A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

A History of Christian Doctrine
Oneness organization to do so is the Apostolic
Overcoming Holy Church of God, which was founded in
1917 by William T. Phillips (1893-1974), a black Holiness
minister in Alabama.
Among trinitarians, a significant practical difference
emerged around mid-century between the Second Work
and Finished Work churches. Originally, all Pentecostals
emphasized holiness of life, including standards of conduct
and dress. In the 1940s through 1960s, however, the
Assemblies of God began to relax its stand in these areas,
but the Second Work groups were much slower to abandon
them. It was not until 1988, for example, that the
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) officially deleted
its rules against makeup, jewelry, movies, and women cutting
their hair.
In the United States, about half of Pentecostals today
belong to Finished Work groups. In the rest of the world,
the vast majority of Pentecostals hold to the Finished
Work doctrine. Even among the Second Work groups, the
doctrine of sanctification as a second work of grace is
rarely emphasized today, being mostly overshadowed by
the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 59 To a great extent, then,
Durham’s views have prevailed everywhere.
Why did the Finished Work message gain such widespread
acceptance? Why did it become the wave of the
future? We can identify three major reasons.
First, as the Pentecostal revival exploded, many converts
came directly from a life of sin without claiming a
prior experience of sanctification. While people such as
Parham and Seymour had sought and received definite
experiences with God years before the outpouring of the
Holy Ghost, many new believers had not. At Azusa Street,
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