Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Epley
Carry on this is indeed interesting.
I had heard McAllister was not Oneness?
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It's great to see you, Bro. Epley! I always really enjoyed our discussions on the old FCF in years past, usually about various saints and scoundrels in Pentecostal history.
On to Robert McAlister...
Well, despite his infamous "shot...destined to be heard around the world" (as Frank Ewart called it) at Arroyo Seco in 1913, and his key role in early Oneness history, McAlister certainly did serve the majority of his later ministry back in the Trinitarian camp.
As to whether he was ever genuinely in the Oneness fold, I'm convinced he was. McAlister continued preaching on Jesus Name baptism after Arroyo Seco and, when the further message of the "fulness of God in Christ" swept through the Pentecostal movement in 1915, I believe it's clear he accepted that as well.
McAlister himself was re-baptized in Jesus' name in December 1915 by G.T. Haywood, who was conducting meetings in McAlister's church in Ottawa.
Brother McAlister and Harvey [McAlister] and their wives were among those baptized. He had wonderfully prepared the people for the message and when the pool was ready he and his wife were the first to enter into the water, and the Lord did wonderfully bless us [Haywood, "Elder R.E. McAlister and Evangelist Harvey McAlister Re-baptized," Living Word].
That same month -- more than two and a half years after preaching on baptism at Arroyo Seco -- McAlister wrote to Ewart of his new understanding of the Godhead:
I have had a revelation to my soul of the one God in threefold manifestation. How my heart melted in His presence! I could only weep and cry [Ewart, "From Brother McAlister," Meat In Due Season].
By 1918, however, it's evident that things were changing with McAlister. When the loosely-organized Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada took steps that year toward a formal, legal structure, with plans to align with the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World in the U.S., McAlister did not attend the planning conference, held in Ottawa.
McAlister's "absence it was said was based on disapproval in desiring the General Council [Assemblies of God]," rather than the PAW, as the group's American counterpart [drawn from Frank Small, "Historical and Valedictory Account of the Origin of Water Baptism in Jesus' Name Only, and the Doctrine of the Fulness of God in Christ, in Pentecostal Circles in Canada,"
Living Waters, April 1941, p 1].
Nevertheless, when the PAOC was officially chartered in 1919, McAlister did join, acting as one of seven signatories, and served as secretary of the new organization. But, he soon began taking controversial steps which steered the organization toward affiliation with the Trinitarian AG rather than with the Oneness PAW -- contrary to the PAOC's original intentions and agreement [Small, pp 1, 2].
Eventually, a vote to affiliate with the AG succeeded, by a narrow margin. The arrangement with the AG was in effect from 1920 to 1925, and the PAOC remained Trinitarian thereafter.
McAlister was a highly influential editor, pastor and denominational leader, and years after his death, he was lauded in the PAOC's national magazine as "The Architect of Canadian Pentecostalism" [Thomas W. Miller, in an article by that title,
The Pentecostal Testimony, July 1989, pp 9-11].
Others, like John Paterson, considered him a traitor.
Paterson, Oneness pioneer and author (
God in Christ Jesus and
The Real Truth About Baptism in Jesus' Name), who held credentials with several organizations (including PCI, UPC and ACOP) over his many decades of ministry, had vast and intimate knowledge of the Canadian movement's early history.
Paterson had close friendships and fellowship with Trinitarians all his life, and held to the "friends of the bridegroom" doctrine. But, for Oneness believers who compromised or abandoned their belief, he spared few words. When I interviewed him in 1993, Paterson without hesitation branded McAlister as "the Judas of the Oneness movement."
Ralph V. Reynolds, who ministered in Ontario with the PAOC, and briefly with the ACOP, before becoming a prominent missionary, pastor, teacher and author with the UPC, took a more charitable approach. I don't have it before me, but as I recall from his history of the Canadian Oneness movement, Reynolds, in one of several personal tributes to Pentecostal pioneers, clearly held McAlister in high regard.
It would be difficult, if not impossible, to determine to what degree McAlister's actions during the early years of the PAOC, leading to its adoption of Trinitarianism, were a reflection, on one hand, of his apparently shifting doctrinal views at the time; and, on the other, possibly a desire to align with the AG on other grounds.
Then, as now, organizational politics and religion can form a volatile and strange brew.
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