Fire-Baptized Holiness Church

The Fire-Baptized Holiness Church was a radical holiness Christian denomination in North America and was involved in the early formation of Pentecostalism. Founded in 1895, it merged with the Pentecostal Holiness Church in 1911, forming a new denomination now known as the International Pentecostal Holiness Church. Prior to the merger the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church was an interracial body. In 1908, most of the African-American members withdrew to form their own church, the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas.

The church was founded by Rev. Benjamin Hardin Irwin of Lincoln, Nebraska. Irwin was educated as a lawyer but entered ordained ministry after he was converted in a Baptist church. After coming into contact with members of the Iowa Holiness Association, Irwin accepted holiness beliefs and claimed to experience sanctification in 1891. He was a student of the writings of John Wesley and John William Fletcher and eventually joined the Wesleyan Methodist Church.

Irwin became convinced that there was an experience beyond sanctification called the "baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire" or simply "the fire". After receiving this experience in October 1895, he began to preach this "third blessing" among holiness adherents in the Midwest, particularly among Wesleyan Methodists and Brethren in Christ. His services were highly emotional with participants often getting the "jerks", shouting, speaking in tongues, and holy dancing and laughing. Thousands attended his meetings and his teaching was circulated widely within the holiness movement, with its greatest strength in the Midwest and South. His message was largely rejected, however, and was denounced as a "third blessing heresy".

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