More Thoughts on Renewals

"Despite the ecumenical vision of the Catholic Apostolic church, which may be judged exceptional by virtually any standard, in practice and in fellowship they moved toward exclusivism as the years went by....From time to time the ecumenical vision would reassert itself....But in practice, the ecumenical motif found only sporadic and largely theoretical expression. The surviving remnant of the Catholic Apostolic church remained in the clutch of a stultifying exclusivism." -Larry Christenson

This is a quote from an essay on the Catholic Apostolic Church by Larry Christenson in Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins, edited by Vinson Synan in 1975. The CAC, also known as the Irvingites, was the result of a renewal that began in Scotland in the 1830's. It included manifestations such as tongues, prophecy, and healing. The CAC also used a fixed liturgy, and its leadership consisted of both charismatic offices (apostles and prophets) and more traditional offices (bishops). It faded away roughly around 1900, and is the mostly forgotten forerunner of the Pentecostal movement.

My concern in this entry is the reoccurring movement in renewals from the inclusive to the exclusive. In its beginning, the CAC attracted Christians from across all denominational lines. But as it grew, the institutional authorities became alarmed, and eventually excommunicated its leader, Edward Irving. Over a period of time, the CAC began to see itself as a persecuted remnant, and assumed a "defensive posture against 'Babylon'."

The American Pentecostal movement of 1901 followed the same pattern. The Azuza Street revival was interracial and included all classes. One of its goals was to "bring unity and union to Christians everywhere." But as the movement grew and hardened, "the pentecostals rejected society because they believed it to be corrupt... while society rejected the pentecostals because it believed them to be insanely fanatical, self-righteous, doctrinally in error, and emotionally unstable." (Kilian McDonnell, The Baptism of the Holy Spirit as an Ecumenical Problem. Quoted by Christenson)

The Charismatic movement, which began @1957, brought the pentecostal experience into respectability, and was a phenomenon in both the middle and upper classes, attracting professionals and educated Christians. Its early leaders were from the high churches, mostly Episcopalians. The old Logos Journal, the first slick-back magazine of the movement, was full of articles written by the Sherrills, the Bennetts, the Scovalls, all Anglicans. Larry Christenson, whose article I am quoting, was a Lutheran clergyman. The first charismatic leader who prayed for me was Fr. Norm Scovall, an Episcopal Benedictine monk, who wandered onto our college campus wearing a clergy collar and a brown cassock, cincture and all. All those folks embraced their liturgy and found new power in it through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I even remember a time when the Roman congregation in my town would sing in the Spirit when the priest raised the host! For a few brief years there was a convergence of ancient and renewed Christianity without any sense of contradiction.

But whether the new wine could not stay in old wineskins, or rejection and persecution brought a reaction, the Charismatic movement, with a few exceptions, has forgotten its own roots. When it left the walls of denominational churches, it became solidly anti-liturgical and anti-ritual. "Religion" has become the enemy, meaning that which was practiced by the movement's founders. The same pattern of renewals is clear here: from the inclusive to the exclusive. Let me now offer some summary thoughts:

1) This pattern is "normal" in church history. "The pattern of ecumenism leading to exclusivism is not inherent in pentecostal Christianity as such; it is simply the way things have gone with charismatic movements, dating back to one of the very first charismatic renewals, namely the Montanists." Christenson goes on to say the reaction to Montanism was so severe that the church has never recovered a balance or a willingness to bring charismatic expression into the full life of the church, equating spiritual gifts with doctrinal error. The result for the renewalists has been a "remnant" mentality--exclusivism.

2) No doubt the renewals of Hezekiah and Josiah produced a backlash from the established priestly leadership. Jesus certainly threatened the entrenched religious leaders of his day. It is the nature of renewals to force the powers that be out of neutrality. Renewals cost something--in reputation or even in livelihood. God seems to get something out of shaking the established church (in recent history, about every fifty years). He apparently enjoys the discomfiture of the pompous. Renewals give the church an opportunity to laugh at herself. They are, well, fun.

3) When a renewal loses its ecumenical vision, it stunts its own growth by cutting itself off from its own historic life springs. There is more to church life than the Baptism and gifts of the Spirit. There is thought (theology), there is worship (ritual), and there is a surrounding society (social justice). That is why I am hopeful about the emergent movement--it is a renewal that contains within itself much more than the exclusive renewalist emphasis on the Holy Spirit and experience alone. It is broader.

4) Sometimes renewals (and even churches) need to die. When they outlive their usefulness they stagnate. I love the old CAC because they chose to do exactly that. Prophecies began to come forth in their midst to die out--to appoint no more leaders after a certain time. There were prophecies that God would do a greater work--their dying would become a seed:

"In 1901, the last of the original leaders of the CAC died, portending a dying out of the movement itself. Yet in that very expectation of death there was a new hope.... That same year, halfway around the world, in a little Bible school in Topeka, Kansas, a faint offstage melody was heard. A group of students prayed for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit; one of them began to speak in tongues. The melody spread to Houston, Texas, then to Los Angeles. It had a familiar lilt...." (Christenson)

(Picture: Edward Irving, founder of the CAC)