The Theological Roots of Wellspring Church
Latter Rain Ancestry, Jesus-Name Theology, and the Making of
"A People of the Kingdom"
1. Is Wellspring Really the “Last Remaining Latter Rain Church”?
Wellspring Church has long taken considerable pride in its Latter Rain heritage. Founder Norman H. James repeatedly presented the church as the last remaining Latter Rain church to his knowledge.
The claim is not without historical basis. Norman James became associated with Bethesda Missionary Temple in Detroit, one of the most important American centers of the Latter Rain revival that began in western Canada in 1948.
The Latter Rain movement emphasized themes such as prophecy, the laying on of hands, spiritual gifts, restored apostolic and prophetic ministries, divine church order, and the belief that God was restoring dimensions of New Testament Christianity that had been lost or neglected. These themes clearly influenced Norman James. He later taught that God was restoring truth and authority to the church and eventually claimed an apostolic mantle for himself.
In that sense, Wellspring possesses a genuine Latter Rain ancestry.
But ancestry is not the same thing as doctrinal continuity.
By the time Norman James became associated with Bethesda in the mid-1960s, the intense revival phase that began in 1948 had largely passed. The original movement had dispersed into a broad and decentralized network of independent churches, ministries, and later restorationist movements. Norman therefore encountered a later Bethesda tradition shaped by the Latter Rain movement, rather than the original revival itself.
The Latter Rain Movement Was Not a Jesus-Name Pentecostal Movement
Latter Rain crossed existing Pentecostal denominational boundaries and included ministers and churches that continued to baptize converts using the Trinitarian language of Matthew 28:19 - “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus-Name baptism was not a defining requirement of the movement, nor was Oneness Pentecostal theology.
The distinction was recognized even by contemporary Oneness Pentecostals.
Oneness theologian and historian David K. Bernard records that the United Pentecostal Church International responded to the Latter Rain movement at its 1950 General Conference by condemning, among other things, “the compromising of the truths of Oneness and water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ,” acceptance of receiving the Holy Spirit without speaking in tongues, and an expansive understanding of the true church that crossed established doctrinal boundaries (A History of Christian Doctrine, vol. 3, pp. 272–273).
This criticism is historically significant. Contemporary Oneness Pentecostals condemned the Latter Rain movement for compromising doctrines they considered essential, including mandatory Jesus-Name baptism and tongues as necessary evidence of receiving the Holy Spirit.
Yet these are precisely the doctrinal areas that later became central to Wellspring’s own theology.
In other words, doctrines that contemporary Oneness Pentecostals criticized the Latter Rain movement for compromising later became defining features of Wellspring’s theological system. That historical fact makes it difficult to treat Wellspring’s distinctive doctrine as a straightforward preservation of original Latter Rain teaching.
“Last Remaining” in What Sense?
The claim that Wellspring is among the “last remaining” Latter Rain churches raises an important historical question: remaining in what sense?
The original Latter Rain movement was decentralized and did not possess a single, fixed doctrinal system.
What Wellspring appears to have preserved most directly, therefore, is not a uniform body of “Latter Rain doctrine,” but the later theological tradition of Bethesda Missionary Temple as articulated in the writings of Patricia Beall Gruits and James Lee Beall. Norman James inherited that Bethesda framework and added further distinctives of his own.
Yet Bethesda itself has long been remote from the lived experience of Wellspring members. After Norman James’s relationship with Bethesda ended in the 1970s, there appears to have been little or no continuing institutional contact between the two churches.
As a result, generations raised within Wellspring may have heard Bethesda’s name and known of Norman James’s association with it while having little or no direct familiarity with its leaders, congregation, or theology. The theological inheritance remained even as Bethesda and the Beall family receded from Wellspring’s collective memory.
Wellspring also does not appear to have maintained fellowship with other churches and ministries that shared historical ties to Bethesda. Bethesda’s influence extended well beyond Norman James and his relatively brief time there in the 1960s. Other congregations were founded or shaped by ministers who had been ordained, trained, or instructed within the ministry of Myrtle Beall, James Lee Beall, and Patricia Beall Gruits.
These connections did not disappear with the passing of the original Latter Rain revival. Bethesda Missionary Temple itself continued, eventually relocating to Sterling Heights, Michigan, and becoming Bethesda Christian Church.
Other surviving churches preserve even more explicit connections to Bethesda’s ministerial and educational tradition. Calvary Church in Pontiac traces its history to Rev. Rose L. Davis, who was ordained by Myrtle Beall. Mt Zion Church in Clarkston was founded by Loren Covarrubias, who attended Bethesda’s Ministers Candidate School under Patricia Beall Gruits. New Life Temple in Cincinnati records that Ralph Godfrey and members of his leadership repeatedly traveled to Bethesda to receive training in the catechism courses taught by James Lee Beall and Patricia Gruits, which they then incorporated into their own ministry.
Wellspring’s isolation therefore should not be confused with the disappearance of the wider Bethesda Latter Rain lineage. Other churches with direct historical connections to Bethesda continued to exist, develop, and maintain relationships beyond the particular system Norman James established at Wellspring.
2. The Development of Bethesda’s Theology
The purpose of this historical reconstruction is not to judge the personal faithfulness, sincerity, or motives of the Beall family or other teachers who are no longer able to speak for themselves. Nor is it to assign Bethesda Missionary Temple responsibility for the choices later made by those who passed through its ministry, including Norman James.
Its purpose is narrower: to identify the theological sources of doctrines later taught at Wellspring Church, trace how those teachings developed within Bethesda, and distinguish what Norman James inherited from what he later modified, formalized, and required.
