History of charismatic christians

[Pekka]

From what I have heard the apostle-like Christianity with gifts of Holy Spirit was not really there until maybe 100 years ago. It was dormant for the 1800 years or so in between.

Is this correct? Do there exist any materials on the history of charismatic Christianity?

 

[HTacianas]

From what I have heard the apostle-like Christianity with gifts of Holy Spirit was not really there until maybe 100 years ago. It was dormant for the 1800 years or so in between.

Is this correct? Do there exist any materials on the history of charismatic Christianity?

What you've said is true. It disappeared 1800 years ago and only re-appeared when someone said "we should be doing this".

 

[sandman]

From what I have heard the apostle-like Christianity with gifts of Holy Spirit was not really there until maybe 100 years ago. It was dormant for the 1800 years or so in between.

Is this correct? Do there exist any materials on the history of charismatic Christianity?

Secular wise …I don’t know. There are a few good reasons why it may not have sparsely been practiced in the drought of the Middle Ages.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

Just like the Jews who were outside of the promise land for 1950 years. Christians have been out of their land for 1800 years. One day someone said "we are well able to take the land" and decided to begin to believe the word of God regarding the gifts and ministry gifts. And of course today there are still believers who refuse to walk into the land that God has given them.

 

[Pekka]

This is quite an incredible thing then. We are living in a very unique time. Perhaps even see Jesus come too.

 

[chevyontheriver]

From what I have heard the apostle-like Christianity with gifts of Holy Spirit was not really there until maybe 100 years ago. It was dormant for the 1800 years or so in between.

Is this correct? Do there exist any materials on the history of charismatic Christianity?

No. There were times in the Church when speaking in tongues was recorded in texts and other times where it was not recorded in texts. This did not just disappear for 1800 years. But tongues are not the sole manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Healings and other miracles were also recorded during that period, not with every document, and not continually, but at least it shows up from time to time. I don't have the references for that just today but I will see what I can come up with in coming days.

What I want to close with today is an account that few people have heard before, the coincidence of the Catholic novena for the Holy Spirit and the Kansas revival. I found this version of the account here: History of the Catholic Charismatic Movement

"Between 1895 and 1903, Blessed Elena Guerra, the foundress of the Oblate sisters of the Holy Spirit in Italy, wrote 12 letters to Pope Leo XIII in which she asked him to encourage greater devotion to the Holy Spirit among Catholics.
As a response to her request, Pope Leo XIII published an encyclical about the Holy Spirit called Divinum Illud Munus in 1897. He also urged the Church to pray the Novena for Pentecost at the beginning of the new century.
A novena is a prayer said for nine days which recalls how the early Christians prayed for nine days between Christ’s Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost."

"On January 1, 1901, Pope Leo XIII prayed to the Holy Spirit and sang the Veni Creator Spiritus by the Holy Spirit window in St. Peter’s Basilica. On the same day, at the Bethel College and Bible School in Kansas, the Holy Spirit came upon a group of Protestants who had been praying to receive the Holy Spirit just as the early disciples did. One of the students, Agnes Ozman, started speaking in tongues, a miraculous experience often considered the first of its kind at that time."

Seems God has a sense of humor. Catholics pray for it and some Protestants start doing something really different.

More in a few days.

 

[chevyontheriver]

From what I have heard the apostle-like Christianity with gifts of Holy Spirit was not really there until maybe 100 years ago. It was dormant for the 1800 years or so in between.

Is this correct? Do there exist any materials on the history of charismatic Christianity?

I found this but haven't analyzed it yet:

Timeline of the Spirit-gifted

Before Moody, Finney, Edwards, and Mather came a long line of Catholic and Orthodox believers reputed to enjoy "the promise of the Father."

www.christianitytoday.com

More in a day or three.

 

[Pioneer3mm]

To: OP/Pekka
---
'2000 years of Charismatic Christianity'
- Eddie L. Hyatt
---
Interesting & informative book on Charismatic Christianity..
- in Christian History.

 

[Bob Crowley]

We wouldn't know what happened in the monasteries, convents, churches and cathedrals in the Middle Ages.

Modern Protestantism is all too willing to write off the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages dominated by the Catholic Church which is a furphy. They achieved a lot of things, including the building of massive and beautiful cathedrals.

Great human advances were made throughout the ‘Dark Ages’

The major discoveries of the Scientific Revolution were made in universities strongly supported by the church

www.irishtimes.com

I'll bet that charismatic gifts were fairly common in some places right through Christian history, so common in fact they couldn't be bothered recording them. Writing back then was hard work, unlike today.

Words, words, words: medieval handwriting (article) | Khan Academy

Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

www.khanacademy.org

Writing a medieval text with a quill is hard work. The pen could only make a more or less downward movement because of how the nib was cut. It meant that letters had to be broken up into multiple pen strokes. This made writing a very slow process: a Bible could easily take a year to complete.

