• Trinitarian in identity, Oneness in doctrine: Although Wellspring Church strongly identifies as Trinitarian, its core doctrines and requirements align closely with Apostolic/Oneness Pentecostal theology.

• From Oneness to Bethesda: Oneness Pentecostalism emerged following the Azusa Street Revival, developing doctrines that became foundational at Bethesda Missionary Temple in Detroit. 

• From Bethesda to Wellspring:  Norman James inherited that theological framework from Bethesda and used his claimed apostolic authority to establish and enforce it at Wellspring.​

 

1.  Trinitarian in identity, Oneness in doctrine

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​​​​​​Although Wellspring Church strongly identifies as Trinitarian, its core doctrines, teaching and practices consistently align with Oneness Pentecostal theology and churches. For this reason, theologians describe groups like Wellspring Church as functionally Oneness. Wellspring Church uses Trinitarian language but operates within a Oneness theological framework.​​​​​​​​​​​​

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For outsiders considering Wellspring Church - this is not just another local church in the community with various non-essential doctrinal differences. Wellspring Church's foundational teachings are considered heretical by Trinitarian Christian theologians and churches. Many Christian apologists refer to Oneness groups as a theological cult, especially in situations like Wellspring Church, where the church claims to possess the only “true” formula to be born again and only access to the kingdom of God. Others avoid the label “cult” and instead describe such groups as theologically heterodox. 

 

For insiders who have grown up in Wellspring Church - it’s our gentle suggestion that Wellspring’s doctrine shares meaningful similarities with doctrinal positions developed by others. In a church like Wellspring, it’s easy to feel as though you’ve grown up at the very apex of spiritual history - and perhaps that’s how it was presented to you. But you deserve to understand where these ideas came from, and the people and movements that shaped them. ​​​​

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2.  History of Oneness Pentecostalism​

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Oneness Pentecostalism, also called Apostolic Pentecostalism, emerged out of the early Pentecostal revivals that followed the Azusa Street Revival of 1906–1909 in Los Angeles. While the revival itself affirmed a traditional Trinitarian understanding of God, it also created an atmosphere of experimentation, new revelation, and theological exploration. In this environment, some ministers began to question older doctrinal categories and reexamine passages about baptism and the name of Jesus. This ferment set the stage for a major doctrinal shift within Pentecostalism in the years that followed.

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The spark that ignited the Oneness movement came in 1913, when Canadian minister R. E. McAlister preached at the Arroyo Seco Camp Meeting in California and suggested that the apostles baptized converts “in the name of Jesus” rather than using the Trinitarian formula. His remarks were not immediately intended to challenge the doctrine of the Trinity, but others seized upon his comments as a revelation.

John G. Schaepe, a young minister attending the camp, reportedly ran through the camp the following morning announcing that he had received a personal revelation concerning the name of Jesus. In the debate that followed, the claim emerged that “Jesus” or “the Lord Jesus Christ” was the singular name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, so that baptism in Jesus’ name constituted the true fulfillment of Matthew 28:19. This belief became foundational to Oneness Pentecostal theology and is often described as a “theology of the Name” or divine-name theology.

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Ministers such as Frank J. Ewart and Glenn Cook developed the idea further, eventually rejecting the traditional Trinity and arguing that “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit” were simply different manifestations of the one Person, Jesus Christ.

 

By 1916, the controversy split the young Pentecostal movement, and those who accepted this new understanding formed separate “Apostolic” or “Jesus Name” churches. These groups would later develop into the Oneness Pentecostal denominations known today, distinguished by Jesus-name baptism and a multi-stage new-birth theology that diverges sharply from historic Trinitarian Christianity.

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During the 1950s and 1960s, Ohio, and Cleveland in particular, was one of the most active regions in the nation for Oneness Pentecostal churches and revival activity. Several major Apostolic and Jesus-Name organizations had strong footholds in the state during these decades, including the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World (PAW), the Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ (PAJC), and numerous independent Apostolic congregations that later merged into the United Pentecostal Church International (UPCI).

 

Cleveland hosted thriving Oneness congregations, frequent evangelistic campaigns, and influential pastors who helped spread Jesus-name baptism, tongues-as-evidence, and multi-stage new-birth teaching throughout the region. Anyone participating in Ohio’s Pentecostal or holiness circles during this period would have been surrounded by Oneness preaching, literature, and revival culture.

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Nearly every distinctive element of Wellspring’s doctrine of being born again and the kingdom of God has significant historical parallels within early Pentecostalism and the developing Oneness movement. These teachings did not originate with Norman James or Wellspring Church. Major elements of the system had appeared decades earlier among early Apostolic and Oneness Pentecostal teachers. Significantly, several of these same doctrines also appear in later catechetical teaching associated with Bethesda Missionary Temple, the church where Norman James received foundational instruction. 