Because this history reaches back decades and depends heavily upon surviving publications and other documentary evidence, readers with additional primary sources, firsthand knowledge, or specific corrections are welcome to contact Wellspring Questions. We are especially interested in material that can clarify the development and transmission of Bethesda’s teaching or correct inaccuracies in this reconstruction.
Myrtle Beall: An Earlier, Broader Position
Bethesda’s founder, Myrtle D. Beall, was raised in a devout Roman Catholic family and later came under the influence of Methodism. In the early 1930s, she began an evangelistic work in Detroit, starting a Sunday school that developed into Bethesda Missionary Temple. She later became an Assemblies of God minister and, in 1948, embraced the emerging Latter Rain revival, becoming one of its most influential early figures.
Beall provides an important early doctrinal benchmark within Bethesda itself. In her 1951 book The Plumb Line, she explicitly rejected identification with “Oneness” or “Jesus Only” theology and set out what she regarded as Bethesda’s own position.
Most significantly, she wrote that “Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour is the only door into the Church which is His body.”
That statement is important because it places entrance into the Church, Christ’s body, directly in faith in Christ, without presenting a later baptismal formula or subsequent Spirit experience as an additional gate to Christian belonging.
It therefore provides a clear point of comparison with later Bethesda teaching - and especially with Wellspring’s eventual system, in which faith in Christ could be regarded as genuine while a person still remained not fully born again, outside the Kingdom, without the indwelling Holy Spirit, and considered unfit for church membership until additional requirements were met.
Her baptismal position was similarly broad. She wrote: “Water baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost according to the command of Jesus in Matt. 28:19, or as Peter baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38) and in the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 8:16) is scriptural in each case and is the answer of a good conscience toward God (I Peter 3:21).”
Myrtle Beall also affirmed “the sovereignty of the local church in both doctrine and practice” and explicitly rejected several teachings she regarded as Pentecostal extremes, including the claim that the Church rested solely upon present-day apostles and prophets.
This surviving 1951 material therefore establishes an important historical benchmark. Bethesda’s founder accepted Jesus-Name baptism without making it exclusive, described faith in Christ as the only entrance into His body, and resisted at least some of the more restrictive restorationist claims circulating around her.
Later Bethesda teaching - and ultimately Wellspring’s more exclusive system of water baptism and being born again - was materially different from the position Myrtle Beall publicly articulated in 1951 and represents a substantial theological change rather than the simple preservation of an unchanged teaching.
Patricia Beall Gruits: Divine Identity and Christian Initiation
Myrtle Beall’s daughter Patricia Beall Gruits became Bethesda’s Minister of Education in 1952. In 1955 she began teaching a youth catechism class, and the material developed for those classes eventually became Understanding God, first published in 1962.
In Understanding God, Gruits retained explicitly Trinitarian terminology, but many of the doctrines that gave practical shape to her theology closely paralleled Oneness Pentecostal teaching. The result was a theological system that could sound conventionally Trinitarian at the level of terminology while operating with substantial Jesus-Name and Oneness Pentecostal elements in its doctrines of baptism, being born again, and the name of God.
For example, she described Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three divine and distinct “identities” (Understanding God, p. 25). She then illustrated those identities by saying that one human person can simultaneously be a father, son, and husband while remaining only one person (Understanding God, p. 26). She also described the invisible God as revealing Himself in various “forms” (Understanding God, pp. 26–27). In her baptismal teaching, Gruits identified the singular “name” of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as “The Lord Jesus Christ” (Understanding God, pp. 364–365).
This was not simply an unusual way of explaining the historic doctrine of the Trinity. Gruits’ description of three divine “identities,” illustrated by the roles of father, son, and husband within one human person, reflects a materially different understanding of divine personhood. Historic Trinitarian theology understands the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit not as three identities, roles or forms of one divine person, but as three eternally distinct divine Persons who share the one divine Being.
Norman James frequently used the same father-son-husband analogy when explaining the nature of God: one person could occupy several relational identities while remaining a single person. This appearance in both Gruits’ teaching and James’ later explanations therefore represents a significant point of theological continuity.
More importantly, these ideas were joined to a developed initiation theology. Gruits taught that water baptism produces a distinct spiritual change, associated water baptism with the circumcision of the heart, and treated that circumcision as essential to being born again (Understanding God, pp. 182–185, 358–360). She presented Acts 2:38 as the normal relationship between repentance, water baptism, and receiving the Holy Spirit, while recognizing Cornelius as a case in which God sovereignly reversed the normal order.
By 1975, Bethesda’s teaching had therefore moved substantially outside Myrtle Beall’s broader 1951 baptismal position. These teachings significantly anticipate doctrines later central to Norman James and Wellspring Church.
James Lee Beall: The System Becomes Explicit
Myrtle Beall’s son James Lee Beall articulated these themes even more explicitly. His writings from the 1970s show that Bethesda’s later theology combined a developed doctrine of Christian initiation with a distinctive theology of the divine name.
In his 1974 book Rise to Newness of Life, Beall addressed the apparent difference between Jesus’ command to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” and the repeated New Testament descriptions of baptism in the name of Jesus.
Beall argued that the apostles were not departing from Matthew 28:19 when they baptized in Jesus’ name. He associated “Lord” with the Father, “Jesus” with the Son, and “Christ” with the Holy Spirit, concluding that the threefold divine name was expressed in “the Lord Jesus Christ.” His conclusion was explicit: “The name is Jesus.” (Rise to Newness of Life, pp. 60–61).
Two years later, in Laying the Foundation (1976), Beall repeated the same basic divine-name theology. He wrote that “The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit” expressed the “tri-unity of God,” but were “but titles” rather than His personal name (Laying the Foundation, pp. 187–198).
