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Post-Reformation and Contemporary Developments

in

the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements

 

The influence of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement is so widespread and pervasive that some historians are beginning to speak of it as the third great epoch of church history, the first two being the Age of Catholicism (a.d. 100 to 1517) and the age of the Protestant Reformation (1517 to the present). Our survey will touch only the spread of the movement in America, although at present the Charismatic and Third Wave "movements" are the fastest growing segment of Christianity world-wide.

 

The most recent statistics (1995) indicate that the aggregate number of Pentecostals and charismatics in the world is around 463,000,000. This makes them the second largest family of Christians, the largest being the Roman Catholic Church.

 

A. The Roots of Modern Pentecostalism

 

The theological foundations of modern pentecostalism can be traced primarily to Methodism and the thinking of John Wesley. Vinson Synan refers to Wesley as "the spiritual and intellectual father of modern holiness and pentecostal movements" (The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States [Eerdmans, 1971], 13). Another scholar has stated that "pentecostals are children of Wesley." F. D. Bruner writes:

 

"Methodism is the most important of the modern traditions for the student of Pentecostal origins to understand, for 18th century Methodism is the mother of the 19th century American holiness movement, which, in turn, bore 20th century Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism is primitive Methodism's extended incarnation" (A Theology of the Holy Spirit [Eerdmans, 1977], 37).

 

1. The Influence of John Wesley and Methodism - Wesley was born (1703; died 1791) into an Anglican home with a Puritan influence. He was educated at Oxford and taught there for some years. His brother Charles and some friends organized the Holy Club and were dubbed Methodists for their emphasis on methodical Bible study and the pursuit of holiness. It was Wesley's views on sanctification that contributed most to the later emergence of pentecostal doctrine.

 

Wesley divided sanctification into several stages, each of which represented a different and higher level of salvation through which a believer passes.

 

·The first stage is that of prevenient grace which is but the beginning of a deliverance from a blind and unfeeling heart. This was also called assisting grace.

 

·The second stage is that of convincing grace which is properly the first real move to salvation. The evidence of convincing grace is repentance.

 

·The third stage is that of entire sanctification. This is a gift of God whereby one is cleansed from sin instantaneously. This sanctification, however, is not absolute, for perfection pertains only to God. Nor does it make men infallible, for the body is still subject to decay and death. It consists rather in perfect love and pertains primarily to one's motives. It is not constitutional. It may be increased and improved upon, but may be lost if diligence diminishes. Involuntary transgressions due to the imperfections of the body are traceable to the mortality and limitations of being a creature and are not properly regarded as sin. Christian perfection, then, consists in the purification of one's motives; mistakes and acts of ignorance are not regarded as inconsistent with a state of perfection.

 

·The fourth stage is that of progressive entire sanctification in which one experiences a continuation of perfection, i.e., a deeper development of it. This is growth in maturity, until one reaches the final stage.

 

·The fifth stage is final glorification.

 

2. The Cane Ridge Revival of 1800-01 - The meetings that eventually led to revival were begun in June of 1800 by three Presbyterian ministers: James McGready, William Hodges, and John Rankin. By August of 1801 crowds of up to 25,000 gathered in the Kentucky countryside for revival meetings. Most meetings were characterized by much the same sort of "motor phenomena" (as they were called back then) or "physical manifestations" as we see today in certain charismatic renewal meetings.

 

3. The Influence of Charles Finney (1792-1876) and American Revivalism - Finney's contribution was two-fold: (1) His personal testimony to having experienced a post-conversion baptism of the Holy Spirit. In his Memoirs he discussed the confusion of one of his earlier teachers (Rev. Gale, a Presbyterian minister) on this issue:

 

"There was another defect in brother Gale's education, which I regarded as fundamental. If he had ever been converted to Christ, he had failed to receive that divine anointing of the Holy Ghost that would make him a power in the pulpit and in society, for the conversion of souls. He had fallen short of receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which is indispensable to ministerial success. . . . I have often been surprised and pained that to this day so little stress is laid upon this qualification for preaching Christ to a sinful world" (55).

 

(2) Equally important was Finney's evangelistic methodology. Finney justified his deliberate attempts to arouse the emotions of his hearers by arguing

 

"that God has found it necessary to take advantage of the excitability there is in mankind to produce powerful excitements among them before he can lead them to obey. Men are so sluggish, there are so many things to lead their minds off from religion and to oppose the influence of the gospel that it is necessary to raise an excitement among them till the tide rises so high as to sweep away the opposing obstacles" (Lectures on Revivals, 9).