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The core architects of Oneness doctrine were:

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Frank J. Ewart  - developed the full Oneness understanding of God (1914)

Glenn A. Cook - one of the movement’s early promoters, bring G. T. Haywood into the movement (1914–15)

G.T. Haywood - developed and articulated multi-stage teaching on being born again (1915–16)

Andrew D. Urshan - early advocate of Oneness teaching who distinguished salvation from being born again (1919)

 

Early leaders of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World (PAW) formalized the doctrines. By late 1916, the system was fully created, and the split with Trinitarian Pentecostals was complete.

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​Oneness Pentecostal doctrine creates a natural separation from the wider Body of Christ because it rejects the historic doctrine of the Trinity and replaces the traditional gospel with a multi-step system to becoming born again that only its own churches can administer. By teaching that being born again is completed through Jesus-name baptism and speaking in tongues, requirements not recognized by any Trinitarian Christian church, Oneness groups often conclude that most Christians outside their church are not truly born again or part of God's kingdom.

 

This creates a theological boundary that isolates Oneness believers from the larger Christian community, since fellowship with other churches becomes spiritually limited or discouraged. As a result, Oneness doctrine does more than differ on secondary issues - it establishes an entirely separate understanding of God, salvation, and Christian identity, positioning itself apart from the shared faith of the global Christian Church.

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3.  The Oneness Pentecostal Foundations of Wellspring Doctrine

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When Wellspring’s teaching, theological reasoning, and practice are examined together, its foundational doctrines reveal deep continuity with historic Oneness Pentecostal theology.

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3.1:  Water Baptism in Jesus' Name

• Developed: 1913-1914

• Key early proponents: R. E. McAlister; Glenn Cook; Frank J. Ewart

• Key primary sources: Ewart, Names and Titles, Meat in Due Season, and later The Phenomenon of Pentecost​​
   

Although Wellspring Church strongly identifies as Trinitarian, it requires believers who were already baptized as adults in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to undergo re-baptism “in Jesus’ name for the circumcision of heart and the remission of sins.” This closely mirrors the practice of Oneness Pentecostal churches, which routinely re-baptize Trinitarian Christians because they reject Trinitarian baptism as valid. Norman James insisted on his specific formula, making it a central requirement of his system.

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The significance of this is difficult to overstate. Jesus Christ explicitly commanded His disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Wellspring has strongly emphasized that baptism “in Jesus’ name” means baptism under the authority and lordship of Jesus Christ, an interpretation also found within Trinitarian Christianity.

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However, Wellspring goes further by connecting the singular “name” used in Matthew 28:19 to the Lord Jesus Christ and, on that basis, mandating exclusive Jesus-Name baptism as the proper fulfillment of Christ’s command.

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This interpretation was not unique to Norman James. Wellspring inherited through Bethesda Missionary Temple a divine-name theology - the belief that “Jesus” or “Lord Jesus Christ” is the singular divine name corresponding to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - which is central to the Oneness Pentecostal understanding of God and baptism.​​

 

Wellspring therefore self-identifies as Trinitarian while retaining the same underlying divine-name theology that is foundational to the Oneness understanding of God and exclusive Jesus-Name baptism.

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Wellspring further teaches a necessary role for human mediation in water baptism and being born again. This understanding was also inherited from Bethesda Missionary Temple through the teaching of Patricial Beall Gruits.

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​At Wellspring, the person administering baptism must personally affirm divine name theology and speak the required baptismal words for remission of sins and circumcision of heart to occur. Within Wellspring’s system, the baptizer's theological belief and spoken words therefore become necessary conditions for a believer to be born again.

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This teaching stands in direct contradiction to the Protestant understanding of Christ as the sole mediator between God and humanity and the priesthood of all believers, because it conditions being born again on the theological belief and prescribed words of another human being. ​

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The issue is therefore much more than wording. Wellspring promotes a divine-name interpretation rooted in Oneness Pentecostal theology rather than classical Trinitarian theology. It also requires the administator to hold the prescribed theological understanding and speak the required baptismal words. Baptism administered in this manner is made necessary for remission of sins, circumcision of heart, being born again, and entrance into the Kingdom of God.​

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In Scripture, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct Persons who share one divine essence. Jesus Christ is fully God (John 1:1; Colossians 2:9), but His full deity does not make Him the Father or the Holy Spirit. His command in Matthew 28:19 reflects that reality.​​​

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3.2:  "Born of the Holy Spirit"

• Developed: 1913

• Key early proponents: G. T. Haywood; Andrew D. Urshan

• Key primary sources: Haywood, “Baptized Into One Body” (1913), The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles, and “The Gift vs. Gifts of the Spirit”; Urshan, Apostolic Faith Doctrine of the New Birth

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Wellspring Church teaches that the Holy Spirit does not indwell a believer until they receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. This view is a distinctively Oneness Pentecostal doctrine and differs sharply from Trinitarian Pentecostal teaching. According to the Trinitarian Pentecostal denomination The Assemblies of God: “The Spirit already indwells all believers. It is important to stress that the Holy Spirit is not external to a believer not yet baptized in the Spirit. The Spirit works internally in a repentant and believing person to effect the new birth” (see AOG Position Paper on Baptism in the Holy Spirit).

