A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

Trinitarian Pentecostal Organizations
God), “holy laughter,” and singing in tongues. Early
Pentecostals found this type of worship in the Scriptures,
and to a great extent they inherited it from English and
American revivalism and African-American churches.
Almost all Pentecostals accept the ministry of
women. In most cases, however, women do not fill positions
of top leadership. The COGIC and the CG do not
allow women to be ordained or to become pastors, but
the AG and UPCI allow both. Compared to the early days,
there are fewer women pastors, as significantly more men
entered the movement and as many women now exercise
their ministry in conjunction with their husbands. 180
Pentecostals are diverse in church government. The
Second Work groups generally have an episcopal form
like their Methodist forebears, and so do most black and
Hispanic groups. The other major groups, notably the AG
and UPCI, are mostly congregational with some presbyterian
elements. The local church controls its own affairs,
with strong pastoral leadership; a district organization
handles the licensing and discipline of ministers; and the
general organization supervises and promotes world missions
efforts.
A few small groups are neither Oneness nor trinitarian
but espouse a two-person view in which the Son is subordinate
to the Father. Sometimes called “duality,” it is essentially
a form of Arianism. 181 The three major branches of
Pentecostalism strongly reject this view, however.
In characterizing the Pentecostal movement as a
whole from a historical perspective, Steven Land has
concluded, “The streams of Pietism, Puritanism, Wesleyanism,
African-American Christianity and nineteenthcentury
Holiness-Revivalism form a confluence which has
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