 

This has led one author to conclude that "Finney's influence on subsequent Pentecostalism may be said to have been, in fact, more in the realm of form and temperature than in the realm of content and ideas" (Bruner, 41).

 

4. The National Holiness Movement - Bruner provides this helpful overview:

 

"From Methodism through American revivalism and the person and work of Charles Finney . . . the line is a straight one that leads through the holiness movement directly into Pentecostalism. The holiness movement seems to have arisen from a variety of causes, principal of which were the demoralizing after-effects of the American Civil War, the dissatisfaction of many within Methodist churches with the 'holiness,' or the adherence to Wesleyan perfectionist doctrine of the Methodist Church, and a corresponding concern for the advance of modern liberal views in theology and of wealth and worldliness in the church as a whole. The theological center of the holiness movement, true to its name and its Wesleyan heritage, was a second experience, specifically a conversion into Scripture holiness, sanctification, or as it was often called, perfect love. This center assured the subsequent experience an importance it was later to assume in Pentecostalism. It was directly from the holiness movement, for instance, that Pentecostalism adopted the use of the expression the baptism in the Holy Spirit for its second (or third) Christian experience" (42-43).

 

The movement was itself birthed within the Methodist church in 1867. The first camp meeting was arranged by 13 Methodist ministers in Vineland, New Jersey, July 17-26th. Writes Synan: "Little did these men realize that this meeting would eventually result in the formation of over a hundred denominations around the world and indirectly bring to birth a 'Third Force' in Christendom, the pentecostal movement" (37). Some of the influential leaders and authors in this movement were William Boardman (The Higher Christian Life, 1859), Robert Smith, and Hannah Smith (The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, 1875).

 

There were three major contributions the NHM made to the atmosphere in which modern pentecostalism would eventually arise: 1) an emphasis on a spiritual crisis experience, subsequent to initial conversion; 2) the identification of this experience with the baptism in the Holy Spirit; and 3) popularization of speaking in tongues.

 

Note well: until now, this so-called second work of grace as taught by Wesley and the Methodists was viewed as that by which one is cleansed from sin; henceforth it came to be viewed as an enduement with power for ministry.

 

The NHM also profited from the influence of several prominent evangelical figures who themselves experienced some form of this second blessing. Included among them were A. J. Gordon, F. B. Meyer, A. B. Simpson (who founded the Christian and Missionary Alliance in 1887 and eventually [1907] separated from what he regarded as the fanaticism of early Pentecostalism, especially its teaching on tongues), Andrew Murray, and especially R. A. Torrey (then president of Moody Bible Institute). Torrey once wrote:

 

"The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is an operation of the Holy Spirit distinct from and subsequent and additional to His regenerating work. A man may be regenerated by the Holy Spirit and still not be baptized with the Holy Spirit. In regeneration there is an impartation of life, and the one who receives it is fitted for service. Every true believer has the Holy Spirit. But not ever believer has the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, though every believer . . . may have."

 

The "holiness" of the NHM was not always what we would call a grace-empowered desire or passion to be like Jesus. It all too often degenerated into a hideous form of legalism in which one's maturity was measured by the number of activities from which one abstained. Whereas many in the holiness movement were godly and yearned for Christ-like righteousness, others defined holiness as abstinence. On their list of taboos: the theater, ball games, playing cards, dancing, lipstick, tobacco, alcohol, all forms of female makeup, the curling or coloring of one's hair, neckties for men, Coca Cola, chewing gum, rings, bracelets, or any form of worldly "ornamentation," etc. One was prohibited from attending a county fair, lodge meetings, or being involved in political parties or labor unions. Life insurance was seen as a lack of faith in God and medicine was generally viewed as poison

 

B. The Emergence of Modern Pentecostalism

 

Pentecostalism has its roots in three sources: 1) the theology of John Wesley; 2) the revivalism of Charles Finney; and 3) the emergence of the National Holiness Movement, which was an attempt to preserve historic Wesleyanism. The move from the NHM into pentecostalism per se began in Topeka, Kansas, with a man named Charles Parham.