 

The same position paper states that the distinguishing features of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit are:
(1) it is theologically and experientially distinguishable from and subsequent to the new birth,
(2) it is accompanied by speaking in tongues, and
(3) it is distinct in purpose from the Spirit’s work of regenerating the heart and life of a repentant sinner.​​​

 

Trinitarian Christianity teaches that the Holy Spirit is a distinct divine Person who indwells every believer at the moment of genuine faith in Christ (Ephesians 1:13–14). The Spirit’s indwelling is regarded as the believer’s assurance of salvation, not as a later, demonstrable experience, but as the immediate and permanent result of God’s saving grace.​ 

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In Oneness Pentecostal theology, the biblical phrase “born of the Spirit” (John 3:5–8) is interpreted as referring specifically to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which they believe must be evidenced by speaking in tongues. In this system, a believer is not considered to be indwelt by the Spirit - or truly “born of the Spirit” - until they demonstrate tongues.

 

This teaching collapses the historic Christian distinction between being born again (the Spirit’s inward, saving work at the moment of faith) and Spirit-baptism (a later empowering or gifting). Instead, Oneness theology makes tongues the required sign of the Spirit’s indwelling and the decisive moment of being born again. As a result, being “born of the Spirit” becomes a human-recognizable event dependent on a verifiable spiritual manifestation, rather than the immediate, sovereign work of God affirmed across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions.

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3.3:  Spirit "with but not in"​

• Roots: Holiness second-work theology

• Incorporated into Oneness movement: 1914

• Key early proponents: Russell R. Byrum; later Oneness writers

• Key primary sources: Byrum, Holy Spirit Baptism and the Second Cleansing; Holy Ghost Baptism; D. L. Welch, Contending for the Faith

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Wellspring Church teaches that at the moment of faith the Holy Spirit is only “with” a believer but not “in” them until they receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit with tongues. This is a standard Oneness Pentecostal doctrine, widely taught in Apostolic and UPCI circles. In historic Trinitarian Christianity, the Holy Spirit indwells the believer immediately upon union with Christ. To teach otherwise places Wellspring’s doctrine firmly outside the bounds of Trinitarian Christianity. The “with but not in” distinction is a hallmark of Oneness theology and shows that Wellspring Church's system is functionally Oneness despite its claims to be Trinitarian.

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3.4:  Forgiveness vs. Remission of Sin​

• Developed in Oneness Pentecostalism: 1915–1920

• Key early proponent: G. T. Haywood

• Key primary sources: Haywood “Forgiveness And Remission Of Sins”

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Wellspring Church teaches a separation between the “forgiveness” and “remission” of sin, with "forgiveness" received through repentance, and "remission" through water baptism. This distinction closely parallels teaching found in early Oneness Pentecostal theology and differs from the historic Christian understanding of forgiveness and remission as expressions of the same divine pardon. In the New Testament, both “forgiveness” and “remission” translate the same Greek word 'aphesis', which refers to a single act of divine release and pardon granted through Christ. By dividing what Scripture treats as one reality, Wellspring adopts a distinctly Oneness interpretation that stands outside the shared consensus of the global Christian Church.

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3.5:  Two types of tongues​

• Developed in Oneness Pentecostalism: 1915–1920

• Key early proponent: G. T. Haywood

• Key primary sources: Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles, pp. 16–21; “The Gift Vs. Gifts of the Spirit”
   

Oneness Pentecostal groups explain away Paul’s statement “Do all speak in tongues?” (1 Cor. 12:30) by dividing tongues into two categories: a public congregational gift that only some possess, and a required “initial evidence” tongues that all believers must speak to be born again. This distinction is absent from historic Christian teaching, from any plain reading of the biblical text, and from the writings of any New Testament author. Scripture nowhere suggests two different kinds of tongues; rather, it presents tongues as a single spiritual gift distributed according to the Spirit’s sovereign will. Oneness theology uses this two-tiered framework to preserve its claim that every believer must speak in tongues as evidence of being born of the Spirit, despite Paul’s clear teaching that not all speak in tongues.

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3.6:  Salvation Separate from Being Born Again

• Developed in Oneness Pentecostalism: 1919–1921

• Key early proponents: G. T. Haywood; Andrew D. Urshan

• Key primary sources: Urshan, “Introductory Questions on the Doctrine of the New Birth” (The Witness of God, September 1921); “There is a Difference” (1930); G. T. Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles

 

Early Oneness Pentecostal teachers developed an unusual distinction between being spiritually “conceived” or “begotten” and being fully “born again.” Andrew D. Urshan explicitly distinguished being “saved” from being fully born again, while G. T. Haywood likewise used conception-and-birth language to describe stages of being born again. This created an intermediate state in which a person could have a genuine saving relationship with God without yet having been born again according to Oneness theology. Wellspring Church teaches a strikingly similar distinction, describing a person as saved and possessing eternal life while still awaiting the experiences required to become fully born again.​​

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Wellspring Church's foundational doctrine is Oneness​

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​Although Wellspring Church self-identifies as Trinitarian, its foundational, functional doctrines align with Oneness Pentecostal theology. Nearly every meaningful area of its teaching - baptism “in Jesus’ name,” the denial of the Spirit’s indwelling at faith, a multi-stage understanding of being born again, the separation of salvation from being fully born again, the separation of forgiveness and remission, the requirement that all believers speak in tongues, and the “with but not in” framework - matches historical Oneness Pentecostal doctrine and departs from historic Christian belief.

