Fanning the Charismatic Fire

“A Pentecostalist is a person who thinks he’s arrived because he speaks in tongues.”

These are not words from a critic of the “charismatic renewal,” which continues to penetrate the historic denominations and Roman Catholicism. This is Pentecostalist David J. du Plessis, World Council of Churches gadfly, speaking to a Presbyterian congregation. Sharing the platform last month was renowned Presbyterian John A. Mackay, former president of Princeton Theological Seminary.

“Forgive all the Pentecostals for all their blunders, but don’t shun the experience,” du Plessis continued. He was talking about the baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, an experience that twenty years ago you probably didn’t admit to unless you belonged to a Pentecostal church.

Du Plessis’s comments typify a counter-trend: In many Pentecostal circles the big issue isn’t tongues anymore; it’s the total ministry of the Holy Spirit. Unlike the cork-popping new wine of Pentecostal revivals following the 1906 Azusa Street Mission meetings—which resulted in the Pentecostal churches—the characteristic of the charismatic renewal of the sixties is reformation from within. For instance:

• A charismatic communion of more than one hundred Presbyterian (U. S. and U. S. A.) ministers maintains an aura of anonymity and meets with minimum publicity. Last month twenty gathered in Austin, Texas, with Mackay and J. Rodman Williams, professor of systematic theology at Austin Seminary. Stated aims: avoiding the quenching of the Spirit, and becoming a “leavening rather than a divisive force in the Church.”

• Ecumenical, Inter-Church Team Ministries, based in Newhall, California, promotes “full Gospel” conferences “in all branches of the Christian Church, as well as in seminaries, universities and colleges.” Catholics, Southern Baptists, and Lutherans were among those who testified to receiving “the baptism” at an ICTM seminar last month in Chicago Guideposts editor John Sherrill, author of the glossolalia-approving They Speak With Other Tongues, is a board member.

• Stratford Retreat House sponsored a ten-day “charismatic airlift” to Jerusalem last month. Led by “Spirit-filled” Bible teachers and preachers, it was a follow-up of a London airlift two years ago with Oral Roberts, Harald Bredesen (Reformed Church tongues-speaking minister), and the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship.

“Imagine,” beckons the brochure, “preaching and testifying and handing out Hebrew tracts in Jerusalem … praying in the Upper Room for a new infilling.…”

Noisiest—and most open—promoters of the “second baptism” among non-Pentecostals are members of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship. Du Plessis recently told several thousand persons from twenty-two denominations that FGBMF has been bridging the gap between Pentecostals and “mainliners.” But he privately swatted its Madison Avenue techniques, which “exploit well-known men to boost the movement.”

Federated American Baptist-Disciples of Christ minister Don Basham told the audience he kept his Spirit baptism secret for nearly five years for fear of public reaction. His case is typical. After an initial outburst of publicity and a round of church tongue-lashings, denominational charismatic cells largely moved underground. But the movement is spreading—quietly, cautiously.

Pentecost Revisited

The Assemblies of God has called for an extensive evaluation of the Pentecostal movement—the first in its fifty-three-year history—to point out overall strengths and weaknesses. The denomination’s 13,000 churches and missions have agreed to abide by the committee’s recommendations when they are presented to the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America in St. Louis next August. Assemblies Superintendent Thomas Zimmerman said the study is “an attempt to be relevant.”

Trying to count tounges-speakers within non-Pentecostal churches is like sizing up an iceberg by observing the part above water. Du Plessis estimates more than 1,000 Catholic converts this year alone. Episcopalians Dennis Bennett of St. Luke’s, Seattle, and Bishop Chandler W. Sterling of Montana, head of the American Church Union, estimate that 10 per cent of the Episcopal clergy (about 700) speak in tongues.

Bennett touched off the modern glossolalia movement and split his Van Nuys, California, church in 1960 when he announced from the pulpit he had spoken in tongues. Now Bennett and Presbyterian pastor James Brown of Parkesburg, Pennsylvania, pack their churches with late-night weekend audiences without official opposition.

Bennett, who recently married Rita Reed—sister of surgeon William Standish Reed, a tongues-speaking columnist for Christian Life—says about one-third of attenders are older teen-agers and collegians. His “Spirit-baptized” people win three or four persons to Christ every week, he says.

Numerous Baptists have spoken in tongues, but no one hazards a guess on just how many. Michigan American Baptist official Francis Whiting has supported the charismatic movement. Lutherans, Methodists, Christian Adventists, and Mennonite Brethren also are involved.

