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Viewed from afar, then, the most reasonable explanation for the licentiousness stereotype was self-interest. Insiders' claims that other insiders had strayed into gross immorality helped establish the accusers' own doctrinal and moral purity. Likewise outsiders' claims helped establish the doctrinal and moral integrity of the outsiders—or lined their pockets with ready cash. Moreover pentecostals brought much of the problem on themselves in a way not yet noted. From the beginning they proved eager to flaunt their rectitude. When conversion, sanctification, and Holy Spirit baptism did not turn them into saints, but left them ordinary Christians subject to the same failings that bedeviled everyone else, the rest of the world noticed.

Grant Wacker is Associate Professor of the History of Religion in America, Duke University. Reprinted by permission of the publisher from Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture, by Grant Wacker, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 2001 by Grant Wacker.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Christian History Corner's Elesha Coffman reviewedHeaven Below last week.

Christian History's issue 58 tells the story of Pentecostalism's beginnings and early years, and includes an article by Wacker on the reception pentecostalism received from evangelicals. The issue can be ordered here.

Peter Steinfels wrote about Wacker's book in The New York Times while Alan Wolfe reviewed it for The New Republic.

See Harvard University Press' Web page for Heaven Below:Early Pentacostals and American Culture.

Heaven Below can be ordered from Amazon.com and other book retailers.

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September (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45