1960 to today · The churches · Featured Study
The Charismatic Renewal
Episcopal, Catholic and other believers who sought the gifts of the Spirit from 1960 on.
On Passion Sunday, 3 April 1960, an Episcopal rector at Van Nuys told his congregation that he had been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
- Began
- 3 April 1960, at Van Nuys, as Dennis Bennett dates it (probable)
- Bodies
- The Catholic Charismatic Renewal, The Episcopal renewal, Vineyard USA
Bohemian Master, The Pentecost, 1413 to 1415. Public domain.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Summary
The charismatic renewal carried the Pentecostal experience and the gifts of 1 Corinthians 12 into churches that had held apart from Pentecostalism. Its people stayed in their own churches.
- Dennis Bennett's announcement at Van Nuys cost him his parish in 1960.
- The Catholic renewal began among students and teachers at Duquesne University in 1967.
- A conference at Kansas City in 1977 drew Catholics, Protestants and Pentecostals together.
The Texts of the Renewal
Joel's promise, Paul's gifts and Jesus' prayer for unity.
The renewal read the promise of Pentecost and the gifts Paul lists as meant for every believer today, in whatever church he belonged to.
The promise
And afterward, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on My menservants and maidservants, I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
Joel's promise of the Spirit on all people is the promise the renewal claimed.
The gifts
Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
Paul gives the Spirit's gifts to each believer for the common good, as the renewal and the Vineyard claim them for today.
Earnestly pursue love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.
Christianity Today in 1971 listed prophecy among the gifts the Catholic Pentecostals sought, the gift Paul ranks first here.
The prayer for unity
that all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You. May they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.
The renewal's conferences joined Christians of many churches, the unity Jesus prayed for.
John 17:21BSB
1 Corinthians 12:7, 1 Corinthians 14:1, John 17:21
The Renewal's Branch of the Pentecostal Family
From Azusa Street in 1906 to CHARIS in 2019.
The renewal took the Pentecostal experience into the Episcopal and Catholic churches and into new fellowships.
1906
- The Azusa Street mission
- The Apostolic Faith paper
1960 to 1961
- St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Van Nuys
- The Episcopal monthly Trinity
1967
- The Duquesne weekend
- The National Catholic Reporter's report
1971 to 1977
- The Notre Dame conference
- The Kansas City conference
1995 to 2019
- The Vineyard's break with Toronto
- CHARIS, the Catholic renewal's service
The generations run from the Pentecostal mission of 1906 to the Catholic renewal's service at Rome.
The other families of the churches stand together with the dates on which each began.
How the Renewal Began, at Van Nuys and Duquesne
Two participants' books, the Catholic press of 1967, and Christianity Today.
Dennis Bennett, rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church at Van Nuys, California, received the baptism in the Holy Spirit late in 1959. His announcement on Passion Sunday led a vestryman to call for his resignation, and he resigned.
Bennett told the story in his memoir Nine O'Clock in the Morning, published in 1970, ten years after the events.
Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan, who joined the Catholic renewal, told its beginning in Catholic Pentecostals in 1969. Laymen on the faculty of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh had read The Cross and the Switchblade and They Speak With Other Tongues and joined an Episcopal prayer group.
In February 1967 they took students on a retreat weekend at a house called the Ark and the Dove. The Ranaghans reprint the National Catholic Reporter's account of 17 May 1967, the press of the time.
Christianity Today reported in 1971 that “The Catholic Pentecostal movement began spontaneously on several fronts in early 1967, most notably at a weekend retreat.”
The Truth It Recovered: the Spirit's Gifts in Every Church
The renewal divided on whether tongues must mark the baptism in the Spirit.
Christianity Today summed up the renewal's two readings of the baptism in the Spirit in 1977. “Generally, classical Pentecostals and independent charismatics believe that speaking in tongues is the initial, necessary sign of Spirit baptism.”
The same report went on, “Many charismatics in the Catholic Church and main-line Protestant denominations, however, believe that Spirit baptism can occur apart from tongues.”
Its Statements, From the Vineyard to Rome
The Vineyard's statement of faith, the Catholic bishops of 1969 and Pope Francis.
Vineyard USA's statement of faith says, “We believe in the filling or the empowering of the Holy Spirit, often a conscious experience, for ministry today.”
The American Catholic bishops had their Committee on Doctrine investigate in 1968, and its report of 1969, Christianity Today wrote, “spoke rather favorably.” The report also warned against “the mistakes of classic Pentecostalism.”
On 8 June 2019 Pope Francis addressed CHARIS, the renewal's new service at Rome. He called the renewal, “to paraphrase Saint Paul VI, ‘a great opportunity for the Church.’” He asked it “to share baptism in the Holy Spirit with everyone in the Church.”