In addition to outbreaks of tongues at schools like Princeton and Yale after lectures there by du Plessis and Church of God Bishop Homer A. Tomlinson (who now claims to be “King of the World,”), Pentecostal cells are flourishing among Catholics at Duquesne, Notre Dame, and Michigan State, and lately at Iowa State and Holy Cross (Worcester, Massachusetts).

Personalities who use the tongues experience devotionally include Catherine Marshall LeSourd, authoress and wife of the late Peter Marshall; Coleen Townsend Evans, former actress and wife of Presbyterian minister Louis Evans, Jr.; and New York Times feature reporter McCandlish Phillips.

Tongues-speakers are not stigmatized as they were five years ago, but there are detractors among ultra-conservative elements, especially Dispensationalists (tongues were for Pentecost, not today), and some liberals (excessive emotionalism).

Campus group leaders have come cheek-to-jowl with the tongues issue. Bill Bright’s Campus Crusade for Christ forbids its 1,100 staffers to speak in tongues, even in private devotions (it’s divisive).

Critics from all sides raise the sticky question: Are tongues real language or mere sounds? Bennett claims a truck-driver parishioner speaks fluent Mandarin under Spirit influence. American Bible Society linguist Eugene Nida analized scores of tongues tapes, concluded it was nonsense. Hartford Seminary Foundation Professor William Samarin is seeking tongues-speakers for an “unbiased investigation.” Some apologists, citing Romans 8:26, say non-language glossolalia can be Spirit-inspired.

Insiders in the Order of St. Luke say there is a shake-up over reported infiltration of spiritualism. The nub of the contention is that healing, speaking in tongues, and discerning of spirits all are listed by Paul (1 Cor. 12) as gifts of the Spirit.

The once charisma-chary Bishop James A. Pike now says a “second baptism is a valid spiritual experience.” But Assembly of God pastors warn against séances and shun “communications with the dead” through mediums. Warns Gordon Swanson of San Bruno, California: “It’s the keen edge of the demonic; you can no longer recognize the power of the blood of Christ.”

Presbyterian elder statesman Mackay is obviously impressed with the charismatic renewal: he calls it “the most significant and influential movement of our time.” And the white-haired Scotsman foresees a more cordial rapprochement between Catholics and Pentecostals than between adherents of mainline denominations.

Charismatic communion provides a powerful, personal appeal, and a sense of excitement often disdained in formal, mainline churches.

Proffers Mackay: “The future of the Church could be with a reformed Catholicism and a matured Pentecostalism.”

PROGRAM-PANNING

The American Baptist Convention’s evangelism program needs an overhaul. Despite diplomatic language, that was the brunt of a report this month from the Executive Committee of the ABC’s General Council.

The evidence was old but impressive (see June 9 issue, page 35): official complaints from New Jersey and Ohio, frequent unofficial complaints from groups of ministers, and estimates by some regional executives that three-fourths of their people “are unhappy with our existing program.”

The evangelism report, to be voted on by the General Council at its January 31-February 1 meeting, played down many local complaints as just passing the buck to national headquarters. But the theologically diverse study committee named by President L. Doward McBain found at least a “seeming neglect of the more ‘familiar’ forms of evangelistic effort” and a failure of the national staff to sell its “new forms.”

Since the General Council has no actual authority over the home-mission society, the report can only nudge the agency to make its own study of the problems and to mend its ways. Among suggestions for reform are better leadership in winning new church members, and balancing of the staff and program to include traditional views.

A major gripe has been withdrawal of national funds from support of regional evangelism executives. The report absolved evangelism Secretary Jitsuo Morikawa from charges that he dosen’t believe in personal salvation, but Ohio’s complaint about his universalism was not mentioned.

After the General Council voted for the evangelism probe in May, Morikawa flatly denied in a home-mission paper that he was a universalist. He then offered a complicated explanation of his “who knows?” position on the subject.

Morikawa’s major interest is mission to secular city structures. One-third of the General Council’s upcoming crammed agenda will be spent touring his Philadelphia projects. At the next meeting, a home-mission staffer is supposed to react to the report, but the response is predictable. Executive William Rhoades said it includes nothing his board hasn’t already considered.

The home-mission staff’s sensitivity is seen in reaction to a rather bland, rather conservative series of three editorials on evangelism ideology in the denominational monthly Crusader. The paper didn’t mention any names, but headquarters suddenly worked out a brand-new set of guidelines for ABC publications, reportedly including a call for “sympathetic treatment” of denominational programs. This month a General Council committee, after intense debate, added an appendix guaranteeing editorial freedom. The compromise version will be presented at the next meeting.

