A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

The Charismatic Movement
1965 while a professor of systematic theology at Austin
Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas. He
became a noted theologian in the Charismatic movement.
John Sherrill (born 1923), an Episcopalian and a
senior editor for Guideposts, and his wife, Elizabeth
(born 1928), decided to investigate the Charismatic
movement. In the process, they received the Holy Spirit
themselves. The result was a book called They Speak
with Other Tongues (1964). One of the first books to
tell about the Charismatic movement, it had a great
impact upon people of many denominations. The
Sherrills also collaborated in the writing of a number of
other influential books, including The Cross and the
Switchblade (1963) with David Wilkerson, God’s
Smuggler (1967) with Brother Andrew (a Dutch missionary
who smuggled Bibles into communist countries),
and The Hiding Place (1975) with Corrie ten Boom (a
Dutch Charismatic who had helped hide Jews from the
Nazis in World War II).
In 1972, the Mennonite Church officially recognized
the validity of the Charismatic movement in its ranks. By
one estimate, perhaps as many as twenty percent of the
Mennonites have received the Holy Spirit, and in some
countries a majority have done so.
Initially, the Charismatics met much rejection. Some
churches expelled pastors who had received the Holy
Spirit, and some churches split. As time went on, however,
most of the major denominations accommodated to the
movement. Most merely tolerated it: as long as pastors
continued to affirm traditional theology, continued to conduct
traditional services on Sunday, and did not promote
their views in a dogmatic or controversial manner, then
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