Biography & Commentary
Born at Catterick Camp, Scotton, Yorkshire to Godfrey Charles Knight Watson, a captain in the Royal Artillery, and his wife Margaret Sara Winifred,[1] Watson was educated at Bedford School (1940-1946), Wellington College (1946-1951)[2] and St John's College, Cambridge where he converted to Christianity. He became involved with the ministry of E. J. H. Nash[3] by the invitation of David Sheppard, later to become Bishop of Liverpool.[4] Watson noted: "Undoubtedly the most formative influence on my faith during the five years at Cambridge was my involvement with... 'Bash camps.' [...] It was the best possible training I could receive."[5] He became a priest in the Church of England, starting his ordained ministry among the dock workers of Gillingham, Kent.[4]
Watson's second curacy took him to the Round Church in Cambridge where the vicar was Mark Ruston. Around the same time, encouraged by Martyn Lloyd Jones, Watson sought the religious experience known as baptism in the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues.[6]
Watson became curate-in-charge of St Cuthbert's Church, York in 1965,[4] which was attended by no more than twelve at any service and was twelve months away from redundancy.[4] Eight years later the congregation had out-grown St Cuthbert's and an array of annexes resulting in a move to St Michael le Belfrey, York.[4] Subsequently, the congregation grew to many hundreds in only a few years.[7] As his ministry progressed, Watson was involved with missionary enterprises throughout the world and was a high-profile advocate of reconciliation and ecumenism in Northern Ireland.[8] He met the Vineyard Leader John Wimber in 1980, and was one of the first people to welcome him to the UK.[9] This encouraged the connection between Wimber and Terry Virgo of Newfrontiers that ensued.[10] He left St Michael le Belfrey in 1982 for London.[4]
Watson was a regular contributor to Renewal magazine, a publication of the interdenominational charismatic movement which started in the 1960s.
Watson died of cancer on 18 February 1984 after recording his fight with the disease in a book, Fear No Evil.[11] John Gunstone remarked of Watson that "It is doubtful whether any other English Christian leader has had greater influence on this side of the Atlantic since the Second World War."[12] J. I. Packer called him "one of the best-known clergymen in England".[13]
Footnotes:
Watson's second curacy took him to the Round Church in Cambridge where the vicar was Mark Ruston. Around the same time, encouraged by Martyn Lloyd Jones, Watson sought the religious experience known as baptism in the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues.[6]
Watson became curate-in-charge of St Cuthbert's Church, York in 1965,[4] which was attended by no more than twelve at any service and was twelve months away from redundancy.[4] Eight years later the congregation had out-grown St Cuthbert's and an array of annexes resulting in a move to St Michael le Belfrey, York.[4] Subsequently, the congregation grew to many hundreds in only a few years.[7] As his ministry progressed, Watson was involved with missionary enterprises throughout the world and was a high-profile advocate of reconciliation and ecumenism in Northern Ireland.[8] He met the Vineyard Leader John Wimber in 1980, and was one of the first people to welcome him to the UK.[9] This encouraged the connection between Wimber and Terry Virgo of Newfrontiers that ensued.[10] He left St Michael le Belfrey in 1982 for London.[4]
Watson was a regular contributor to Renewal magazine, a publication of the interdenominational charismatic movement which started in the 1960s.
Watson died of cancer on 18 February 1984 after recording his fight with the disease in a book, Fear No Evil.[11] John Gunstone remarked of Watson that "It is doubtful whether any other English Christian leader has had greater influence on this side of the Atlantic since the Second World War."[12] J. I. Packer called him "one of the best-known clergymen in England".[13]
Footnotes:
- www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-95618
- http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/articleHL/95618?docPos=55&anchor=match
- Rob Warner, Reinventing English Evangelicalism, 1966-2001 (Milton Keynes; Paternoster, 2007) p. 122.
- Saunders, Teddy; Sansom, Hugh (1992). David Watson, a Biography. Hodder & Stoughton Religious. ISBN 978-0-340-39990-3.
- David Watson, You Are My God (London: Hodder, 1983) p. 39.
- David Watson, You Are My God, London: Hodder, 1983 p. 64.
- Randle Manwaring From Controversy to Co-Existence: Evangelicals in the Church of England 1914-1980 (Cambridge: CUP, 2002) 97
- David Armstrong A Road too Wide (Basingstoke: Marshall Pickering, 1985) 57
- John Wimber, Kevin Springer Power Evangelism, Signs and Wonders Today (London: Hodder, 1985) 7
- Terry Virgo No Well-Worn Paths (Eastbourne: Kingsway, 2001) 149
- Born c. 1934; died of cancer, February 18, 1984, in London, England. Clergyman and author. One of the best known evangelists of the Church of England, Watson was a leading figure in Britain's Charismatic Renewal movement. He was also an advocate of Christian unity, leading numerous ecumenical missions throughout the world. Among Watson's many books are Discipleship, an autobiography entitled You Are My Lord, and an account of his struggle against cancer entitled Fear No Evil." Obituary Notice, The Times, 21 February 1984
- John Gunstone, Signs and Wonders, The Wimber Phenomenon (Daybreak: London, 1989) p. 62
- J. I. Packer in the foreword to David Watson's Discipleship (London: Hodder, 1981) p. 6.
This year (2009) marks the 25th anniversary of the death of Canon David Watson, one-time vicar of St. Michael le Belfrey York; pioneer behind the Renewal movement within the Anglican Church during the 1960s-80s; and much-loved international evangelist. There is so much that the Evangelical Church in Britain today can learn from his life and ministry.
In Chapter 22 of the Gospel of Matthew, the Lord Jesus rounds on the Pharisees, telling them, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God”. In these words, Jesus encapsulates the basic, two-fold requirement of Christian discipleship: to know and love the Word of God; and to live in the power of God’s Holy Spirit. It could be argued that Evangelical leaders through the years have usually stood on one or the other side: they are either remembered for their ability to expound the Scriptures eloquently, or for their advocacy of a Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered Christian life. David Watson is remembered for both. As such, his memory and work should be treasured by so-called ‘conservative’ and ‘charismatic’ Evangelicals alike.
As a resident of York, it is all the more enthralling for me to read about everything that God achieved through him and his wife Anne in this city. Indeed, the still-flourishing St Michael le Belfrey, the church that he helped to build throughout the heyday of his ministry, stands as a living, breathing testimony to him. Looking further afield, it is clear that David also left a lasting impression on the Evangelical Church nationwide. It was he who first urged John Wimber to come and minister in the UK and Wimber’s subsequent visits to Britain in 1981 and 1984 had a meteoric impact on, amongst others, ‘Holy Trinity Brompton’ and ‘St. Andrew’s Chorleywood’ (1). In view of this, it can even be claimed that Watson is indirectly responsible for the celebrated ‘Soul Survivor’ youth movement, which was in turn birthed out of St. Andrew’s in the early nineties. Worldwide, Watson’s influence spread further still through the frequent and often gruelling international evangelistic missions he led throughout his relatively short ministry. Working with an indispensible team of musicians, dancers and actors, this humble vicar from York proclaimed God’s Gospel all over the world (2). It is telling that the visitor’s team on the door at St. Michael le Belfrey still to this day encounters tourists inquiring after Watson (3).