 

These conclusions are reached by isolating individual verses and assembling them into a doctrinal system that is not apparent from the unified witness of Scripture or from the teaching of the New Testament apostles. In each case, authority and assurance are relocated away from Christ Himself and placed in prescribed responses, formulas, or institutional control, rather than in the finished work of Christ and His ongoing mediation.

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4.  Trinitarian Language Obscuring a Oneness Understanding of God

 

Wellspring explicitly professes the personal distinctions of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The question, however, is whether the meaning it assigns to those distinctions corresponds to the historic Trinitarian meaning of three eternal divine Persons.

 

Although Wellspring employs the Trinitarian language of “God in three Persons,” it defines the term person in a way that differs from its historic Trinitarian theological meaning. Rather than consistently describing Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three eternally distinct Persons who share one undivided divine essence, Wellspring’s doctrine describes these distinctions in functional terms centered in Jesus, rather than as eternal personal distinctions within the Godhead.

 

In historic Trinitarian theology, the term person does not refer merely to a role, title, name, voice, or manifestation, but to a real and eternal personal distinction within the one divine Being. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three ways God acts, but three who eternally are. If these distinctions exist only in how God acts or is described, and not in who God eternally is, then the doctrine is no longer Trinitarian in the historic Christian sense.

 

Against this historic definition, a Oneness, or modalistic, understanding of God begins to emerge beneath Wellspring Church's Trinitarian language.

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For example, Norman James frequently used a personal analogy to explain the nature of God: “I sign checks as Norman James, but I have the titles of father and son.” The difficulty with this analogy is that Norman James remains one person: “father” and “son” describe different relationships or titles belonging to that one person; they do not identify distinct persons within him. Applied to God, the analogy therefore describes one divine person bearing different relational titles rather than one divine Being eternally existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

 

Within historic Trinitarian Christianity, God is not three gods, nor one person wearing three different labels; He is one undivided divine essence eternally shared by three co-equal, co-eternal persons who relate to one another in love from all eternity. James’s analogy collapses this relational Triune life into a solitary being with shifting titles - a view the early church repeatedly rejected.​​​​

 

When leaders at Wellspring Church pray using phrases like “Father God,” the language sounds entirely consistent with historic Trinitarian Christianity. Wellspring explicitly speaks of the Father and professes a distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The important question, however, is what Father means within the theological framework Wellspring teaches.

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In historic Trinitarian faith, the Father is not a title, role, or functional expression of God, but an eternal divine Person who exists in relationship with the Son and the Holy Spirit. Wellspring’s doctrine, however, frequently presents Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in functional terms centered in Jesus. Oneness Pentecostal churches also speak freely of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the doctrinal difference lies not in whether those terms are used, but in what they are understood to mean. As a result, language such as “Father God” can sound conventionally Trinitarian while the underlying explanation of divine personhood differs from historic Trinitarian theology.​​

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​Modalism is not new; it is an ancient teaching that surfaced in the early centuries of the church under names like Sabellianism and Monarchianism. Far from embracing it, the early church decisively rejected modalism as a distortion of God’s nature - because it denied the eternal personal distinctions of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and understood those distinctions instead as modes or manifestations of the one God. From the beginning, Christians confessed a Triune God, as reflected in their earliest creeds, their worship, and their consistent practice of baptizing “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

 

The early church recognized that denying the real distinctions within the Godhead undermined the gospel itself. For this reason, modalism was not regarded as a harmless misunderstanding but as a serious departure from the Christian doctrine of God, and it was rejected by the historic church.

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Although Wellspring Church’s doctrinal statement uses Trinitarian language and avoids explicitly describing God as a single Person with multiple titles, its functional theology nevertheless retains a structure that closely parallels classical Oneness Pentecostalism. This is evident in the doctrinal requirements that surround being born again and water baptism: the insistence on baptism “in the name of Jesus Christ” for the remission of sins, the teaching that water baptism effects “circumcision of heart,” and the belief that receiving the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues completes the process of becoming born again.

 

These elements, taken together, closely correspond to classical Oneness Pentecostal theology rather than historic Trinitarian Christianity.

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Different Theologies, Different Gospels​​​

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Growing up at Wellspring Church, we never questioned that we were Trinitarian. We were repeatedly taught that Wellspring faithfully upheld the historic doctrine of the Trinity. Yet the Trinity functioned largely as a stand-alone doctrine rather than as the theological foundation of salvation and spiritual regeneration. Being born again was presented as a sequence of prescribed responses rather than as the unified saving work of the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit.