In contrast to the home-mission controversy, the ABC foreign-mission board this year quietly came out with a balanced policy statement, the first since 1933. It begins, “the basic aim of the Christian mission is to proclaim and exemplify the Gospel of Jesus Christ by word and deed. The personal dimension of this outreach is to bring men everywhere into a redemptive and transforming relationship with Jesus Christ.… The wide dimension requires the involvement of all Christians, individually and collectively, in bringing the Christian Gospel in all its fullness to bear on every aspect of human life and society.…”

The General Council’s future agenda also includes a proposal for a three-year study, to cost up to $100,000, of denominational reorganization. Among the issues are closer ties between General Council and the independent agencies, representation of regions in the General Council, and giving full program-planning responsibility to the office of General Secretary Edwin Tuller.

THAT ROMANESQUE SYNOD

“Forty years ago,” the gray-haired woman told the overcrowded auditorium, my Protestant fiancé and I went to my priest to ask him to marry us. When my husband-to-be heard what the church required of him he got up and walked out, never to go to church again. I followed him. Not until last year did I return to the church as a widow, because I felt there had been a real change.”

The woman may have been influenced more by the rebellious Roman Catholic press of Holland or the violently anti-Roman spirit of the Catholic teach-in she addressed at Dordrecht than by the Synod of Bishops in Rome. For that same day the bishops rejected all but a few minor changes in church attitudes on mixed marriages.

Only thirty-three prelates backed the proposal to recognize marriages that have not been performed before a Catholic priest. The liberals felt let down, especially by their North American colleagues who belonged to the majority of 125 that rejected major changes.

Apparently secular newspapers were also disappointed. Although they had given the synodical Roman holiday tremendous coverage at first, they said little about its romanesque results.

During the vital, final voting week, the synod’s news releases were cut to minimum length. What had started as a highly significant meeting collapsed into a rather dull symposium.

The Dutch Catholic journal Time, seeking to explain the abatement, stressed the important advisory task of the synod: “… it threw pre-conciliar laws and resolutions drafted by the Curia into the wastepaper basket of history.”

Undoubtedly the best work was done in the field of “dangers that threaten the faith.” After voting down a catalogue of errors enumerated by Cardinal Ottaviani’s office, a committee of bishops drafted a far more pastoral report that was accepted with an overwhelming majority. In it, the bishops propose formation of an international committee of theologians to advise the pope. It was a clear vote of no confidence in Ottaviani’s colleagues.

The Pope’S Operation

“Procedamus in nomine Domini.” With that order on November 4 from Pope Paul VI (“Let us proceed in the name of the Lord”), six doctors began surgery for removal of his enlarged prostate gland. It was the first internal operation ever done on a pope. The chief surgeon was Dr. Pietro Valdoni, who in 1948 saved the life of Italian Communist Party leader Palmiro Togliatti by removing three assasin bullets. First medical reports after the operation indicated there was no sign of cancer. The 70-year-old pontiff was up and around in a few days and was expected to make his first public ceremony December 8.

The bishops recommended:

• That the pope publish a positive pastoral encyclical on church teachings.

• That bishops, not the pope, be allowed to give dispensations to mixed couples to marry outside the Catholic Church.

• That the Apostles’ Creed, not the longer Nicene, be read during Mass, and that three portions of Scripture be used in services instead of two.

• That rules for reforming canon law be heavily amended.

As the bishops sat down to vote, Pope Paul received his eastern friend Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras, who was on a precedent-shattering visit to the Vatican. They decided to keep in touch with each other, especially about pastoral problems like mixed marriages. The patriarch’s conclusion was: “I am too old to see the recovery of the unity of our churches, but I’m sure it will become a reality.” Then he was off to visit the World Council of Churches offices and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The visit had worn out Paul so much that his doctors forbade him to attend the synod’s closing meeting. Long-proposed surgery soon followed (see box below).

Only once did the Pope call the bishops’ meeting “important.” He didn’t say why he thought it was, nor what he would do with the results of the month-long deliberations, nor whether there would be a second meeting.

JAN J. VAN CAPELLEVEEN

LAY POWER IN LUBBOCK

Despite the chilly snowfall outside, Texas Baptist laymen debated hotly and won a larger role in the affairs of the 4,000-church state convention. The 3,000 delegates at Lubbock this month supplanted the largely inactive Texas Baptist Brotherhood with a new lay organization, Texas Baptist Men, which has increased power to act on missions and missions education. The delegates endorsed virtually all recommendations of the controversial, investigative Committee of 100, created by the convention last year to head off demands for a separate laymen-only organization.