If the old time saints could levitate and bilocate, speaking in tongues would have been neither here or there.

 

[eleos1954]

From what I have heard the apostle-like Christianity with gifts of Holy Spirit was not really there until maybe 100 years ago. It was dormant for the 1800 years or so in between.

Is this correct? Do there exist any materials on the history of charismatic Christianity?

The charismatic movements contain various components of spirituilism ... and spiritualism has been around since the beginning ...

The only source we can fully trust is God’s voice speaking through His inspired messengers.

 

[Bob Crowley]

Secular wise …I don’t know. There are a few good reasons why it may not have sparsely been practiced in the drought of the Middle Ages.

The insistence that the "spiritual gifts" disappeared for 1800 years during the "droiught of the Middle Ages" is actually an insult to the Church. They didn't disappear - all that happened is that in recent years there's been a resurgence of interest in some quarters.

The Pentecostal Tradition | Christian History Magazine

Christian History Institute (CHI) provides church history resources and self-study material and publishes the quarterly Christian History Magazine. Our aim is to make Christian history enjoyable and applicable to the widest possible audience.

christianhistoryinstitute.org

The Holy Spirit was alive and well for the intervening 1800 years.

 

[Bob Crowley]

Then there's the visions of Mother Julian of Norwich (1343 – after 1416), who I believe was also the first female author in the English language.

Revelations of Divine Love - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This extract says something to me, as it echoes the fact of the "sum zero energy" universe as far as I'm concerned. I think the universe adds up to nothing or nearly so. If so, she was being given a hint in visionary form way back in the 14th century.

“And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.”

What's the Total Energy In the Universe?

Most cosmologists believe the universe contains exactly zero energy.

www.livescience.com

We make a big deal because we might speak in tongues. How does that compare to her visionary experiences in the "drought of the Middle Ages"?

I think there would have been far more "pentecostal" occurrences than we might think in the middle ages. We only hear about the big-shots in the church who had someone to write about them.

If Brother Fred Nerk in some forgotten monastery had started levitating during Matins, the bishop would probably have thought "Oh, he's at it again!" "Right somebody, grab hold of Brother Fred and pull him back down to earth will you!"

They'd have just gone on with Matins, and everybody would have accepted it as part of the day's routine, not writing a word for posterity.

 

[All Becomes New]

From what I have heard the apostle-like Christianity with gifts of Holy Spirit was not really there until maybe 100 years ago. It was dormant for the 1800 years or so in between.

Is this correct? Do there exist any materials on the history of charismatic Christianity?

There have been plenty of people throughout church history who have believed in the Spiritual Gifts. Augustine actually had to change his view on miracles since he witnessed too many to deny them.

 

[Bob Crowley]

And some more ...

https://www.samstorms.org/enjoying-god-blog/post/spiritual-gifts-in-church-history--4-

Due to limitations of space I will only be able to list the names of those in whose ministries are numerous documented instances of the revelatory gifts of prophecy, healing, discerning of spirits, miracles, together with vivid accounts of dreams and visions.

Miracles and the Gifts of the Spirit All Through Church History

Historian Jeff Oliver has written a three-volume series on how the gifts of the Spirit have continued all through Christian history. PneumaReview.com speaks with Jeff about his series and how we should expect God to do supernatural things through his...

pneumareview.com

........................

John of Egypt (d. 394) and Pachomius (287-346 a.d.); Leo the Great (400-461 a.d.; he served as bishop of Rome from 440 until 461); Genevieve of Paris (422-500 a.d.); Gregory the Great (540-604); Gregory of Tours (538-594); the Venerable Bede (673-735; his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written in 731, contains numerous accounts of miraculous gifts in operation); Aidan, bishop of Lindisfarne (d. 651) and his successor Cuthbert (d. 687; both of whom served as missionaries in Britain); Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153); Bernard’s treatise on the Life and Death of Saint Malachy the Irishman (1094-1148); Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173); Anthony of Padua (1195-1231); Bonaventure (1217-1274); Francis of Assisi (1182-1226; documented in Bonaventure’s Life of St. Francis); Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274); together with virtually all of the medieval mystics, among whom are several women: Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), Gertrude of Helfta (1256-1301), Bergitta of Sweden (1302-1373), St. Clare of Montefalco (d. 1308), Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), Julian of Norwich (1342-1416), Margery Kempe (1373-1433); Dominican preacher Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419); and Theresa of Avila (1515-1582).

PneumaReview.com: Briefly tell us what is contained in each volume.

Jeff Oliver: Book One: Early Prophetic and Spiritual Gifts Movements covers the period from the early church through the Middle Ages when much of Northern Europe was converted through miracle-working missionary monks.