 

1. Classical Pentecostalism

 

a. Benjamin Hardin Irwin and the "Fire-Baptized Holiness Church" - Irwin was originally a holiness minister who gained fame by advocating multiple spiritual "baptisms", the most important of which was the "baptism of fire" and its accompanying physical manifestations (chief of which was the physical sensation of being on fire). Finding that even this was not enough, Irwin began to teach that there were additional baptisms of fire. These he named the baptisms of "dynamite," "lyddite," and "oxidite." The movement lost its momentum when Irwin confessed to moral failure. His primary significance is that Parham learned from him the doctrine of a separate spiritual baptism following sanctification.

 

b. The Welsh Revival (1904 - )

 

c. Charles Parham (1873-1929), the Bethel Bible Institute, and Agnes N. Ozman - Converted at the age of 13, Parham claims to have been healed while in college, thus preparing him for ministry. He was initially involved in the NHM and travelled as an independent evangelist/healer until he arrived in Topeka in 1898. He founded the Divine Healing Mission there which was later re-named the Apostolic Congregation and Divine Healing Home (1900).

 

Parham had a terrible reputation for sexual immorality and was eventually excluded from the movement. Many believed him to have been a homosexual, a charge he vigorously denied all his life.

 

In 1900 he established the Bethel Bible Institute where he taught his students that the inevitable result of Spirit-baptism was speaking in tongues. Till now, though, none had experienced it for themselves (although Parham had seen it in others during a trip to New York).

 

At 7:00 p.m. on New Years Day, 1901, Agnes N. Ozman, one of Parham's students, spoke in tongues. This event marks the beginning of the classical pentecostal movement. Parham relates what happened:

 

"I laid my hands upon her and prayed. I had scarcely repeated three dozen sentences when a glory fell upon her, a halo seemed to surround her head and face, and she began speaking in the Chinese language and was unable to speak English for three days. When she tried to write in English to tell us of her experience she wrote Chinese copies of which we still have in newspapers printed at that time."

 

In a short time news spread of what had happened. Reporters and language experts soon converged on the tiny school to investigate this new phenomenon. Cities throughout Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas also began to experience similar occurrences. The most important development came in Houston, Texas.

 

It should be noted that what happened in Topeka was by no means the first incident of speaking in tongues in America. Numerous other groups regularly practiced glossolalia. What made Parham's group unique was their insistence that tongues were the necessary evidence of Spirit-baptism. One of the more prominent outbreaks of tongues occurred in services conducted by Edward Irving at the Presbyterian Church on Regent's Square in London, 1831. Apparently tongues broke out in a meeting conducted by D. L. Moody in 1875, although he himself never experienced the gift. Tongues were also present sporadically in the Welsh revival.

 

d. William J. Seymour (1870-1922), the Houston Bible Institute, and the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles - Seymour, an illiterate black man, was a Baptist pastor turned Holiness preacher. He came under Parham's influence at the school in Houston founded by the latter. Since blacks were not legally permitted to sit in the same classroom with whites, Seymour was forced to listen to Parham's lectures in the hallway.

 

He went to Los Angeles in 1906 to pastor a church that in mid-April moved to 312 Azusa Street (a shabby, two-storied wooden building). Scores of people began to "fall under the power" and to speak in tongues. Seymour's preaching of judgment and divine wrath seemed to have significance, for the great San Francisco earthquake hit on April 18, 1906. In the same month the volcano Vesuvius erupted. Many took these events as eschatological signs of the end and flocked to Seymour and his group of disciples.

 

On April 18, 1906, the first news report of the controversial meetings on Azusa Street appeared in the Los Angeles Times. The headline read, "Weird Babel of Tongues," and reported that

 

"meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street, near San Pedro Street, and the devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories and work themselves into a state of mad excitement in their peculiar zeal. Colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howlings of the worshippers, who 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."

 

During most of the 3 ½ year revival, Seymour rarely preached and spent much of the time with his head covered in an empty packing crate behind the pulpit!

 

The events at Azusa (tongues, visions, healings) lasted from 1906 to 1909. Synan writes:

 

"The Azusa Street revival is commonly regarded as the beginning of the modern pentecostal movement. Although many persons had spoken in tongues in the U.S. in the years preceding 1906, this meeting brought this belief to the attention of the world and served as the catalyst for the formation of scores of pentecostal denominations. Directly or indirectly, practically all of the pentecostal groups in existence can trace their lineage to the Azusa Mission."

