Rebuilding the Primitive Church: Restorationism, the Latter Rain, and the Legacy of Violet Kiteley

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Restorationism is the idea that Christians should attempt to reconstitute the primitive church. This is also sometimes called “primitivism.” John Wesley himself expressed a form of this view. The Restorationism embraced by Latter Rain adherents is a by-product of restorational views inherited by first-generation Pentecostals—specifically, the primitivism from earlier forms within Protestantism. Gary D. Nation argues that, among Anabaptists, for example, Restorationism was expressed as early as the sixteenth century in their contending for “restitution of the true church.” He notes that subsequent offshoots emerged; he names “three distinct restorationist movements [that] arose: the Plymouth Brethren, the Catholic Apostolic Church in Great Britain, and the Disciples of Christ in America” (“The Restoration Movement,” Christianity Today, May 18, 1992, 31).

Daniel Reid adds that “the theme of primitivism can be found in America’s national history and is reflected in Thomas Paine’s suggestion that ‘we have it in our power to begin the world over again’” (Dictionary of Christianity in America, s.v. “primitivism”). He notes that, given that this view was part of America’s national history, it therefore became “a vital force in American religion” and had a profound effect on various Protestant sects, with the “meaning and implications” varying among disparate traditions. For the Puritans of New England, “the ideal was to establish the ‘original,’ ‘primitive’ or ‘ancient’ order and doctrine in their congregational life and worship.” Its eschatological expectation was “primitivist in its hope for the restoration of primordial purity and simplicity.” American Methodism emphasized “Wesley’s idea of restoring apostolic Christianity.” Among Baptists, “the primitivist impulse” was evident in their reliance on “Scripture for the model of New Testament faith and order.”

Reid holds that Restorationism’s most salient forms are found in the Churches of Christ and Pentecostalism. The former yearned for a restored “unity based not on creeds but on essential truths of Christianity as expressed in the New Testament,” while Pentecostals embraced a return to “apostolic power and order, and the full gospel of salvation, healing, Spirit baptism and Christ’s imminent return.” This has been called the fivefold gospel or the full gospel. It is closely tied to the “Fourfold Gospel” of A. B. Simpson’s Christian and Missionary Alliance, but it adds Holy Spirit baptism to the Alliance’s four doctrinal assertions. Reid adds:

Early Pentecostals believed they had direct access to the true meaning of God’s Word—the blueprint for the church today. Their experience of the outpouring of God’s Spirit, accompanied by miraculous gifts, gave them ample reason to believe that the apostolic faith had leaped nearly nineteen centuries of church history and reinstated itself in their midst.

Nation speaks to “the burden of restorationism,” the idea “that Christ will return for a pure and unblemished bride, not one that is stained, shamed, and divided” (“Restoration Movement,” 31). The challenge when considering the notion of restoration involves the way in which the church reaches such an unblemished state. Is this a matter of works or of grace through faith? Is the onus of restoration on the work of the Spirit or the efforts of the saints? Or are both involved?

Violet Kiteley and Latter Rain Restorationism

You may never have heard of Violet Kiteley, but if you are interested in Pentecostalism, you should have. She was a principal character in the Latter Rain’s story, present for its birthing in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, and involved with the key figures named in the scholars’ respective accounts. Kiteley was active in ministry and described the postwar malaise in 1947, which she termed a “real spiritual dearth.” This “dearth” was linked to her sense that the vibrant expression present within earlier Pentecostalism had been dulled. Yet Kiteley believed that even the Pentecostal tradition had not adequately addressed the church’s restorational needs.

Kiteley relied heavily on the scriptural implications she attached to her times. She saw Ezekiel 37 (the “valley of dry bones”) in relation to prophesying and the laying on of hands. She also saw the question, “Can these bones live?” as relevant to the 1948 revival. She asserted that it was “the question of the ages” that was “now to be answered” (“Price of Unity Seminar,” Violet Kiteley Papers, 1).

Kiteley’s next question—“Can the church know full restoration, being one as John 17:21 pictures it?”—echoed the plea for unity from former restorationist movements. Kiteley connected this need to the High Priestly prayer in John 17. Yet she made a significant theological turn, seeing prophecy as the key to restoration. Prophetic utterances became paramount to the Latter Rain ethos of unity. The reasoning appears to be that Ezekiel prophesied to bones that were “fragmented, separated one from another,” or disunified. Therefore, for both Israel and the church, “using the key” of prophetic utterance was essential (“Price of Unity Seminar,” 1). After all, Paul had called it the most important gift. For Latter Rain Restorationism, it was indeed regnant and preeminent, and the process of restoration required its exercise.

For Kiteley, the exercise of prophecy was expected to produce what it did in Ezekiel’s case: a “noise,” “shaking,” and “placement.” She detailed the process of three stages along with Scripture references. First, there is noise meant to awaken those who were spiritually dead.  (Ezek. 37:12; Matt. 25:5-6; Isa. 51:9, 52:1; John 11:11; Rom. 13:11; and Eph. 5:14). Next, there is a shaking, by which God removes the debris we have accumulated in the church and leaves what is eternal (2 Thess. 2:2; Heb. 12:27). Third, there is placement, a reference to the bones coming together in Ezek. 37:7.

Kiteley notes a “further process of Restoration” involving the sinews, the flesh (“covering”), and skin (“to hold the complete vision”). As Kiteley explained,

[T]his experience takes on its beginning with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, infilling of God in personality in order that mankind, through this force, might be moved by God. God lives in us, speaks through us from the impulses of the soul. God has His dwelling place in us.

To progress to be His great army, it requires a surrendered heart, a surrendered mind, a surrendered life. For it is God’s intention to Jesus Christ that we should be a revelation of Jesus. God moving through us, using our hands, our feet, a mind in harmony with God, a soul in touch with Him, a spirit united in Jesus Christ.

