. to the Holiness Movement out of Wesleyism. However, it states “Two names stand out in Pentecostal history: Charles Fox Parham and William J. Seymour” and says “Pentecostal polity [Pentacostalism as an organized body] goes back to Charles Parham himself” (pp 170-172).

Just for the record.

JMJ Jay

 

[Katholikos]

Canonisation. (Aren’t all Christians called saints? No, don’t answer that, I know you know the answer)

Since the issue has been raised, for those who may not know the answer, let me explain that members of the Church Militant (the Church on earth) are called saints and members of the Church Triumphant (the Church in heaven) are called saints. Some of those in heaven are canonized (i.e., have been formally recognized as Saints by the Church) and some are not. All the saints of heaven, canonized or uncanonized, are honored on the Feast of All Saints on the first day of November each year. It is a Holy Day of Obligation (Catholics must attend Mass in their honor) in the United States.

JMJ Jay

 

[DaveBj]

Katholikos:

My facts were from the standard reference work, Separated Brethren, by William J. Whalen, Bruce Publishing, revision printed by Our Sunday Visitor, 1979 (p 111-112).

Many, if not most, of the references on Pentecostalism leave the Church of God out, probably because those phenomena happened in Appalaichia, and if something didn’t happen in a big city or on the Left Coast, then it didn’t happen at all.

Googling the string (“church of god” “christian union” 1896") will provide many references, one of which is:
religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/cogclev.html

On the off chance that anyone is interested in reading the history of the denomination, I can recommend the book Like a Mighty Army, by Charles Conn.

DaveBj

 

[hlgomez]

Agghhh - beat me to posting the website Google is an amazing tool.

They appear to be Sola Scriptura, Pentecostal, mainstream evangelical from the web site…

The site speaks it all (at the bottom): GEORGE JEFFREY, FOUNDER 1915

It is not the Lord who is the founder of that religion.

Pio