 

Azusa had its share of critics who were convinced the participants were lunatics. Additional bad press occurred when spiritualists and mediums from the occult societies in Los Angeles began to attend and to participate in their own special way. G. Campbell Morgan, a highly respected evangelical preacher, called the Pentecostal movement "the last vomit of Satan," while R. A. Torrey claimed that it was "emphatically not of God, and [was] founded by a Sodomite." In his book, Holiness, the False and the True, Harry Ironside in 1912 denounced the movement as "disgusting . . . delusions and insanities" and accused their meetings as causing "a heavy toll of lunacy and infidelity."

 

Parham himself arrived in Los Angeles toward the end of the revival. He had been in Zion City, Illinois (near Chicago) trying to salvage what was left of the work of Alexander Dowie. Parham believed the people at Azusa had gone too far and had fallen into "extremes and fanaticism." He left town disgusted because many "came through chattering, jabbering, and sputtering, speaking in no language at all." He split with Seymour and continued to denounce Azusa as a case of "spiritual power prostituted" to the "awful fits and spasms" of the "holy rollers and hypnotists" (quoted in Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century, 1997).

 

An interesting note: B. H. Irwin of the Fire-Baptized Churches showed up Azusa in 1906. He repudiated his doctrine of baptisms of fire, dynamite, lyddite, and oxidite and affirmed that the "tongues" baptism was the correct one he had been seeking all along.

 

e. The Spread of Pentecostalism - Florence Crawford took the message into the northwest. William Durham established the movement in the midwest and Chicago. From Durham's church the movement spread into Canada. Elder Sturdevant took the work to New York City. T. B. Barratt, a Methodist Norwegian pastor on tour of the U.S. at the time, took the movement to Europe. "From 1906 till his death in 1940, Barratt served as a veritable prophet of Pentecost in Northern Europe. He is credited with beginning the Pentecostal movements in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, and England" (Synan, 104-05).

 

·One of Barratt's most notable converts was Alexander Boddy, the Anglican vicar of All Saints' Parish in Sunderland, England. It was Boddy who in turn brought the movement to his country.

 

·Things did not proceed as well in Germany. Another Barratt convert was Jonathan Paul, who returned from Oslo to start pentecostal meetings in the city of Kassel, the result of which was formation of a German pentecostal denomination knows as the Muhlheim Association. The wildly emotional meetings in Kassel prompted a group of German evangelicals to issue the highly critical Berlin Declaration in 1909 that condemned the pentecostal experience. The movement in Germany never fully recovered from this setback.

 

·Pentecostalism came to Russia through the influence of a Baptist pastor, Ivan Voronaev, who was eventually sent to the Gulag and was martyred there in 1943.

 

f. Other significant developments

 

The most important classical pentecostal denomination, The Assemblies of God, was established in 1914, when several leaders gathered in Hot Springs, Arkansas from April 2 to 12th. In 1916 at the General Conference in St. Louis the denomination affirmed Trinitarianism, leading to the departure of some 155 preachers and over 100 congregations. The unitarian Pentecostals then formed separate splinter groups, out of which would eventually emerge the United Pentecostal Church or "Jesus Only" church.

 

The emergence of "Jesus only" theology first occurred at a camp meeting in 1913 when R. E. McAlister taught it openly.

 

Alexander Dowie was an Australian healer who first gained fame by competing for crowds with Buffalo Bill's wild west show at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. In 1900 he founded a community named Zion City, a place where "doctors, drugs, and devils were not allowed." In 1901 he claimed to be "Elijah the Restorer," but following a stroke in 1904 he began to lose control of his church.

 

Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944) and the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel (1927)

 

The emergence of so-called deliverance evangelists (William Branham [1909-1965], Granville Oral Roberts [1918- ], A. A. Allen [1911-1970], Gordon Lindsay [1906-1973], Jack Coe [1918-1957])

 

The Latter Rain Movement emerged at Sharon Orphanage and Schools in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada, where about 70 students had gathered to fast, pray, and study the Word of God in November of 1947. Key figures were brothers George and Ern Hawtin, P. G. Hunt, Herrick Holt, and Milford Kirkpatrick. What brought attention to the movement was the fact that for years following Azusa Street there had been little power and minimal evidence of the gifts of the Spirit among Pentecostals. Now suddenly people were "falling under the power" of God, kneeling in adoration and worship, together with the impartation of spiritual gifts through the laying on of hands. Thousands from both Canada and the U.S. attended the Sharon Camp Meeting in North Battleford on July 7-18, 1948, where reports of healings and the power of God were plentiful. Opposition soon arose in response to what were perceived to be doctrinal errors and extremes in the movement. Richard Riss explains:

