I know Pentecostals have a bad history of claiming to be restoring the “early church,” but one of the things about the Azusa Mission and Revival that was very much in line with the early Christianities is the amount of intense social and religious upheaval it caused.

Racial and gender equality being on the forefront of the movements ways of practicing their faith along with the fact that the revival was essentially responsible for a ton of church closures as folks (leadership included) walked away from their congregations to join the Mission.

The more I read about the history of The Azusa Mission the more I think about the social and religious upheaval that was a the core of the controversy around early Christian communities in Rome. Like this sounds just like what’s Larry Hurtado talks about in some of his works.