To set these questions in perspective, this chapter will trace the rise of the modern Charismatic renewal, going back to the emergence of Pentecostalism at the beginning of this century. Then we will ask, What is the real “charismatic question” facing the church today?

     Holiness theology and practice, with a growing anticipation of mighty works of the Holy Spirit in these “latter days,” provided fertile soil for the rise of Pentecostalism—a new movement that in its early stages was identified almost exclusively with the practice of tongues-speaking.

     The Rev. Charles Fox Parham of Kansas is credited with being the first to formally state a doctrine of “glossolalia” as the only evidence of baptism with the Holy Spirit. He began teaching this view after an outbreak of tongues-speaking early on January 1, 1901, at Parham’s Bible school near Topeka. Parham maintained that tongues should be a normal part of Christian worship, not an unusual phenomenon of religious enthusiasm. This teaching laid the initial foundation for the modern Pentecostal Movement. 2

     From 1901 to 1905 Parham conducted a whirlwind revival tour that spread his Pentecostal doctrine to key locations in Kansas and Missouri. In 1905 he moved his headquarters to Houston, Texas, and for a few months operated a Bible training school that enrolled about twenty-five students. One student, W. J. Seymour, received his theological training there at the time. 3

     A poor Southern Holiness preacher, Seymour accepted an invitation to pastor a Negro mission in Los Angeles that was associated with the Church of the Nazarene. In his first sermon among the Nazarenes, Seymour emphasized the importance of speaking in tongues. The next night Seymour found the church door padlocked, and he with no place to stay. A Richard Asbury took him in, and nightly prayer and preaching services accompanied by unusual religious ecstasy were held in the Asbury living room. News of the unusual events spread through the neighborhood, and the rapidly growing crowd moved to the front porch and soon spilled into the street.

     A search for larger quarters led Seymour to a decrepit, abandoned Methodist Church building at 312 Azusa Street most recently used as a tenement house and livery stable. 4 The revival services conducted there soon received national attention, much of it less than complimentary. “Breathing strange utterances and mouthing a creed which it would seem no sane mortal could understand, the newest sect has started,” wrote a skeptical Los Angeles Times reporter on April 18, 1906. The front-page article further observed,

     In a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street, . . . devotees practice fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories and work themselves into a state of mad excitement. . . . Colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and . . . the worshippers spend hours swaying forth and back in a nerve-racking attitude of prayer and supplication. They claim to have the “gift of tongues” and to be able to comprehend the babel. 5

     In all, some twenty-five separate denominations sprang from Pentecostalism within fourteen years. These became the most rapidly growing group of churches in North America during the first half of the twentieth century.

• In 1951 David du Plessis, former executive secretary of the Pentecostal Fellowship in South Africa, discovered to his amazement that leaders of the World Council of Churches extended a warm welcome when he felt led to visit their headquarters and witness to them. Since then, he has traveled extensively, providing a new understanding of Pentecostalism to a wide variety of Christians. 7

• Meanwhile, at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California, Dennis Bennett saw his parish grow to two thousand from 1953 to 1961, fueled by small groups centered on Bible study and prayer. One group practiced a wide range of spiritual gifts, including prayer in tongues. When Bennett related to his congregation that the work of the Holy Spirit in his own life included praying in tongues, he was asked to resign. He did so, but invitations to speak elsewhere and his writings on the subject have encouraged Charismatic renewal in many small fellowship groups in a wide variety of mainline Protestant denominations. 8

• In 1962 Charismatic renewal took hold among students who participated in the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship at Yale. The following year saw similar events take place at Penn State, Kent State in Ohio, Indiana University, Purdue, and elsewhere . 9

• Beginning in the late 1950s the television ministry of Pentecostal Holiness evangelist Oral Roberts introduced millions of Americans to Pentecostalism. Students from Oral Roberts University, established in 1965 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, have broadened this influence. The scope of Roberts’ impact was dramatically demonstrated in 1968 with the transferral of his ordination to the United Methodist Church. Bishop Angie Smith of Oklahoma made it clear to Roberts that no change in his views was expected and that the Methodist Church needed what Roberts preached. 10

