The First Pentecostals

The article “The House of the Spirit” (by Mark Kendall, Jan. 8) gives the impression that Pentecostalism originated in Los Angeles and sort of popped out of nowhere. While the Los Angeles movement did bring Pentecostalism to the attention of the world, it was hardly the first such movement.

The article doesn’t mention the Rev. Charles F. Parham, founder of the first Pentecostals in the modern sense, in 1901 in Topeka, Kan. And even that was not the beginning of such ideas. As far back as the 1700s, preachers such as John Wesley were generating the Holiness movement, which led to ideas that eventually led to modern Pentecostalism.

Natalie G. Hall

Encino