Therefore, God is in the process of restoring all things to His church, as it was in the first church. Acts 3:21 states that Jesus is held in the heavens until the restitution (restoration) of all things. Jesus is held in the heavens for an example—Habakkuk 2:14— is fulfilled. It says, “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” 

This will come to pass when the restored Joel’s Army (the Bride of Christ) walks the earth in the fullness of His glory (“Price of Unity Seminar,” 2). 

From a Latter Rain perspective, the restoration process in all its conceivable aspects relies heavily on prophetic function and expression.

Latter Rain Restorational Context

Kiteley and other Latter Rain participants expressed the church’s restorational needs (including the restoration of its primitive roots) much as Classical Pentecostals had done. Latter Rain Restorationism was not purely based on perceived historical realities but also on interpretations of Scripture that were believed to (1) confirm the urgency of restoration, and (2) confirm that at least an aspect of the restoration timeline would reach its maturation in their era.

Regarding the interpretation of Scripture, Joel 2:23 was perhaps the overarching restorational text. Kiteley often repeated the KJV rendering of the verse: “Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.” Foundationally, Kiteley believed that Joel 2:23 spoke not only of the Day of Pentecost and the Azusa outpouring but also the 1948 revival at the Pentecostal Sharon Orphanage and Schools in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, that gave rise to the Latter Rain movement. Her handwritten insertions to her typewritten notes indicate her sense that the 1906 outpouring was reminiscent of Joel’s promised “former rain,” while what ultimately unfolded at North Battleford was evocative of the “latter rain.” One handwritten insertion to her printed notes states, “But there was still a great need for the restoration of the New Test[ament] pattern of the gifts [and] ministries of the Holy Spirit operating in the churches.”

The 1948 event in North Battleford, which involved manifold signs and wonders, carried a measure of significance for Kiteley that she believed had not been recognized in prior Pentecostal generations, due to at least two factors. 

The first factor related to an operative understanding of apostolic and prophetic function. One of Kiteley’s documents contains a circle with spokes. The notation “1948” at the circle’s center indicates the beginning of functions that were being restored “after the due order.” One spoke denotes “5 Ascension Ministries.” Kiteley also argued that God was restoring the offices of apostle and prophet in the church. She indicated that within the Azusa Street outpouring, there was some hesitancy to use the title “apostle,” while they had no such reservations about the title of “prophet.” She viewed apostle as a term that, since 1948, needed to be used and not neglected. Under apostolic and prophetic governance, Kiteley expected a restored “growing from faith to faith and glory to glory” (“Prophetic Promise to Restore,” 17).

The second factor involved the need for a clearly articulated theological understanding of what God was doing prophetically, and the relation of this work to the missional empowering and global consciousness implied by the restorational paradigm.

Kiteley’s restorationist viewpoint perhaps compartmentalized the evidence of prophetic function that was apparent prior to the North Battleford outpouring. Aimee Semple McPherson and someone Kiteley called “the Trans-Jordanian prophet” had in fact prophesied over her, and Kiteley affirmed that Smith Wigglesworth and Charles Price had prophesied prior to 1948. Edward Irving (1792–1834) preached restorationist ideas that had been preached in the early nineteenth century, and references to restored offices and charismatic gifts likewise had been reported.

Kiteley’s distinction of the 1948 outpouring from prior movements is evident in her speech overall. When she addressed Bible college students in Oakland, California, years later, Kiteley referred to the Latter Rain Movement as “this present visitation of God” (which she saw as continuing). She then emphasized her conviction that the visitation “made a present reality of the ancient truth.” One such truth was “the laying on of the hands with prophetic utterance.” For Kiteley, this “restored truth” was essential, as it had been absent from local church praxis during previous revivals.

The emphasis on restoration became foundational to the prophetic emphasis of the New Order of the Latter Rain. According to Kiteley, God is “a God of restoration” (“Prophetic Promise to Restore,” 14). For her, the notion of restoration was eschatological and rooted in a progressive return to that which the early church had embraced. Kiteley believed that the church’s once pristine and vital condition had been violated during the Middle Ages, a period in which she believed church leaders were bereft of the Spirit and governed by self-interest. Therefore, Kiteley avowed the need for restoration to be accomplished by the “faithfulness” of God.

Kiteley asserted that “all former revivals dealt chiefly with the relation of the individual to God, such as being saved, baptized, living a holy life, [being] healed and being filled with the Holy Spirit” (“Laying on of Hands—1948—Northern Canada,” Revival Doctrine syllabus, 1). It can only be conjectured that when Kiteley refers to “all former revivals,” she indicates both the Holiness and Pentecostal movements and whatever revivals had taken place within them, given that these reference points were tied to her upbringing. For Kiteley, the 1948 revival’s overarching distinction was that “the revival leaned towards” a specific, desired objective grounded in an eschatological hope of Christ’s return, which would result from “the unifying of the many members, making in Christ ONE BODY, which together will do exploits and overcome the last enemy, which is death” (“Laying on of Hands,” 1).

The Latter Rain perspectives just described remain in the fabric of contemporary Pentecostalism. Latter Rain claims for restoration have been held by succeeding movements, with many books by prominent leaders in divergent Pentecostal tribes attesting to them. Because these views have bearing on approaches to theology and praxis among these tribes, they carry broad influence throughout current-day Pentecostalism. And because they help to shape the ethos of a wide range of Christian communities, they are worthy of continued study.

If you would like to see a more detailed version of this essay, complete with footnotes, please email Misty Hood at mistyhood@markchironna.com

Mark Chironna is the Presiding Bishop of Engage, a network of bishops and pastors, and the founding pastor and Overseer of Church On The Living Edge in Longwood, Florida.