The Renewal Today, Counted
Four counts, from about 600 million believers to 546 congregations.
The estimates of the renewal run from about 100 million Catholics to some 600 million Pentecostals and charismatics together.
| The count | What it counts | Who counted, and when |
|---|---|---|
| about 305 million | Charismatic Christians in the world, apart from Pentecostals | Pew Forum, from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity's estimates for 2010, published 2011 |
| around 600 million | Pentecostal and charismatic Christians together | The Center for the Study of Global Christianity, for 2015 |
| an estimated 100 to 112 million | Active members of the Catholic charismatic renewal | Bishop Peter Smith, a CHARIS leader, as Catholic News Agency reported him, 9 June 2019; method not stated |
| 546 | Vineyard member congregations worldwide | Christianity Today, 8 January 1996 |
Where the Renewal Went
From California to Notre Dame and Kansas City.
The historian David Edwin Harrell records that the Episcopal monthly Trinity spoke for the movement in that church in 1961. The Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International, led by Demos Shakarian, carried the healing revival's people into the renewal.
Christianity Today reported “5,000 registrants and about 500 gate-crashers” at the Catholic conference at Notre Dame in June 1971, against 1,270 who had registered in 1970.
In July 1977 “nearly 40,000 registrants” came to Kansas City for “The 1977 Conference on Charismatic Renewal in the Christian Churches,” by the newspapers' count that Christianity Today reported. “Almost half of the participants were Roman Catholics.”
In the keynote address Kevin Ranaghan, a Catholic lay leader from South Bend and chairman of the planning committee, called the divisions among the churches a “serious scandal” in the world. “For the world to believe depends on our becoming one,” he said. Dennis Bennett, by then an Episcopal rector at Seattle, was among the speakers.
The Cost of the Renewal, and a Break Within It
An archbishop's warning in 1971 and the Vineyard's break with Toronto in 1995.
Christianity Today reported a warning issued on the eve of the Notre Dame conference of 1971. In a pastoral letter Archbishop Timothy Manning of Los Angeles warned against setting the Holy Spirit apart from the church and its hierarchy “as if they were two antagonistic expressions of Christianity.”
In December 1995 the Association of Vineyard Churches separated from the Toronto Airport Vineyard. John Wimber told Christianity Today, “I believe that there has been an authentic visitation of the Spirit there.” He added, “I am unable because of my own scriptural and theological convictions” to defend how it was pastored.
The test both sides could cite
Do not extinguish the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
It bids the church not to quench the Spirit and to test all things, the two calls the Toronto break held together.
Books to Read Next
Nine O'Clock in the Morning
Dennis J. Bennett · 1970
Bennett tells of Van Nuys in his own memoir.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
Catholic Pentecostals
Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan · 1969
The Ranaghans tell the beginnings of the Catholic renewal as two who joined it.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
All Things Are Possible: The Healing and Charismatic Revivals in Modern America
David Edwin Harrell Jr. · 1975
Harrell traces the charismatic revival from 1958 to 1974.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
What the Renewal Handed On
The renewal set the gifts of the Spirit before believers in churches that had long kept apart from Pentecostals. Some of those churches resisted it at first and came in time to welcome it.
The line through this page
The verse whose work this page shows continuing, then 1 link to other pages, in order of date.
The verse whose work this page shows continuing.
1958 to 1961, approximate
The Healing Revival to The Charismatic Renewal
The Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International, led by Demos Shakarian, carried the healing revival's people into the renewal.
This page
The Charismatic Renewal
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible (read 2026)
- Dennis J. Bennett, Nine O'Clock in the Morning (Plainfield, New Jersey: Logos International, 1970)
- Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan, Catholic Pentecostals (Paramus, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1969)
- Edward E. Plowman, Catholics Get the Spirit, Christianity Today (16 July 1971)
- Christianity Today, Charismatic Unity in Kansas City (12 August 1977)
- James A. Beverley, Vineyard Severs Ties with Toronto Blessing Church, Christianity Today (8 January 1996)
- Vineyard USA, Core Values and Beliefs (Vineyard Resources, 2016), Statement of Faith, page 19.
- Pope Francis, Address to CHARIS, 8 June 2019.
- Pew Research Center, Global Christianity: Movements and Denominations (19 December 2011)
- Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Quick Facts (read 2026)
- Catholic News Agency, 9 June 2019, as printed by Catholic World Report.
- David Edwin Harrell Jr., All Things Are Possible: The Healing and Charismatic Revivals in Modern America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975)
- The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), volume 1, number 1 (September 1906)
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