Reflecting on recent church history
It was the early days of the Charismatic Movement. We were touring Britain with a team that included a worship group led by John Pantry, who had been with Cliff Richard and ‘The Shadows’, before joining our ministry team for a series of meetings. One of the places we visited was Billericay in Essex, where many of the churches joined together to support a united meeting in the largest church in the town. This was filled to capacity.
My wife, Monica, and I were delayed, and other members of the team started the meeting with the worship group. When we arrived, proceedings were well underway. The noise could be heard from the car park long before we entered the building and we were astonished to see the band in full swing and people dancing in the aisles and all around the church, arms waving in joyful celebration, people singing and dancing in great enthusiasm.
A joyful celebration
We were used to joyous worship in our meetings, but this was over the top! The level of decibels from the band and the activity of the worshippers was extraordinary. I threaded my way through a crowd of dancing, arm-waving worshippers to the chancel and spoke sharply to David Noakes who had started the meeting. I demanded to know what was going on. David gently rested his hand reassuringly on my shoulder and said, “It’s all right, Cliff. The Lord is having a party!” Having a party – in a church? Who had ever heard of such a thing? It was outrageous! Churches were places for solemn worship with a pipe-organ and a choir, not for partying!
Churches were places for solemn worship with a pipe-organ and a choir, not for partying!
Something different
On reflection, I was shocked at my own reaction. Then I remembered an incident many years earlier. It was 1958, I had recently moved to a large church with a congregation of over 500 and strong middle-class traditions. I had been playing tennis with some young people in the church and I hurried away to attend a meeting of the Bazaar committee. I had no time to go home and change so I pulled on a brightly coloured yellow woolly jumper and walked into a room at the church where most of the committee members were already seated around the table.
I sat down in the chairman’s place and immediately the church treasurer stood up and noisily strode to the door, pompously proclaiming, “I cannot remain in the room with the Minister improperly dressed!” It was a reminder that although I was the minister, he was the one who held power and paid for my services. In those days if the clergy wanted to change anything, the laity ensured that traditions were maintained! I meekly asked the meeting if they were happy for me to stay and most nodded silently. So I stayed, but it was the only time I failed to conform. From then on, while I was their minister, I used to ensure that I went around in a dog collar and a long black cassock. The charismatic movement came as a great relief to me.
A fundamental question
Looking back, I have spent most of my life fighting to maintain social values and biblical standards of morality in the nation but also fighting for change within the Church. I have tried both rocking the boat and steadying the ship – neither with any notable success! Yet there is a key question that I have spent years grappling with, in my pastoral work, my academic work, and my Parliamentary work.
The charismatic movement came as a great relief to me.
Let me pose a fundamental question:
Why is it so hard to get good Christian people to recognise the truth that is revealed in the Bible, and then to present it to others in their lifestyle of faith in God, so that the revelation of the Word made flesh, crucified, and risen from the dead, may continue to impact the world today with the same transforming effect that it had upon the people in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost?
Some more thoughts on biblical truth
One of the most profound revelations of truth in the Old Testament is a statement from God reported by Isaiah, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is 55:8 – 9). In the New Testament the apostle Paul reaffirms this in writing to the church in Corinth: “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14).
Living on a different plane
What is being said in both these statements is that human beings think and communicate with each other on an entirely different plane from that of God. In spiritual terms, we live on the equivalent of a flat earth of one-dimension instead of the multi-dimensional existence that God inhabits. It is only the Spirit of God that enables us to leap beyond our human limitations to perceive spiritual truth that enables us to hear from God and to understand the truth by which He wants to direct our steps.
It is only the Spirit of God that enables us to leap beyond our human limitations to perceive spiritual truth that enables us to hear from God and to understand the truth by which He wants to direct our steps.
Yet we seem determined to stay with our one-dimensional outlook. One particular aspect concerns me. Our church traditions – from the sombre dress clergy wear to perform their rites, to the theology the Church has developed over the centuries – have all been modelled upon death rather than life, in contrast to the days of the early Church. We are like the women on the first day of the week after the crucifixion who went to anoint the body of Jesus. Arriving at the tomb they were greeted with, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
Using our flat earth standard of spiritual truth, we read the Bible but we do not understand it. We get into intercession, but it is like talking to ourselves – we have no spiritual reality of communicating with the divine presence of the God of Creation who flung the stars into orbit and holds the nations in His hands. Just look at a little bit of history that illustrates what I am saying.
