Anglican Distinctives in the Charismatic Movement

BROGAN HUME

Eucharisma 1, (Spring 2024), 16-22.

Anglican and Charismatic: The Problem

The Anglican definition of a church is set out in the 39 Articles which stipulate that ‘the visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.’1 To be called a church, therefore, the congregation must receive the gospel of Christ in both Word and Sacrament (baptism and the Eucharist). These are the two constitutive elements, without which a group of believers in Christ are not part of the visible church; although this makes no comment on their participation in the invisible church. 

The charismatic movement, with its roots in conservative Evangelicalism and Pentecostal movements, has a natural and deeply ingrained conviction of the centrality of the scriptures. Indeed, empirical research shows that charismaticism ‘moves those within Anglo-Catholic traditions away from liberalism and towards biblical conservatism.’2 As is explored further below, British Anglican charismatics have a natural ‘lean’ towards the scriptures.3 However the same cannot be said of the second constitutive factor: the sacraments. 

There has, to date, been little or no engagement with what should be the most pressing question for a charismatic church that gathers around word and sacrament: what is the Spirit doing within us, and within the bread and the wine, when we celebrate communion? Indeed, as I noted in my MA Thesis on this topic, of the forty Grove booklets published within their Renewal Series, there is no title that considers the role of the Eucharist or Holy Baptism. As such, the question must be asked: which should take priority, our charismaticism, or our Anglicanism? I argue in this essay that our charismaticism is an expression of our Anglicanism, and that we need a both-and model of ministry. I then explore what it means to be most charismatic and Anglican in regards to the work of the Holy Spirit in relation to the sacraments. 

First, however, I shall outline a brief history of charismatics in the Church of England to explore why the theological roots of the movement reside within the concern for the preaching of the scriptures, rather than the celebration of the sacraments.

The Roots of The Anglican Charismatic Movement

The most cursory glance at the Church of England shows that the charismatic evangelical movement is flourishing in a manner that would have been almost unthinkable thirty five years ago. In the summer of 1989 a group of 3,500 people from predominantly Anglican churches gathered for a week of bible teaching and worship under the leadership of David Pytches.4 Pytches, along with his wife Mary, were initially missionaries sent from St Ebbe’s Oxford with the South American Missionary Society to Valparaíso, Chile.5 It was through South American Pentecostalism that Mary Pytches—and later David—began to experience the gifts of the Holy Spirit which the conservative Evangelicalism of St Ebbe’s taught had ceased at the death of the apostles. He was subsequently consecrated as Bishop, first of Valparaíso, and later appointed Bishop over the whole Diocese of Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. He returned to England in 1977 to take up a post as Vicar of St Andrew’s, Chorleywood. 

The Pytches’ experience of the Holy Spirit in South America had a profound effect on the congregation of St Andrews, especially through the ministry of Vineyard church leader John Wimber. At Pentecost of 1981 his visit resulted in a type of ‘’holy chaos’ and ‘impromptu anointings’. Wimber was also warmly welcomed by St Michael le Belfrey in York, under the ministry of David Watson.6 The quiet conservatism that predominated Anglican Evangelicalism had been irreparably shattered. Through his ministry of signs and wonders, Wimber demonstrated to Anglican Evangelicals that the text on the page of scripture was not only a record of a past visitation, but an invitation to experience the visitation of the Holy Spirit in the present age. James Stevenson’s retrospective on Wimber’s ministry reasons that his warm reception amongst Anglican Evangelicals was due to Wimber’s consistent and unwavering reliance on the scriptures.7 

Significantly, through his ‘signs and wonders’ ministry, Wimber was able to also make a direct connection between contemporary experience and the New Testament experience, and so, to a large degree, resolve the evangelical dilemma of reconciling the biblical account with modern understanding.8