But for all this, Watson is largely unsung within the British Evangelical Church today. It is very difficult to find any articles about him on the internet and his books are similarly hard to come by in most Christian book shops. Could this be because Evangelicals are wary of the definite emphasis on the Holy Spirit in his ministry? Could it be because of his controversial penchant for fraternising with the Roman Catholic Church? Or could it be because the Evangelical Church has simply forgotten him, twenty-five years on from his sad and untimely death? Whatever the reason, there is much that we can learn from Watson as Evangelicals living in 21st century Britain.
It is widely agreed that David Watson’s ministry was shaped by three main themes: Reconciliation, Evangelism and Renewal (4). This article examines what we can learn from Watson’s approach in these three areas.
Reconciliation: Attitude before Conviction
In 1971, David Watson was asked to speak at the ‘International Fountain Trust Conference’ in Guildford. On his arrival he was shocked to discover that he would be sharing the platform with a popular leader from the Roman Catholic Church (5). It is important to realise that Watson had been groomed as a young Christian man at the seminal ‘Iwerne Minster’ camps for public school boys, run by the inimitable Eric Nash (6). In such an environment, Roman Catholicism was cast as an aberration to be avoided, a prejudice that Watson naturally inherited as he went on into Christian ministry. He was very much taken aback therefore to discover that he had much in common with his Roman Catholic colleague at the conference in Guildford. Praying about this earnestly later, Watson had the impression that God was telling him to sort out his attitude towards people with other beliefs, rather than revel in his own ‘sound’ theological convictions. This moment of prayer was to have a profound impact on Watson and the shape of his later ministry: he worked hard to build bridges with Roman Catholics who shared his fundamental beliefs about Christ, whilst never compromising his own, deep-felt Evangelical principles.
This predictably got him into hot water with more stringent Evangelicals who saw this as lily-livered compromise; David did not help matters by telling the National Evangelical Anglican Conference in 1977 that, “in many ways, the Reformation was one of the greatest tragedies that ever happened to the Church” (7). However, it is important to understand Watson’s point here. He wasn’t arguing for a watering-down of Evangelical theology or identity; he himself preached the harder Evangelical truths unflinchingly, as we’ll see later in this article. Instead, Watson was decrying the messy disunity brought about by the Reformation in general and the subsequently appalling, un-loving attitude of many Evangelicals towards Roman Catholics, many of whom worshipped Christ as Lord and trusted in His death and resurrection for their salvation. Christian comedian and writer Adrian Plass worked with David Watson in the early 1980s and observed Watson’s renewed attitude first-hand.
Through Watson’s example of ‘enthusiastic respect’ for a Roman Catholic acquaintance, Plass ‘learned something quite new...about meeting people where they are, and not dragging them crudely into the arena of my own beliefs in order to club theirs to death’8. Within British society at large, Evangelical Christians have an unfortunate and sometimes deserved reputation as bigots and bullies. I think we could all learn from David Watson, who was well known for both his Evangelical convictions and his loving, accommodating attitude towards those with whom he differed.
Evangelism: A note of God’s judgment
When asked to recall David Watson’s strengths as an evangelist, Andrew Cornes, his first curate at St. Michael le Belfrey, remembered that, ‘there was...a note of God’s judgment – a theme many contemporary evangelists shy away from’ (9). Indeed, for all his personal charm and excellent communications skills, Watson was no mere people-pleaser and he was never afraid to present his listeners with the unpalatable truth of God’s wrath over a sinful and rebellious world. Shortly before he died, he preached movingly on Psalm 91 at St. Michael’s, Chester Square in London, describing Christ as like a “cleft in the rock” in which we can hide from God’s “awesome judgment” (10). Watson’s willingness to teach the harder truths reminds us that wooing the world with God’s love and warning the world about God’s wrath need not be mutually exclusive.
Watson managed to build a reputation as a man of grace, humility and warmth whilst remaining committed to God’s whole truth and God was pleased to bring scores of people to faith through his ministry. Let’s learn from David Watson and resolve to tell the world around us about the ‘wrath to come’ (11), whilst of course keeping God’s love for the lost as our primary focus and motivation.
Renewal: to know God’s love
When the ‘Charismatic Renewal’ movement, of which David was a champion and figurehead, burst excitedly onto the scene in the 1960-70s, many Evangelical leaders within the British Church were understandably very wary. David inevitably copped some flak from some of his more conservative brethren who were deeply distrustful of his new convictions, and particularly his use of the ‘gifts of the Spirit’: his relationship with former mentor, Eric Nash was arguably never the same from then on.
However, along with his advocacy of the spiritual gifts, David Watson’s original vision for renewal was primarily based around people coming to know God’s love for them more deeply, that they might love and serve Him in return. David’s own ministry was transformed when, as a young curate serving in Cambridge, he received a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit and, in his own words, ’had a quiet but overwhelming sense of being embraced by the love of God’ (12). From then on, David sought to share this new experience of God’s love with those inside and outside the church, believing passionately that ‘the authority of the preacher, evangelist or witness lies not only in the God-given message that is being proclaimed but also in the personal experience of the message’ (13). Fittingly, when David was invited to outline the very heart of his message in a television interview shortly before his death, he replied, ‘“The most important thing is that people really need to know that God loves them. An awful lot of people are hurting for one reason or another. Down at the roots you find that they are not sure they are loved and accepted – by anyone. To know that God loves them, that is the important thing”’ (14).
Evangelical Christianity rightly prides itself on its orthodox theology, its courage in upholding the Gospel and on its traditionally sound, expository preaching. But have we become so concerned with defending God’s truth, that we have forgotten His love? The Apostle Paul prayed for the Christians in Ephesus, that they would be ‘come to know (Christ’s) love in all its fullness, although it can never fully be known, and so be completely filled with the very nature of God’ (15). Let’s learn from David Watson, a man who really knew he was loved by the Lord.
Conclusion
In Britain today it is increasingly difficult to define what constitutes an ‘Evangelical Christian’. There are ‘conservative’, ‘open’, ‘charismatic’, ‘classical’, ‘liberal’ and ‘post’ Evangelicals and, in the resultant confusion, the Evangelical Church is strongly in need of role models to provide much-needed direction and focus. I would argue that we need to re-discover David Watson. We need to re-read his immensely practical and visionary books; we need to learn from his experiences, out-lined so honestly in his two autobiographies; and we need to follow his example in seeking to present Jesus Christ relevantly to a needy and sinful world.
Famously, Watson used to go to bed very late and rise extremely early in order to fit his writing commitments into an already-packed day. When challenged on this manic schedule, Watson would reply that God hadn’t given him long to live on this earth so he had to make the most of his time. Whether or not David really knew he would die young, we should honour his immense commitment to the Church by listening again to what he had to say.
Footnotes:
1. When Wimber visited St. Michael le Belfrey with a ministry team in 1981, he dropped in to St Andrew’s Chorleywood on his way up to York at the request of vicar, David Pytches. In October 1984, he then staged a conference in Central Hall, Westminster, fulfilling a promise he’d made to David Watson, to hold a big-scale event for the edification of British churches.
2. Between 1978 and 1983, David and his team conducted fifty-eight missions on five continents, ministering in such far-flung locations as South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
3. Recounted in a personal conversation with a member of the Visitor’s Team at ‘St Michael le Belfrey’.
4. See Matthew Porter’s timely and excellent study, David Watson: Evangelism, Renewal, Reconciliation (2003), Grove Books Limited.