The Day Of Pentecost
The message that Peter declared on the day of Pentecost was a message of life. He said, “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact” (Acts 2:32). The message electrified Jerusalem as men and women who had seen the ministry of Jesus and witnessed his crucifixion accepted the first-hand witness of the disciples. They could feel the power of the Holy Spirit and the presence of the risen Jesus. Some of them may have been among the crowd who had shouted for his death. They believed the testimony of the disciples and were dismayed. They cried out, “What shall we do?” (Acts 2:36). Peter called for repentance and baptism. Some 3,000 were baptised in the name of Jesus that day, which must have required the involvement of most of the 120 believers to baptise such a large number in the small amount of water available at the pool of Siloam.
They entered into life – new life in the Spirit of God that was only possible when, through faith in the risen Jesus, the Spirit of God came upon them.
A festival of joy
The joy in Jerusalem on that festival of ‘First Fruits’ was beyond description. Multitudes of lives were transformed that day. They entered into life – new life in the Spirit of God that was only possible when, through faith in the risen Jesus, the Spirit of God came upon them.
The central message that runs through the Gospel of John is about life. The word ‘life’ occurs more than 50 times. It begins with the statement, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men” (John 1:4) and it ends with the words, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life his name” (John 20:31).
Jesus was continually teaching people the difference between religion and life in the Spirit, which is the life of faith. The most devastating chapter in the New Testament is Matthew 23, where Jesus describes the religious leaders at the temple who exercised spiritual control over the nation. He called them hypocrites, snakes, vipers, who shut people out of the kingdom of God by distorting spiritual truth through offering rules and regulations.
Religion enslaves people; it keeps them locked into law, rules and regulations. Jesus said his teaching set people free from the death of religion....
They were blind guides, full of greed and self-indulgence, administering a ‘cup of death’ to the nation instead of offering the pure word of truth from the Spirit of God. Jesus then went on to weep over Jerusalem, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left desolate” (Matt 23:37 – 38). Forty years later the Temple was destroyed by the Romans and never rebuilt.
From death To life
Religion enslaves people; it keeps them locked into law, rules and regulations. Jesus said his teaching set people free from the death of religion, “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24). Essentially, he is now on a different spiritual plane.
It was this wonderful spiritual freedom of crossing over from death to life that was the message that brought joy to the crowds on the streets of Jerusalem. Jesus had taught them, “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day!” (John 6:40). It was this message of life – new life through faith in the risen Jesus, that excited the crowds as each one who accepted the message entered into that experience of crossing over from death to life.
But – something new is happening today!
From religion to faith
The early Church resonated with the message of life – of the risen Jesus, and the life the Spirit brings. Now, our church buildings are more like mausoleums, reflecting the change of focus from life to death. We have stained glass windows depicting Jesus hanging on a tree. We tiptoe around the tombs of dead archbishops in our cathedrals and even our nonconformist churches have plaques on the walls bearing the names of the dead. We have crosses on the altars and communion tables, symbolising the importance of Christ’s death – but no symbols of the empty tomb and new life in Christ, celebrating his resurrection.
New church plants full of joy
But – something new is happening today! Last month I went to the wedding of one of our granddaughters. She and her bridegroom are both youth leaders in a large London church. She was married in the church in Southampton of which her mother is the vicar (my daughter-in-law) . It is one of the new Anglican mission plants that has only been going for three years but it has a congregation of over 300 and is growing fast.
Most of the congregation came to the wedding, plus nearly two hundred invited guests. The worship was amazing – full of praise and exuberant joy, with bride and groom and all their friends joining enthusiastically in the worship. The atmosphere of life, love and joy are the usual brand of worship in that church - a more orderly brand of what we were seeing in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Are we seeing the beginning of a new phase of the Charismatic Movement?
One of our grandsons is leading a similar new church-plant in Warrington that has only been going for two years and its congregation has outgrown the hall they have been renting. They have just bought a redundant Methodist Church building in Warrington and begun renovating it in preparation for reopening it before Christmas.
Return of the Charismatic Movement?
There are a number of these new church-plants in different cities in Britain that are beginning to impact the area around them. Are we seeing the beginning of a new phase of the Charismatic Movement? In the 1970s and ‘80s many new churches were planted. Today, many of these plants are within the established Church rather than in competition with them.
What does all this mean? Is there really a change of theology within the Anglican Church and others, putting an emphasis upon Life rather than Death?
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The above thoughts are expressed to encourage thinking on theological themes, and we intend sharing more in the coming weeks. Jesus also asked questions when he wanted to press home spiritual truths that he wanted his listeners to explore. The emphasis in the Western Church today upon the death of Christ rather than his resurrection is surely a fascinating subject!
Please contribute comments on this article below, but if you would also like to contribute to a creative theological discussion on other challenging subjects, that will initially be directly by e-mail, but eventually on a website that will not be open to the public, please send an email response with ‘Why Seek 1’ in the title to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to enter into further discussion on this issue with Dr Hill and others.