     Many similar occurrences could be noted. They all show that the renewal is broad-based, cutting across denominational, ethnic, educational, and economic boundaries. Charles Hummel writes,

     . . . . the renewal is not a movement. . . . It cannot be traced to one outstanding leader and his followers with the stamp of their doctrinal and organizational convictions. Nor is it like the modern ecumenical movement which was initiated by theological scholars and church leaders. Rather, the Charismatic renewal started as a pattern of events in the lives of a wide variety of Christians. This pattern comes to focus in the exercise of the full range of spiritual gifts (charisms) for strengthening the body of Christ in worship, evangelism and service. 11

     People associated with the modern Charismatic renewal are often lumped into the catch-all category of “Neo-Pentecostal.” Tongues remains a dominant practice among them, but not to the exclusion of the other gifts and emphases. They have many theological differences, but exhibit a common interest in seeing the gospel advanced through practicing all the gifts of grace.

     In recent years the Charismatic Movement has so infiltrated evangelical colleges and seminaries that by 1983, Pentecostals and charismatics accounted for about one-third of the students at Fuller and Gordon-Conwell seminaries, both of which are large, independent, and influential institutions.

     “Signs, Wonders and Church Growth” became the most popular course ever offered at Fuller Theological Seminary. Taught by John Wimber and Peter Wagner, this course studied the use of the gifts of the Spirit in the churches. Classes often ended with tongues-speaking, prophesying, and prayer for the sick. Wimber’s “Vineyard Christian Fellowship” congregation in Yorba Linda, California, put the classroom theories into practice. At that time some four thousand people were attending Sunday worship services in the Yorba Linda church that in 1982 was only five years old. 13 The so-called Vineyard Movement continues to grow, having an impact not only in California but across the continent and even beyond the U.S. Some observers now view this renewed emphasis on gifts, healing, and “power evangelism” as the cutting edge of charismatic renewal today.

     A key statement at Vatican II by Leon Joseph Cardinal Suenens of Belgium set the stage for approval of the Charismatic outbreak that occurred only three years later:

     To St. Paul, the Church of Christ does not appear as some administrative organization, but as a living, organic ensemble of gifts, charisms and services. The Holy Spirit is given to all Christians, and to each one in particular; and He in turn gives to each and every one gifts and charisms “which differ according to the grace bestowed upon us” (Rom. 12:6) 16

     Retreat participants were asked to read The Cross and the Switchblade before the meeting. The retreat consisted of intensive study of the Book of Acts followed by a day of prayer and study. After a birthday party Saturday night for one of the priests, the entire group spontaneously gathered in the chapel for prayer. Some began speaking in tongues, others prophesied or received gifts of discernment or wisdom, and the group was united in a spirit of love. 18

     From Duquesne University the new movement spread to Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, where acceptance among respected scholars and theologians gave credence and provided leadership. From Notre Dame, Catholic Charismatic Renewal caught fire throughout the United States and around the world. 19 Within six years the movement, comprising chiefly laypeople rather than clergy, claimed fifty thousand adherents. 20 Synan gives a dramatic summary:

     The burgeoning crowds that attended the various Catholic charismatic conferences during the 1970s sent many churchmen back to the theological drawing boards to make new assessments of the situation.