While this teaching was initially disseminated through gatherings of church leaders and the sharing of cassette tapes, the conviction gradually arose that each individual Christian, not only their church leader, should be invited to experience the power of the Holy Spirit.9 In the summer of 1989 that vision was realised, and the New Wine Festival has been a gathering point for many Anglican Charismatics ever since. Not only did the New Wine movement receive richly from the Vineyard and Pentecostal movements, but so did a number of others, including Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB). HTB hasan equally storied history, however that is beyond the scope of this essay. The contemporary picture is our present concern. 35 years later, nearly every large Anglican church designated by the national church with a mandate to resource others (a ‘Resource Church’) is linked with either the HTB or New Wine networks.10 Even those who are outside of the HTB or New Wine Networks—or outside of evangelicalism as a whole—recognise that ‘Much of the most exciting Anglican missional practice theology is now done by Evangelicals’ (Penduck), that ‘Charismatic Christianity has become a dominant force in Evangelical Christianity’ (Scotland), and that ‘evangelicals are in the vanguard of social action.’11 

In short, if a new Anglican church is planted near you it is, in all likelihood, led by a minister who fully affirms the continuation of the charismata and has some experience in their practice. It will be, in all likelihood, part of a network which has been shaped in both theology and practice by the charismatic tradition. Its services will, in all likelihood, look and feel far more like the Vineyard church down the road than either the Roman Catholic or FIEC church up the road. It is from this tradition that much of the missionary drive and momentum of contemporary Anglicanism arrives and charismatic Evangelical bishops are significantly more numerous than their conservative evangelical counterparts, with Justin Welby–the present Archbishop of Canterbury–having come through the HTB network. 

Yet for all this, there is a deep problem at the heart of British Anglican charismatic evangelicalism. It has, quite simply, grown beyond its capacity to understand the roots of its own identity.

Charismatic, or Anglican?

There has been a long-standing concern, in which I share, that the identity problem within British Anglicanism is revealed in how we structure our services. Rather than integrate charismatic elements into an Anglican liturgical structure the tendency has often been–conversely–to impose Anglican elements into a charismatic ‘liturgical’ structure often seen in a Pentecostal or Vineyard church.12 This charismatic structure is one of sung worship, followed by a message–expository or otherwise–from the bible, followed by ministry time–in which members of the church pray for one another in response to the talk or prophetic words that have been shared.13 For the Anglican charismatic, there may also be communion added into this structure, perhaps under the banner of ministry time, but it is nonetheless an Anglican element transposed into a charismatic setting. There are ways in which this can be used powerfully by God for healing (emotional, spiritual, or physical) in the individual. In such times:

The reception of Holy Communion is often regarded as a therapeutic moment in the life of the Christian…the communion rail is the place where prayer for healing is offered, often by lay teams trained to listen for words of knowledge and to pray as they feel led by the Holy Spirit.14

Without disregarding the tangible and significant ways this has been used by God for the purposes of building up and strengthening his church, it is nonetheless a narrowing in our understanding of the Eucharist; the benefits and purposes of which are non-exhaustively listed in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP),the foundation stone of Anglican Liturgy, as:

  1. The ‘remembrance of his meritorious Cross and Passion’
  2. The means by which are ‘made partakers of the kingdom of heaven’
  3. A way in which we ‘render most humble and hearty thanks to Almighty God our heavenly Father’
  4. ‘our spiritual food and sustenance’
  5. A meal of such power that it is a ‘comfortable a thing to them who receive it worthily’, but is ‘so dangerous to them that will presume to receive it unworthily’15

Yet this narrower understanding of communion can quite easily find its place within the traditional understandings of communion. Indeed, for Cranmer, who authored the BCP), Communion had a richly experiential aspect. In his defence of the Anglican doctrine of the Eucharist he writes:

Our Saviour Jesus Christ…came into this world from the high throne of his Father, to declare unto miserable sinners good news; to heal them that were sick…to give light to them that were in darkness and in the shadow of death…And to perform the same, he made a sacrifice and oblation of his own body upon the cross…And to commend this his sacrifice unto all his faithful people, and to confirm their faith…he ordained…the celebration of his holy supper, wherein he doth not cease to give himself with all his benefits.16

The charismatic experience of communion therefore indispensably has a place within the Anglican tradition; however the profound power of communion is derived not merely from an experiential affirmation but rather from a rich theological hinterland of wider tradition in which the transformative individual encounter is situated. 