5. Kevin Ranaghan (1940-), pioneer in the ‘Catholic Pentecostal’ movement.
6. Eric John Hewitson Nash (1898-1982), known affectionately as ‘Bash’ to his friends. At Iwerne Minster, Nash nurtured such Evangelical luminaries as John Stott, Timothy Dudley-Smith, Michael Green, David Sheppard, Dick Lucas and latterly, Nicky Gumbel.
7. Saunders and Sansom, (1992), p. 186
8. Plass, (1991), p. 142
9. Saunders and Sansom, (1992), p.179
10. From tape cassette AG.659: ‘He is my refuge’, Anchor recordings. Watson was making a reference to Toplady’s famous hymn, Rock of Ages.
11. 1 Thessalonians 1:10.
12. Watson, (1983), p. 54
13. Watson, (1986), p. 75
14. Plass, (1991), p. 143
15. Ephesians 3:19 (Good News Version).
Bibliography:
England, Edward (Ed). David Watson, A Portrait by his Friends, Godalming: Highland, 1985.
Plass, Adrian. The Growing up pains of Adrian Plass, Glasgow: Fount Paperbacks, 1991.
Porter, Matthew. David Watson: Evangelism, Renewal, Reconciliation, Grove Books Limited, 2003.
Saunders, Teddy and Sansom, Hugh. David Watson, A Biography, Sevenoaks: Hodder & Stoughton, 1992.
In Chapter 22 of the Gospel of Matthew, the Lord Jesus rounds on the Pharisees, telling them, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God”. In these words, Jesus encapsulates the basic, two-fold requirement of Christian discipleship: to know and love the Word of God; and to live in the power of God’s Holy Spirit. It could be argued that Evangelical leaders through the years have usually stood on one or the other side: they are either remembered for their ability to expound the Scriptures eloquently, or for their advocacy of a Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered Christian life. David Watson is remembered for both. As such, his memory and work should be treasured by so-called ‘conservative’ and ‘charismatic’ Evangelicals alike.
As a resident of York, it is all the more enthralling for me to read about everything that God achieved through him and his wife Anne in this city. Indeed, the still-flourishing St Michael le Belfrey, the church that he helped to build throughout the heyday of his ministry, stands as a living, breathing testimony to him. Looking further afield, it is clear that David also left a lasting impression on the Evangelical Church nationwide. It was he who first urged John Wimber to come and minister in the UK and Wimber’s subsequent visits to Britain in 1981 and 1984 had a meteoric impact on, amongst others, ‘Holy Trinity Brompton’ and ‘St. Andrew’s Chorleywood’ (1). In view of this, it can even be claimed that Watson is indirectly responsible for the celebrated ‘Soul Survivor’ youth movement, which was in turn birthed out of St. Andrew’s in the early nineties. Worldwide, Watson’s influence spread further still through the frequent and often gruelling international evangelistic missions he led throughout his relatively short ministry. Working with an indispensible team of musicians, dancers and actors, this humble vicar from York proclaimed God’s Gospel all over the world (2). It is telling that the visitor’s team on the door at St. Michael le Belfrey still to this day encounters tourists inquiring after Watson (3).
But for all this, Watson is largely unsung within the British Evangelical Church today. It is very difficult to find any articles about him on the internet and his books are similarly hard to come by in most Christian book shops. Could this be because Evangelicals are wary of the definite emphasis on the Holy Spirit in his ministry? Could it be because of his controversial penchant for fraternising with the Roman Catholic Church? Or could it be because the Evangelical Church has simply forgotten him, twenty-five years on from his sad and untimely death? Whatever the reason, there is much that we can learn from Watson as Evangelicals living in 21st century Britain.
It is widely agreed that David Watson’s ministry was shaped by three main themes: Reconciliation, Evangelism and Renewal (4). This article examines what we can learn from Watson’s approach in these three areas.
Reconciliation: Attitude before Conviction
In 1971, David Watson was asked to speak at the ‘International Fountain Trust Conference’ in Guildford. On his arrival he was shocked to discover that he would be sharing the platform with a popular leader from the Roman Catholic Church (5). It is important to realise that Watson had been groomed as a young Christian man at the seminal ‘Iwerne Minster’ camps for public school boys, run by the inimitable Eric Nash (6). In such an environment, Roman Catholicism was cast as an aberration to be avoided, a prejudice that Watson naturally inherited as he went on into Christian ministry. He was very much taken aback therefore to discover that he had much in common with his Roman Catholic colleague at the conference in Guildford. Praying about this earnestly later, Watson had the impression that God was telling him to sort out his attitude towards people with other beliefs, rather than revel in his own ‘sound’ theological convictions. This moment of prayer was to have a profound impact on Watson and the shape of his later ministry: he worked hard to build bridges with Roman Catholics who shared his fundamental beliefs about Christ, whilst never compromising his own, deep-felt Evangelical principles.
This predictably got him into hot water with more stringent Evangelicals who saw this as lily-livered compromise; David did not help matters by telling the National Evangelical Anglican Conference in 1977 that, “in many ways, the Reformation was one of the greatest tragedies that ever happened to the Church” (7). However, it is important to understand Watson’s point here. He wasn’t arguing for a watering-down of Evangelical theology or identity; he himself preached the harder Evangelical truths unflinchingly, as we’ll see later in this article. Instead, Watson was decrying the messy disunity brought about by the Reformation in general and the subsequently appalling, un-loving attitude of many Evangelicals towards Roman Catholics, many of whom worshipped Christ as Lord and trusted in His death and resurrection for their salvation. Christian comedian and writer Adrian Plass worked with David Watson in the early 1980s and observed Watson’s renewed attitude first-hand.
Through Watson’s example of ‘enthusiastic respect’ for a Roman Catholic acquaintance, Plass ‘learned something quite new...about meeting people where they are, and not dragging them crudely into the arena of my own beliefs in order to club theirs to death’8. Within British society at large, Evangelical Christians have an unfortunate and sometimes deserved reputation as bigots and bullies. I think we could all learn from David Watson, who was well known for both his Evangelical convictions and his loving, accommodating attitude towards those with whom he differed.
Evangelism: A note of God’s judgment
When asked to recall David Watson’s strengths as an evangelist, Andrew Cornes, his first curate at St. Michael le Belfrey, remembered that, ‘there was...a note of God’s judgment – a theme many contemporary evangelists shy away from’ (9). Indeed, for all his personal charm and excellent communications skills, Watson was no mere people-pleaser and he was never afraid to present his listeners with the unpalatable truth of God’s wrath over a sinful and rebellious world. Shortly before he died, he preached movingly on Psalm 91 at St. Michael’s, Chester Square in London, describing Christ as like a “cleft in the rock” in which we can hide from God’s “awesome judgment” (10). Watson’s willingness to teach the harder truths reminds us that wooing the world with God’s love and warning the world about God’s wrath need not be mutually exclusive.
Watson managed to build a reputation as a man of grace, humility and warmth whilst remaining committed to God’s whole truth and God was pleased to bring scores of people to faith through his ministry. Let’s learn from David Watson and resolve to tell the world around us about the ‘wrath to come’ (11), whilst of course keeping God’s love for the lost as our primary focus and motivation.
Renewal: to know God’s love
When the ‘Charismatic Renewal’ movement, of which David was a champion and figurehead, burst excitedly onto the scene in the 1960-70s, many Evangelical leaders within the British Church were understandably very wary. David inevitably copped some flak from some of his more conservative brethren who were deeply distrustful of his new convictions, and particularly his use of the ‘gifts of the Spirit’: his relationship with former mentor, Eric Nash was arguably never the same from then on.
