Touched by the Wind: The Charismatic Movement in the Episcopal Church

By D. William Faupel

As appearing the Summer 2000 issue of The Pneuma Review

Almost forty years have passed since that incident. I have followed the developments of the Charismatic renewal within the Episcopal Church with great interest since then: for ten years from the perspective of a member of a Pentecostal denomination, and for the past thirty years as an Anglican. It is out of this dual background that I have been asked me to write a critical evaluation of the Charismatic Movement within the Episcopal Church.

I Bennett was not the first Anglican to receive the Pentecostal experience. In his much-publicized letter to his parishioners, dated April 5, 1960, he wrote:

“St. Mark’s is not alone in this Pentecostal phenomenon. I am not alone in this. I know of dozens of Episcopal parishes throughout the country where the work of the Holy Spirit is known in just this same way. I know of dozens of Episcopal clergy who know about it all, and rejoice in their knowledge.”¹

He claimed the movement was also in evidence in other established denominations but that “up to now it has been kept a secret.” His announcement brought the phenomenon into the open and gained national attention. Soon he was responding to numerous invitations to speak and teach in distant cities in the United States and beyond.² Jean Stone, a parishioner at St. Mark’s also fostered the early growth of the movement. Articulate, charming and capable, she spread the charismatic word on television, radio, in the press, and at ecumenical gatherings and in Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship meetings. She launched Christian Advance, a nationwide preaching mission and established Trinity House, a temporary home for displaced clergy who had been relieved of their parishes because of their Pentecostal witness. Most significantly to the fledgling movement, she founded and edited Trinity magazine to promote the Pentecostal message among Episcopalians. By the end of 1961 she estimated that over 1,000 Episcopalians in Southern California alone were numbered within the movement.³

Two books, published in 1963, further enhanced the initial spread of the movement among Anglicans. Episcopalian John L. Sherrill, editor of Guideposts set out to discredit the movement. In the course of his investigation he be became convinced of its divine authenticity. His book, They Speak with other Tongues,⁴ quickly became a best seller. The same year, David Wilkerson, Assemblies of God minister, published The Cross and the Switchblade,⁵ which told of his work with drug addicts in New York. He maintained that former addicts empowered through Spirit-baptism had a far greater success rate of staying drug free than persons going through other detox programs. Wilkerson’s book, like Sherrill’s, exercised an influence that penetrated deep within the Anglican Communion.

Wilkerson’s ministry to one cleric proved particularly significant. Graham Pulkingham had accepted a call to the Church of the Redeemer in Houston, Texas in 1963. Faced with a dying congregation in a decadent neighborhood, he attempted all kinds of new programs to make the church relevant to its setting. Disillusionment from failure soon pressed upon him. In desperation, he sought and received the experience of “Spirit-Baptism” under the ministry of Wilkerson in 1964. Transformation was immediate. Within months the Church of the Redeemer became revitalized, become a witnessing, catalytic agency in the greater Houston area. Soon the church was sponsoring a medical clinic, a youth coffeehouse, a prison ministry and a neighborhood literacy program. Like Bennett, Pulkingham traveled the length and breath of the United States and overseas in a ministry of teaching, preaching and prayer. He sent forth teams of layman from his parish as “enablers” to assist other churches to experience spiritual renewal. Scores of young people went from his church sharing the Gospel through music and personal testimony.⁶

Soon other churches, like St. Luke’s in Seattle, Washington, St. Paul’s in Derrian, Connecticut, Trinity in Bridgewater, Massachusetts became centers of charismatic activity both receiving people from across the nation to come for teaching regarding the experience of “Spirit-Baptism” and sending forth workers to proclaim the new message.⁸

Reaction to the rapid spread of the Charismatic Movement within the Episcopal Church was swift, and in general unsympathetic. In 1960, Bennett was forced to resign his parish in Van Nuys and was forced to accept a small mission in a suburb of Seattle that was about to be closed after fifty years of struggle to survive. The same year, a commission of the Bishop of San Francisco temporarily forbade tongue speaking in groups under parish auspices. A few months later a Bishop’s commission in Chicago forbade the use of tongues in religious services, warned of the dangers of emotional excess and irrationality, and cautioned against the tendency of participants to exalt themselves above others. Controversy erupted again in 1963 when California’s Bishop Pike labeled tongue speaking “heresy in embryo”, and without expressly forbidding the practice, strongly urged that it be abandoned.

