Harold Vinson Synan (December 1, 1934 – March 15, 2020) was an American historian, author, and alliance leader within the Pentecostal movement.
He served as General Secretary of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church and later as Chair of the North American Renewal Service Committee from 1985 to 2001.
In 2016, Synan moved back to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to re-join the faculty of Oral Roberts University as Interim Dean of the College of Theology and Ministry, where he served for two years.
Following that he served as Scholar in Residence at Oral Roberts University where he worked closely with William M. Wilson, the president of ORU, the World Pentecostal Fellowship, and Empowered21.
His call to ministry came shortly after his conversion in 1951, while living in Memphis, Tennessee, during the time he was seeking his experience of the "second blessing" of entire sanctification.
Synan then completed a two-year liberal arts degree from Emmanuel College in Franklin Springs, Georgia.
Synan graduated from the University of Richmond with a BA in American history in 1958, and in the fall of the same year began his teaching career.
Synan, however, declined the offer since he had already received a full scholarship with a stipend from the State of Georgia to prepare for his calling as a historian.
In 1977, Synan was the chairman of the Pentecostal track for the General Conference on Charismatic Renewal held in Arrow Head Stadium in Kansas City.
During the years of 1990 and 1994, Synan was a professor of Pentecostal and Charismatic History and served as the Director of the Holy Spirit Research Center at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Under his leadership the School of Divinity implemented both a Doctorate of Ministry and a non-residential and on-line PhD program in Renewal Studies, which was the first of its kind in the world.
Reflecting on the day he met her as a young evangelist preaching at a summer youth camp, he described her as "a dark-haired beauty whose smile seemed to light up the entire room.
"[citation needed] Together they had four children: Mary Carol (1961), Virginia Lee (1963), Harold Vinson Jr. (1966), and Joseph Alexander III (1968).
Synan had known G. F. Taylor, the widow of the founder of the college, when he was a student in the 1950s, and since he was a faculty member, research of the school's history was readily accessible.
As a son of the denomination and a professionally trained historian, Synan was commissioned to write the official history of his PHC.
In 1972 Synan was invited by Kilian McDonnell to speak at the third annual Catholic Charismatic Conference at University of Notre Dame.
[citation needed] Prior to publishing his monograph, Synan added three chapters beyond his dissertation to include the Catholic Charismatic Movement which was at this time in full swing.
Copies were sent to the Vatican and all over Europe, and as a result, Synan became a frequent speaker at Catholic Charismatic events and was invited to participate in the Catholic-Pentecostal dialogue with David du Plessis and Kilian McDonnell.
Synan's book Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins which he edited in 1975 is a compilation of articles presented at the Society for Pentecostal Studies in 1973.
Originally written in 1974 as a series of lectures presented for the King Memorial Lectureship at Emmanuel College, Synan used the motif first described by David Wesley Myland in his book The Latter Rain Covenant and Pentecostal Power in which the Pentecostal outpouring around the start of the 20th century was recognized as the fulfillment of the Joel 2 prophecy for early and latter rain.
The chapter on the early history with Charles Parham and the Azusa Street Revival the author titles "The Rain Falls in America."
The chapter "The Rain Falls Around the World" is a description of the movement's growth into Europe, Chile, Latin America, Russia, and Brazil.
He gives this opening statement in the book: "There is only one outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the latter days, although the streams flow through channels known as 'classical Pentecostalism,' Protestant 'neo-Pentecostalism,' and the 'Catholic charismatic renewal.'
In preparation for the conference, Synan had the opportunity to interview many of the pioneer leaders of the various charismatic renewal groups and obtain a firsthand account of their story.
While serving as the Director of the Holy Spirit Research Center and Professor of Pentecostal and Charismatic History at Oral Roberts University, Synan co-authored with Ralph Rath his ninth book titled Launching the Decade of Evangelization in 1990.
Part three of Launching the Decade of Evangelism provided a historical background of the events which led up to the Indianapolis Renewal gathering.
At the Indianapolis Congress in 1990, Demos Shakarian commissioned Synan to write Under His Banner to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International which began in 1951.
The material for this book was originally presented as a series of lectures on "Evangelization and the Charismatic Renewal" in 1990 at the Church Growth Lectureship at the School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary under the leadership of C. Peter Wagner.
In this sixty-two page book, Synan cites David Barrett's statistics to provide a historical sketch of the explosive growth of Pentecostal-Charismatic Renewal around the world, employing the "Third Wave" analogy first expressed by Wagner in 1983.
Written at the invitation of Bert Ghezzi, a Catholic Charismatic and editor of Servant Publications, Voices of Pentecost: Testimonies of Lives Touched by the Holy Spirit is a devotional book, presenting short personal testimonies of 61 individuals throughout history, especially Pentecostals and Charismatics who, as the title suggests, have been touched and transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.