This is significant because Beall was not merely expressing a preference for one baptismal formula. He was presenting a theology of the Godhead in which the Trinitarian designations Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were understood as titles whose singular baptismal name was expressed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Laying the Foundation, this divine-name teaching appeared within a much broader treatment of water baptism, Christian initiation, circumcision of the heart, and regeneration.
Four consecutive lessons are particularly relevant to this history:
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“New Covenant Initiation,” pp. 175–186
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“Putting on Christ,” pp. 187–198
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“Circumcision of the Heart,” pp. 199–210
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“A Washing of Regeneration?,” pp. 211–226
Beall begins his discussion of New Covenant initiation with an unambiguous proposition: “Water baptism is essential to the new birth.” He directly connects John 3:3–5 with water baptism and entrance into the Kingdom of God and describes baptism as required of those entering the Kingdom.
Beall then describes what he calls the package of “Christian initiation”: repentance, faith, water baptism, and Baptism in the Holy Spirit. He immediately quotes Acts 2:38 and describes Cornelius as an instance in which the normal order of initiation was “reversed,” explaining that Cornelius’s initiation still had to be completed through water baptism.
This is remarkably close structurally to the framework later found at Wellspring, although it is not identical to Norman James’s eventual three-step definition of becoming born again.
Beall also taught that circumcision of the heart occurs at a definite moment. After describing it as a supernatural work performed by Christ through the Holy Spirit, he wrote: “It is the moment of our water baptism.” He subsequently describes the baptized person as entering “an entirely new spiritual dimension” and becoming a “new creature” (Laying the Foundation, pp. 199–210).
In the following lesson, Beall explicitly states that “regeneration and the new birth are the same thing” and lists water baptism and the Holy Spirit among the agents involved in that work (Laying the Foundation, pp. 211–226).
Taken together, Beall’s writings show that by the mid-1970s Bethesda possessed a developed theology in which water baptism played an essential role in regeneration and being born again, alongside an explicit Jesus-Name theology grounded in a particular understanding of the divine name. Beall nevertheless continued to identify as Trinitarian.
By this point, much of the theological architecture later associated with Wellspring was already present within Bethesda: Jesus-Name baptism, a singular divine-name theology, water baptism as essential to being born again, circumcision of the heart in baptism, entrance into the Kingdom, and the inclusion of water baptism and Baptism in the Holy Spirit within Christian initiation. Norman James would subsequently narrow, formalize, and enforce these elements in distinctive ways.
Later Bethesda teaching therefore exhibited substantial parallels with Oneness Pentecostal theology not only in Christian initiation, but also in its understanding of the divine name and the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet Bethesda continued to identify as Trinitarian. That tension would later help explain how Norman James and Wellspring could reject the Oneness label despite teaching doctrines with significant historical parallels to it.
3. Jesus-Name Pentecostalism through Bethesda to Wellspring:
Trinitarian Self-Identity and Oneness Theology
The Jesus-Name Pentecostal Tradition Outside Classical Oneness
Pentecostal history did not divide neatly between conventional Trinitarians who baptized using Matthew 28:19 and Oneness Pentecostals who baptized in Jesus’ name.
A less familiar theological stream developed in which some Pentecostal ministers continued to affirm the Trinity - or described God in terms of “triunity” - while embracing important elements of Jesus-Name theology.
One important early example was W. H. Offiler, founder of Bethel Temple in Seattle. In 1915, Offiler was baptized in Jesus’ name by Glenn Cook, one of the principal early advocates of the emerging Jesus-Name movement.
Offiler did not subsequently embrace classical Oneness theology. Instead, he developed a modified Trinitarian or “triunity” theology that retained Jesus-Name baptism and a strong theology of the divine name. In God, and His Name (1932), he argued that the singular name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was “LORD-JESUS-CHRIST,” calling it the “Triune Name of the Triune God” and maintaining that baptism in that name fulfilled rather than contradicted Matthew 28:19.
More than forty years later, James Lee Beall employed a strikingly similar construction. In Rise to Newness of Life (1974), Beall likewise treated Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as titles rather than the baptismal name itself and associated Lord, Jesus, and Christ respectively with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, concluding that Matthew 28:19 was fulfilled through baptism in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The similarity is substantial. Both Offiler and Beall:
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professed a triune understanding of God,
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distinguished the designations Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from the singular divine name,
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identified that baptismal name with “Lord Jesus Christ,”
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and understood baptism in Jesus’ name as the fulfillment of Matthew 28:19 rather than as a rejection of it.
However, Offiler differed sharply from later Bethesda teaching regarding being born again. He explicitly placed both water baptism and Spirit baptism after being born again, whereas James Beall later called water baptism “essential to the new birth.”
Offiler therefore provides an important precedent for both the divine-name theology and the Trinitarian self-identity later found at Bethesda, but he does not explain Bethesda’s later teaching on Christian initiation and being born again.
The historical question is therefore not simply whether these ideas existed earlier, but how Jesus-Name theology and Trinitarian self-identification came to be joined at Bethesda to a three-step doctrine of being born again involving water baptism, Spirit baptism, and tongues as the evidence of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The Divine-Name Argument: How Bethesda Joined Trinitarian Self-Identity with Oneness Theology
Bethesda stood at a theological intersection within twentieth-century Pentecostalism. It continued to identify itself as Trinitarian while embracing teachings associated with the Jesus-Name tradition: baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, identification of that name with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and explanations of the Godhead that treated Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as titles, identities, roles, or forms rather than consistently expressing the historic Trinitarian distinction of three eternal divine Persons.
This combination had precedent before Bethesda. Offiler demonstrates that Trinitarian profession, Jesus-Name baptism, and singular divine-name theology did not by themselves require classical Oneness theology.
