Recommended Reading

For a general introduction to Pentecostalism giving a worldwide and historical perspective, two volumes by Allan Heaton Anderson, To the Ends of the Earth (2013), and An Introduction to Pentecostalism (second edition, 2014) are highly recommended.

The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (revised edition, 2002) is a treasure trove of information on all aspects of Pentecostalism.

Grant Wacker’s Heaven Below (2001) is learned and entertaining, a thematic rather than chronological account of early American Pentecostalism, good for understanding something of the milieu of Ern Baxter’s Pentecostal background.

David Edwin Harrell’s All Things are Possible (1975) remains the classic account of the Post War Healing Revival in America, including detail on William Branham, a leading and controversial figure with whom Ern Baxter was closely associated for several years.

Andrew Walker’s Restoring the Kingdom (fourth edition, 1998) tells the story of the British Restoration churches.

Jonathan Wallis’s biography of his father, Arthur Wallis: Radical Christian (1991) is a fine account of one of the key and founding leaders of the British Restoration movement.

David Moore’s The Shepherding Movement (2003) provides details of the Fort Lauderdale Five and the shepherding controversy, primarily from an American perspective.

Ern Baxter wrote a number of brief books, but was more famed as a preacher than an author. Those that I have or am aware of are:

  1. The Beginnings of Christian Life (1974). 71 pages of Bible studies on Repentance, Faith, Baptisms (plural), Laying on of Hands, Resurrection and Eternal Judgment.

  2. The Beginnings of Church Life (1974). 98 pages of Bible studies on the Church.

  3. I Almost Died! (1983). About 100 pages on how Baxter had existed on a poor diet with inadequate exercise until arrested in his tracks by a health scare.

  4. The Chief Shepherd and His Sheep (1987). I don’t have a copy of this, but have included a lengthy and interesting excerpt in the New Wine and other articles section of this site.

  5. God’s Agenda for the Church (1995). Put together and published after his death by his long term administrator Ritch Carlton, this like the next title is a write up of one of Ern Baxter’s preached series of messages. With both of these 1995 publications there is significant overlap with the material that Baxter preached at the mid 1970s Bible Weeks.

  6. The King, the Kingdom and the Holy Spirit (1995).