Abstract96 pages ; 18 cm; Originally published 1935; Translated from the Dutch by William M. Douglas

AbstractThis article intends to analyse the spirituality of the Azusa Street Mission with a view to achieving two things. Firstly, I will draw attention to an emphasis that seems almost wholly ignored in studies of early Pentecostalism: the blood of Jesus. Secondly, while drawing attention to the considerable prominence of this Christological-soteriological motif within the discourse of Azusa Street, I will seek to find a context for it that might help to explain it. This context will be explored in biblical, spiritual, and racial terms.

AbstractFaith in the blood of Jesus appears to have been part of the woof and warp of the spirituality of the very earliest days of Pentecostalism. Taking Sunderland in 1908-9 as a case study, it seems that some more or less vocal and often highly dramatic demostration of faith in ‘the precious Blood’ was an essential part of the whole baptism in the Spirit experience. Tracing the prehistory and rather short-lived history of early Pentecostal ‘Blood- Mysticism’ I will here examine in some detail how it worked then and suggest that some components of it may also be of use today.