 

Only much later did some of us discover that, throughout the history of the Christian church, the doctrine of God and the doctrine of salvation have been understood as inseparable. The Triune God is not merely the object of Christian confession; He is the God who creates, redeems, regenerates, and saves. In historic Christian theology, the doctrine of the Trinity is not an isolated doctrine about the nature of God. It is the foundation from which the church has understood the whole work of salvation, including spiritual regeneration. A different understanding of God inevitably produces a different understanding of the gospel.

 

Within a Oneness theological framework, the unified work of the Triune God is replaced by a series of distinct responses that correspond to different aspects of God's activity. Repentance is associated with the Father's work of conviction, water baptism in Jesus' name with the Son's work in the remission of sins, and Spirit baptism with the evidence of speaking in tongues with the Holy Spirit's work of empowerment. What historic Trinitarian Christianity understands as the one inseparable work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit thus becomes a sequence of identifiable stages through which the believer must pass. In this framework, being born again is no longer understood as the immediate, unified work of the Triune God received through faith, but as a process completed through successive outward responses.

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In contrast, a Trinitarian understanding of God holds that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-equal, co-eternal Persons who share one divine nature and act inseparably in every work of God. The calling of the Father, the redemption of the Son, and the regenerating power of the Spirit are not three stages but one unified act. At the moment of faith, the believer is embraced by the Father, united to the Son, and indwelt by the Spirit - without delay, separation, or hierarchy. Because God is one Being in three Persons, not one Person acting in three modes, salvation and being born again is one event, not a set of steps. The believer isn’t required to “activate” God’s different roles with human action; they are welcomed into the life of the Triune God all at once by faith.

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5.  The History of Wellspring Church's Oneness Teaching​

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The Oneness Influence on Wellspring Church's Founder

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Norman H. James, the founder and doctrinal architect of Wellspring Church, publicly claimed to be Trinitarian. Yet in his self-authored doctrinal handbook, The Christian Life Series, he taught a theological system that reflects the core structure of Oneness Pentecostalism. Historic Trinitarian Christianity and Oneness Pentecostalism differ at a foundational level, with incompatible understandings of the nature of God, being born again, water baptism, baptism of the Holy Spirit, remission of sin, and the character of God’s kingdom. 

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Norman James was raised in the Cleveland area and founded his first church in Ohio, a region deeply influenced by Oneness Pentecostalism throughout the mid-twentieth century. During those years, Ohio - especially Cleveland - was a hub of Apostolic and Jesus-Name revival activity, drawing traveling evangelists and circulating a wide range of Oneness literature and teaching. Norman James began his spiritual journey in a small Pentecostal congregation in Ohio, the 'Church of the Firstborn'. ​​

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Norman James therefore developed within a religious environment in which Oneness Pentecostal teaching was readily available. But the more direct and documentable theological connection runs through Bethesda Missionary Temple and the Beall family, whose teaching Norman later claimed as part of his own spiritual heritage.

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The Influence of Bethesda Missionary Temple

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Wellspring’s Oneness doctrine cannot be explained simply as teachings independently created by Norman James.

 

Primary materials from Bethesda Missionary Temple show that Patricia Beall Gruits and James Lee Beall already taught a theological framework containing significant Oneness Pentecostal elements, including exclusive Jesus-Name baptism, circumcision of the heart through water baptism, the three-part born-again framework, and the Divine-Name argument identifying Jesus as the singular name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

The historical relationship is therefore more complicated than a simple line from classical Oneness Pentecostalism to Norman James. Wellspring inherited a genuine Latter Rain restorationist tradition through Bethesda, but Bethesda itself had already incorporated substantial theological elements with precedents in the broader Jesus-Name and Oneness Pentecostal world while continuing to use Trinitarian terminology. Norman James therefore did not encounter these ideas only as outside doctrines to be imported later; significant parts of the theological framework he taught at Wellspring were already present in the Bethesda tradition he inherited.

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For his own doctrinal handbook, Norman James drew heavily from Beall-family writings, including Patricia Beall Gruits’ Understanding God (1975 edition; first published 1962) and James Lee Beall and Marjorie Barber’s Laying the Foundation (1976). The extent of this dependence was substantial enough that James was frequently accused of plagiarism by people familiar with his teaching and source material.

 

For a detailed reconstruction of that history, see The Theological Roots of Wellspring Church.​​​​​​

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6.  Why the Oneness Character of Wellspring Church Was Difficult to Recognize

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The Oneness character of Wellspring’s theology can be difficult to recognize because it is expressed through language that sounds conventionally Trinitarian. This pattern did not necessarily originate with Norman James; Bethesda primary materials demonstrate a similar combination of Trinitarian terminology with doctrinal explanations that closely parallel Oneness Pentecostal theology.