Internally, the movement suffered a blow in 1964 with the controversial divorce of Jean Stone and her subsequent remarriage to a member of the Trinity staff. The magazine was discontinued with the Christmastide issue. With the collapse of the institutions she inspired and the somewhat cautious if not hostile official stance of the church, the opportunity for a national coordinating center for the movement within in the church was lost. Many adherents left the Episcopal Church to join Pentecostal or independent charismatic bodies. Many of those who remained within the church often operated without adequate clerical supervision and were beyond the pale of official parish life. By the mid-seventies many critics were confidently predicting that within the Episcopal Church at least, the Charismatic Movement was dead.⁹

The prediction proved premature. As one veteran charismatic noted, “It was a furnace of affliction in which steel was forged and dross purged.” In 1973, 300 priests met in Dallas, Texas to form an informal group to encourage charismatic renewal in the Episcopal Church. They sought and received the endorsement of the House of Bishops. Calling themselves the Episcopal Charismatic Fellowship, the group soon began publishing a journal entitled Acts 29. Having obtained official recognition and established a national organization to coordinate activities, the Charismatic movement slowly began a resurgence within the church. Today the Episcopal Renewal Ministries, renamed in 1977, has a full-time national coordinator, and according to a recent issue of Charisma, claims that 1,200 churches and some 300,000 adherents are involved in Charismatic renewal.¹⁰

Michael Harper, a leader of the movement within the Church of England until he converted to the Orthodox communion, noted that it is now the largest spiritual force in the Anglican tradition since the emergence of the Oxford Movement in the nineteenth century. All indicators seem to project that the movement will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.¹¹

II The Charismatic Movement in the Episcopal Church is indeed a force that must be recognized. However, it is not sufficient simply to celebrate or to lament this reality. The thoughtful person, whether adherent or critic, must ask such questions as: What does this mean? Is it of God? How can it be used as a constructive force for the advancement of God’s kingdom and the enrichment of Christ’s Church?

From the beginning, the movement has seen itself as having a two-fold focus: first, bringing renewal to individuals, local churches and entire denominations; and second, bringing about the unity of a divided Christendom. The leadership has tended to disclaim any specifically theological purpose. Rather, it claims to be a renewal of experience, not of doctrine, often observing “theology divides, experience unites.”¹²

Critics responded by stating that this has left the movement open to the worst excesses of pietism. While they often conceded that the movement had produced a renewed vibrancy in worship, a deepening love for God, and a commitment to evangelism, they charged that it had also produced emotional excesses, spiritual elitism and anti-intellectualism.¹³

Furthermore, despite the claim that the movement was devoid of particular doctrinal content, Bennett and other early Anglican adherents, none-the-less, interpreted their experience in traditional Pentecostal categories. They believed “the baptism in the Holy Spirit” to be an experience subsequent to conversion which imparted the Holy Spirit’s presence and power to enable a fullness of Christian life and witness. Speaking in unknown tongues was a necessary evidence.¹⁴

Equally important, a “restorationist” world-view inherent in Pentecostal theology became an implicit feature of the movement. The New Testament in general, and the Acts of the Apostles in particular, became the paradigm for the life of the church. Practices in the Anglican tradition, not found explicitly in the New Testament, were often called into question. Dimensions thought to be part of the New Testament but not in evidence in the present expression of parish life, were introduced.¹⁵

Ultimately, critics and many adherents as well, came to recognize this interpretation to be incompatible with the historic Anglican sacramental understanding of the faith. Either the tradition was in serious error and had to be discarded or the Pentecostal experience had to be understood in different categories. As this realization began to dawn upon the movement’s consciousness in the early 1970’s, many adherents left to join Pentecostal or independent churches. Others renounced their experience to return to a more traditional Anglican understanding of the faith. Several, however, began the more difficult task of attempting to ground the charismatic experience in the Anglican tradition.

