Cecil Robeck Azusa Street Revival Summary

Cecil Robeck’s The Azusa Street Mission and Revival offers the response of on African American church to the social and religious segregation we learned from last weeks reading of Methodists and the Crucible of Race. As a licensed Nazarene pastor, I enjoyed that we were also given a reading that revealed the Holiness movement’s response to the dark times of segregation in our country. In The Azusa Street Mission and Revival Cecil Robeck’s explains that the worship practices of the black church tradition sparked a revival in the midst of a nation in social and religious turmoil. In order to illustrate Robeck’s argument we must first dissect the cultural setting of American prior to the revival, explain the black church aspects that sparked the revival, and finally review Robeck’s thoughts on what ended the revival.
Robeck explains that the Azusa Street Revival had strong ties to American slavery and the bondage of blacks in our country. The most evident link to slavery laid in the heritage of William Seymour, the pastor of the revival, who was the son of two slaves. Because of this William Seymour understood firsthand …show more content…
“Los Angeles’s largest racial minority was its Africasn American community, compromising fifty-four hundred people—many of the well-educated, professional, middle-class home owners. African Americans were generally integrated into the life of the city.” This influx of African Americans and immigrants revealed a culture that stood in stark contrast to the Southern United States. Just like the Great Revivals in Early America, the Azusa Street Revival welcomed people from all different cultures. Robeck attributes Seymore, “committed to a policy of non-secularism, the equality of the races, and the equality of women and men.” This not only welcomed people into the church, but also to join the movement of God during the