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The difficulty is that theological identity depends not only on the terms a church uses, but on what those terms mean within its larger doctrinal system. Wellspring can affirm the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit while teaching doctrines of the Godhead, baptism, and Christian initiation that closely parallel historical Oneness Pentecostal theology.

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For many former members, Wellspring’s consistent identification as Trinitarian made these parallels difficult to recognize. Members had little reason to compare its teachings with historical Oneness theology - or even with the Bethesda tradition from which Norman James emerged.

 

While Norman James retained much of the language of historic Trinitarian Christianity, he constructed a different theological system. His teachings on Jesus-name baptism, the nature of being born again, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the distinction between forgiveness and remission of sins, and the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit align not with the historic Christian doctrine received through Protestantism, but with the theological system that emerged within the Oneness Pentecostal movement during its formative years between 1913 and 1916.​

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Whether this reflected conscious intent, inherited assumptions, or simply the theological influences under which Norman James developed cannot be known with certainty. What can be examined is the finished doctrinal system itself. When compared with both historic Trinitarian Christianity and early Oneness Pentecostal theology, its overall doctrine and theological structure correspond far more closely to the latter.

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One possible consequence of Wellspring's continued use of Trinitarian language was that it reduced the likelihood of immediate theological scrutiny. Had the church openly identified itself as Oneness Pentecostal, those familiar with the historic Trinity-Oneness divide would likely have examined its doctrine more closely.

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Because the church presented itself as Trinitarian, it was not immediately associated with established Oneness groups that many Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians regard as outside the bounds of historic Christian orthodoxy. Whether these effects were intentional cannot be determined with certainty, but they help explain why many members and visitors did not initially recognize the church's theological framework.

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When the early Wellspring community relocated from Ohio to western Pennsylvania, it also became increasingly isolated from other Apostolic and Oneness congregations. Unlike parts of Ohio, where Oneness Pentecostal churches were numerous and visible, western Pennsylvania offered relatively few opportunities for comparison with either established Oneness churches or the broader Pentecostal movement.

 

Within this environment, Wellspring's distinctive theological system developed largely within its own interpretive framework, with little outside engagement or correction. As a result, few members had reason to ask whether Wellspring's doctrines were historically Trinitarian, and the church's repeated claim to be Trinitarian was generally accepted at face value.​​

 

The View from the Inside​

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Looking back, many former members wonder why we did not recognize the Oneness Pentecostal framework woven into Wellspring's teaching. The answer is not that we were careless or naïve. Rather, the theological divergence was difficult to recognize because it was expressed through the familiar language of historic Christianity.

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Throughout church history, theological disputes have rarely turned on vocabulary alone. Different groups have often used the same biblical words while assigning them different meanings. For that reason, historic Christian theology has evaluated doctrine not merely by the terms employed, but by how those terms are defined and how they function within an entire theological system.

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That was certainly true of our experience. We were young, sincere, and eager to follow God. The language we heard sounded familiar - “baptism of the Holy Spirit,” “born again,” “water baptism,” “God's sovereignty”, "the kingdom of God", "God in three Persons" - all language commonly used within Protestant Trinitarian Christianity. None of us had the theological background to recognize the subtle shifts in meaning beneath the surface. Because we trusted those teaching us, we naturally assumed these familiar terms carried the same meanings they did throughout the wider historic Christian church.​

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Many of the early members of Wellspring Church came to faith during the Jesus Movement of the 1970s, a time marked by deep devotion to Jesus Christ, Scripture, and a desire for authentic Christian life. That generation carried a sincere and wholehearted love for Jesus, and Norman James’ teaching resonated because it spoke constantly of Christ, obedience, and devotion.

 

Oneness theology also places strong emphasis on Jesus, but it does so by collapsing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into a single divine Person rather than confessing the eternal Trinity. For many early members, this distinction was not explained or even visible. They believed they were honoring Jesus within the Christian faith, unaware that a non-Trinitarian framework was shaping core doctrines beneath familiar language. In that context, devotion to Christ was genuine, but the theological shift away from the Triune God was subtle, unspoken, and largely hidden.​

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Those of us raised inside Wellspring Church had little or no exposure to Christian teaching outside the Wellspring community. We never heard the term “Oneness Pentecostalism” at any point in our upbringing - not in the church-operated school, not in the required doctrinal classes, not in the ministry training courses. Not once. The historical name for the theology we were being formed in was entirely absent. ​​Only later, as we began our own research, did we uncover the broader movement and doctrinal lineage from which Norman James and Wellspring Church were drawing.

 

The absence of any open acknowledgment of these roots was a significant omission. Whatever individual leaders understood about the historical origins of these doctrines, the congregation was never taught that the theological system had recognizable parallels within the twentieth-century Oneness Pentecostal movement. As a result, members lacked the historical framework needed to evaluate Wellspring's teaching in comparison with the wider Christian tradition.

 

The consistency and precision with which Norman James taught doctrines that correspond to early Oneness Pentecostal theology make it difficult to explain those similarities as mere coincidence. These teachings were not peripheral; they formed the backbone of his teaching on being born again and the Kingdom of God. Yet neither the congregation nor the children raised within the church were ever taught the historical origins of those doctrines.

