I came upon this article by Thomas Ice on another message board: Rapture Ready.
Latter Rain Pentecostalism
One of the first non-Calvinist groups to adopt a dispensational orientation can be found among some Pentecostals in the mid-1920s. This development must be understood against a backdrop of the Wesleyan and holiness heritage out of which Pentecostalism arose at the turn of last century. The American holiness movement of the 1800s was primarily postmillennial and if premillennial, then historical premillennial. They were not in any way dispensational.
Pentecostalism is at heart a supposed restoration of apostolic Christianity that is meant to bring in the latter rain harvest in preparation for Christ's return. The phrase "latter rain" is taken from
Joel 2:23 &
28 and sometimes
James 5:7as a label describing an end-time revival and evangelistic harvest expected by many charismatics and Pentecostals. Some time in the future, they believe the Holy Spirit will be poured out like never before. The latter rain teaching is developed from the agricultural model that a farmer needs rain at two crucial points in the growing cycle in order to produce a bountiful harvest. First, right after the seed is planted the "early rain" is needed to cause the seed to germinate in order to produce a healthy crop. Second, the crop needs rain right before the harvest, called the "latter rain," so the grain will produce a high yield at harvest time, which shortly follows. Latter rain advocates teach that the Acts 2 outpouring of the Holy Spirit was the "early rain" but the “latter rain" outpouring of the Holy Spirit will occur at the end-times. This scenario is in conflict with dispensationalism that sees the current age ending, not in revival, but apostasy. It will be during the tribulation, after the rapture of the church, that God will use the miraculous in conjunction with the preaching of the gospel. Thus, latter rain theology fits within a postmillennial or historical premillennial eschatology, but it is not consistent with dispensationalism.
Many Christians are aware that the Pentecostal movement began on January 1, 1901 in Topeka, Kansas when Agnes Ozman (1870-1937) spoke in tongues under the tutelage of Charles Fox Parham (1873-1929). Yet, how many realize that in the "early years Pentecostalism often took the name 'Latter Rain Movement'"?[49]This is because Parham titled his report of the new movement as "The Latter Rain: The Story of the Origin of the Original Apostolic or Pentecostal Movements."[50] Many are also aware that William J. Seymour (1870-1922) came under the influence of Parham in Houston, Texas in1905 and then took the Pentecostal message to Azusa Street in Los Angeles in1906, from where it was disseminated to the four-corners of the world. But, how many are also aware that he too spoke of these things in terms of a latter rain framework?
There is no doubt that the latter rain teaching was one of the major components-if not the major distinctive-in the theological formation of Pentecostalism. "Modern Pentecostalism is the 'latter rain,' the special outpouring of the Spirit that restores the gifts in the last days as part of the preparation for the 'harvest,' the return of Christ in glory," says Donald Dayton.[51]David Wesley Myland (1858-1943) was one of the early Pentecostal leaders. He wrote the first distinctly Pentecostal hymn entitled, "The Latter Rain" in1906. The "first definitive Pentecostal theology that was widely distributed, the Latter Rain Covenant” appeared in 1910.[52] Myland argued in his book that "now we are in the Gentile Pentecost, the first Pentecost started the church, the body of Christ, and this, the second Pentecost, unites and perfects the church into the coming of the Lord."[53]
Dayton concludes that the "broader Latter Rain doctrine provided a key . . . premise in the logic of Pentecostalism."[54] In spite of having such a key place in the thinking of early Pentecostalism, "the latter rain doctrine did tend to drop out of Pentecostalism" in the 1920s "only to reappear, however, in the radical Latter Rain revitalization movement of the 1940s."[55] One of reasons that
latter rain teachings began to wane in the mid-1920s was that as Pentecostalism became more institutionalized it needed an answer to the inroads of liberalism. As noted above, dispensationalism was seen as a help in these areas.
The Latter Rain teaching developed out of the Wesleyan-Holiness desire for both individual (sanctification) and corporate (eschatological) perfection. Thus, early perfectionist teachers like John Wesley, Charles Finney, and Asa Mahan were all postmillennial and social activists. Revivalism was gagged by carrying the burden of both personal and public change or perfection. It follows that one who believes in personal perfection should also believe that public perfection is equally possible. Those who believe the latter are postmillennialists. After all, if God has given the Holy Spirit in this age to do either, then why not the other? If God can perfect individuals, then why not society?
However, as the 1800s turned into the 1900s, social change was increasingly linked with Darwin's theory of evolution. The evolutionary rationale was then used to attack the Bible itself. To most English-speaking Christians it certainly appeared that society was not being perfected, instead it was in decline. Critics of the Bible said that one needed a Ph.D. from Europe before the Bible could be organized and understood. It was into this climate that dispensationalism was introduced into America and probably accounts for its speedy and widespread acceptance by many conservative Christians. To many Bible believing Christians, Dispensationalism made a great deal more sense of the world than did the anti-supernaturalism conclusions of liberalism.
Dispensationalism, in contrast to Holiness teaching, taught that the world and the visible church were not being perfected, instead Christendom was in apostasy and heading toward judgment. God is currently in the process of calling out His elect through the preaching of the gospel. Christian social change would not be permanent, nor would it lead to the establishment of Christ's kingdom before His return. Instead a cataclysmic intervention was needed (Christ's second coming), if society was to be transformed.