     What became clear during that decade was that mainline charismatics had developed a new view of the “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” which allowed Pentecostalism to flourish in the historic churches without the “cultural baggage” and rigid exclusivism espoused by the Pentecostal churches. The Wesleyan teaching of an instantaneous second experience of sanctification was not adopted by any of the new charismatic groups, although much stress was laid on holiness as the goal of the Spirit-filled Christian lifestyle. 21

     The most rapid church growth in the world today that has been documented is taking place in South Korea, where the charismata are everywhere evident (though rapid growth has marked much of the Korean church for decades). Churches there are now growing on average at an annual rate of 6.6 percent, two-thirds of it by conversions. It is estimated that the population of South Korea will be 42 percent Christian by the end of the century if this trend continues. 23 Although we don’t have statistics to prove it, the current Christian growth rate may be even higher in Central Africa. Rapid growth is also taking place in China, where it is estimated that the Christian population grew from 3 million in 1949 to 30 million in 1980. 24 Some China researchers put the total today at 50 million or more. Much though certainly not all of this growth is pentecostal in spirit.

     Some church growth analysts go as far as to predict that more than one-half of the populations of Brazil and Chile will be Pentecostal by the end of the twentieth century. 25 Even if these predictions prove inaccurate, the fact remains that Pentecostal groups now comprise the largest family of Protestants in the world—more than 51 million. This is remarkable, given that before 1900 there was not even one Pentecostal church in the world. 26 Add to this the vast numbers of Charismatics who remain in the Catholic, Anglican, and mainline Protestant churches, and one must agree with Synan’s observation that these groups and individuals “constitute the most vital and fastest-growing movement in the church since the days of the Reformation.” 27

     Lumping together the various Pentecostal and Charismatic groups is not to ignore, of course, the considerable theological and sociological differences between these two major movements and (equally important) within them. Not all Pentecostals agree on points of Christology, soteriology, or even in their doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Some Pentecostal groups, such as the Assemblies of God, are more Calvinist in their basic orientation, while many tend to be more Wesleyan. As one would expect, wide theological differences separate Pentecostals with fundamentalist roots and the newer Charismatics who may be found in Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, or Episcopal churches.

     What all these groups do share, however, is (1) an emphasis on a personal experience of the Holy Spirit in one’s life, and (2) the practice of the gift of tongues. Differences include such issues as whether tongues-speaking should be normative for all Christians; whether it is a necessary sign of being filled with the Spirit; the proper role and use of tongues-speaking in worship or as a “prayer language”; and the relationship between tongues-speaking and a range of discipleship and lifestyle issues. Behind these issues are often deeper issues of soteriology (the nature of salvation), ecclesiology (the meaning and shape of the church), and the nature of the Trinity (the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

     The sociological differences between these various groups are equally intriguing. In The New Charismatics, Richard Quebedeaux discusses a number of differences between classical Pentecostalism and modern Charismatic Renewal, including differences in worship, ecclesiastical stance, and views toward culture. He notes that the sect/church typology of Ernst Troeltsch and H. Richard Niebuhr has at times been used here:

     Classical Pentecostalism has usually been regarded as illustrative of the sect-type religious organization in sociological typologies; while Charismatic Renewal, . . . because it is a movement largely within the historic Protestant, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox denominations and the  Roman Catholic Church, should be identified with the church- or denomination-type religious organization. Indeed, specific differences between Classical Pentecostalism and Neo-Pentecostalism (to a degree, at least) are reminiscent of the general variance between sect and denomination or church as ideal types. 28

     For both biblical and pragmatic reasons, the church needs all the gifts that the Spirit sovereignly chooses to give. James Dunn has written, “The inspiration, the concrete manifestations of Spirit in power, in revelation, in word, in service, all are necessary—for without them grace soon becomes status, gift becomes office, ministry becomes bureaucracy, body of Christ becomes institution, and koinonia becomes the extension fund.” 29

     If our concern is with the vitality of our churches, Christians on all sides of this issue should approach “the Charismatic question” broadly and biblically, rather than narrowly and apologetically with reference to only certain gifts. As we noted in chapter 1, biblically we must affirm that the church is fundamentally charismatic.