These leaders have tended to follow the lead of Roman Catholics by teaching that the charismatic experience is the “actualization” of what was dormant before. They contend that the indwelling of God’s Spirit was bestowed in the sacraments of baptism and confirmation God’s power, latent in the believer, is now released through the charismatic experience to empower the individual for Christian service. Glossolalia, according to this view, is seen as a gift of the Spirit as designated by St. Paul in I Corinthians, chapter twelve.¹⁶

This shift of understanding has greatly reduced the tension that existed between adherents and church leaders. From its birth in 1973, the Episcopal Charismatic Fellowship self-consciously sought to work within the structures of the church. This trend was strengthened in 1977 when the fellowship merged with two other groups seeking renewal and took the more generic name, Episcopal Renewal Ministries. The most evident result, to date, has been rapid numerical growth of the movement within the church. The change of perspective has also provided the structure that has encouraged an intentional recovery of spirituality inherent within the Anglican tradition.

At the same time, in the effort to embrace a variety of groups seeking the renewal of the church, there has been an understandable tendency to gloss over doctrinal differences in the interest of unity. This is coupled with a lingering suspicion that theological reflection will “quench the Spirit.” Despite conscious efforts to tone down the rhetoric, the pages of Acts 29 are still filled with examples of triumphalism. Finally, the inward focus on the Episcopal Church has, for all practical purposes, caused the ecumenical concern to be set aside.

These trends cause concern for me, and ought to be troubling for those in the movement as well. I turn to a parallel movement in the nineteenth century, to bring these concerns into sharper focus.

III Many Anglicans have often compared the charismatic movement to the renewal movement started by John Wesley in the eighteenth century. They note, with some justification, that the failure of the Church of England to embrace this revival cost it dearly, and that this must not happen again. While there is much insight to be gained from such a comparison there were many differences as well. Most notably, the social location of the Wesleyan revival was primarily among the poor and working classes, quite a different phenomenon from that of the current charismatic renewal. A more analogous comparison is the child of the Wesleyan revival, the holiness movement of the nineteenth century.

This renewal movement emerged within American Methodism as an identifiable force following the Second Awakening when the former accused the latter of neglecting to promote Wesley’s crowning doctrine of Christian Perfection. The doctrine taught that one’s sinful nature was transformed by the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, an experience subsequent to conversion. For more than thirty years, from the 1840’s to the 1870’s American religion was transformed by the penetration of holiness teaching across the whole spectrum of Protestant denominations. The initial impulse began in 1835 when two sisters, Sarah Lankford and Phoebe Palmer, moved the weekly series of Bible studies they had been conducting at two New York City Methodist churches to their home. The “Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness” would continue regularly until 1896.

Adopting the structure of the Wesleyan class meeting, the sessions consisted of Bible study, testimony and prayer. The meeting drew people of all denominations from far and near. Laity and clergy alike came to sit at Phoebe’s feet. Within a few years, similar meetings were established along the eastern seaboard. By 1886, at least 238 such groups were meeting throughout North America and Western Europe. Recognizing the need for a journal to promote the doctrine and to tie the scattered groups together, Sarah persuaded Timothy Merritt to begin the publication of The Guide to Christian Perfection in 1839. It would continue as an influential voice for the Movement until 1902.¹⁷

The 1857-58 revival, coming in the midst of the movement’s ascendancy, played a pivotal role. The revival began in Hamilton, Ontario, where Palmer was conducting special meetings. It spread quickly throughout North America, making its primary impact on the urban centers. Wherever it appeared, the revival broke out in seemingly spontaneous prayer meetings, catching many clergy totally by surprise. Arising from below, even the leadership of this “visitation” was drawn primarily from the laity. Like Palmer’s Tuesday Meeting, these union sessions of prayer totally transcended denominational sectarianism:

Arminians and Calvinists, Baptists and Pedo-Baptists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Friends, sat side by side on the same benches, sang the same hymns, and Amen to the same prayers. In this Pentecost as at the first, what became evident to the followers of Jesus, were not the things in which they differed but those upon which they agreed.¹⁸

Holiness teaching marked the meetings. Even those who could not accept the two-fold Wesleyan scheme, none-the-less adopted the view that true conversion freed the Christian from the power of sin. Multitudes became convinced that justification in the eyes of God must be evidenced by sanctification in their own subsequent experience.

