CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-theses Repository A Study of the Ecumenical Nature of Charismatic Renewal: with particular reference to Roman Catholic and Anglican Charismatic Renewal in England by Philip Clifford Owen A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Theology School of Historical Studies University of Birmingham October 2007 1 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT The coming of charismatic renewal in the 1960s brought Pentecostal experience into the historic denominations of the church. From its beginning, there were those who perceived in the charismatic movement an ecumenical quality. Its ability to root across a wide spectrum of traditions, suggested that it might have a significant contribution to make towards the search for the visible unity of the Christian church. This thesis sets out to explore more precisely the ecumenical dimension of the charismatic movement. It largely focuses on the English Ecumenical scene, where there have been significant ecumenical developments in the last twenty years; but account is also taken of the broader canvas of the World Council of Churches and Koinonia ecclesiology. A special focus is made of the Roman Catholic Charismatic Renewal, to see how the movement impacted that church, and was critiqued by its own theologians in the early years of the 1970s. The study looks in some detail at baptism and episcopacy, to see how these traditional ecumenical sticking points could be resolved, when looked at through a charismatic lens. It then moves on to analyse a sample of leaders, who have both experienced charismatic renewal and engaged with it theologically, showing that the personal theological changes are quite significant. Finally the study takes account of where the Charismatic and Ecumenical Movements have reached in their contemporary trajectories; and suggests how the charismatic movement can still make a serious contribution to the search for visible Christian Unity. To do this, attention is still needed in the area of sacramental theology, but in particular to the nature of truth and its revelation through the Spirit. In that connection the thesis includes some samples of fresh biblical exegesis on familiar ecumenically relevant biblical passages. The study concludes that there is indeed an ecumenical dimension of charismatic renewal. However, before that dimension can forward the visible unity of the whole church, something of a largely lost earlier vision needs to be re-captured. When that has been done, there is hope that both the charismatic and ecumenical movements may discover their natural complimentarity and creative engagement. 2 CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 Introduction p6 1.1 Defining the terms: Ecumenism and Charismatic Renewal 1.2 The ecumenical pioneers 1.3 Relevant evidence from previous research theses in British charismatic renewal 1.4 The Emergence of the main Research Question 1.5 Methodology 1.6 Division and Unity from the same Spirit? CHAPTER 2 Setting the Ecumenical Scene in England p40 2.1 The failure of the first Anglican-Methodist scheme 2.2 Two Evangelical approaches to unity: (1) John Wenham 2.3 (2) Nottingham 1977 – Anglican Evangelicals on Unity. 2.4 The Inter-Church process 1984 to 1987. 2.5 The authority of Swanwick 2.6 Charismatics engaging with official ecumenism 2.7 Summary CHAPTER 3 Roman Catholic Charismatic Renewal p60 3.1 The Beginnings after 1967 3.1.1 Early authors 3.1.2. The attenuation of the charismata in the Patristic age 3.1.3 Prayer groups and Catholic culture: 3.2 The Contemporary Picture 3.2.1 Pilot fieldwork interviews 3.2.2 Two Catholic Renewal Masses 3.2.3 CCR Headquarters and Good News 3.2.4 The Pivot of Spirit Baptism in Good News 3.3 Catholics and the Alpha Course 3.4 The movement considers its future 3.4.1 Charles Whitehead outlines the future for CCR 3.4.2 A charismatic Bishop’s response 3.4.3 The Newman Consultation 3.4.4 Summary CHAPTER 4 The World Council of Churches and Koinonia Ecclesiology p118 4.1 Defining Koinonia 4.2 Koinonia in the life of the churches 4.3 Disappointed Reaction to Canberra 4.4 Hollenweger’s Ecumenical Vision for the WCC 4.5 David J. Du Plessis 4.6 Fifth World Conference on Faith and Order 4.7 Describing an interim location for worldwide unity. 