#4: ' "NEO-PENTECOSTALISM" IN THE 1960S AND 70s WAS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM THE OLDER PENTECOSTALISM' .
The Neo-pentecostal renewal began in a significant way in the historic churches in the 1950s, and in the U.S. started to achieve prominence with the ministry of Dennis Bennett, an Episcopalian priest in Van Nuys, California. By 1960 there were baptized-in-the-Spirit tongues-speakers in Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian and other churches.
Catholic charismatic renewal (the term 'neo-Pentecostal soon went out of vogue) probably goes back to Pope John XXIII convoking the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and his prayer that the Holy Spirit would renew the church as by a new Pentecost, but specifically it's usually dated from 1967 and events at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Catholic charismatic conferences have since drawn their thousands - sometimes tens of thousands.
Charismatic renewal spilled over into the Greek Orthodox Church in about 1971, and in 1980 the World Council of Churches held a consultation on the charismatic movement in Geneva.
   In the free churches the movement tended to be somewhat aggressive in its early stages: this was its adolescent phase. Certainly it was mainly the Pentecostals who encouraged and instructed Protestants and Roman Catholics back in the 1960s, and so in any manifestations of spiritual gifts were explained in terms of Pentecostal understandings.

Charles Hummell uses a World War II analogy to explain what happened. Pentecostalists based their pneumatology on the Synoptics and Acts: wasn't Jesus first conceived by the Holy Spirit, and then later baptized in the Spirit? Didn't the disciples 'receive' the Holy Spirit when Jesus breathed on them, but were later filled with the Spirit at Pentecost? Traditional theologies, on the other hand, were Pauline. They said you mustn't build doctrines from these events in the primitive church, but rather ask 'What do the New Testament letters to various churches teach us?' And only once is 'baptizing in the Spirit explicitly referred to there (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). And so the battle-lines formed, and the troops became entrenched within their fixed positions. It was something like the French Maginot Line facing the equally impregnable Siegfried Line. Each army was safe
behind its ramparts but unable to advance. Suddenly the German panzer divisions moved swiftly around these fixed positions and rolled into Paris without a pitched battle. The Maginot Line remained impregnable, but unfortunately for the French its powerful guns were in the wrong place pointing the wrong way!

So with our little theologies, we fight our wars, protect territory already won, and are often ill-prepared to take new ground. 'For decades Pentecostal and traditional theologies of the Baptism in the Spirit faced each other along one major doctrinal battle line. Then suddenly the Holy Spirit moved around these fixed positions to infiltrate charismatic renewal behind the lines in mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches'. (7)

Soon charismatic theologians went to work, and a different doctrinal framework emerged. They preferred to think of 'baptism in the Spirit' without its being tied to a Pentecostal second stage of Christian experience. They would agree that all the New Testament gifts of the Holy Spirit are operative today. Christians should be encouraged to receive and exhibit one or more of these manifestations of the Spirit's presence and power. But while speaking in tongues often occurs, it is neither a necessary nor sufficient sign of Spirit-baptism. They avoid 'bottling the wind' of the Spirit, and will allow him to manifest repeatedly his gifts to empower the church for witness, worship and service (Cf. Acts 2:4; 4:8,31; Eph. 5:18,19).

Those denominations with a larger proportion of non-literate people will have more 'raucous' expressions of charismatic renewal, while the more sophisticated - educationally, theologically and liturgically - will be more restrained. (Was it Canon Michael Green who said recently that when the Spirit falls on Anglicans they dance, and when the Spirit falls on Pentecostals they are silent?).

Catholic charismatic renewal has less emphasis on spiritual gifts and more on nurturing a personal relationship with Christ and on developing Christian community. Cardinal Suenens at the 1-7 Kansas City Conference on Charismatic Renewal: 'Catholics will have to accept the fact that they are not "Christianized" enough.

Sacramentalized, yes - but not Christianized enough.' In 1979 the Australian Catholic Theological Association said that through the movement thousands of Australian Catholic men and women were able to experience a deeper conversion to Jesus Christ; a renewal of faith; an introduction to a serious prayer life; a new appreciation of the Scriptures; an openness to the use of their gifts from the Holy Spirit; a commitment to evangelization. (8)

Across the churches, where charismatic renewal is welcomed, these 'signs have followed': a fresh vitality in one's relationship to God; the Bible comes alive; prayer becomes a joyful activity; there's a deep sense of community/koinonia/fellowship in the Holy Spirit, transcending denominational boundaries; there's a new sense of praise and worship (the expression 'praise the Lord' has become the hallmark of the movement); there's a new power for witness: the kingdom of God comes not just in talk but in power
(1 Cor. 4:20). But there's another 'sign' - divisiveness. More of that later.