 

"After this time, many people were dropped from or pressured to resign from various denominations for their involvement in the Latter Rain. This was particularly true with regard to the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, the Assemblies of God in the U.S., and the Pentecostal Holiness Church, all of which officially disapproved of the beliefs and practices of the 'New Order of the Latter Rain,' as it was called by these denominations. The Latter Rain movement quickly became anathema among most major Pentecostal denominational bodies, and every effort was made by people within them to remain as far removed from any association with the movement as possible" (A Survey of 20th Century Revival Movements, 121).

 

Some of the more controversial doctrines that were associated with the Latter Rain movement include:

 

(1) Restorationism - They argued that God had been progressively "restoring" to the church NT truths that had been lost for centuries and that complete restoration of the NT ideal would be consummated in their movement.

 

(2) Five-Fold Ministry - An essential element in this restoration of the NT ideal was the emergence of the 5-fold ministry of Eph. 4:11, in particular the offices of apostle and prophet.

 

(3) Laying on of Hands - The laying on of hands for the purpose of imparting spiritual gifts was an important part of their practice.

 

(4) Prophecy - The prophetic gift was strongly emphasized, but often abused when employed to give directional (controlling) guidance to people.

 

(5) Recovery of True Worship - The restoration of David's Tabernacle as a model for true worship was stressed.

 

(6) Immortalization of the Saints - Some in the movement taught that those who fully embraced the restoration would be blessed with immortality before the second coming of Christ. Although only a small minority taught this view, the entire movement soon became identified with it in the minds of its critics.

 

(7) Unity of the Church - The church will attain an unprecedented unity in the faith before the return of Christ.

 

(8) The Manifested Sons of God - Some associated with the movement embraced the idea that the Church on earth is the ongoing incarnation of Jesus himself. The Church is becoming one in nature and essence with Jesus. As it takes shape it will eventually "manifest" the Son of God to such a high degree that there will be no need for a literal, personal second coming of Christ. The Church will have become (will be "manifested" as) the Son of God on earth.

 

2. The Beginnings of Neo-Pentecostalism or the Charismatic Movement

 

Neo-pentecostalism or as some prefer, the Charismatic movement, refers to the penetration of pentecostalism into the mainline denominational churches.

 

a. David DuPlessis (1905-87) - He was born in South Africa and became active in Pentecostal ministry at an early age. In December of 1936 he received a prophetic word from Smith Wigglesworth (1859-1945) that was to change his life:

 

"I have been sent by the Lord to tell you what he has shown me this morning. Through the old line denominations will come a revival that will eclipse anything we have known throughout history. No such things have happened in times past as will happen when this begins. . . . Then the Lord said to me I am to give you warning that he is going to use you in the movement."

 

DuPlessis became the secretary of the World Pentecostal Fellowship and eventually got involved in the World Council of Churches (which exposed him to considerable criticism; he was excommunicated from the Assemblies of God in 1962). His principal effort was to unite Pentecostals around the world and to bring the outpouring of the Spirit into mainline denominations.

 

b. The Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship (1952) and Demos Shakarian (with the help of DuPlessis and Oral Roberts)

 

c. Dennis Bennett (1917-1991) - Bennett, rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California (1953-1961) marks the true beginning of the modern Charismatic movement. On Passion Sunday, April 3, 1960, he announced to his church that he had spoken in tongues.

 

After this historic service, pandemonium broke out. One man stood on a chair shouting, "Throw out the damn tongue speakers." Bennett's curate tore off his vestments, threw them on the altar, and stalked out of church cyring: "I can no longer work with this man."

 

Bennett resigned immediately and eventually took the pastorate of an episcopal church in Seattle.

 

d. Glossolalia at Yale - Through the influence of Harald Bredesen, a pastor from Mt. Vernon, New York, an outbreak of tongues occurred on the campus of Yale University in 1963, the participants in which were subsequently called glossoyalies.

 

e. Oral Roberts and the Methodist Church - In 1967-68 Roberts sought and obtained membership in the Methodist church.

