© The Author(s) 2016 229
K.J. Archer, L.W. Oliverio, Jr. (eds.), Constructive
Pneumatological Hermeneutics in Pentecostal Christianity,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58561-5_14
CHAPTER 14Pentecostal Hermeneutics and Race
in the Early Twentieth Century: Towards
a Pentecostal Hermeneutics of Culture
Duane T. Loynes , Sr.
D. T. Loynes, Sr. ()
Western Theological Seminary , Holland , MI , USA
INTRODUCTION
At its outset, Pentecostalism seemed like it would provide a counterargu-
ment to the racial politics of the Jim Crow society from which it emerged.
Seminal leaders of the Pentecostal movement (William Seymour, Charles
Harrison Mason, and Garfi eld Thomas Haywood, among others) were
black, and the inaugural, defi ning event of North American Pentecostalism
(the Azusa Street Revival) was characterized by its racial, gender, social,
and economic diversity. Summarizing the early years of Pentecostalism,
Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. notes:
While the mission was a congregation of ordinary people, they were people
who were hungry for God. They would satisfy that hunger whatever it cost
them, even if it meant crossing the lines of ordinary behavior. They were
willing, if necessary, to violate social strictures—especially on the mixing of
races. For roughly three years, in the teeth of a howling secular and religious