Later Bethesda teaching, however, went further. Patricia Beall Gruits connected repentance, water baptism in Jesus’ name, circumcision of the heart, being born again, and receiving the Holy Spirit. James Lee Beall later taught that water baptism was “essential to the new birth,” located circumcision of the heart at baptism, and described repentance, faith, water baptism, and Baptism in the Holy Spirit together as “Christian initiation.”
By the 1960s and 1970s, Bethesda had therefore joined continued Trinitarian self-identification to the basic Oneness Pentecostal pattern of being born again: repentance, water baptism in Jesus’ name, and receiving the indwelling Holy Spirit. Bethesda did not simply become a classical Oneness church, nor did Gruits or James Lee Beall formulate being born again exactly as Norman James later would. But these elements were now joined to a Jesus-Name interpretation of Matthew 28:19 in which “Lord Jesus Christ” was understood as the singular name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The theological hinge in this development was the divine-name argument. It provided the mechanism by which Bethesda could hold otherwise competing theological claims together. By treating “Jesus” or “Lord Jesus Christ” as the singular divine name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Bethesda could continue to profess a Trinitarian identity while insisting that baptism in Jesus’ name was not an alternative to Matthew 28:19, but its true fulfillment. This was the crucial bridge: the divine-name argument allowed Bethesda to retain Trinitarian self-identification while adopting the baptismal practice and born again pattern of Oneness Pentecostalism.
Patricia Beall Gruits appears to be the earliest figure in the surviving published record in whom this later Bethesda combination can presently be documented. The contrast with Offiler is important: Offiler used divine-name reasoning while rejecting the Oneness understanding of being born again, whereas Gruits joined that same Jesus-Name divine-name reasoning to the Oneness pattern of being born again.
What remains unclear is how she arrived at this combination of Trinitarian self-identification and Oneness-derived theology. The available evidence does not establish a direct line of transmission from Offiler to Gruits, nor whether these ideas came through other ministers, books, Pentecostal networks, earlier Bethesda teaching not preserved in print, or Gruits’ own theological development.
Pentecostalism during these decades was highly networked, and Bethesda regularly hosted itinerant preachers and visiting ministers. Theology circulated through books, church periodicals, camp meetings, Bible schools, revival meetings, missionary relationships, traveling ministries, and personal networks. Bethesda therefore occupied precisely the kind of setting in which Latter Rain restorationism, Trinitarian profession, Jesus-Name theology, and other Pentecostal currents could intersect.
Robert A. Larden illustrates the kind of theological overlap present within this broader Pentecostal world. He was a significant leader and historian within the Apostolic Church of Pentecost of Canada, a denomination rooted in the Canadian Oneness Pentecostal movement, and by the mid-1960s served as its Canadian Field Representative, traveling extensively among Pentecostal churches across Canada and participating in a broader Pentecostal network that crossed the Canadian-American border.
Larden also authored The Manifestation of the Sons of God, a work cataloged by the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center under the “New Order of the Latter Rain,” alongside literature from Bethesda Missionary Temple, James Lee Beall, Myrtle Beall, George Hawtin, Reg Layzell, and other Latter Rain figures. Larden therefore represents a documented point of intersection of the Canadian Jesus-Name/Oneness tradition and the wider Latter Rain restorationist world.
Bethesda’s theological departure from biblical and historic Trinitarian belief did not begin with Norman James. Significant elements of the theology later central to Wellspring were already present within Bethesda, with Patricia Beall Gruits appearing as the earliest presently documented figure to join Trinitarian self-identification, divine-name reasoning, and the Oneness Pentecostal pattern of being born again. James Lee Beall later developed and reinforced this trajectory. Together, their teachings represented a major theological departure from Trinitarian Pentecostal belief.
Norman James subsequently inherited this framework, narrowed and formalized it, and ultimately enforced and institutionalized it within Wellspring as the authoritative standard for doctrine, Christian initiation, and belonging.
The Jesus-Name Theology Norman James Inherited
By the time Norman James became associated with Bethesda in the mid-1960s, he did not encounter a single theological system handed down unchanged from the 1948 Latter Rain revival. He entered a Bethesda tradition in which several theological currents had already overlapped.
From the Latter Rain restorationist tradition came a vision of the church involving restored spiritual ministries, apostolic authority, divine order, and the recovery of truths believed to have been lost or neglected by historic Christianity.
At the same time, Bethesda’s developing theology brought together a cluster of Jesus-Name and Oneness Pentecostal teachings that were neither distinctive to the Latter Rain movement nor characteristic of historic Trinitarian Pentecostalism. Taken together, they also represented a clear departure from the broader position Myrtle Beall had publicly articulated in 1951:
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the singular divine name,
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water baptism as required to be born again,
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circumcision of the heart through baptism,
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and receiving the Holy Spirit, with speaking in tongues as the evidence of the indwelling Spirit, as part of Christian initiation and entrance into the Kingdom.
This distinction helps explain an apparent contradiction within Wellspring’s theological identity.
Norman James inherited a Latter Rain restorationist framework within a Bethesda environment that had also absorbed or developed significant Jesus-Name and Oneness theological elements. Norman James ultimately combined these inherited elements into a system that was neither simply original Latter Rain nor simply classical Oneness Pentecostalism, and Wellspring became the institutional expression of that system.
Later Bethesda teaching itself did not fit neatly within either conventional Trinitarian Pentecostalism or classical Oneness Pentecostalism. It retained Trinitarian self-identification while incorporating Jesus-Name baptism, divine-name theology, and the Oneness Pentecostal pattern of being born again.