Many committee recommendations sought increased efficiency in the state’s billion-dollar Baptist empire. Other accepted proposals strengthened the Christian Life and Welfare Commissions and expanded evangelism among military men and laymen. A major rejected recommendation would have required that one of the top three state officials be a layman.

Also at Lubbock, the Church Loan Board came under fire for encroaching on private business in two speculative California real-estate deals, in which the board stands to turn a million-dollar profit. The Baptists also urged a “sweeping investigation” of laxity by the state liquor control board.

MARQUITA MOSS

ANOTHER BISHOP STEPS DOWN

Chandler W. Sterling of Montana will become the second Episcopal bishop to resign when he steps down next July after eleven years in office. Resigned Bishop James Pike left leadership of the Diocese of California last year.

Sterling is president of the American Church Union (Anglo-Catholic wing of the Episcopal Church) and a supporter of the charismatic movement within the historic denominations (see page 39)

The 56-year-old prelate, who has favored direct church involvement in areas such as civil rights, says he has no definite plans for the future.

In his resignation announcement, he noted that bishops traditionally remain in office until retirement. But the custom is passing, he said, along with the “paternalistic nineteenth-century religion” that fostered it. Sterling said he was under no pressure to resign.

WHAT EVANGELICAL TEENS WANT

Evangelical teen-agers want church guidance on sex, marriage preparation, and job choice, and favor racial integration, according to a poll described at last month’s meeting of the National Sunday School Association. The survey was made of 2,646 youths between the ages of 14 and 19 who belong to thirty-seven conservative denominations and professed to having “received Christ as Saviour.”

William Greig, Jr., California Presbyterian and first lay president of the NSSA, called it “a very honest attempt by the conservative wing of American Protestantism” to see how to minister more effectively to youth.

The study showed a great majority do not approve of teens lying, cheating, gossiping, having premarital sexual intercourse, breaking speed limits, drinking, or reading lewd literature. Three-fourths were willing to attend a racially integrated Sunday School or live in a mixed neighborhood, but most opposed interracial marriage.

Ants And The Incarnation

The man who created the controversial Parable film for the New York World’s Fair has a sequel-just in time for Advent season—on the Incarnation theme. The Antkeeper, written and directed by Rolf Forsberg and produced by the Lutheran Church in America, was released to TV stations last week.

In the half-hour color film, a Mexican Indian gardener and his son raise a colony of winged ants who ruin their Eden. The ants are tempted into another garden and lose their wings. Then the son is born into the society as a red ant who tries to teach love. Eventually the ants turn on him and tear him apart.

For some reason Forsberg denies that his work is an allegory of the Incarnation story. “If people see God in the gardener and themselves in the ants, fine. But the story can be enjoyed in and of itself. The beauty of the film is that it leads the imagination outward and lets the mind come to any number of conclusions.”

The narrator is Fred Gwynne, who plays a Frankenstein monster on the TV series The Munsters. The essential ant photography was done by Robert Crandall, insect expert for the Walt Disney nature films. Insects as actors are a first in films, Crandall says. It took him three months to get one five-second scene showing friendship between red and black ants, which are natural enemies.

One source said complete findings will show, however, a considerable difference between what the teens profess and what they admit actually doing. The full report is due in 1968.

JOHN NOVOTNEY

DEATH-OF-GOD PSYCHIATRY

O. H. Mowrer, heralded as a leading figure in the movement to mesh religion and psychiatry, says “the Church must decide whether it wants to be theistic or non-theistic,” and leans to the latter. “Theism is in trouble,” says the University of Illinois psychiatrist. “It has become a stumbling block for greater numbers of people.” In past ages it has provided neither the “power” nor “an adequate psychiatry” to deal with deep-seated human problems, he told a symposium last month sponsored by Roman Catholic Marquette University.

In his view, religion can exist with or without God, since its purpose is “reconciliation of ruptured relationships.” Mowrer, much-publicized proponent of “integrity therapy,” postulates that a disturbed person is separated from others because of secret guilt. Restoration to valid relationships comes as the therapist helps the patient confess and, make restitution for his wrongs (see review, October 27 issue, page 32).

“In many ways mine is a works religion,” he conceded. Mowrer is unsure whether God exists, and is sure Jesus was not divine. Raised a Presbyterian, he left the denomination in college, later returned and took a church office, then quit because he could no longer accept the Westminster Confession. But now the confessional stand has changed, he noted. “I’m not sure if I should be in or out.”

BARBARA H. KUEHN

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