However, along with his advocacy of the spiritual gifts, David Watson’s original vision for renewal was primarily based around people coming to know God’s love for them more deeply, that they might love and serve Him in return. David’s own ministry was transformed when, as a young curate serving in Cambridge, he received a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit and, in his own words, ’had a quiet but overwhelming sense of being embraced by the love of God’ (12). From then on, David sought to share this new experience of God’s love with those inside and outside the church, believing passionately that ‘the authority of the preacher, evangelist or witness lies not only in the God-given message that is being proclaimed but also in the personal experience of the message’ (13). Fittingly, when David was invited to outline the very heart of his message in a television interview shortly before his death, he replied, ‘“The most important thing is that people really need to know that God loves them. An awful lot of people are hurting for one reason or another. Down at the roots you find that they are not sure they are loved and accepted – by anyone. To know that God loves them, that is the important thing”’ (14).
Evangelical Christianity rightly prides itself on its orthodox theology, its courage in upholding the Gospel and on its traditionally sound, expository preaching. But have we become so concerned with defending God’s truth, that we have forgotten His love? The Apostle Paul prayed for the Christians in Ephesus, that they would be ‘come to know (Christ’s) love in all its fullness, although it can never fully be known, and so be completely filled with the very nature of God’ (15). Let’s learn from David Watson, a man who really knew he was loved by the Lord.
Conclusion
In Britain today it is increasingly difficult to define what constitutes an ‘Evangelical Christian’. There are ‘conservative’, ‘open’, ‘charismatic’, ‘classical’, ‘liberal’ and ‘post’ Evangelicals and, in the resultant confusion, the Evangelical Church is strongly in need of role models to provide much-needed direction and focus. I would argue that we need to re-discover David Watson. We need to re-read his immensely practical and visionary books; we need to learn from his experiences, out-lined so honestly in his two autobiographies; and we need to follow his example in seeking to present Jesus Christ relevantly to a needy and sinful world.
Famously, Watson used to go to bed very late and rise extremely early in order to fit his writing commitments into an already-packed day. When challenged on this manic schedule, Watson would reply that God hadn’t given him long to live on this earth so he had to make the most of his time. Whether or not David really knew he would die young, we should honour his immense commitment to the Church by listening again to what he had to say.
Footnotes:
1. When Wimber visited St. Michael le Belfrey with a ministry team in 1981, he dropped in to St Andrew’s Chorleywood on his way up to York at the request of vicar, David Pytches. In October 1984, he then staged a conference in Central Hall, Westminster, fulfilling a promise he’d made to David Watson, to hold a big-scale event for the edification of British churches.
2. Between 1978 and 1983, David and his team conducted fifty-eight missions on five continents, ministering in such far-flung locations as South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
3. Recounted in a personal conversation with a member of the Visitor’s Team at ‘St Michael le Belfrey’.
4. See Matthew Porter’s timely and excellent study, David Watson: Evangelism, Renewal, Reconciliation (2003), Grove Books Limited.
5. Kevin Ranaghan (1940-), pioneer in the ‘Catholic Pentecostal’ movement.
6. Eric John Hewitson Nash (1898-1982), known affectionately as ‘Bash’ to his friends. At Iwerne Minster, Nash nurtured such Evangelical luminaries as John Stott, Timothy Dudley-Smith, Michael Green, David Sheppard, Dick Lucas and latterly, Nicky Gumbel.
7. Saunders and Sansom, (1992), p. 186
8. Plass, (1991), p. 142
9. Saunders and Sansom, (1992), p.179
10. From tape cassette AG.659: ‘He is my refuge’, Anchor recordings. Watson was making a reference to Toplady’s famous hymn, Rock of Ages.
11. 1 Thessalonians 1:10.
12. Watson, (1983), p. 54
13. Watson, (1986), p. 75
14. Plass, (1991), p. 143
15. Ephesians 3:19 (Good News Version).
Bibliography:
England, Edward (Ed). David Watson, A Portrait by his Friends, Godalming: Highland, 1985.
Plass, Adrian. The Growing up pains of Adrian Plass, Glasgow: Fount Paperbacks, 1991.
Porter, Matthew. David Watson: Evangelism, Renewal, Reconciliation, Grove Books Limited, 2003.
Saunders, Teddy and Sansom, Hugh. David Watson, A Biography, Sevenoaks: Hodder & Stoughton, 1992.
Raising the C of E’s Spirit level
17 MAY 2013
The Charismatic movement has had a powerful and growing influence on the Church of England over the past 50 years. Ted Harrison traces its effect
"THE evening involves relaxing and resting in the Lord, and allowing praise and worship music to wash over us. During the soaking times, we enjoy resting in the Lord's presence, and waiting on him to receive prophetic words, scripture verses from the Lord, and visions."
These are words from the website of the parish church in Kent where, 55 years ago, I used to sing evensong in the choir as a treble, using the Book of Common Prayer, with no deviations.
Today, St Luke's, Hawkinge, looks very different from the place that I recall, and not just because of rebuilding. The traditional ecclesiastical hardware of pews, hymn boards, and prayer books has been replaced by a bar, café tables, and an overhead screen. St Luke's - now rebranded as The Lighthouse - is a Fresh Expressions church. It is experimental, and Charismatic.
The story of St Luke's is a vivid illustration of how, over one lifetime, the Church of England has experienced massive change. When future historians review the period, they may well conclude that the most significant, and revolutionary change was neither the ordination of women to the priesthood, nor the widely adopted liturgical revisions, but the infiltration into the mainstream Church of the Charismatic, or renewal, movement in its many guises.
What has happened within the Church was not initiated by the hierarchy; it did not require synodical legislation; it bypassed the structures of establishment. It was the Holy Spirit taking everyone unawares - or so believe the many people caught by the wind of change that has swept through, and invigorated, what they saw as a dying institution.
The Anglican family worldwide has been caught up in an international movement that began in the 19th century, on the edges of Christendom, and is now a dominant force within Protestantism, and a growing movement within Roman Catholicism.
THE spread of the current Charismatic movement "was one of the great surprises of 20th-century Christianity", Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch wrote in A History of Christianity.
Its origins lie in several strands of debate, both in Europe and North America. "A holiness movement sprang out of the teaching of the early Methodists, proclaiming that the Holy Spirit could bring an intense experience of holiness or sanctification into the everyday life of any believing Christian," Professor MacCulloch wrote.
"There existed a widespread instinct that Protestant emphasis on sermons and the intellectual understanding of the word of God did not give enough room for human emotion."
Yet the movement, and in particular speaking in tongues, "has very little precedent in Christian practice between the first and 19th centuries", Professor MacCulloch says.
There have been independent Pentecostal churches in Britain for more than a century. It was in the 1960s, however, that the Charismatic movement arrived in the Church of England, influencing, initially, the Evangelical wing. A generation of young churchmen, many from public schools, with a background in university-based Muscular Christianity, were in the vanguard.
The Revd David Watson took his enthusiasm for renewal to York, and grew a tiny congregation into one that had to move to a larger church building at St Michael le Belfrey. In the early 1970s, I recall attending an evening service there that attracted so many people that they had to decamp to the Minster. It was my introduction to this new style of lively and uninhibited worship.
