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Book Reviews / Pneuma 34 (2012) 95-159
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Matthew W. Tallman, Demos Shakarian: The Life, Legacy, and Vision of a Full Gospel Business Man (Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2010). 339 pp., $42.00 paper.
One of the exciting developments in recent holiness and pentecostal scholarship has been the productive efforts that serve to fill holes in our specific understanding of the past. No gap has loomed larger than the one connecting the explosive growth of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International (FGBMFI) with the healing evangelists of the post- war revivals and the charismatic renewal. Clearly charted in David Harrell’s seminal work on the healing evangelists (All Things Are Possible, Indiana University, 1975), this connec- tion receives full treatment in Matthew Tallman’s recently published biography of Demos Shakarian, the dynamic California businessman who founded the organization in the early 1950s.
Informed largely by the oral traditions preserved in Shakarian’s autobiography, Tallman traces the Shakarian family from their roots in Armenia to their establishment of a success- ful dairy enterprise near Los Angeles. He argues that the family’s pneumatic beliefs began via a Russian Molokan-led revival in Armenia and were rooted most fundamentally in the prophetic career of Efim Klubnikin. Due to Klubnikin’s prophetic warnings, the family migrated not just to America, but specifically to southern California in the summer of 1905. The timing and location, of course, allowed for their early association with the Azusa Street Revival and a kinship with the developing movement through their association with the Armenian Spiritual Church. In the wake of the Azusa-led revival, the church changed its name to the First Armenian Pentecostal Church and the Shakarians had clearly found their American religious niche. Even so, Tallman argues, there were Armenian influences that made their brand of pentecostalism unique — especially in their propensity to embrace ecumenism and to rely on lay-led worship. Tallman sees both these traditions as critical in understanding Shakarian’s later ability to embrace the healing revivals and the charismatic renewal as well as his larger vision for the FGBMFI.
The timing of the move to California was propitious for another reason. Arriving on the eve of tremendous growth, the family — led by Demos Shakarian’s father Isaac — pioneered the Reliance Dairy enterprise, by the early 1970s the state’s largest and most successful dairy retailer. Equally important was the family’s investment in local real estate. The building of a Shakarian fortune would be critical in fashioning the connections that Demos Shakarian would foster and giving the FGBMFI founder the time and opportunity to pursue his volun- teer religious work.
Shakarian’s phenomenal lay outreach began with his decision to sponsor evangelistic crusades in the early 1940s. This ultimately forged key relationships with a number of promi- nent evangelists from Charles Price and William Branham to Tommy Hicks. Most important was the relationship Shakarian forged with Oral Roberts. Roberts’s mentorship and success- ful crusades would create the initial connections for FGBMFI success. Using Roberts’s enor- mous contact base to spread the word, Shakarian organized the FGBMFI late in 1951 with hopes that a men’s Christian lay organization could provide not only fellowship but also critical support for the spread of the full gospel message. After disappointing results during the first year, Shakarian teetered on the verge of disbanding his infant organization when, according to his testimony, a dramatic vision on the evening before he was to make this
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/157007412X621806
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Book Reviews / Pneuma 34 (2012) 95-159
announcement changed his mind. His experience, confirmed by the parallel experiences of several others in the organization as well as his wife Rose, convinced Shakarian that he was to press on with the work. With a renewed sense of purpose, he poured his heart and soul into the ministry and, over the next twenty years, the FGBMFI grew at a phenomenal rate. Significantly, the organization both profited from and encouraged the spread of the char- ismatic renewal—begun also in southern California. When Dennis Bennett’s pentecostal experience within mainstream Episcopalianism began to ruffle feathers and attract atten- tion in 1960, he found strong support in the FGBMFI. In the pages of Voice, the organization’s mouthpiece begun in 1953, charismatic news and activity would be broadcast across the nation and literally around the world. With the emergence of the Catholic charismatic renewal in the winter of 1967, the connection was even more obvious. A junior high school janitor, Ray Bullard, provided theological context for the student-led charismatic move- ment on Catholic college campuses. Bullard felt comfortable providing this theological sup- port because of his leadership in a local chapter of the FGBMFI.
By the early 1980s, the FGBMFI had achieved remarkable success around the globe. Encompassing almost 3000 chapters and 700,000 members, it strategically provided “a bridge between traditional Pentecostalism and modern Charismatic and neo-Charismatic groups and movements throughout the world” (182). Tallman theorizes that the organization then stagnated for a time due to two reasons. The movement had rejected efforts to include women as full members, even as it had encouraged the earlier formation of Women’s Aglow, a separate organization begun in 1967. More importantly, FGBMFI success had attracted political connections in the 1960s and, by the late 70s, the movement increasingly became labeled as a religious organization used by conservative politicians. Tallman argues persua- sively, however, that the political connections, while important in the organization’s loss of momentum, were not a part of Shakarian’s overall plan. The California business magnate worked hard to remain politically neutral — even to the point of criticism when, in foreign mission and relief efforts, he refused to criticize openly the stance of hard-line dictators like Haiti’s Francois Duvalier. Nonetheless, a series of controversies and Shakarian’s declining health continued to stunt the association’s momentum during the 1980s. However, FGBMFI endured and, even before Shakarian’s death in 1993, the organization passed into the able hands of the patriarch’s son Richard Shakarian. In recent years, FGBMFI has claimed as many as 6000 chapters spread among 160 countries worldwide.
Tallman’s biography is a major contribution to the field of pentecostal-charismatic schol- arship. The transition from dissertation to full-fledged biography could have benefited from some additional polishing in style. Nonetheless, it is an important book that adds considerably to our understanding of the growth of worldwide pentecostalism over the past century.
Reviewed by James R. Goff, Jr.
Professor of History
Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina [email protected]
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