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THE NEW CHARISMATICS: The Origins, Development, and Significance of Neo-Pentecostalism by Richard Quebedeaux

THE NEW CHARISMATICS: The Origins, Development, and Significance of Neo-Pentecostalism

By

Pub Date: July 2nd, 1976
Publisher: Doubleday

A full-scale survey of the charismatic movement that is sweeping through the Christian world. Quebedeaux, author of the well-received The Young Evangelicals and a participating expert in modern evangelism, chronicles the history of Spirit-focused Christianity from New Testament times to the present, with emphasis on 20th-century developments in England and the US. The contrast between Classical Pentecostalism and Charismatic Renewal is legitimately stressed: the earlier phase (well documented in David Harrell's All Things Are Possible, 1975) was fundamentalist, sectarian, chaotic, anti-intellectual, and working-class; whereas the contemporary phase is progressive, ecumenical, more intellectual, socially engaged, and mostly middle-class. Neo-Pentecostalism has become a widely accepted movement within the institutional Churches, especially Roman Catholicism, and now constitutes the primary energizing force in mainstream Christianity. Quebedeaux sketches the leading figures of the Renewal, its modes of faith and practice, and the reasons for its success. Primarily a lay movement, it emphasizes religious experience, especially the initiatic baptism of the Spirit and the charismatic gifts (tongue-speaking, healing, efficacious prayer, etc.) that flow from it. As complete and well-informed an account of the subject as one is likely to find--or need--for some time.