- This is the Day
- Posts
- April 14
April 14
Abe Lincoln, Henry Beard Delany, Averroes, and the Azusa Street Revival
David Barnhart
April 14, 2025
Aloe plant, San Carlos, Mexico. June 2022. Own photo.
Today in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.
Today in 1906, the Azusa Street Revival began. This marks the beginning of the modern Pentecostal movement, which emphasized the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers.
Today is also the feast day, in the Episcopal Church, of Henry Beard Delany, the first African-American to be elected Bishop Suffragan in North Carolina 1918. He worked with Methodist, Baptist, and Episcopal churches and advocated for Christian unity in a time of segregationist policies.
Today marks the birth, in 1126, of Averroes, Muslim philosopher and scientist. His commentaries on Aristotle were influential well into the Renaissance. Like many other theologians in the three big monotheistic religions, he believed faith and reason were complementary.
Reflection
Among many other quotable things Abe Lincoln said, this is one of my favorites:
I had been told I was on the road to hell, but I had no idea it was just a mile down the road with a dome on it.
And this one is particularly fit for these times:
The people -- the people -- are the rightful masters of both congresses, and courts -- not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.
Averroes said:
The necessary connection of movement and time is real and time is something the soul constructs in movement.
Frank Bartleman, a Pentecostal preacher, marveled that race didn’t seem to matter at the Azusa Street Revival, and the “The ‘color line’ was washed away in the blood.” He also wrote:
A revival almost always begins among the laity. The ecclesiastical leaders seldom welcome reformation. History repeats itself. The present leaders are too comfortable situated as a rule to desire innovation that might require sacrifice on their part. And God’s fire only falls on sacrifice. An empty altar receives no fire!
Pentecostalism is the Christian tradition that incorporates the greatest diversity among its members, which, I think, is an important indicator of the presence of the Holy Spirit. I am disturbed, though, that so many “revivals” do not lead to greater emphasis on justice, or people sharing wealth in common. Many modern Pentecostal churches hide the fact that the speak in tongues and call themselves “non-denominational.”
Still, I think Pentecostal churches offer a corrective to the idea that faith needs to be totally rational. Mysticism and the miraculous are close cousins, and I think it’s hard to have one without the other.
Prayer: Author of all truth, both the rational and the super-rational, guide us in paths of wisdom, inspired by your Holy Spirit, that justice and righteousness would prevail. Amen.