The same can be seen in corporate prayer. Thomas Smail, writing in the then leading publication of British charismaticism Theological Renewal, noted that:

Corporate charismatic worship, which is our present concern, has often neglected the hard work of intercession…Charismatics tend to concentrate on the exercise of the ministry of healing…standing, as it were, at God’s side and exercising the power…We may contrast with that the kind of prayer for healing that takes a much more lonely stance, identifying less with God who can meet the need than with the person whose need it is.17 

In this matter we have shifted from the Anglican understanding of corporate intercession to a charismatic understanding of prayer ministry. This is not wholly bad, and is an important corrective to bring into line with the manner of prayer demonstrated on a number of occasions by the early church (e.g. Acts 3.6-8; 9.32-5; 14.8-19). However there are also moments more akin to the type of corporate intercession described by Smail, and commanded by Paul in 1 Timothy 2.1-2 (cf. Acts 4.24-30). Thus, for the early church, and for many Christians today, corporate intercession and prayer ministry are not only mutually compatible but equally practised. Yet some charismatic Anglican churches and parachurch organisations demonstrably fail to follow this biblical model of ministry.  

In regards to both corporate prayer and the celebration of Communion, therefore, we must seek a both-and model of Anglican ministry. We must do the former, without neglecting the latter. We must be both charismatic and Anglican. The rest of this essay, therefore, shall turn to ask how we have a both-and model in regards to communion. For this task, we must situate our exploration of Anglicanism within the text of the Book of Common Prayer,  which is the founding liturgical document of our worship.

Locating charismatic experience within Holy Communion 

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer makes an often overlooked contribution to Anglican Eucharistic theology in the rubrics–the instructions to the minister–for The Communion of the Sick. These stipulate that if someone cannot receive the sacrament for good reason, yet is repentant, trusts in the cross, and joyfully thanks God for the same:

he doth eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his soul’s health, although he do not receive the Sacrament with his mouth.18

Cranmer explains: 

They [the Roman church] say, that good men eat the body of Christ and drink his blood only at the time when they receive the sacrament: we say, that they eat, drink and feed on Christ continually, so long as they be members of his body.19 

That is to say, for Cranmer, (lowercase-c) communing with God does not require (capital-C) Communion. Christ is present with his people where two or three are gathered, not only where there is a priest and an altar. We encounter God in the sacraments not through bodily presence, in a manner akin to Roman Catholic transubstantiation, but rather through the power of the Holy Spirit who works in our hearts through faith.20 Furthermore this is not just an intellectual assent to an objective theological preposition, but rather a subjective encounter in which a ‘man feeleth himself how he feedeth on Christ.’21 

To be charismatic and Anglican is to affirm both that we commune with God through the Eucharist and that our communion is not limited to this meal. Our sung worship and prayer ministry are a type of communing which is typified by, and finds its steadfast expression in, the Eucharist. This lays the foundation for what it means to be charismatic in the Anglican tradition. 

