What is blasting against the Holy Spirit?

Blasting against the Holy Spirit is a relatively new phenomenon. It started in 1907 in response to the 1906 Azusa Street Revival. This was the year a Kansas preacher named William Joseph Seymour was invited to speak in a church in Los Angeles. He had been trained to believe that speaking in tongues was a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Within four months, he was preaching to crowds of upwards of 1500 people, many of whom loudly spoke in tongues and generally made a racket.

As more people joined, the church's neighbors grew increasingly frustrated with the noise. They fought back in the only way they knew how—they invited horn players to practice in their homes and streets. As the players blasted their music, it increased the decibel level, but at least it was music and not yelling.

Indignant at all this blasting against the Holy Spirit, Seymour's church moved to a building with a little more sound absorption and a lot more room between the yelling and the neighbors. When the residents stopped calling the horn players, Hollywood absorbed some of them into movies that included big band music while others found work in jazz clubs.

Many of the musicians thought their talents improved during their unconventional side-gigs, as if the Holy Spirit really did overflow from Seymour's church and inspire them. Church members scoffed at that, and Seymour preached that using a God-given gift for a movie or a nightclub was blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

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