Thursday, July 23, 2026

It is the 23rd of July 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

Without being overly reductive, I would suggest that in the top 5 stories of Christianity in the 20th century, you would be hard-pressed to exclude the story of Pentecostal Christianity. Coupled with the world mission movement and the explosion of Christian media, the spread of a certain kind of American pentecostalism, or perhaps “generally charismatic” Christianity, spread in ways possibly unimaginable.

 

And that much of this story involves an Armenian dairy farmer and Leo Tolstoy is one of the curious foundational episodes for this movement.

 

Our story can start with the curious Dukhobors and their relatives and descendants. These were spiritually minded sectarian Christians across the Russian Empire in the 1800s who broke from the Russian Orthodox and found themselves in exile. Think of them as somewhat parallel to the Quakers and the coming Pentecostals with their emphasis on pacifism, egalitarianism, and what we might call “spirit-led” worship. With the crackdown of the Tsar and tensions with the Ottomans, their plight came to the attention of Leo Tolstoy, who aided them in their exodus to North America- primarily Canada.

 

Peter Demens, a Russian aristocrat who fled to America, became a railroad magnate and helped to found St. Petersburg, Florida, and assisted many of them in settling in the United States. One of these immigrants was Demos Shakarian Sr., who came with his family to Los Angeles, where they settled near Azusa Street- independent of the branch of Pentecostalism there, but certainly like-minded. Demos Sr. would die working the railroads in Nevada, and his son, Isaac, started the family dairy- Reliance Dairy out of Downey, which would become, according to some sources, the largest independent dairy farm in America.

It was Isaac’s son- named Demos after his father, who was born in 1913 who would take over the family business.

 

But young Demos was looking for a way to parlay his business success into evangelistic opportunities in the growing Southern California area. Demos began attending the various tent revivals in the 1930s- his family background amongst the spiritually minded, quasi-Pentecostals led him to the likes of Charles Price and a young Oral Roberts. Shakarian noted that the tent revivals were predominantly female; his vision was to create a space for evangelism for working men. This led to his creation, in 1952, of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International. Similar to other “prayer breakfast” movements of the time, these were informal gatherings of like-minded Christian men who sought to influence the culture for Christ.

 

Note “Full Gospel”- an important distinction in mid-century America- coming out of the Pentecostal movement, the “Full” was a reference to not only spiritual salvation, but miracles and physical healings as well. Shakarian, now a very wealthy dairy farmer, would become a central figure in the growth of this loose network of generally charismatic Christians in the post-war years. Shakarian was keen on using new media to support his growing networks and would partner with Paul Crouch and assist him in building the Trinity Broadcasting Network… and we could do a whole weekend edition on that curious empire built just up the road from the CHA studios…

 

But there’s more! Shakarian was also close with a Texas pastor: John Osteen, who had been ousted from his church due to his charismatic leanings. Shakarian helped him develop Lakewood Church- and of course, this is the link between the older Charismatics and the newer Megachurch trend when John’s son, Joel, took over the ministry.

 

Demos Shakarian was the quiet, steady support and financial backer of a certain kind of broadly evangelical, but charismatic and pentecostal Christianity which mastered the new media in ways that other Christian groups failed to, or did on a smaller scale.

 

The explosion of world Pentecostalism- a marker of the 20th-century church on account of its use of media in the Global South and Far East rests in part on the backing of the son of immigrants, dairy farmers exiled from their ancestral Armenian lands, to the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship and Christian media empires bankrolled by himself. Demos Shakarian remained the head of the group into the 1980s, despite ill health; his son would take over, and the group today has some 10,000 chapters across 160 countries. Demos Shakarian would die on this, the 23rd of July in 1993- two days after his 80th birthday.

 

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and 1 Corinthians 4:

14 I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children. 15 Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. 16 Therefore I urge you to imitate me. 17 For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

18 Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. 20 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 23rd of July 2026 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by the Joel Osteen of the LCMS- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who could smell the dairy farms of Downey as he wrote this show… our Dutch families helped build out that smelly part of the state… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.