The following discussion was drafted by its author without significant input from others, and is only a very incomplete, preliminary sketch. Discussion is invited, either through the discussion forum mailing list (link given below) or by private e-mail.
Two great movements within the Christian church started in Topeka within a single 20-year period: Charles Sheldon's popular form of the Social Gospel movement at the close of the 19th Century and the great Pentecostal revival at the beginning of the 20th Century. Yet neither movement had any great, lasting impact on Topeka. This page presents the argument that it was racism in the church and community in Topeka which prevented both of these movements that started here from having their intended impact here. These were the two great revivals that almost started in Topeka.
Charles Sheldon, pastor of the Central Congregational Church, advocated a form of the Social Gospel which emphasized following Jesus' example, learning to understand how He would behave in the various situations in our lives, particularly when confronted with the needs of others, and doing as He would do. His teachings were popularized by his internationally famous novel In His Steps and were put into practice, to some degree, in his congregation. Sheldon was also invited to manage one of the local daily newspapers for a week, with decidedly mixed results. Moreover, his novel inspired a more recent movement in the American Church at large, the "WWJD" movement
However, Sheldon's work didn't lead to a notable revival in Topeka. It failed to bring revival here in part because of the tendency of the city to pride, competition and greed, and in part because even Sheldon didn't carry it promptly to one of its obvious conclusions. Sheldon's Central Congregational Church did start a Kindergarten, do a good deal of relief work, and start a black mission church in Tennesseetown, a part of town where many of the black emigrants from Tennessee had settled. This was much more than any other white church did, although between 1856 and 1900 several other white churches had started satellite black congregations. But, in spite of the fact that Central Congregational was located on the edge of Tennesseetown, it followed the pattern of the other churches that had started satellite congregations, launching a black mission congregation rather than welcoming blacks into its own white congregation. It now accurately boasts that it was the first racially integrated church in Topeka, but this apparently didn't happen until well into the Twentieth Century. This failure to fully recognize racial equality in Christ until long after the opportunity for revival was gone kept a revival affecting the whole city on a large scale from starting in Sheldon's Central Congregational Church.
Charles Parham's work in Topeka, which prepared the way for the later Pentecostal revival, didn't lead to a revival in Topeka for a very similar reason. Parham was already known as a healer in 1896 and, therefore, obviously would have considered himself to possess at least some Holy Spirit power for service before then. However, the question he and his students at Bethel Bible College sought to answer in 1900 was what the initial evidence was by which someone else would know that a believer had been baptized by the Holy Spirit (and, therefore, both sanctified and empowered to do His work). The answer they devised, after some study, was that speaking in tongues is the evidence of Holy Spirit baptism.
However, because they were so focused on the question of the initial "evidence" of Spirit baptism, they missed another critical function of speaking in tongues in Acts: In at least two of the three instances in which tongues are mentioned, they served to show that their recipients had now been accepted into the Body of Christ and were now in unity with the older Christians observing them. This is seen most clearly in the response of the Apostles and Jewish believers in Jerusalem to the tongues manifested in the household of Cornelius, the Gentile. See, most pointedly, the explanations given in Acts 10:47, 11:15-18 and 15:7-8.
The best evidence suggests that Parham was not himself a racist, but did scrupulously observe the apartheid laws and customs of the places where he ministered. (For a discussion of the effect of racism on the development of the Pentecostal movement in the United States, on a national scale, go to Early Pentecostals, Spirit baptism, racism and the Wesleyan second blessing, on another site). Thus, the combination of a very hard color line in Topeka in 1901 and Parham's observance of it prevented revival here in that year. Parham subsequently preached in Missouri and in Texas, places where the color line was even harder and whites and blacks worshipping together would have been totally unacceptable and punishable by law.
William Seymour was exposed to Parham's teaching in 1905 at a college Parham had started in Houston. But, because Seymour was black, in compliance with Texas law, he was not allowed to sit in equal status in the same room with white students, but had to sit or stand in a hallway or an adjoining room to hear Parham's lectures. Seymour went from Houston to south Los Angeles, a place where the color line was not as hard, and started a massive revival there. His congregation on Azusa Street, at its height, included people from all races and many nationalities who worshipped and served together without any racial distinctions. Christ could demonstrate the unity of His Body in Los Angeles, but not in Topeka. That is why the Pentecostal revival started in Los Angeles, not Topeka.
It is also noteworthy that Parham subsequently rejected his student Seymour, in part because Seymour's congregation at the Azusa Street mission in Los Angeles was a mixed race congregation. Parham's published negative comments about Seymour and Azusa Street leave little doubt that, although Parham may have believed the races were equal before God, he also believed that they ought not be allowed to mix in church. Unfortunately, between 1911 and 1920, the large majority of the white leaders in the Pentecostal movement in the United States followed Parham in his hypocrisy in this matter, compare Galatians 2:11-13, bowed the knee to state apartheid laws, and separated themselves to form separate white Pentecostal churches and denominations. By so doing, they short-circuited the revival, reconciliation and healing God intended to bring in this country through a united Church. (Other countries have seen it, however). They also in large measure caused the violence of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and '60s, which would have been unnecessary if God had been free to bring reconciliation through His Church in the 1910's.
Brief summary of race relations in Topeka to 1915.
Topeka's apparent redeeming strengths and purpose.
Areas for repentance (first list)
A page on another site discussing the definition of "heresy," showing that racism in the church is a form of heresy.
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