Denominations
Oneness Pentecostalism
Christianity
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Origin 1913 to 1916
A Pentecostal movement holding that God is a single, indivisible person who reveals himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit in succession rather than as three eternally distinct persons in one divine being, and that Christian baptism belongs in the name of Jesus alone, following the wording of Acts 2:38, rather than the traditional formula of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The teaching began at the Worldwide Pentecostal Camp Meeting held at Arroyo Seco, near Los Angeles, in April 1913, when R. E. McAlister preached that the apostles baptized only in Jesus' name. Frank Ewart developed the insight into a full doctrine of God the following year, rebaptizing converts and teaching that Jesus is the name in which the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all comprehended, a position its adherents call Oneness and its critics have long called modalism. The teaching split the young Assemblies of God, whose 1916 General Council adopted an explicitly Trinitarian statement of faith rather than accept it, and roughly a quarter of its ministers left or were expelled soon after. Garfield Thomas Haywood, an African American pastor, brought a large following into the movement and led the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World as one of the few racially integrated American church bodies of its era, before segregationist pressure split it along racial lines in the 1920s. Its predominantly white successor bodies merged in 1945 into the United Pentecostal Church International, today the movement's largest denomination. Oneness Pentecostalism keeps Pentecostalism's stress on Spirit baptism, speaking in tongues and the ongoing spiritual gifts, and differs from the wider movement chiefly on the nature of God.
Facts
Belief
Defining Doctrinal PositionNon-trinitarian: the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity is not held 1 Position on SexualitySame-sex orientation or practice is held to bar full membership or participation 2 Sourced to the subject's own accountThe United Pentecostal Church International, the movement's largest single organized body, adopted a position paper by its General Board in September 2015 naming homosexuality among the improper expressions of human sexuality its ministers will continue to teach against and publicly defend that teaching against, citing Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26-27. No membership carve-out for an openly gay or lesbian member is stated. Sexuality Position DetailSourced to the subject's own accountThe United Pentecostal Church International, headquartered in Weldon Spring, Missouri and the largest single organized body within Oneness Pentecostalism, adopted a position paper titled "The Biblical View of Human Sexuality" by vote of its General Board in September 2015. The paper names fornication, adultery, polygamy, homosexuality, bestiality, incest and transgenderism together as improper expressions of human sexuality, citing Leviticus 18:22's prohibition and Romans 1:26-27's account of men and women exchanging natural relations for the specific teaching on homosexuality, and states the church and its ministers will continue to uphold this teaching in doctrine and example and publicly defend it, while framing the church's wider mission as reconciliation rather than condemnation. No membership carve-out for an openly gay or lesbian member is stated in the paper. 2 Origins
Origin Period Place of OriginArroyo Seco, near Los Angeles, California 1 FounderFrank Ewart (1876-1947), developing R. E. McAlister's 1913 sermon on Acts 2:38 into a full doctrine 1 Organisation
GovernanceCongregational: each congregation self-governing 1 Its own record calls it a Pentecostal movement, matching Pentecostalism, already carried as congregational. GovernanceIts own record calls it a Pentecostal movement, matching Pentecostalism, already carried as decentralised. OrdinationIts own record calls it "A Pentecostal movement" outright; Pentecostalism itself is already filled male-only. Status
Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 1 History
Separation or DivergenceSplit from the Assemblies of God in 1916, when its General Council adopted an explicitly Trinitarian Statement of Fundamental Truths rather than accept the "New Issue" baptismal and Godhead teaching; roughly a quarter of its ministers left or were expelled and organized separately. 1 Practice
BaptismBaptism performed in the name of Jesus only, following Acts 2:38, rather than the traditional formula of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 1 Liturgical LanguageIts own record calls it a Pentecostal movement, matching Pentecostalism, already carried as vernacular. Trajectory
Membership Over TimeThe United Pentecostal Church International, the movement's largest denomination, reported one million constituents in the United States and Canada for the first time in its history, and 5.75 million constituents worldwide in more than 200 nations and territories, based on its 2023 Senior Pastor Survey. 3 Membership Figure As Of Basis of the Membership Figure Learn More
A Sermon at a Camp Meeting Divides Pentecostalism
In 1913, at a large interdenominational camp meeting near Los Angeles, a Pentecostal minister named R. E. McAlister preached a sermon arguing that the early church had baptized converts in the name of Jesus alone rather than using the fuller Trinitarian formula, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that had become the standard practice among Christian churches. The sermon, and the intense response it provoked among some who heard it, helped launch what became known as the Jesus Only or Oneness movement, and within a few years ministers including Frank Ewart were actively teaching and rebaptizing converts using the single-name formula and developing a fuller theological rationale for it. By 1916 the teaching had gained enough traction within the young Assemblies of God denomination that its governing council felt compelled to respond directly, formally adopting a strong statement affirming the traditional Trinity and effectively forcing Oneness-believing ministers out of the denomination. Those ministers went on to organize their own separate Oneness Pentecostal bodies, so that a single disputed point of baptismal formula and doctrine, debated across only a few years in the 1910s, produced a lasting split that still divides Pentecostalism into Trinitarian and Oneness branches today.
One Name for Father, Son, and Spirit
The theology that grew out of the Jesus Only controversy rejects the classical Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the belief that God exists eternally as three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, sharing one divine essence, in favor of a strictly unified conception of God in which Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are understood as titles or modes of the single person of Jesus Christ rather than as three eternally distinct persons. Oneness believers trace this understanding back to a much older current in Christian thought called modalistic monarchianism, associated with the early third century teacher Sabellius, and some Oneness writers describe their own doctrine as a rediscovery, through direct revelation at the 1913 camp meeting, of a teaching they hold was original to the earliest church rather than a genuinely new idea. Baptism is the doctrine's most visible practical marker: Oneness Pentecostal churches baptize specifically in the name of Jesus rather than using the Trinitarian formula, treating that specific wording as a matter of real doctrinal consequence rather than a minor variation in liturgical language, which is precisely the point on which the movement first broke from the wider Pentecostal and Christian mainstream in 1916.
Denominations of Oneness Pentecostalism
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Oneness Pentecostalism directly: "significant resource that helps define Oneness Pentecostalism," on a page whose footer identifies the site as "An Official UPCI..."
This source names Oneness Pentecostalism directly: "(1999) and Early Interracial Oneness Pentecostalism: G."
This source names Oneness Pentecostalism directly: "on to found what would become known as Oneness Pentecostalism."
Branch Of
Contained In
Derived From
Objects and Practices of This Tradition
The congregation's own annual staged production of its own central religious narrative, performed entirely by its own members.
Written by a career United Pentecostal Church International affiliated Bible college music director, categorized by Wikipedia itself as an Oneness Pentecostal, the same reasoning already applied on this database to Emmet Fox and Divine Science.
A history of the Oneness Pentecostal movement written by one of its own ordained ministers, not an outside academic account.
Written by the tradition's own sitting General Superintendent and published by its own denominational press as the founding volume of its own theology series.
Rejected Here
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