     As the very terms “Charismatic” and “Holiness” suggest, the issue between conservative Wesleyans on the one hand and Pentecostals and Charismatics on the other concerns two different points of emphasis: the church as holy or the church as charismatic. Wesleyans have stressed that Christians are to be holy; Pentecostals have emphasized the charismatic gifts. Sometimes this has come down to the question of the gifts versus the fruit of the Spirit. Yet in Scripture these two aspects of Christian experience are complementary, not in conflict. Without doubt, the church is to be holy, and Christians are to pursue that “holiness without which none will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14 RSV). But the charismatic dimension of the church is fully as biblical as the stress on holiness.

     The same Holy Spirit who sanctifies is the Spirit who gives gifts. The same Jesus Christ who apportions grace-gifts in the church is the Lord who has become our sanctification (1 Cor. 12:4—6). A biblical church will be both holy and charismatic, and all earnest Christians should be concerned that both the holiness and charismatic emphases are fully biblical.

     We must see that these two emphases really are complementary. Each needs the other. The church needs both the cleansing, sanctifying work of the Spirit and His gracious bestowal of the variety of spiritual gifts taught in Scripture. The New Testament generally puts the charismatic emphasis in the context, in fact, of the call for Christians to be God’s holy, love-filled people. The teaching about gifts in Romans 12:4—8 is preceded by a call to holiness and is followed by an emphasis on love. Ephesians 4:11—16 shows us how the holy, charismatic Christian community is to function. On the one hand, a variety of equipping charismata is given “to prepare God’s people for works of service” so that the body “grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” On the other hand, believers are to attain “the fuilnesses of perfection found in Christ.” “Speaking the truth in love,” they are “in all things” to “grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.” The two go together.

     Kenneth Kinghorn stresses this in his balanced book, Gifts of the Spirit. “Without love spiritual gifts cater to human pride, and they become perverted. Without gifts love lacks the proper tools with which to function. When love and gifts combine, each gives meaning to the other,” Kinghorn writes. So gifts, combined with love, have a crucial role in God’s plan: “The church cannot function as God intends if Christians rely entirely on their human talents. Only through the charismata can Christ’s disciples receive the divine enabling they need for their ministry.“ 30

     Theologians from varying perspectives have in recent years come to affirm the significance of charismatic gifts for the ministry of the whole body of believers. Jurgen Moltmann writes, “The whole congregation has ‘spiritual’ and charismatic gifts, not merely its ‘spiritual’ pastors. The whole congregation and every individual in it belongs with all their powers and potentialities to the mission of God’s kingdom.” 31

     One of the finest statements on the charismata comes from Catholic theologian Hans Küng. In an essay entitled “The Charismatic Structure of the Church” Kung argues that “to discover the charismata is to rediscover the real ecciesiology of St. Paul.” 32 He rightly suggests that we misunderstand the charismata when we think of them “mainly as extraordinary, miraculous and sensational phenomena,” when we limit them to only one kind or category, or when we deny their universal distribution to all believers. 33 “Thus every spiritual gift of whatever kind, every call is a charisma,” he says, and “this infinite variety of the charismata implies their unlimited distribution in the Church.” 34

     Kung adds, “All this implies . . . that [the charismata] are not a thing of the past (possible and real only in the early Church), but eminently contemporary and actual; they do not hover on the periphery of the Church but are eminently central and essential to it. In this sense one should speak of a charismatic structure of the Church which embraces and goes beyond the structure of its government.” 35

     As these authors indicate, this emphasis becomes intensely practical for the life and ministry of the Christian community. “Where a Church or a community thrives only on officeholders and not on all the members,” notes Kung, “one may well wonder in all seriousness whether the Spirit has not been thrown out with the charismata.” 36

     The New Testament pictures believers individually and corporately growing up into the fullness of Christ through the exercise of gifts and progress in sanctification. The charismatic theme underscores something that we in the Holiness Movement have not emphasized enough: The “fullness of Christ”—which is our goal— refers not primarily to individual experience but to the corporate life of the believing community and to the fullness of grace in Jesus from which spiritual gifts flow. Sanctification, like the charismata, is for the Body of Christ and for each person in the Body. Sanctification is relational horizontally as well as vertically so that, as Wesley pointed out, we should see holiness as social, not solitary. This is, in fact, what Wesley meant when he said, “Christianity is essentially a social religion, and . . . to turn it into a solitary religion is indeed to destroy it.” 37

     It is well for us to enquire how such an understanding of spiritual gifts squares with John Wesley’s theology. Were his doctrine and practice of the church charismatic in the New Testament sense? To this question we now turn.