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7.  ​​Founder-Led Oneness Movements and the Pattern at Wellspring​​

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Outside established Oneness Pentecostal denominations, a number of independent Oneness movements have emerged through the authority claims of individual founders rather than through continuity with historic Christian teaching. In these movements, theology develops in tandem with personal authority. Doctrine is not received through long-standing statements of belief, historic church councils, or the settled teaching of the wider Christian church, but is instead framed as restored or apostolic truth mediated through a particular individual.

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These founder-led Oneness groups are not defined solely by non-Trinitarian theology. Rather, they are marked by a distinctive structure of authority: theological coherence is preserved by loyalty to a founder or successor rather than by reference to beliefs shared across the broader Christian church. In such systems, doctrine functions as an extension of leadership authority, not as a boundary that limits it.

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How Founder-Led Oneness Movements Typically Arise

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Historically, founder-led Oneness movements tend to arise in similar ways. A charismatic leader emerges outside formal denominational accountability and advances a distinctive interpretation of Scripture, often presented as a recovery of original apostolic teaching. Oneness theology, unanchored to historic definitions of God affirmed by the wider church, provides a flexible framework in which theological meaning can be consolidated around a single interpretive voice.

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Over time, the founder’s interpretations become normative. Appeals to historic Trinitarian teaching or to the broader Christian tradition are displaced by internal authority claims, and doctrinal continuity is maintained through succession or institutional preservation of the founder’s system rather than through agreement shared across the church. In such movements, cohesion is maintained not primarily by shared belief, but by the authority of a designated successor or a governing body of elders charged with preserving the founder’s theological system.

 

Representative Founder-Led Oneness Movements

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Several well-documented figures illustrate this pattern.

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Frank J. Ewart was one of the earliest architects of modern Oneness theology following the 1913 Arroyo Seco camp meeting. His promotion of Jesus-name baptism arose from claimed revelatory insight rather than from historic Trinitarian teaching and introduced an exclusive baptismal formula that departed from long-standing Christian practice.​

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William Branham represents a later and more developed form of founder-centered authority. Although widely known for healing ministry, Branham held non-Trinitarian views aligned with Oneness theology and emphasized a distinct “message” associated with his prophetic office. In movements derived from his teaching, doctrine functioned primarily as an extension of the founder’s authority rather than as a shared inheritance received from the wider Christian church.

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In addition to these figures, many Oneness groups have developed outside formal denominational structures, often identifying simply as “Apostolic” or “Jesus Name” churches. Rather than belonging to a unified organization, these churches frequently operate as independent assemblies shaped by the authority of a founding pastor or a small circle of leaders. In such settings, theological boundaries are maintained internally, and continuity is preserved through leadership succession rather than through accountability to a broader Christian body.

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A common example is the loose constellation of Jesus Only Apostolic churches, which are not a single denomination but a network of independent congregations sharing non-Trinitarian theology. These churches typically affirm Jesus-name baptism as the only valid baptism and reject Trinitarian formulations, while authority is concentrated in local leadership rather than derived from historic Christian teaching shared across churches.

 

Other Oneness bodies began as founder-led movements that later developed limited organizational structure. The Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, founded by Robert Clarence Lawson, illustrates this pattern. Although it eventually became more structured, its origins lie in a founder-centered authority model emphasizing Jesus-name baptism and a distinctive understanding of being born again shaped by the founder’s teaching rather than by inherited Trinitarian doctrine.

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Similarly, networks such as the Bible Way Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, founded by Smallwood E. Williams, reflect how Oneness theology and authority can develop together. While Bible Way churches share a name and general theology, many local congregations function with strong centralized leadership, and Jesus-name baptism is treated as essential to being born again.​

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Why These Groups Matter for Comparison

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These founder-led Oneness movements matter for comparison not because they are identical, but because they share a structural pattern. In each case, theology is stabilized by authority rather than by shared belief across the wider church. Doctrinal development proceeds internally, insulated from outside correction, and legitimacy is preserved through loyalty to leadership rather than accountability to the broader Christian tradition.

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Recognizing this pattern helps distinguish between denominational Oneness churches and independent movements whose theology is inseparable from the authority claims of their founders or successors.

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Relation to Wellspring Church and Norman H. James

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Wellspring Church bears important similarities to founder-led Oneness movements operating outside established denominational frameworks. Although Norman H. James claimed continuity with the Latter Rain movement, many of the doctrines that eventually distinguished Wellspring were not defining teachings of the broader Latter Rain movement but arose from the Jesus-Name and Oneness-related theological currents already present within later Bethesda teaching.

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Norman James inherited this mixed theological framework and further developed it into a system of his own. Under his leadership, Wellspring retained Trinitarian self-identification while redefining divine personhood in ways that departed from historic Trinitarian theology. It required Jesus-Name baptism, incorporated other doctrines with strong Oneness Pentecostal parallels, and added distinctive interpretations and requirements of James’ own. Increasingly, doctrinal authority was located not in beliefs shared across the wider Christian church, but in the theological system articulated and enforced by the founder.