If we account for Cranmer’s understanding that the benefits of the Eucharist can be received by a spiritual communing, it is possible to conceptualise the unmediated encounter with the Spirit as a subset of the mediated encounter with God which is normatively enjoyed in Communion. As such, to be a charismatic Anglican is to fully affirm the formularies, including the Anglican word and sacrament definition of church in the articles. However it is also to take our understanding of the sacraments beyond the two dominical sacraments (baptism and the Eucharist), and draw on the BCP liturgy for the communion for the sick, to expand that which we consider sacramental. This is not to suggest that we are adding dominical sacraments, for by their nature these two are distinct by their visible instituted by Christ in the gospels. Rather,  as charismatic Anglicans we recognise that the charismatic gifts fall within the category of visible signs of an invisible reality. Frank Macchia, a Pentecostal theologian, has already demonstrated the potential of understanding charismatic gifts as in some sense sacramental.22 

This reconceptualisation of where charismatic gifts and worship sit within our ecclesial life also provides fresh impetus for us to reevaluate the role of the Eucharist. If our moments of communing with God without Holy Communion are punctuated by miracles and signs of the eschatological kingdom, then we should expect much more of those times in which we commune with God through the Eucharist. We might say that when we charismaticise our sacramental understanding, we sacramentalise our charismatic practice. This is not to erode the primacy and potency of the dominical sacraments, but rather to appreciate that they are ’sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace’ which serve as a consistent place of encounter in a theological worldview which emphasises the immanent presence of God.

Charismatic and Anglican: A (Partial) Solution 

This essay has articulated part of a solution to the problem identified in the introduction. Namely, that the Anglican definition of a church is not a word and Spirit community, but rather a word and sacrament community. Notably, traditions outside of Anglicanism have been far more willing to wrestle with the role of the sacraments in the life of the church, and have produced far more thorough and creative proposals. Chris E.W. Green has demonstrated the profound belief in God’s power in the Eucharist found in early Pentecostal worship.23 Simon Chan has considered the tension between tradition and the ‘novel work of the Spirit’, yet he concludes that the Eucharist should be the ‘organizing centre’ for Pentecostal worship.24 Jonathan Black has critiqued the assumed memorialism of the Pentecostal tradition, and demonstrated how Pentecostal theological anthropology requires us to concede that the finite is capable of hosting the infinite, as every Spirit-filled believer can attest.25

For all the theological resources of Anglican liturgy, the same quality and quantity of reflection has been sadly lacking. Yet a distinctive Anglican contribution expounded above is to locate the work of the Holy Spirit within a rich, historic sacramental framework. Furthermore, when we are able to do so, we have a developed explanation for a profound divine encounter through the sacraments. These are not merely memorials (contra Zwingli) by which the Holy Spirit works; rather, in the words of the Thirty Nine Articles, they are tokens which have the power to make effective in the life of the believer the gospel act which they signify. The Anglican sacramental framework allows for an instrumentality of the elements to accomplish God’s work in God’s church: including–but not limited to–the healing, restoration, and comfort of his people. 

Each Anglican minister, every time they take up a new post, has to give assent to the statement that the Church is called to proclaim the apostolic faith afresh in every generation, and that the church ‘Led by the Holy Spirit…has borne witness to Christian truth in its historic formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons.’26 Equally, British Anglicanism is indebted to the charismatic movements, most especially the Vineyard movement and ministry of John Wimber. However if we are to be authentically Anglican in the contemporary landscape we must be willing and able to articulate how these two legacies intertwine and inform each other. They are not opposed, but an inability to demonstrate their coherence only serves to create the impression that they are. For the sake of proclaiming the apostolic faith afresh in our time, we must begin to speak of them as one well of life from which we draw living water.

Brogan Hume

Revd Brogan Hume (MA, Durham University) is an Anglican priest serving his curacy at St Thomas’ Newcastle – the Resource Church for the Diocese. He also leads the New Wine Discipleship Year.