That combination contained an inherent theological tension, because historic Trinitarianism and classical Oneness Pentecostalism make fundamentally incompatible claims about the nature of God, the meaning of being born again, and ultimately the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Trinitarian Claim and Attempted Jesus-Name Reconciliation
Norman James inherited the later Bethesda framework and transformed it into a more tightly defined and exclusionary system. Wellspring therefore stood outside both conventional Trinitarian Pentecostalism and classical Oneness Pentecostalism: it formally affirmed the Trinity while retaining Jesus-Name baptism and an Oneness-derived understanding of being born again.
James did not merely combine different emphases within one theological tradition. He inherited and formalized a system that pressed together two theologies that are not naturally one: biblical Trinitarian belief and a Jesus-Name, Oneness-derived understanding of baptism and being born again. The divine-name argument supplied a fragile bridge between them, allowing Wellspring to profess “God in three Persons” while retaining the underlying Bethesda baptismal framework.
But this bridge did not resolve the chasm beneath it. It connected the two systems without removing their underlying disagreement over the nature of God, the meaning of water baptism, what constitutes being born again, and who is in the kingdom of God. James institutionalized this Bethesda combination within Wellspring, and his followers accepted, preserved, and transmitted it as authoritative doctrine.
Within Wellspring, this reconciliation was regarded as one of Norman James’s distinctive doctrinal insights: he was believed to have correctly reconciled Matthew 28:19 with the apostolic practice of baptism in Jesus’ name. His followers came to regard this not as one interpretation among many, but as a recovered apostolic solution - a piece of restored truth that the broader church had lost or failed to understand, but which Wellspring believed it uniquely possessed.
Historically, however, James was not the first to attempt such a reconciliation. Jesus-Name and Oneness Pentecostal teachers had proposed multiple ways of harmonizing Matthew 28:19 with baptism in Jesus’ name since the earliest years of the movement, including formulations contemporary with James. His explanation was therefore one among several competing attempts to resolve the same problem, rather than a uniquely recovered solution.
Among James’s arguments, he taught that “Jesus” is the singular divine name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, so that baptism in Jesus’ name is the true fulfillment of Christ’s command. He also taught that baptism “in Jesus’ name” means baptism under Christ’s authority and therefore fulfills that command.
The Trinitarian Problem with Mandatory Jesus-Name Rebaptism
But neither James’s arguments nor the many other formulations proposed throughout the history of the Jesus-Name movement resolve the Trinitarian problem created by requiring Jesus-name rebaptism.
Significantly, the Trinitarian Pentecostal participants in the Oneness-Trinitarian Pentecostal Final Report, 2002–2007 reached essentially the same conclusion. They rejected attempts to collapse the Trinitarian baptismal language of Matthew 28:19 into the Jesus-name formula, finding no compelling scriptural basis for identifying the singular “name” in Matthew 28:19 simply as “Jesus.”
In Trinitarian theology, Jesus Christ is the Son, one of the three eternal divine Persons. “Jesus” is not the personal name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit collectively. Nor does Christ’s possession of divine authority make the name of the Son interchangeable with the distinct personal identities of the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 28:19 does not present “Jesus” as a hidden name standing behind Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; it names the three distinct Persons of the one God.
Baptism “in the name of Jesus” can certainly be understood as baptism under the authority of Christ. But that does not establish that the words “in the name of Jesus” are the required verbal fulfillment of Matthew 28:19, much less that baptism explicitly administered in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is deficient and must be repeated.
That additional step requires treating the name of Jesus as the singular divine name in a way that departs from the historic Trinitarian understanding of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
To make Jesus’ name the necessary replacement or fulfillment of the Father-Son-Holy Spirit wording is therefore not merely to prefer a different baptismal formula. It reflects a different understanding of the relationship between Jesus Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit.
The issue, therefore, is not simply whether Norman James self-identified as Trinitarian or could verbally affirm the historic language of “God in three Persons.” The decisive question is whether requiring Christians baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to be rebaptized in Jesus’ name is consistent with historic Trinitarian belief. It is not.
Historic Trinitarian theology does not identify “Jesus” as the singular personal name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Nor does it require the kinds of theological constructions used to make Jesus-name baptism the necessary fulfillment of Christ’s command in Matthew 28:19, including Norman James’s own formulations.
4. A People of the Kingdom
How Norman James Defined a “Kingdom People”
Patricia Beall Gruits and James Lee Beall had already connected water baptism, being born again, circumcision of the heart, Jesus-Name baptism, and receiving the Holy Spirit within a theological framework that closely paralleled important features of Oneness Pentecostalism. Later Bethesda theology also distinguished justification from regeneration and taught that water baptism was “essential to the new birth.”
There is a striking irony in this history. Bethesda testimony indicates that Norman James was never formally sent out by the church and left after disagreements with its leadership. Yet significant theological ideas he had encountered there continued into his later teaching. James eventually became a strict enforcer of Bethesda-derived theological concepts even after his relationship with Bethesda itself had broken down, while also adding distinctive baptismal formulations, requirements, and enforcement practices of his own.
Norman James therefore did not invent the principal theological components he later enforced at Wellspring. He inherited their basic framework from Bethesda, then modified, narrowed, and formalized them into an exclusionary system of his own, with a tightly prescribed definition of becoming born again. That definition did not remain merely Norman James’s personal teaching; it became institutionalized within Wellspring as the church’s operative standard for Christian initiation and belonging.
Wellspring came to teach that, in order to be born again, a person must ultimately experience:
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repentance,
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water baptism in Jesus’ name with Norman James’s prescribed baptismal formula: “in Jesus name for the circumcision of heart and remission of sin,”
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receiving the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues.