WATSON had been Assistant Curate at St Mark's, Gillingham, Kent, where the Revd John Collins was Vicar. Mr Collins dates his own first experience to one cold February night in 1963. He had been persuaded to hold a night of prayer in his parish for worldwide renewal, starting at 10 p.m.
"At about 2.40 a.m., something happened. The Holy Spirit fell! I found myself fully awake . . . full of energy and very happy. And what was happening to me was clearly being experienced by everybody else. Some were singing. . .
"Was there an emotional atmosphere? Yes, plenty of it. . . How can you praise without emotion?"
Some discovered renewal in unexpected circumstances. One night, in 1965, the Revd Tom Smail, then a Church of Scotland minister, was washing his face and getting ready for bed. "Some strange syllables and unknown words came unbidden into my head. . . Next day, driving home, it happened again. . . There and then, in the car, I started to sing in tongues, and, as I sang, a bit of me deep down, that had been bottled up, began to be set free."
Mr Smail later became an Anglican priest, and was one of the leading advocates of renewal. He served as the General Secretary of the Fountain Trust, an organisation founded in 1964, by the Revd Michael Harper, to promote Charismatic renewal both within Anglicanism and ecumenically.
Harper had been an assistant curate at All Souls', Langham Place, where the Revd John Stott was rector. The first reaction of this highly respected Evangelical teacher was to advise extreme caution.
The Rt Revd Dr Tom Wright, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Andrews University, and a former Bishop of Durham, says that Stott's particular objection was to the theology of a necessary "second blessing", which was "always to be accompanied by speaking in tongues", and "was to be interpreted as the baptism in the Spirit".
The background to his animosity was "the long memory of the 'second blessing' teaching in the late 19th and early 20th century", Dr Wright says. This had created divisive debate, and "had sometimes gone completely overboard on private revelations which had led to serious abuse. I don't think many of today's mainstream Charismatic teachers would hold those views, which I think were the things that John Stott was principally objecting to."
ENGLISH renewal was, like many cultural phenomena of the 1960s, shaped on the other side of the Atlantic. The Episcopal Church in the United States was ahead of the Church of England. The Revd Dennis Bennett emerged as the most high-profile Episcopalian Charismatic, in circumstances that caused controversy.
"Unknown to most parishioners, Bennett and 70 other members had been 'speaking in tongues' -making utterances that most mainline churches equated with overheated Pentecostalism and Holy Roller tent revivals," John Dart, the former religious-affairs reporter for the Los Angeles Times, wrote.
After the main Passion Sunday service in 1960, "an assistant priest pulled off his vestments, put them on the altar, and stalked out, saying, 'I can no longer work with this man!' Tumult reigned. One man stood on a chair, shouting, 'Throw out the damn tongue speakers!'"
Bennett resigned, but what came to be described as "renewal within the historic churches" had begun - not a merging of hardcore Pentecostal theology with Anglicanism, but an adoption of practice.
Nevertheless, as Anglican renewal grew, theological questions had to be addressed. Was the glossolalia really the same phenomenon as was witnessed on the day of Pentecost? How should the contemporary Church understand St Paul's teaching on "spiritual gifts" in 1 Corinthians 14? Might it all be an emotional fad - the product of group hysterics?
IN 1963, Bennett came to St Mark's, Gillingham, where Mr Collins was Vicar, to speak to an invited meeting. "I was inwardly amused that some of my guests seemed apprehensive, as if a speaker on the Holy Spirit might well have fire coming out of his mouth and ears 'to consume us'," Mr Collins said.
A clergyman from Canterbury came, in cassock and cape, and addressed the Evangelical vicar as 'Fr Collins'. He stayed behind after the meeting, and Mr Bennett prayed with him.
On his way home to Canterbury, this unlikely recruit began speaking in tongues. "Was that the real thing?" he later asked Mr Collins, who assured him that it was.
Renewal spread steadily through the 1970s, but received a transatlantic boost early in the next decade, when John Wimber, of the Californian Vineyard church, came to Britain.
He made a huge impression, particularly at St Andrew's, Chorleywood, and at St Michael le Belfrey. The Rt Revd David Pytches, then Vicar of St Andrew's, and Watson welcomed Wimber's ministry, and received his team with great excitement. The New Wine ministry, with its popular and colourful summer festivals, can trace its roots back to that visit.
Andrew Atherstone, in his biography of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, writes that the Welby family travelled to the United States, and found help at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship after the death of their baby daughter. Their introduction had been via Holy Trinity, Brompton, which Mr Wimber first visited in 1982.
Mr Wimber was not without his critics, however. He had conservative views on the part played by women within the Church; and his talk of supernatural forces, and spiritual warfare, was viewed as alarmingly over-simplistic.
Some even accused him of creating a cultic mindset within the Vineyard church. "I am not referring to specific doctrines," one anonymous critic wrote, "but in the way rank-and-file members relate to the leadership, and accept their teachings with little, if any, serious critical evaluation."
The writer had, perhaps, identified a problem. Even in Britain, star performers on the Charismatic circuit have emerged, attracting followers by strength of personality as well as message. The early death of Mr Watson from cancer confused many of his followers, who were left wondering why God had not answered their prayers.
Mr Wimber was aware of the dangers of Charismatic excess. He found himself embroiled in arguments over alleged Charismatic heresy, and, in 1986, he disassociated himself from the Toronto Airport Vineyard Church, where a sub-movement within renewal, known as the Toronto Blessing, began.
THE Toronto Blessing was one of the strangest things I have ever witnessed in a British Christian context. Lines of people falling over; people standing for hours, shaking, laughing, screaming, and barking like dogs. At one gathering I attended, the congregation included several police officers, who ended up lying on the floor, writhing.
The Toronto Blessing peaked and faded, and yet, as the Revd Dave Tomlinson, Vicar of St Luke's, Holloway, London (and a former leader in the house church movement), has noted, there remains a tendency for the Charismatic movement to lurch from fad to fad.
The Archbishops' Missioner, Bishop Graham Cray, agrees with this. "At its best, Charismatic spirituality is open to this continual and unpredictable renewal," he says. "At its worst, it is vulnerable to faddishness, to an overemphasis on novel phenomena, and the comparatively trivial."
Nevertheless, he puts in a good word for the Toronto legacy. "I have no doubt that the Toronto Blessing was a time of authentic renewal, and of some trivialisation. My own experience was of a deep encounter with God, which, I believe, prepared me for a future ministry of which I had no imagination at that time."
He dates the spread of the Alpha Course from that time. "The fruit of the Toronto Blessing in the UK may well include the large numbers who have come to faith through Alpha." Could there be another Toronto blessing? "Of course; the Spirit continually renews the Church."
FROM its first tentative steps at the Evangelical end of the Church of England, renewal grew. During the '70s, the movement made significant inroads among Anglo-Catholics. In 1973, the first Anglican Catholic Charismatic Convention was held in Walsingham, and, by 1979, had outgrown the shrine, and was transferred to the larger conference centre at High Leigh.
Canon John Gunstone, of Manchester, estimated, in 1984, that about ten per cent of Anglican communicants had been baptised in the Spirit, and perhaps a slightly higher proportion of the parochial clergy.
A Church Times survey in 2001 suggested little change. It reported that nine per cent of clergy described themselves as either "Charismatic", or "very Charismatic", with a similar figure for the laity. The survey probably underestimated the true figures, as it included clergy ordained before the '60s.