  1. “Article 19” Church of England, Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, 1662 (https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/articles-religion#XIX) ↩︎
  2. Andrew Village, ‘Biblical Conservatism and Psychological Type’, Journal of Empirical Theology 29, no. 2 (2016): 137–59,  151. ↩︎
  3. I distinguish here between Anglicanism and (British) Anglicanism. The Church of England (along with a number of other Anglican movements based in England – for example Anglican Mission in England, and Anglican Convocation Europe) is part of the wider Anglican Communion, but my comments here relate strictly to the Church of England, rather than the global Anglican communion or the various other Anglican movements which an article with wider scope would benefit from considering. ↩︎
  4. ‘The story of New Wine so far,’ New Wine, accessed Feb 27, 2024,  https://stories.new-wine.org/the-story-of-new-wine-so-far-7fc362304f8e ↩︎
  5. Andrew Atherstone, ‘Obituary: The Rt Revd David Pytches’, Church Times, Dec 8, 2023, https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/8-december/gazette/obituaries/obituary-the-rt-revd-david-pytches ↩︎
  6. Ibid. ↩︎
  7. James Henry Stevenson, ‘“Worship in the Spirit”: A Sociological Analysis and Theological Appraisal of Charismatic Worship in the Church of England.’ (PhD, London, Kings College, London, 1999), https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/2931935/DX210766.pdf, 45. ↩︎
  8. Ibid. ↩︎
  9. New Wine, ‘The story of New Wine so far.’ ↩︎
  10. This was confirmed to me in private correspondence by Revd. Professor Christian Selvaratnam. ↩︎
  11. Joshua Penduck, ‘The Week Evangelicals Began to Take Over the Church of England’, Open Evangelical, March 6, 2017, https://openevangelical.wordpress.com/2017/03/06/the-week-evangelicals-began-to-take-over-the-church-of-england/, Nigel Scotland, ‘From the “not yet” to the “Now and the Not yet”: Charismatic Kingdom Theology 1960-2010’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 20, no. 2 (January 1, 2011): 272–90, 273; Malcolm Brown, ‘Anglican Social Theology: Today and Tomorrow’, in Theology Reforming Society: Revisiting Anglican Social Theology, ed. Stephen Spencer (London: SCM Press, 2017), 126. ↩︎
  12. Mark J. Cartledge, ‘Liturgical Order and Charismatic Freedom: A Reflection on the Development of Anglican Practices’, Liturgy 33, no. 3 (3 July 2018): 12–19, 14. ↩︎
  13. Ibid., 14. ↩︎
  14. Ibid., 17. ↩︎
  15. ‘Warning for the Celebration of Holy Communion’, in The Order for the Administration of The Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion, Book of Common Prayer (1662). ↩︎
  16. Thomas Cranmer, ‘The True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Our Saviour Christ’, in The Work of Thomas Cranmer, ed. G. E. Duffield and J. I. Packer, The Courtenay Library of Reformation Classics 2 (Appleford: Sutton Courtenay Press, 1964), p. 55. Emphasis mine. ↩︎
  17. Thomas Allan Smail, Andrew Walker, and Nigel Wright, Charismatic Renewal: The Search for a Theology (London: SPCK, 1993), 74. ↩︎
  18. ‘Communion of the Sick’, Book of Common Prayer (1662). ↩︎
  19. Cranmer, ‘True and Catholic’, 125. ↩︎
  20. Ibid., 185. ↩︎
  21. Ibid., 195. ↩︎
  22. Frank D. Macchia, ‘Tongues as a Sign: Towards a Sacramental Understanding of Pentecostal Experience’, Pneuma 15, no. 1 (1 January 1993): 61–76, 61. ↩︎
  23. Chris E. W. Green, Toward a Pentecostal Theology of the Lord’s Supper: Foretasting the Kingdom (Cleveland, TN: CPT Press, 2012), 129. ↩︎
  24. Simon Chan, Pentecostal Theology and the Christian Spiritual Tradition, repr, Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series 21 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003), 22-23. ↩︎
  25. Jonathan Black, ‘On the Possibility of Presence: Overcoming Mere Memorialism in British Pentecostal Eucharistic Theology’, Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 40, no. 2 (2 July 2020): 120–31, 122-123. ↩︎
  26. ‘Declaration of Assent’, Church of England, https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/common-worship/ministry/declaration-assent ↩︎