James tied this three-step process directly to entrance into the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom occupied an unusually prominent place in Wellspring teaching and was presented not simply as the biblical reign of God shared by all who belong to Christ, but as a higher-level spiritual realm entered through the “restored” pattern of being born again taught by Norman James, whom his followers considered a modern-day apostle.
In practice, Norman James's teaching produced a sense of privileged spiritual access: Wellspring believers were not merely Christians among other Christians, but "Kingdom People" who had been shown a "restored" pathway into the Kingdom of God that other believers lacked. Access to the Kingdom of God was thus understood as reserved for those who followed Norman James’s doctrinal framework, reinforcing both the authority of his teaching and the belief that separation from it meant surrendering something spiritually unique.
That claim to distinctive Kingdom access creates an important tension. Wellspring did not establish fellowship with nearby Apostolic churches, even though many such congregations taught a strikingly similar understanding of being born again. As one example, Calvary Apostolic Church in Swissvale openly describes “full salvation” as repentance, water baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and baptism of the Holy Ghost with speaking in tongues as the initial sign.
Although Wellspring distinguishes between being “saved” and being fully “born again,” that distinction does little to change the practical threshold for full spiritual standing and congregational inclusion between the churches. Both systems require essentially the same three elements of Christian initiation: repentance, water baptism in Jesus’ name, and reception of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues.
Even Norman James’s distinctive emphasis on the “circumcision of heart” does not substantially separate the two churches. James required the phrase “for the circumcision of heart” to be spoken in the baptismal formula itself, but Oneness Pentecostal theology likewise teaches that spiritual circumcision occurs in water baptism. In The New Birth, Oneness theologian David K. Bernard describes water baptism as “a spiritual circumcision” and treats it as part of being born again (The New Birth, p. 134).
Wellspring nevertheless rejected fellowship with such Apostolic churches on the basis of its own Trinitarian self-identification and rejection of the Oneness label. That distinction, however, depended heavily on how Wellspring defined “Trinitarian” - and whether its underlying theology actually differed as sharply from Oneness Pentecostalism as the label suggested.
Trinitarian Self-Identity and the Boundaries of "Kingdom" Belonging
This history may also explain why Wellspring leaders could sincerely reject comparisons with Oneness Pentecostalism even while teaching doctrines with substantial Oneness parallels.
These teachings did not necessarily reach Wellspring labeled “Oneness.” They came through Bethesda teachers who themselves continued to identify as Trinitarian.
James Beall affirmed the ‘tri-unity of God’ while teaching that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were titles rather than God’s personal baptismal name, which he identified with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Patricia Gruits used the terms Father, Son, and Holy Spirit while describing them as divine “identities,” comparing them to the relational roles of one human person, describing God as revealing Himself in various “forms,” and identifying “The Lord Jesus Christ” as their singular name.
Norman James went further by explicitly adopting orthodox Trinitarian language in his doctrinal handbook, defining God as “God in three Persons.” But that verbal formulation did not displace the Bethesda theology he inherited. Wellspring continued to require water baptism in Jesus’ name and to treat the singular name of Jesus as the fulfillment of Matthew 28:19.
The result was orthodox Trinitarian language layered over an unchanged Jesus-Name baptismal framework. James presented Wellspring’s theology in the conventional language of “God in three Persons,” giving it the appearance of historic Trinitarian orthodoxy to his followers while leaving the inherited Bethesda logic of the divine name and water baptism intact. Wellspring continued to treat the singular name of Jesus as the operative baptismal name and as the fulfillment of Matthew 28:19.
Although Gruits, Beall, and Norman James continued to identify themselves as Trinitarian, the underlying explanations inherited from Bethesda did not consistently reflect the historic Trinitarian understanding of three eternally distinct divine Persons sharing the one divine Being.
Beall’s and Gruits’s treatment of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as titles, identities, roles, or forms centered in one divine person and identified through the name of Jesus aligned closely with Oneness Pentecostal theology. Norman James retained the Jesus-Name baptismal framework while simply affirming the orthodox Trinitarian formula “God in three Persons,” without resolving the underlying theological contradiction.
Consequently, Norman James and Wellspring Church could readily understand their theological identity through self-identification and lineage: We believe in the Trinity; we say “God in three Persons”; Bethesda believed in the Trinity; Norman James inherited this teaching from Bethesda; therefore Wellspring cannot be Oneness.
Biblical comparison therefore shifts the question from self-identification to substance: Does the theology actually teach the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, or does it merely call itself Trinitarian?
That biblical comparison raises a further question. Wellspring did not merely preserve and reinterpret these doctrines; under Norman James, they were presented as part of a restored apostolic order whose truth and boundaries could be authoritatively defined.
Progressive Restoration, Apostolic Authority, and the Power to Define the “Kingdom”
The central historical difficulty with Wellspring’s progressive restoration narrative is that the components of Wellspring’s later theology did not first appear as parts of a single system. They emerged in different Pentecostal contexts, were held in different combinations by different teachers, and were sometimes explicitly separated from one another. Only later were these elements brought together within Bethesda and then combined by Norman James with his own distinctive formulations and requirements into Wellspring’s doctrine of the Kingdom.
Wellspring may interpret that eventual convergence as divine restoration. Historically, however, the evidence demonstrates synthesis and systematization more directly than it demonstrates the recovery of a previously unified body of apostolic doctrine.
If Wellspring’s completed system is truly a restoration, the relevant question is not whether its individual components can be traced through twentieth-century Pentecostal history, but whether those components can be shown to have existed together as a coherent system in the teaching of the New Testament apostles.