When more than 1000 ordinands were questioned by Dr Andrew Village, of Warwick University, between 2004 and 2007, he found a markedly different picture. Forty-two per cent said that they had spoken in tongues, 39 per cent gave words of prophecy, and 71 per cent believed that they had been directed by God through visions or dreams.
Dr Village also found that, while Charismatic practice was found among Anglo-Catholics, it was more frequently found within the Evangelical tradition. "It is surprisingly widespread," he said, "especially in its more 'general' expression'."
ONE of the driving forces behind renewal in England, in recent years, has been the Alpha Course, the introduction to Christianity honed by Nicky Gumbel and his team at Holy Trinity, Brompton, in London.
To be a Christian, the Revd Nicky Gumbel says, in his video talk at the end of the course, is to have the Spirit of Christ living inside: "It is like being a boiler with the pilot-light burning - but to be filled with the Spirit is when the boiler goes 'whoosh!'"
The Alpha script is careful to put speaking in tongues into context. "In Corinth, they went right over the top. . . Paul says 'Stop it! No one understands what you are saying! -In private? Tongues? Go for it! In public? Be very careful!" The Alpha script admits that "to our logical minds it is weird! But it's also amazing, and it's perfectly biblical."
While the Alpha Course leads, week by week, towards the question "How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?", the organisers emphasise that those who do not find themselves speaking in tongues have not "failed".
Then, what happens post-Alpha? Joining a close-knit charismatic congregation, some new Christians find themselves entering a world where they have to "switch off some of their critical questioning faculties", Mr Tomlinson, of St Luke's, Holloway, says. "This suits some people on their journey, but others run out of steam. The social environment they find does not lend itself to people asking further awkward questions."
There needs to be not just a Beta Course, but Gamma and Delta Courses as well, he argues. He also believes that there should be research into the mechanism of speaking in tongues. Is it the Holy Spirit at work, or a technique for allowing someone to temporarily close off the rational mind? And what part does music play in inducing Charismatic behaviour?
IN 1978, Justin Welby was profoundly influenced by a Charismatic speaker who talked of the Spirit-filled life, and praying in the Spirit, and "urged her audience to utilise their spiritual gifts". His appointment to Canterbury is confirmation that renewal is now mainstream within the Church of England.
The wider population, with its residual affection for, and allegiance to, the Church, does not, however, perceive the national Church as a Charismatic movement. As they watched the ceremony broadcast from Canterbury Cathedral in March, how many viewers appreciated that the man at the centre of the welcome was an alumnus of Holy Trinity, Brompton, and had drawn spiritual sustenance from Vineyard?
Renewal has not affected the Church of England in an even or consistent way. It is undoubtedly the driving force behind many growing congregations, and it has reached the highest echelons of the established Church; yet there remain many parts of the Church of England untouched by contemporary Charismatic practice. It is largely a characteristic of urban rather than rural, churchgoing, as research by Professor Leslie Francis, of Warwick University, confirmed in 2010.
In some quarters, serious theological doubts about the movement remain. Can the Church be sure that the movement is truly of the Holy Spirit? Might the national Church have been hijacked by a strange, peripheral Christian practice? Consequently, the question is: has it become increasingly alien from the general population which it has the duty to serve. Has the Church, the unique society that "exists for the benefit of those who are not its members", become a members-only club?
IN THE '80s, when Josephine Bax was asked by the Board for Mission to research spiritual renewal in the Church of England, the General Synod was still unsure in which direction it was going. Her report, The Good Wine, was published in 1986, and makes interesting reading. Perceptively, she wrote of a shift from "private to corporate religion" - from "me meeting God", to "God with us", which she saw at the core of Charismatic renewal. She described it as "the corporate experience of the immanence of God, expressed in living worship and grasped in our relationship to our neighbour."
The new liturgies introduced by the Church contain wide elements of choice and flexibility. Fresh ways of expressing what it means to worship God have been encouraged, including café churches and the like. Interestingly, the Archbishops' Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team, the Rt Revd Graham Cray, spent 14 years at St Michael le Belfrey, York, where he worked with, and then succeeded, the late Mr Watson.
Bishop Cray's two special concerns are the engagement of the gospel with contemporary culture, and the theology of renewal. Does that mean that all Fresh Expressions initiatives are Charismatic?
"Definitely not," he says. "One of the remarkable characteristics of fresh expressions . . . is the wide range of traditions of Christian spirituality which are involved - Evangelical, Anglo-Catholic, mid-Church, contemplative, radical, and, indeed, Charismatic."
The Holy Spirit is at work "at the missionary edge of the Church's life. This is a renewal of the Church for mission, but it transcends 'traditional' Charismatic categories."
CURRENTLY, it is the Charismatic congregations that appear to be growing. For many new Anglicans, worship bands, speaking in tongues, spiritual healing, the deliverance ministry, prophecy, and visions are as familiar as Hymns Ancient and Modern, pews, cassocks, and surplices were to their grandparents' generation.
A corollary of this is that the informal nature of much Charismatic worship has given new members little awareness of spiritually fulfilling liturgy. "Hence the radically impoverished liturgical life of many Charismatic fellowships," Dr Wright observes.
In some benefices and deaneries, while the growth and money from "renewed" churches is welcomed, asking questions about their Charismatic side is off limits. It is the elephant in the room. Where a gulf of incomprehension and suspicion divides neighbours, it is potentially too divisive to have a free and open discussion around some difficult issues.
Perhaps common ground will be found, not through language or practice, but action. Jointly, as the body of Christ, all will share the same imperative to be involved in care and social action.
Certainly, Dr Wright has noted a changing attitude within the Charismatic movement. "The rediscovery that God is interested in bodies - not just 'souls with ears' - has led to the thought that God might be interested in other people's physical circumstances.
"So far from being escapist, it has been a high road back for many Evangelicals into that concern for the poor, and for global justice, which reflects Jesus's own constant teaching."
17 MAY 2013
The Charismatic movement has had a powerful and growing influence on the Church of England over the past 50 years. Ted Harrison traces its effect
"THE evening involves relaxing and resting in the Lord, and allowing praise and worship music to wash over us. During the soaking times, we enjoy resting in the Lord's presence, and waiting on him to receive prophetic words, scripture verses from the Lord, and visions."
These are words from the website of the parish church in Kent where, 55 years ago, I used to sing evensong in the choir as a treble, using the Book of Common Prayer, with no deviations.
Today, St Luke's, Hawkinge, looks very different from the place that I recall, and not just because of rebuilding. The traditional ecclesiastical hardware of pews, hymn boards, and prayer books has been replaced by a bar, café tables, and an overhead screen. St Luke's - now rebranded as The Lighthouse - is a Fresh Expressions church. It is experimental, and Charismatic.
The story of St Luke's is a vivid illustration of how, over one lifetime, the Church of England has experienced massive change. When future historians review the period, they may well conclude that the most significant, and revolutionary change was neither the ordination of women to the priesthood, nor the widely adopted liturgical revisions, but the infiltration into the mainstream Church of the Charismatic, or renewal, movement in its many guises.
What has happened within the Church was not initiated by the hierarchy; it did not require synodical legislation; it bypassed the structures of establishment. It was the Holy Spirit taking everyone unawares - or so believe the many people caught by the wind of change that has swept through, and invigorated, what they saw as a dying institution.