 

f. The Roman Catholic Charismatic Renewal - The Second Vatican Council, which concluded in 1965, created an atmosphere of openness to the charismatic work of the Holy Spirit. Pope John there directed every Catholic in the world to pray daily: "Lord renew your wonders in this our day as by a new Pentecost."

 

It first emerged in the mid 1960s with several laymen on the faculty of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Similar events occurred at Notre Dame and elsewhere. In 1967 the first annual National Catholic Pentecostal Conference met on the campus of Notre Dame University and in 1975 10,000 Catholic charismatics attended the International Charismatic Conference at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

 

g. The Shepherding/Discipleship Movement - This movement found its doctrinal inspiration in the teaching of two men: (1) Watchman Nee (see his The Body of Christ) and (2) Juan Carlos Ortiz (an Argentinian Christian). The need for every believer to be "under authority" and to have "covering" from a "shepherd" in the local church was popularized by a group that came to be known as "The Fort Lauderdale Five" - Bob Mumford, Charles Simpson, Derek Prince, Don Basham, and Ern Baxter.

 

This movement posed a serious threat to unity within the charismatic wing of the church. The Shepherding leaders were denounced publicly by The Full Gospel Businessmen's association, Pat Robertson, and others. Kathryn Kuhlman pointedly refused to appear on the same platform with Bob Mumford, saying: "The man is a heretic."

 

In 1989 Bob Mumford issued an apology for the excesses of the movement and any harm for which he was responsible:

 

"Accountability, personal training under the guidance of another and effective pastoral care are needed biblical concepts . . . [but] these biblical realities must also carry the limits indicated by the New Testament. However, to my personal pain and chagrin, these particular emphases very easily lent themselves to an unhealthy submission resulting in perverse and unbiblical obedience to human leaders. Many of these abuses occurred within the spheres of my own responsibility. For the injury and shame caused to people, families and the larger body of Christ, I repent with sorrow and ask your forgiveness" (see Christianity Today, March 19, 1990).

 

h. The Jesus Movement, Chuck Smith, and Calvary Chapel

 

i. The Word of Faith Movement - E. W. Kenyon, Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Charles Capps, Robert Tilton, Frederick Price, etc.

 

j. Independent Charismatic Churches

 

C. Charismatic Renewal in England

 

1. Michael Harper - Curate to John Stott at All Souls Langham Place in London, Harper first experienced the power of the Spirit in September of 1962. He left All Souls and established Fountain Trust in September of 1965, an interdenominational organization which aimed to encourage local churches to experience renewal in the Holy Spirit. Renewal magazine was established as the primary voice of the charismatic movement in England.

 

In 1995, Harper joined the Antiochian Greek Orthodox church, taking with him nine other Anglican pastors. His decision was in large part triggered by the Anglican vote to ordain women priests in 1992.

 

2. The House Church Movement (early 1970s) - Arthur Wallis, Bryn Jones, Terry Virgo, Gerald Coates, Roger Forster, Barney Coombs, etc.

 

3. Renewal in the Anglican Church and the influence of John Wimber

 

a. David Watson at St. Michael-Le-Belfrey in York

b. David Pytches at St. Andrews in Chorleywood

c. Sandy Millar at Holy Trinity Brompton in London

 

D. The Third Wave

 

The Third Wave, a phrase coined by C. Peter Wagner, refers to the growing, and increasingly organized, numbers of conservative evangelicals who now embrace the full range of spiritual gifts. Principal among those in the Third Wave is the Vineyard. The "first wave" of the Holy Spirit, explains Wagner, was the classical pentecostal movement that began in 1906. The "second wave" was the charismatic movement that saw traditional denominations embrace the ministry of the Holy Spirit. As noted above, this is generally dated with the experience of Dennis Bennett in 1960-61. The "third wave", therefore, is the embracing by evangelicals of the gifts of the Spirit while at the same time rejecting several of the classical pentecostal and charismatic distinctives such as:

 

·the inistence that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a distinct experience separate from conversion;

 

·the insistence that speaking in tongues is the initial physical evidence of baptism in the Spirit;

 

·the insistence that since "healing is in the atonement" all believers may justifiably "claim" complete physical health in this present age;

 

The "third wave" has also distanced itself from the errors of the Word of Faith movement as well as other forms of the so-called "Health and Wealth" or "Prosperity" gospel.