But Wellspring’s claimed restoration of the Kingdom of God involved more than the recovery of doctrine. It also involved the restoration of spiritual offices and authority through which that doctrine was interpreted, taught, and enforced. Norman James did not merely present a particular understanding of baptism, being born again, and entrance into the Kingdom.
Norman Harvey James presented himself as a modern-day apostle, equal in apostolic authority to Paul, Peter, and John, and therefore possessing corresponding authority to define Christian doctrine and determine the boundaries of the restored Kingdom. Those who followed him chose to recognize that claim and to receive his teaching through that apostolic frame.
His novel doctrinal formulations were therefore received not merely as one minister’s interpretations of Scripture, open to ordinary scrutiny and disagreement, but as apostolic teaching carrying divine authority - teaching his followers, of their own volition, chose to accept, preserve, and submit to.
Doctrine and authority therefore became inseparable. The same system that defined entrance into the Kingdom also created the structure through which those boundaries were guarded and enforced.
It is at this point that the history of Wellspring’s theology becomes inseparable from the wounds produced under the authority that sustained it.
5. The Deep Wounds of Wellspring’s "Kingdom"
When the “Kingdom of God” Mirrored the Kingdoms of This World
At Wellspring, the claimed restoration of the “Kingdom of God” eventually became more than a theological description of the reign of God. It became a practical structure of authority, status, and spiritual rule. Apostles, prophets, elders, and other recognized ministries occupied positions within an ordered spiritual hierarchy, while Norman James stood at its center as the dominant apostolic authority.
In that environment, questions of doctrine, loyalty, leadership, and personal submission became closely intertwined. Titles carried weight. Proximity to recognized authority mattered. Spiritual standing could become bound up with one’s place within the structure.
The result was a troubling inversion: a movement that spoke constantly of the Kingdom of God could, in practice, begin to resemble the very kingdoms of this world - organized around rank, authority, loyalty, and the exercise of power.
The Wounds of a Restored Spiritual Hierarchy
The tension between local-church sovereignty and authority exercised across independent congregations was present near the beginning of the Latter Rain movement itself.
The movement rejected denominational hierarchy and strongly emphasized the autonomy of local congregations, yet traveling apostles, prophets, and presbyteries could exercise substantial influence through prophecy, laying on of hands, recognition of ministries, and claims of restored divine order. Denominational authority was not simply removed; in practice, it could be replaced by new forms of authority exercised under restorationist titles such as apostle and prophet.
The same tension later appeared in Norman James’s network. James affirmed the sovereignty of individual churches while exercising substantial influence across them through his claimed apostolic authority, doctrinal leadership, personal counsel, and directive prophecy. Churches could therefore remain formally independent while their leaders and members operated within a spiritual hierarchy in which Norman James’s judgment carried extraordinary weight.
This structure could wound leaders as well as ordinary members. Pastors and elders who were theoretically responsible for their own congregations could find their judgment subordinated to Norman James’s claimed spiritual authority.
In practice, local-church sovereignty could therefore become largely formal: disagreement with James was not simply an institutional difference of judgment, but could be understood as resistance to an apostolic leader and, by implication, to spiritual authority itself.
The harm produced by this system was not rooted in doctrine alone. It was also connected to a model of spiritual authority present near the beginnings of the Latter Rain movement and carried forward in different forms through later ministries.
When claimed apostles, prophets, and other spiritual leaders were treated as possessing authority capable of overriding the judgment of individuals and local congregations, the potential for profound harm followed.
That hierarchy did not remain abstract. Its effects were felt by both ordinary members and those entrusted with leadership.
When Rejecting the “Kingdom” Meant Losing Your Family
The consequences of this authority structure became most painful when doctrinal loyalty and spiritual submission began to govern family relationships.
This is where Wellspring’s history becomes more than what might appear to be an obscure theological arm-wrestling match within Pentecostalism.
A doctrine can exist within a fluid religious movement without becoming a comprehensive mechanism of social control. The same doctrine functions differently when it becomes an exclusive test of spiritual legitimacy administered by a tightly controlled community.
At Wellspring, Norman James’s doctrine of the Kingdom eventually determined much more than a person’s opinion about baptism.
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It determined whether a believer had been properly born again.
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It determined whether a person’s reception of the Holy Spirit was considered complete.
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It separated Christians believed to possess restored “Kingdom truth” from Christians who did not.
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It excluded Christians who would not affirm Norman James’s interpretation or submit to his claimed authority.
Within an institution that identified Norman James as a modern-day apostle, doctrinal disagreement became something more serious than disagreement with one pastor’s interpretation of the Oneness-Trinitarian divide. Rejecting his teaching was treated as rejecting restored truth. Rejecting his authority - or the authority exercised by those who represented him - was treated as rebellion against the spiritual order God had established.
For those who chose to follow Norman James and raise their families under his spiritual leadership, this fusion of theology and authority shaped not only personal belief, but church belonging, family relationships, and the perceived boundaries of the Kingdom of God.
Norman James ultimately enforced this system as a boundary of Christian identity and fellowship. A person could find himself or herself outside the “Kingdom” not merely by abandoning Christianity, but by rejecting Norman James’s teaching, refusing his authority, resisting the authority exercised through his leadership structure, or leaving the community.
What might ordinarily have been understood as theological disagreement, a change of church, or a conflict with leadership was instead treated as spiritual infidelity.
Once that judgment had been made, the boundary of the “Kingdom” extended directly into the family. If one family member left while others remained, those who stayed inside came under pressure to preserve that same boundary in their personal relationships. Maintaining distance from the person outside the “Kingdom” was presented not as cruelty, but as faithfulness - to God, to the Kingdom, and to the spiritual authority believed to protect it.