1. The Bible portrays no conflict between the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit. They function side by side, complementing one another. The church and individual Christians who make up the church should be both charismatic and holy. When conflict arises between these two essential aspects, what might be the source of that conflict?
2. Matthew 16:18 reads, “You are Petros (a rock), and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.” Why should the gates of hell shudder before a church that is both holy and charismatic?
3. What consequences do you see resulting from conflicts between the Charismatic and Holiness churches?
4. In what sense is it accurate to say that a biblically faithful church will be a charismatic church?

2 For an overview of religious developments in this period see Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), pp. 57—76, 95—116.

3 lbid., pp. 99—103.

4 lbid., pp. 103—116.

5 Condensed from the Los Angeles Times (April 18, 1906): 1.

6 Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement, p. 124.

7 Hummel, pp. 43-44.

8 lbid., pp. 44—45.

9 Ibid., pp. 19—28.

10 For a summary of the ministry of Oral Roberts see Steve Durasoff, Bright Wind of the Spirit (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), pp. 131—44.

11 Hummel, pp. 17—18.

12 Durasoff, p. 150. For a full history of the FGBMFI see Durasoff, pp. 145— 165.

13 Synan, In the Latter Days, pp. 132—33.

14 H. M. Carson, “Roman Catholicism,” in The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. J. D. Douglas, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), p. 855.

15 See Synan, In the Latter Days, pp. 98—100; also Leon Joseph Cardinal Suenens, A New Pentecost?, trans. Francis Martin (New York: Seabury, 1975).

16 Synan, In the Latter Days, p. 108.

17 Bouyer has comments that are relevant to the contemporary movement and the historical perspective traced in chapter 2. He writes, “Is the Pentecostal movement something as new in the Catholic Church as it seems to many people? . . . [Historical examples] show that such movements are a quasi-permanent or ever-recurrent, feature of the life of the Catholic Church” (p. 113). Further, Bouyer writes, “The Pentecostal manifestations of the Spirit . . . have never truly ceased within the Catholic (or Orthodox) Church. From the very beginning, as we can see in the case of the Corinthians, they have always been in some danger of falling into schism or heresy but have never for that reason been condemned as wrong in principle, either by the greatest spiritual theologians or by the Church authorities” (p. 129).

18 See Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan, The Catholic Pentecostal Movement (Paramus, N.J., 1969), pp. 6—16.

19 See Synan, In the Latter Days, pp. 111—17.

20 Carson, p. 856.

21 Synan, In the Latter Days, p. 119.

22 Ibid., pp. 53—54.

23 Ibid., p. 13.

24 Ibid

25 Ibid., p. 65.

26 Ibid., p. 16.

27 Ibid., p. 7.

28 Quebedeaux, p. 145.

29 James D.C. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (London: SCM Press, 1975), p. 341.

30 Kinghorn, Gifts of the Spirit, pp. 122—23.

31 Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, trans. Margart Kohl (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), p. 10.

32 Hans Küng, “The Charismatic Structure of the Church,” in Hans Kung, ed., The Church and Ecumenism, Vol. 4 of Concilium (New York: Paulist Press, 1965), p. 49. See also Kung, The Church (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday Image, 1976), especially pp. 236—50.

33 Kung, “The Charismatic Structure of the Church,” pp. 50—58.

34 Ibid., p. 54.

35 Ibid., p. 58.

36 Ibid.

37 John Wesley, “Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount,” Discourse IV, The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, ed. Frank Baker, Vol. 1, Sermons, ed. Albert C. Outler (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984), p. 533.