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Wellspring therefore does not fit neatly within either conventional Trinitarian Pentecostalism or classical Oneness Pentecostalism. Its theology reflects a Bethesda-derived combination of Latter Rain restorationism and older Jesus-Name and Oneness-related teachings, further formalized and institutionalized under Norman James’ authority and now preserved after his death within the church he founded.

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In this respect, Wellspring continues to display many of the theological and structural characteristics found in independent founder-led Oneness movements, even while formally rejecting the classical Oneness understanding of God as one divine Person.

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8.  A Gentle Word to Current Members​

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If you have made it this far, and are someone still inside Wellspring Church, please know this: you are not being judged, condemned, or looked down upon. Many of us once stood exactly where you are now. We loved God and we genuinely believed we were receiving sound teaching. We were taught that Wellspring had received a restored understanding of Christianity that set it apart from the rest of the church. In that environment, it was natural to believe we were living in a rediscovered expression of true Christian faith.​

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You do not need to agree with everything written here. You also do not need to defend anything out of fear or pressure. You are allowed to take your time, to think, to pray, to read Scripture and to consider. The Triune God is not threatened by questions. He meets you with patience, kindness, and freedom.

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9.  ​​​​​​​​​Summary​​​​​​​

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Norman James claimed that his theology began with the Bible. However, the Bible is never read in isolation; every reading is shaped by prior convictions about who God is and how He exists. For this reason, historic Christianity has recognized that Scripture must be read in light of the God it reveals, with Jesus Christ - the eternal Son - as the interpretive center of revelation. When doctrinal conclusions are assembled from Scripture without being governed by that Christ-centered understanding, theology is not so much drawn from the Bible as organized around a framework that determines how individual passages are interpreted and fitted together.

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One of the most serious problems with Oneness teaching lies precisely in this method of handling Scripture. Christian theology necessarily brings biblical teachings into relation with one another, but it should do so in a way that remains governed by the context of each passage and by the unified witness of Scripture as a whole. Oneness teaching, by contrast, frequently treats individual verses as detachable fragments that can be gathered, rearranged, and harmonized into an assembled doctrinal system. In doing so, context, genre, and the overarching scriptural portrayal of God can become subordinated to the internal logic of the resulting system, allowing Scripture to be quoted extensively while its larger message is displaced.

 

The Oneness Pentecostal doctrine of a three-part gospel of being born again, and all the doctrines that support it, can be described as Christianity without the cross (see Thomas Fudge, Christianity without the Cross). Because being born again is made contingent upon completing prescribed steps rather than resting wholly on the finished work of Christ, the system is not Christ-centered but process-centered, regardless of how frequently Christ is named in its language. In the Wellspring Church (and Oneness) view, believers must work through prescribed steps to be born again, thereby undermining the finished work of Christ on the cross, which the historic Christian faith believes is received by faith.​

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Norman James taught the core Oneness Pentecostal belief that water baptism - administered with the “correct” verbal formula - is required in order to be born again. Yet he went even further than classical Oneness doctrine by rejecting the standard Oneness formula (“in the name of Jesus”) and insisting on a baptismal phrase not found anywhere in Scripture or in any historic Christian tradition. By doing so, he created a system in which being born again was dependent on using a wording unique to him.

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In effect, James made access to God’s kingdom contingent upon undergoing water baptism performed under his spoken word and authority. Such a claim cannot be sustained theologically, for Scripture and the historic Christian faith teach that being born again is the gracious act of God alone - wrought by the Holy Spirit, through faith in Christ - not something mediated through the personal control, verbal inventions, or proprietary practices of any leader or congregation.

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While James made being born again dependent upon his spoken word, Scripture teaches the opposite: that the Word which gives life is not a human utterance but a divine Person. In the gospel of John, new birth comes through the living Logos - Jesus Christ - whose voice calls the dead to life and whose Spirit gives birth from above. Peter tells us that we are born again “not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). The true gospel does not place power in the spoken word of any leader, but in the eternal Word made flesh, crucified and risen. It is Christ - not any leader, not any formula - who is the source of being born again, and Christ alone who is the door into the Kingdom of God.​

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Today, those who oversee Wellspring Church continue to claim the same illegitimate authority Norman James constructed for himself, sustaining a system shaped by his doctrinal framework rather than Scripture and historic Christian faith. This authority belongs only to God the Father, to Jesus the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, not to any individual or institution. Spiritual regeneration, being born again and entering the kingdom of God, is the work of the Triune God alone, not something mediated, controlled, or dispensed by human leaders. 

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Wellspring continues to describe itself as Trinitarian, even as its doctrine reflects the same structure Norman James created. This ongoing use of Trinitarian language may simply carry forward the approach he modeled - borrowing familiar terminology while maintaining a theological system shaped by different underlying convictions.

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