Charles Parham
| Charles Fox Parham | |
|---|---|
Pioneer of the Pentecostalism
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| Born |
June 4, 1873 Muscatine, Iowa, United States |
| Died | January 29, 1929 (aged 55) Baxter Springs, Kansas, United States |
| Occupation | Evangelist |
| Spouse(s) | Sarah Thistlewaite, 1896–1929, (his death) |
Charles F. Parham (June 4, 1873 – c. January 29, 1929) was an American preacher and evangelist. Together with William J. Seymour, Parham was one of the two central figures in the development and early spread of Pentecostalism. It was Parham who associated glossolalia with the baptism in the Holy Spirit, a theological connection crucial to the emergence of Pentecostalism as a distinct movement. Parham was the first preacher to articulate Pentecostalism's distinctive doctrine of evidential tongues, and to expand the movement.
Parham, one of five sons of William and Ann Parham, was born in Muscatine, Iowa, on June 4, 1873 and moved with his family to Cheney, Kansas, by covered wagon in 1878. William Parham owned land, raised cattle, and eventually purchased a business in town. Parham's mother died in 1885. The next year his father married Harriet Miller, the daughter of a Methodist circuit rider. Harriet was a devout Christian, and the Parhams opened their home for "religious activities". He married Sarah Thistlewaite, the daughter of a Quaker. Their engagement was in summer of 1896, and they were married December 31, 1896, in a Friends' ceremony.
Parham began conducting his first religious services at the age of 15. In 1891, he enrolled at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas, a Methodist affiliated school. He attended until 1893 when he came to believe education would prevent him from ministering effectively. He then worked in the Methodist Episcopal Church as a supply pastor (he was never ordained). Parham left the Methodist church in 1895 because he disagreed with its hierarchy. He 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.
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