2006_01

Tent revival in Fargo, ND
September 1924.
Hanson described the crowded tent on
the reverse of this postcard.
Arm Mission’ that breaks the Living Bread for the Hungry,
tells the Saving Word to the unsaved, nurses the sick both in
body and soul, clads the naked, gives the homeless shelter
and the hungry bread, the unemployed work.” 24
Published writings offer a glimpse into Hanson’s
emerging Pentecostal theology. In a February 1905 letter,
Hanson discussed the relationship between salvation and
Spirit baptism: “With the New Birth one has the opportunity
to see the Kingdom of God, but with the Spirit Baptism one
comes into the Kingdom, into the Ark, into the Father’s
House.” 25 He further claimed that with Spirit baptism,
“The sin of mankind is annihilated and Christ is glorified in
us.” 26 Describing those Christians without Spirit baptism,
Hanson wrote, “Without the power of the Holy Spirit
the work became defective,” and “their missions are not
perfect for God.” 27 Addressing the supposed novelty of his
doctrines, he explained, “the question about spirit baptism
has been buried in God’s Word together with the teaching
of baptism and the laying on of hands and recovery for the
body, etc.” These teachings, he claimed, were obscured by
church leaders who kept the masses in the dark. 28
Hanson’s bedrock belief in divine healing apparently
excluded reliance upon modern medicine. When his
daughter, Anna, contracted typhoid fever at age eight and
again became ill at age eleven (approximately 1905 and
1908), Hanson refused medical treatment. In 1913, Anna
testified, “Our neighbors were angry because we would not
send for a doctor. They said it was cruel and inhuman to
let me sit there suffering and not to do anything to help me,
but we trusted in the Great Physician and we did not trust in
vain.” 29 Interestingly, at the same time as he was promoting
Spirit baptism and healing, Hanson named a son, Clarence
Philip Melanchthon Hanson (born December 1, 1904), after
an early sixteenth century German Protestant reformer and
systematic theologian. 30
As a Free Mission evangelist, Hanson itinerated in
Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, and Iowa, preaching
his brand of radical evangelicalism, making converts, and
seeking funds and workers for his new mission. In late
February and early March 1905, Hanson held meetings in
the Gotland neighborhood near Fergus Falls, Minnesota.
Seizing upon local gossip, a reporter wrote, “Several young
people have been attending these meetings and it is reported
that they work themselves into a perfect frenzy, rolling on
the floor, endeavoring to climb up the walls, tossing chairs
about and talking oddly in what is supposed to be ancient
or peculiar languages, imagining that they have the gift of
tongues.” 31
Ostensibly sympathizing with one emotive 18-yearold
participant (whom the reporter freely named), the
article continued, “One of the meetings came to a climax
Thursday evening when a young girl named Miss Olga
Nelson appeared to lose her reason entirely, and became so
violent that the family was finally compelled to take her to
the county jail. She quieted down to some extent there, but
SPRING-SUMMER 2006 AG HERITAGE 11