The Anglican family worldwide has been caught up in an international movement that began in the 19th century, on the edges of Christendom, and is now a dominant force within Protestantism, and a growing movement within Roman Catholicism.
THE spread of the current Charismatic movement "was one of the great surprises of 20th-century Christianity", Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch wrote in A History of Christianity.
Its origins lie in several strands of debate, both in Europe and North America. "A holiness movement sprang out of the teaching of the early Methodists, proclaiming that the Holy Spirit could bring an intense experience of holiness or sanctification into the everyday life of any believing Christian," Professor MacCulloch wrote.
"There existed a widespread instinct that Protestant emphasis on sermons and the intellectual understanding of the word of God did not give enough room for human emotion."
Yet the movement, and in particular speaking in tongues, "has very little precedent in Christian practice between the first and 19th centuries", Professor MacCulloch says.
There have been independent Pentecostal churches in Britain for more than a century. It was in the 1960s, however, that the Charismatic movement arrived in the Church of England, influencing, initially, the Evangelical wing. A generation of young churchmen, many from public schools, with a background in university-based Muscular Christianity, were in the vanguard.
The Revd David Watson took his enthusiasm for renewal to York, and grew a tiny congregation into one that had to move to a larger church building at St Michael le Belfrey. In the early 1970s, I recall attending an evening service there that attracted so many people that they had to decamp to the Minster. It was my introduction to this new style of lively and uninhibited worship.
WATSON had been Assistant Curate at St Mark's, Gillingham, Kent, where the Revd John Collins was Vicar. Mr Collins dates his own first experience to one cold February night in 1963. He had been persuaded to hold a night of prayer in his parish for worldwide renewal, starting at 10 p.m.
"At about 2.40 a.m., something happened. The Holy Spirit fell! I found myself fully awake . . . full of energy and very happy. And what was happening to me was clearly being experienced by everybody else. Some were singing. . .
"Was there an emotional atmosphere? Yes, plenty of it. . . How can you praise without emotion?"
Some discovered renewal in unexpected circumstances. One night, in 1965, the Revd Tom Smail, then a Church of Scotland minister, was washing his face and getting ready for bed. "Some strange syllables and unknown words came unbidden into my head. . . Next day, driving home, it happened again. . . There and then, in the car, I started to sing in tongues, and, as I sang, a bit of me deep down, that had been bottled up, began to be set free."
Mr Smail later became an Anglican priest, and was one of the leading advocates of renewal. He served as the General Secretary of the Fountain Trust, an organisation founded in 1964, by the Revd Michael Harper, to promote Charismatic renewal both within Anglicanism and ecumenically.
Harper had been an assistant curate at All Souls', Langham Place, where the Revd John Stott was rector. The first reaction of this highly respected Evangelical teacher was to advise extreme caution.
The Rt Revd Dr Tom Wright, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Andrews University, and a former Bishop of Durham, says that Stott's particular objection was to the theology of a necessary "second blessing", which was "always to be accompanied by speaking in tongues", and "was to be interpreted as the baptism in the Spirit".
The background to his animosity was "the long memory of the 'second blessing' teaching in the late 19th and early 20th century", Dr Wright says. This had created divisive debate, and "had sometimes gone completely overboard on private revelations which had led to serious abuse. I don't think many of today's mainstream Charismatic teachers would hold those views, which I think were the things that John Stott was principally objecting to."
ENGLISH renewal was, like many cultural phenomena of the 1960s, shaped on the other side of the Atlantic. The Episcopal Church in the United States was ahead of the Church of England. The Revd Dennis Bennett emerged as the most high-profile Episcopalian Charismatic, in circumstances that caused controversy.
"Unknown to most parishioners, Bennett and 70 other members had been 'speaking in tongues' -making utterances that most mainline churches equated with overheated Pentecostalism and Holy Roller tent revivals," John Dart, the former religious-affairs reporter for the Los Angeles Times, wrote.
After the main Passion Sunday service in 1960, "an assistant priest pulled off his vestments, put them on the altar, and stalked out, saying, 'I can no longer work with this man!' Tumult reigned. One man stood on a chair, shouting, 'Throw out the damn tongue speakers!'"
Bennett resigned, but what came to be described as "renewal within the historic churches" had begun - not a merging of hardcore Pentecostal theology with Anglicanism, but an adoption of practice.
Nevertheless, as Anglican renewal grew, theological questions had to be addressed. Was the glossolalia really the same phenomenon as was witnessed on the day of Pentecost? How should the contemporary Church understand St Paul's teaching on "spiritual gifts" in 1 Corinthians 14? Might it all be an emotional fad - the product of group hysterics?
IN 1963, Bennett came to St Mark's, Gillingham, where Mr Collins was Vicar, to speak to an invited meeting. "I was inwardly amused that some of my guests seemed apprehensive, as if a speaker on the Holy Spirit might well have fire coming out of his mouth and ears 'to consume us'," Mr Collins said.
A clergyman from Canterbury came, in cassock and cape, and addressed the Evangelical vicar as 'Fr Collins'. He stayed behind after the meeting, and Mr Bennett prayed with him.
On his way home to Canterbury, this unlikely recruit began speaking in tongues. "Was that the real thing?" he later asked Mr Collins, who assured him that it was.
Renewal spread steadily through the 1970s, but received a transatlantic boost early in the next decade, when John Wimber, of the Californian Vineyard church, came to Britain.
He made a huge impression, particularly at St Andrew's, Chorleywood, and at St Michael le Belfrey. The Rt Revd David Pytches, then Vicar of St Andrew's, and Watson welcomed Wimber's ministry, and received his team with great excitement. The New Wine ministry, with its popular and colourful summer festivals, can trace its roots back to that visit.
Andrew Atherstone, in his biography of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, writes that the Welby family travelled to the United States, and found help at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship after the death of their baby daughter. Their introduction had been via Holy Trinity, Brompton, which Mr Wimber first visited in 1982.
Mr Wimber was not without his critics, however. He had conservative views on the part played by women within the Church; and his talk of supernatural forces, and spiritual warfare, was viewed as alarmingly over-simplistic.
Some even accused him of creating a cultic mindset within the Vineyard church. "I am not referring to specific doctrines," one anonymous critic wrote, "but in the way rank-and-file members relate to the leadership, and accept their teachings with little, if any, serious critical evaluation."
The writer had, perhaps, identified a problem. Even in Britain, star performers on the Charismatic circuit have emerged, attracting followers by strength of personality as well as message. The early death of Mr Watson from cancer confused many of his followers, who were left wondering why God had not answered their prayers.
Mr Wimber was aware of the dangers of Charismatic excess. He found himself embroiled in arguments over alleged Charismatic heresy, and, in 1986, he disassociated himself from the Toronto Airport Vineyard Church, where a sub-movement within renewal, known as the Toronto Blessing, began.
THE Toronto Blessing was one of the strangest things I have ever witnessed in a British Christian context. Lines of people falling over; people standing for hours, shaking, laughing, screaming, and barking like dogs. At one gathering I attended, the congregation included several police officers, who ended up lying on the floor, writhing.
The Toronto Blessing peaked and faded, and yet, as the Revd Dave Tomlinson, Vicar of St Luke's, Holloway, London (and a former leader in the house church movement), has noted, there remains a tendency for the Charismatic movement to lurch from fad to fad.