Two books published during the revival assisted in sharpening this doctrinal focus. William Arthur, an Irish Methodist, published The Tongue of Fire¹⁹ in 1856. The book filled with perfectionist themes set the tone for the revival. The second, The Higher Christian Life,²⁰ written by William Boardman, made its appearance in 1858. Boardman, a Presbyterian, sought to present the holiness doctrine in non-Wesleyan language. The book swept more non-Methodist circles into the Holiness Movement than any other single force that preceded it.²¹

Though this revival had a worldwide impact, it did not result in the establishment of the millennium on earth as many had anticipated. Indeed, in the United States, the Civil War followed on its heels. Ultimately, it would split the movement in half. Many, such as Methodist Bishop Jesse Peck, saw the war as a judgment from God for the national sin of slavery. With that scourge removed, the perfectionist message could be pressed forward, Christian unity achieved and the Kingdom of God established. These leaders joined forces with other renewalist impulses to forge the Social Gospel.²²

The war and the subsequent effects of rapid urbanization and industrialization caused others to be more pessimistic about the future of the world. These abandoned a postmillennial eschatology—that saw a renewed united church ushering in the kingdom of God on earth—in favor a premillennial eschatology. They saw their task as a faithful remnant warning of further judgment. The appeal for renewal and unity of the church was replaced by a call to leave denominational structures in order to form a true restored New Testament Church.²³

Thousands heeded this call. Regional, state, and local associations were formed to assure that converts were nurtured in the pure holiness understanding of the faith. The restoration of the true church was proclaimed. In local communities, advocates were organized into “bands”—at first prayer groups that were similar to the Tuesday Meeting but which later became more active, engaging in street evangelism and inner city mission work. A proliferation of regional and statewide periodicals came into existence to tie these groups together. By the end of the century they had taken on the structures which formed the Holiness denominations. Following the Azusa Street revival, the more radical groups became Pentecostal.²⁴

IV It would be absurd to pretend that this brief description begins to give justice to all the subtle complexities of the Charismatic Movement or the American Holiness Movement, especially at a time when historians of American religion are just now beginning to uncover the significance of the role which the movement played in the nineteenth century. Rather, I have sought to sketch the broad outlines sufficiently to make some comparisons in order to reflect upon possible future directions the Charismatic Movement may be heading.

First, though differing in content, both movements promoted a doctrine of Spirit-baptism, an experience subsequent to conversion. In the case of the Holiness Movement the experience was understood to transform one’s sinful nature and was evidenced by a manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit. In the case of the Charismatic movement, the experience was understood to bring to existential reality, one’s relationship with God and is evidenced by the gifts of the Spirit.

Second, the social location of both movements began in the upper and middle classes and quickly penetrated all denominations and theological traditions. In each case, the movement quickly became a worldwide phenomenon and spread to every economic and social location.

Third, both movements believed that their doctrine and experience would result in the renewal of the churches and ultimately in the unity of the Church.

Finally, both movements produced two competing visions of the Church. One vision called for the renewal of existing structures from which God’s people were to work toward unity. The second called for an abandonment of existing structures in favor of establishing a new “pure” church based on a restorationist understanding of the New Testament.

Understandably, in the Holiness movement, the two visions proved to be irreconcilable. The movement split and proceeded in quite different directions with unfortunate results. The renewalist vision ultimately succumbed to denominational self-interests. The restorationist vision lead to the establishment of a host of new denominations. Thus, despite its best intentions, the Holiness Movement became the agent of faction rather than fraternity.

Since the mid-seventies, tensions have existed between those holding these respective visions within the Charismatic Movement. Thus far the leadership of ERM has sought to walk a narrow line, seeking to work within the structures and theology of the Episcopal Church while at the same time staying in dialogue with those who call for the restoration of the Church.

To sustain this stance indefinitely will not be easy. A decade ago Walter Lewis, an Episcopal priest and the director of Restoration Ministries, warned:

Episcopalians can no longer assume that charismatics will stay to work for renewal in the denomination. Leaving the denominational structure wouldn’t have occurred to me or other Episcopalians ten or fifteen years ago. Today it is not so uncommon.²⁵

Despite the strains, I believe it is in the tension which exists between the conflicting visions that the Episcopal Church will discover its best hope to experience sustained renewal and ultimate reconciliation with other communions. In dialogue, the twin visions hold forth the already/not yet of Christian reality. In this tension comes the realization that God alone can and will bring about the reconciliation. As the Holiness Movement’s experience reveals, when the tension is broken, both visions collapse and a host of splinter groups emerge to start the process all over again.

