Fire From Heaven

A New York Times Notable Book—the history of Pentecostal spirituality and worship from its origins in America to its spread throughout the world.

“A breathtaking story.” —Daniel Mark Epstein, award-winning author of Sister Aimee

It was born at the turn of the twentieth century in a rundown warehouse on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. For days the religious-revival service there went on and on—and within a week the Los Angeles Times was reporting on a “weird babble” coming from the building. Believers were “speaking in tongues,” the way they did at the first Pentecost recorded in the Bible—and a Pentecostal movement was created that would, by the start of the twenty-first century, attract over 400 million followers worldwide.

Harvey Cox has traveled the globe to visit and worship with Pentecostal congregations on four continents, and he has written a dynamic, provocative history of this explosion of spirituality—a movement that represents no less than a tidal change in what religion is and what it means to people.