4.8 Santer on practical ecumenical issues 4.9 Summary 3 CHAPTER 5 Baptism and Episcopacy p133 Baptism 5.1.1 Baptism: the beginning of Christian life? 5.1.2 ‘Sacramentalised but not Evangelised’ 5.1.3 The Catholic/Pentecostal Dialogue 5.1.4 A fresh theology of baptism 5.1.5 Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry 5.1.6 Summary Episcopacy 5.2.1 A recent book on Church of England ecumenism 5.2.2. The Historic Episcopal issue 5.2.3 The transmission of ecclesial authority 5.2.4 Charism and Institution 5.2.5 The Contemporary Church 5.2.6 The significance of the Porvoo Agreement 5.2.7 Restorationism 5.2.8 The ministries of Ephesians Chapter 4 5.2.9 Apostles of Unity 5.2.10 Ecumenical Episcope in Milton Keynes 5.2.11 Summary CHAPTER 6 Relating Experience to Scripture p176 6.1 The theological shift of individuals 6.2 The Spirit as Revelator. 6.3 A place for the ‘Liberal’ theologian 6.4 The demonic in congregational division 6.5 Scriptural authority from the Roman Catholic side. 6.6 Revisiting scripture on some issues of ecumenical relevance 6.7 Hocken’s exegesis on Messianic Judaism 6.8 The visibility of the Church. 6.9 The Transfiguration motif 6.10 Colin Buchanan 6.11 Summary CHAPTER 7 Reconstructing ecumenical theology: towards a closer visible unity p232 7.1 The indelible ecumenical root of Pentecostalism 7.2 The decline of the charismatic ecumenical vision 7.3 Official Ecumenical pessimism 7.4 From vision and leadership to closer unity 7.5 Summary of main research findings Appendices p249 1. Ecumenical Dialogues in process in 1996 2. 1977 Nottingham Conference of Anglican Evangelicals: statement on the Roman Catholic Church. 3. On the unique place of England in Ecumenism 4. Ecumenical Linkages in Good News 5. The text of the Porvoo Declaration 6. Material from the Orthodox Churches 7. Roman Catholic fieldwork: a.Pilot fieldwork questionnaire b. Interviews with Roman Catholic Charismatics. c Two Renewal masses. 8. Indiscriminate Infant Baptism Bibliography p275 4 Acronymns and Abbreviations used in this study ARM Anglican Renewal Ministries BCC British Council of Churches BEM Baptism Eucharist and Ministry, WCC ‘Lima’ Document CCR Catholic Charismatic Renewal CCU Council for Christian Unity of the General Synod of the Church of England CPD (or VPD) Catholic (Vatican) / Pentecostal dialogue CTBI (CCBI) Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (Council of Churches for BI) CTBO Called to be One Process. CTE Churches Together in England FGBMFI Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International GS General Synod of the Church of England HTB Holy Trinity Church Brompton, London LEP Local Ecumenical Partnership MD Malines Document 2 Meissen The Meissen Agreement between the Church of England and the German Evangelical Churches NSC National Service Committee for Catholic Charismatic Renewal Porvoo The Porvoo Agreement of the Nordic and Baltic Churches WCC World Council of Churches 5 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Defining the terms: Ecumenism and Charismatic Renewal Does Charismatic Renewal have an inherent ecumenical property, and if it does, how can that property be defined and its effects measured? If in measuring such an ecumenical property of charismatic renewal it is found to be significant, can it be also demonstrated that it has significance for the ‘mainline’ or official ecumenical movement. This thesis sets out to explore this important issue. By ‘charismatic renewal’ is meant that particular movement of the Holy Spirit, which began around 1960, which was first known as ‘neo-Pentecostalism’. Its distinguishing location was the older traditional denominations; its distinguishing experience ‘Spirit Baptism’ and the spiritual gifts, which were a feature of the original Pentecostalism. The words ‘ecumenism’, and its adjective ‘ecumenical’, are common in ecclesiastical parlance, and both words have attracted a variety of meanings and nuances. In some contexts the word ‘ecumenism’ may be used in a rather lightweight sense to describe any activity that reaches out beyond the boundary of a single Christian denomination. In other contexts ‘ecumenism’ may be used to convey something close to its original meaning of ‘oikoumene’, the whole-inhabited world or the global context. There is a strong prima facie expectation that Charismatic Renewal ought to be ecumenical. It has become commonplace to refer to the original Pentecostal Movement emanating from the Azusa Street, Los Angeles, revival of 1906 with the Black Leader William Joseph Seymour as ‘ecumenical’ in the sense of it being multi-ethnic and socially integrating. Hollenweger describes the range as: ‘white bishops and black workers, men and women, Asians and Mexicans, white professors and black laundry-women’ 6 (1997:20). Harvey Cox, in his study of Pentecostal Spirituality (1996:16-17), notes Pentecostalism’s rise from a small sect to ‘a major, world-wide religious movement’.