The Archbishops' Missioner, Bishop Graham Cray, agrees with this. "At its best, Charismatic spirituality is open to this continual and unpredictable renewal," he says. "At its worst, it is vulnerable to faddishness, to an overemphasis on novel phenomena, and the comparatively trivial."
Nevertheless, he puts in a good word for the Toronto legacy. "I have no doubt that the Toronto Blessing was a time of authentic renewal, and of some trivialisation. My own experience was of a deep encounter with God, which, I believe, prepared me for a future ministry of which I had no imagination at that time."
He dates the spread of the Alpha Course from that time. "The fruit of the Toronto Blessing in the UK may well include the large numbers who have come to faith through Alpha." Could there be another Toronto blessing? "Of course; the Spirit continually renews the Church."
FROM its first tentative steps at the Evangelical end of the Church of England, renewal grew. During the '70s, the movement made significant inroads among Anglo-Catholics. In 1973, the first Anglican Catholic Charismatic Convention was held in Walsingham, and, by 1979, had outgrown the shrine, and was transferred to the larger conference centre at High Leigh.
Canon John Gunstone, of Manchester, estimated, in 1984, that about ten per cent of Anglican communicants had been baptised in the Spirit, and perhaps a slightly higher proportion of the parochial clergy.
A Church Times survey in 2001 suggested little change. It reported that nine per cent of clergy described themselves as either "Charismatic", or "very Charismatic", with a similar figure for the laity. The survey probably underestimated the true figures, as it included clergy ordained before the '60s.
When more than 1000 ordinands were questioned by Dr Andrew Village, of Warwick University, between 2004 and 2007, he found a markedly different picture. Forty-two per cent said that they had spoken in tongues, 39 per cent gave words of prophecy, and 71 per cent believed that they had been directed by God through visions or dreams.
Dr Village also found that, while Charismatic practice was found among Anglo-Catholics, it was more frequently found within the Evangelical tradition. "It is surprisingly widespread," he said, "especially in its more 'general' expression'."
ONE of the driving forces behind renewal in England, in recent years, has been the Alpha Course, the introduction to Christianity honed by Nicky Gumbel and his team at Holy Trinity, Brompton, in London.
To be a Christian, the Revd Nicky Gumbel says, in his video talk at the end of the course, is to have the Spirit of Christ living inside: "It is like being a boiler with the pilot-light burning - but to be filled with the Spirit is when the boiler goes 'whoosh!'"
The Alpha script is careful to put speaking in tongues into context. "In Corinth, they went right over the top. . . Paul says 'Stop it! No one understands what you are saying! -In private? Tongues? Go for it! In public? Be very careful!" The Alpha script admits that "to our logical minds it is weird! But it's also amazing, and it's perfectly biblical."
While the Alpha Course leads, week by week, towards the question "How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?", the organisers emphasise that those who do not find themselves speaking in tongues have not "failed".
Then, what happens post-Alpha? Joining a close-knit charismatic congregation, some new Christians find themselves entering a world where they have to "switch off some of their critical questioning faculties", Mr Tomlinson, of St Luke's, Holloway, says. "This suits some people on their journey, but others run out of steam. The social environment they find does not lend itself to people asking further awkward questions."
There needs to be not just a Beta Course, but Gamma and Delta Courses as well, he argues. He also believes that there should be research into the mechanism of speaking in tongues. Is it the Holy Spirit at work, or a technique for allowing someone to temporarily close off the rational mind? And what part does music play in inducing Charismatic behaviour?
IN 1978, Justin Welby was profoundly influenced by a Charismatic speaker who talked of the Spirit-filled life, and praying in the Spirit, and "urged her audience to utilise their spiritual gifts". His appointment to Canterbury is confirmation that renewal is now mainstream within the Church of England.
The wider population, with its residual affection for, and allegiance to, the Church, does not, however, perceive the national Church as a Charismatic movement. As they watched the ceremony broadcast from Canterbury Cathedral in March, how many viewers appreciated that the man at the centre of the welcome was an alumnus of Holy Trinity, Brompton, and had drawn spiritual sustenance from Vineyard?
Renewal has not affected the Church of England in an even or consistent way. It is undoubtedly the driving force behind many growing congregations, and it has reached the highest echelons of the established Church; yet there remain many parts of the Church of England untouched by contemporary Charismatic practice. It is largely a characteristic of urban rather than rural, churchgoing, as research by Professor Leslie Francis, of Warwick University, confirmed in 2010.
In some quarters, serious theological doubts about the movement remain. Can the Church be sure that the movement is truly of the Holy Spirit? Might the national Church have been hijacked by a strange, peripheral Christian practice? Consequently, the question is: has it become increasingly alien from the general population which it has the duty to serve. Has the Church, the unique society that "exists for the benefit of those who are not its members", become a members-only club?
IN THE '80s, when Josephine Bax was asked by the Board for Mission to research spiritual renewal in the Church of England, the General Synod was still unsure in which direction it was going. Her report, The Good Wine, was published in 1986, and makes interesting reading. Perceptively, she wrote of a shift from "private to corporate religion" - from "me meeting God", to "God with us", which she saw at the core of Charismatic renewal. She described it as "the corporate experience of the immanence of God, expressed in living worship and grasped in our relationship to our neighbour."
The new liturgies introduced by the Church contain wide elements of choice and flexibility. Fresh ways of expressing what it means to worship God have been encouraged, including café churches and the like. Interestingly, the Archbishops' Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team, the Rt Revd Graham Cray, spent 14 years at St Michael le Belfrey, York, where he worked with, and then succeeded, the late Mr Watson.
Bishop Cray's two special concerns are the engagement of the gospel with contemporary culture, and the theology of renewal. Does that mean that all Fresh Expressions initiatives are Charismatic?
"Definitely not," he says. "One of the remarkable characteristics of fresh expressions . . . is the wide range of traditions of Christian spirituality which are involved - Evangelical, Anglo-Catholic, mid-Church, contemplative, radical, and, indeed, Charismatic."
The Holy Spirit is at work "at the missionary edge of the Church's life. This is a renewal of the Church for mission, but it transcends 'traditional' Charismatic categories."
CURRENTLY, it is the Charismatic congregations that appear to be growing. For many new Anglicans, worship bands, speaking in tongues, spiritual healing, the deliverance ministry, prophecy, and visions are as familiar as Hymns Ancient and Modern, pews, cassocks, and surplices were to their grandparents' generation.
A corollary of this is that the informal nature of much Charismatic worship has given new members little awareness of spiritually fulfilling liturgy. "Hence the radically impoverished liturgical life of many Charismatic fellowships," Dr Wright observes.
In some benefices and deaneries, while the growth and money from "renewed" churches is welcomed, asking questions about their Charismatic side is off limits. It is the elephant in the room. Where a gulf of incomprehension and suspicion divides neighbours, it is potentially too divisive to have a free and open discussion around some difficult issues.
Perhaps common ground will be found, not through language or practice, but action. Jointly, as the body of Christ, all will share the same imperative to be involved in care and social action.
Certainly, Dr Wright has noted a changing attitude within the Charismatic movement. "The rediscovery that God is interested in bodies - not just 'souls with ears' - has led to the thought that God might be interested in other people's physical circumstances.
"So far from being escapist, it has been a high road back for many Evangelicals into that concern for the poor, and for global justice, which reflects Jesus's own constant teaching."
Great Preachers - david watson
David Watson—the British evangelist who filled churches