 

[chevyontheriver]

From what I have heard the apostle-like Christianity with gifts of Holy Spirit was not really there until maybe 100 years ago. It was dormant for the 1800 years or so in between.

Is this correct? Do there exist any materials on the history of charismatic Christianity?

I said I would reply in a day or three about manifestations of Holy Spirit gifts in the Church before 1901. But others have already done better than I could do. So I just caution against anachronism, as if all of it has to fit into some 20th or 21st century mold. But for that matter the ‘charismatic’ and ‘Pentecostal’ molds aren’t exactly the same either.

My curiosity is now piqued about Ignatius of Loyola in this regard. He led an explosively effective evangelizing force in the early Jesuits, men willing to die for Jesus. And often did. I wish I knew more.

 

[Blade]

To make this short Acts is Christianity. It started with Christ and His death and resurrection oh PRAISE GOD GLORY TO JESUS. That in Acts is normal. where the sweet sweet holy Spirit talks, where your praying for someone in jail and you hear a knock your first thought is "its his angel" and all the rest. That is what Christianity is. Man has put a label on it. Peter or again the Holy Spirit told us what was promised to happen in the last days has started. He is pouring out His spirit in the last days. We see it as over 2 thousand years but to God its been 2 days. So yeah nothing has changed with God. All this is happening today.

 

[Pioneer3mm]

materials on the history of charismatic Christianity?

'An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity'
- Allan Heaton Anderson
- Second edition.
---
Part I
- History
- Background..from the first century.
- Several continents/regions.
Part II
- Analysis

 

[ViaCrucis]

From what I have heard the apostle-like Christianity with gifts of Holy Spirit was not really there until maybe 100 years ago. It was dormant for the 1800 years or so in between.

Is this correct? Do there exist any materials on the history of charismatic Christianity?

Charismaticism, as a distinct tradition within Christianity, that maintains that the modern practice of speaking in tongues and the like are a normative part of Christian life; and that one needs to experience a secondary experience of the Holy Spirit apart from conversion/baptism is a new thing. It emerged in the 19th century and then came to prominence with the Azusa Street Revival of 1906 which gave birth to Pentecostalism as an ecclesiastical and theological movement within American Protestantism. Second Wave Charismaticism emerged in the mid-20th century as a pan-denominational movement (rather than being restricted to Pentecostalism).

One can find examples, in history, of miracles happening through God's saints; but the distinctive practices and doctrines of the larger Pentecostal and Charismatic movements and traditions aren't present in Church History prior to the last ~150 years.

Some might argue otherwise, or argue that modern Pentecostalism/Charismaticism are a revival of primitive Christian practice and teaching; however that is a point of heated contention between Charismaticists and non-Charismaticists.

As I am not a Charismaticist, though I was raised within the Pentecostal tradition, I don't believe that Charismaticism reflects New Testament or historic Christian practice or teaching, but deviates from it in a number of significant ways. Chiefly in regarding "baptism with the Holy Spirit" as a personal experience of the Holy Spirit apart from conversion/Baptism--and the emphasis on ecstatic expressions such as "speaking in tongues" (I am using quotation marks because I don't believe that what is called "speaking in tongues" today is the [usually] same thing as what we see described in Scripture). I am not a Cessationist, I don't believe in the "cessation" of any charism (spiritual gift), though I believe God's charisms are myriad and they are given as necessitated by times and seasons; and glossolalia--speaking in tongues--served and potentially serves a specific purpose which St. Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 14.

Which means that I am giving my answer from the perspective as a non-Charismaticist who fundamentally disagrees with Charismaticism as a theological and ecclesiastical movement. Those who are on the Charismatic side will have a very different answer than the one I am giving.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[chevyontheriver]

Charismaticism, as a distinct tradition within Christianity, that maintains that the modern practice of speaking in tongues and the like are a normative part of Christian life; and that one needs to experience a secondary experience of the Holy Spirit apart from conversion/baptism is a new thing. It emerged in the 19th century and then came to prominence with the Azusa Street Revival of 1906 which gave birth to Pentecostalism as an ecclesiastical and theological movement within American Protestantism. Second Wave Charismaticism emerged in the mid-20th century as a pan-denominational movement (rather than being restricted to Pentecostalism).

One can find examples, in history, of miracles happening through God's saints; but the distinctive practices and doctrines of the larger Pentecostal and Charismatic movements and traditions aren't present in Church History prior to the last ~150 years.

That’s why I cautioned against anachronism, particularly evaluating all of this as if modern Pentecostalism or modern charismatics were normative. I don’t think it is, particularly when baptism in the Spirit is distinct from confirmation. Or when people insist on speaking in tongues as proof of something. We have a long history of healing, of miracles, of ecstasies, of knowledge, of many things. They don’t have to fit in a modern mold. In fact it might be better if the moderns fit into older molds.