Trinity, Tongues and the Fourfold Gospel: Assemblies of God Doctrine

The Statement of Fundamental Truths that the Assemblies of God adopted in 1916 exists because the fellowship nearly split apart over the nature of God before it was two years old. A faction known as Oneness Pentecostals, or adherents of the New Issue, argued that Father, Son and Holy Spirit name one divine person differently manifest rather than three distinct persons in one Godhead, and baptized converts in the name of Jesus alone rather than using the traditional Trinitarian formula. When the 1916 General Council affirmed the historic doctrine of the Trinity in its new statement, Oneness ministers withdrew rather than sign it, going on to found their own Pentecostal bodies. The Assemblies of God has been explicitly, confessionally Trinitarian ever since.

Alongside the Trinity, the Statement affirms Pentecostalism's own distinguishing doctrine: that baptism in the Holy Spirit, evidenced by speaking in other tongues, is a definite experience available to every believer, distinct from and following conversion. This experiential emphasis shaped the movement's approach to ministry from the outset, including its approach to women. The General Council briefly restricted women to the credential of evangelist in 1933, but reversed course in 1935, formally granting women ordination as elders and pastors and authorizing ordained women to administer baptism and the Lord's Supper when necessary, a decision that made the Assemblies of God notably early among conservative American denominations in ordaining women at all.