That understanding helped justify the “disfellowshipping” of family members and fellow believers who left, resisted leadership, or rejected Norman James’s teaching. In this way, the system injured both the person being rejected and the person being pressured to participate in the rejection.
Parents were set against children, children against parents, siblings against siblings, spouses against extended family, and longtime friends against one another - not necessarily because affection had disappeared, but because preserving the boundaries of the “Kingdom” as taught by Norman James was understood to require separation from those who had left, rejected its teaching, resisted its leadership, or been formally excluded.
The result was grief, guilt, confusion, and deeply fractured family relationships.
6. Why This History Matters - A Summary
Why spend so much time tracing the history of these doctrines, especially now that many of those who shaped them can no longer speak for themselves?
Because understanding where a theological system came from helps us evaluate what it claims to be.
For members who have spent their entire lives at Wellspring Church, much of the history preceding Norman James is now difficult to recover.
Bethesda Missionary Temple, Myrtle Beall, Patricia Gruits, James Beall, the Latter Rain revival, and the earlier Jesus-Name debates belong to a religious world that most current members never personally experienced.
Without that history, Wellspring’s own account of itself can become the principal frame through which its theology is understood: restored doctrine was progressively recovered through the Latter Rain movement, Norman James faithfully preserved what had been recovered while adding further restored truths of his own, and entrance into the Kingdom of God is understood to be available only through that fully restored doctrine.
Wellspring therefore understands itself not simply as a church preserving distinctive beliefs, but as the remnant possessing the only fully restored body of doctrine necessary to enter the Kingdom of God. From within that framework, separation from family and other Christians may be perceived not as rejection of them, but as faithfulness to restored truth. Rejection, isolation, or suffering can therefore become evidence of faithfulness.
Historical reconstruction makes it possible to test that claim.
Wellspring has a genuine Latter Rain ancestry, particularly in its understanding of restored ministry, apostolic authority, divine order, and the restoration of the church. But many of the doctrines that most clearly distinguish Wellspring from other Christian churches were not defining requirements of the Latter Rain movement and did not originate together as a single theological system.
The historical record instead reveals several Pentecostal currents intersecting within Bethesda and eventually being combined, formalized, and required at Wellspring. Some elements predated Latter Rain; Myrtle Beall held positions broader than those later required at Wellspring; Patricia Gruits and James Beall developed teachings concerning baptism, the divine name, being born again, and the Holy Spirit that moved outside Myrtle Beall’s earlier position. Norman James ultimately combined these elements with distinctive formulations and requirements of his own.
Historical context does not by itself determine whether any particular doctrine is true. But it does allow claims of “restored truth” to be tested against the chronology of the teachings themselves - when they appeared, where they appeared, how they changed, and how they were eventually combined.
At Wellspring, this history did not remain an abstract matter of theology; it became a mechanism of judgment and exclusion. The resulting system was used to determine who was truly born again, whose baptism and spiritual experience were accepted as valid, who could remain within the assembly, which Christians were regarded as deficient or outside the truth, and ultimately who could be excluded from fellowship, restricted in relationship, shunned by their own family, or even pushed toward marital separation and divorce.
Understanding where that system came from matters because it shaped the spiritual identities, relationships, choices, and lives of generations of people.
Notes
1. W. H. Offiler, God, and His Name: A Message for Today (Seattle: Bethel Temple, 1932), 6–8, 47–52. The available 1932 text explicitly affirms a triune God while identifying “Lord-Jesus-Christ” as the “Triune Name of the Triune God.” Importantly, Offiler states on p. 86 that water and Spirit baptism follow rather than constitute the new birth.
2. Patricia Beall Gruits, Understanding God: A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, 3rd ed. (Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, 1975), 25–27, 182–185, 193–195, 354–365. Understanding God was first published in 1962; Gruits had begun developing the material for Bethesda youth catechesis in 1955.
3. James Lee Beall and Marjorie Barber, Laying the Foundation (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1976), 175–226. Bibliographic records identify the original edition as 389 pages and published by Logos International.
4. Beall, James Lee. Rise to Newness of Life: Christian Water Baptism - Ritual or Reality? Detroit: Evangel Press, 1974. The volume is 149 pages; pp. 60–61 contain Beall's interpretation of the baptismal name.
5. David K. Bernard, A History of Christian Doctrine, vol. 3, The Twentieth Century, A.D. 1900–2000 (Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press, 1999), 249–273, especially 272–273. Bernard reproduces the UPCI's 1950 objections to Latter Rain teachings, including compromise regarding Oneness and Jesus-Name baptism.
Bibliography
Offiler, W. H. God, and His Name: A Message for Today. Seattle: Bethel Temple, 1932.
Gruits, Patricia Beall. Understanding God. 3rd ed. Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, 1975.
Beall, Myrtle D. The Plumb Line. Detroit: Latter Rain Evangel, 1951.
Beall, James Lee. Rise to Newness of Life: Christian Water Baptism - Ritual or Reality? Detroit: Evangel Press, 1974.
Beall, James Lee, and Marjorie Barber. Laying the Foundation. Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1976.
Riss, Richard M. The Latter Rain: The Latter Rain Movement of 1948 and the Mid-Twentieth Century Evangelical Awakening. Mississauga, ON: Honeycomb Visual Productions, 1987.
James, Norman H. The Christian Life Series: A Handbook of Christian Doctrine. New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1995.
Bernard, David K. A History of Christian Doctrine. Vol. 3, The Twentieth Century, A.D. 1900–2000. Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press, 1999.
Society for Pentecostal Studies. “Oneness-Trinitarian Pentecostal Final Report, 2002–2007.” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Theology 30, no. 2 (2008): 203–224.