Finally, the Holiness Movement offers a clue for a possible way forward. In its nineteenth century theological expression, it has little to say to us today. Its substantive understanding of sin being removed from the heart of the believer has not stood the test of experience. Depth psychology revealing the subtle and hidden motivations governing our behavior helps to explain why. Yet the same discipline has also demonstrated that a crisis experience will often result in the transformation of behavior.

The roots of Holiness teaching go back through John Wesley to such Anglican divines as Jeremy Taylor (Holy Living and Holy Dying) and William Law (A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life). These seventeenth century Caroline divines gave shape to the spirituality of generations of Anglicans. Perhaps the power of their message can be recovered by the Charismatic Movement to speak to us today.

¹ Dennis J. Bennet, “Pastoral Letter to Parishioners of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Van Nuys California,” (April 5, 1960), Reprinted in Trinity, I (Christmastide, 1961-62), p. 7.

² Ibid.

³Jean Stone, “What is Happening Today in the Episcopal Church?” Trinity, I (Christmastide,1961-62), pp. 8-11.

⁴ John L. Sherrill, They Speak with Other Tongues (New York, NY: Pyramid Publications, 1963).

⁵ David Wilkerson, The Cross and the Switchblade (New York, NY: Bernard Geis Associates, 1963).

⁶ Peter M. Moonie, “The Significance of Neo-Pentecostalism for the Renewal and Unity of the Church in the United States.” (Th.D. Diss., Boston University, 1974), pp. 77, 83-87.

⁷ Ibid., 83-84.

⁸ “Speaking in Tongues,” Time (August 15, 1960), p. 53; Michael I. Harrison and John K. Maniha, “Dynamics of Dissenting Movements with Established Organizations: Two Cases and a Theoretical Interpretation,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, XVII (September, 1978), p.210; and, James A. Pike, “Pastoral Letter Regarding Speaking in Tongues,” Pastoral Psychology, XV (May, 1964), p. 57.

⁹ Michael I. Harrison and John K. Maniha, pp. 208-210.

¹⁰ D. H. Battley, “Charismatic Renewal: A View from Inside,” The Ecumenical Review, XXXVIII (January, 1986), p. 2.

¹¹ Michael Harper, “Renewal for Mission: An Anglican Perspective,” International Review of Mission, LXXV (April, 1986), p. 129.

¹² History of Episcopal Renewal Ministries, (n.p. n.d), p. 1.

¹³ D. H. Battley, p. 2.

¹⁴ H. I. Lederle, Treasures Old and New: Interpretations of ‘Spirit-Baptism’ in the Charismatic Renewal Movement (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1988), pp. 73-75.

¹⁵ Richard P. Cimmino, “‘Restoration’ Teachings Divide Charismatics,” Christian Century (December 7, 1988), p. 1117.

¹⁶ H. I. Lederle, pp. 104; 136-138.

¹⁷ D. William Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel: The Significance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought (Sheffield, ENG: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), pp. 61-62.

¹⁸ Perry Miller, The Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War (New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1965), p. 91.

¹⁹ William Arthur, The Tongue of Fire: or the True Power of Christianity (New York, NY: Harper Publishing Company, 1856.

²⁰ William E. Boardman, The Higher Christian Life (London, ENG: James Nisbet and Company, 1858).

²¹ D. William Faupel, p. 71.

²² Perry Miller, p. 94 citing Jessie T. Peck, The History of the Great Republic: Considered from a Christian Standpoint (New York, NY: W. C. Palmer, Jr., 1868).

²³ D. William Faupel, pp. 78-79.

²⁴ The best studies of this period of the holiness revival are: Charles E. Jones, Perfectionist Persuasion: The Holiness Movement and American Methodism, 1867-1936 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1974); and Melvin E. Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1980).

²⁵ Richard P. Cimmino, p. 1117.

This article is a revision of “The Renewal Movement: An Analytical Perspective” which appeared in the “Charismatic Revival” (Spring 1990) issue of Mission & Ministry, the magazine of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, 311 Eleventh Street, Ambridge, PA 15003. The editor, David Mills, can be contacted at DavidMills@tesm.edu. Used with permission.