I've been reading Douglas J.Nelson's "There is More" this past week (Thank you God for my Kindle). Church historian Richard Riss calls it the best biography of William Seymour, the leader of the Azusa Street Mission, that has ever been written. So far I agree.
One thing I am especially thankful for is that Nelson surveyed a multitude of material that has been written about William Seymour and carefully critiques the historical accuracy of each. Some of the errors that he highlights I had learned through my own research (reading the very sources he cites) and then passed along the misinformation. For example, it has been written in dozens of books that Seymour had a glass eye. I have written that on this blog. It seems that he was legally blind in one eye but the severity of his ocular condition grew as the years passed. I was thankful to see that I had noticed some of the same misinformation and contradictions among the sources as Nelson had.
Nelson posits Seymour as one of the most undervalued leaders in church history. He cites a racial and religious bias for that due to Seymour's color and pentecostalism.
According to my device I am 40% of the way through the book. It is duly educational and devotional for me. Something inside me comes alive at the hope of God again manifesting His presence in such a way that people are unified in the midst of it. May it happen here. Soon.
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