David du Plessis
Pentecostal minister who organised the Pentecostal World Conferences of 1949 and 1952. By his own account he was drawn into the ecumenical movement from 1951 and was invited to the World Council of Churches’ assembly of 1954.
Du Plessis served as secretary and organiser of the Pentecostal World Conferences held in Paris in 1949 and in London in 1952. By his own account he met John Mackay at Princeton early in 1951 and under his guidance became interested in the ecumenical movement, and in 1954 the secretary of the World Council of Churches asked him to go to its assembly at Evanston (Du Plessis, The Spirit Bade Me Go, biographical note; account of Princeton (1951) and Evanston (1954)). See the Charismatic Renewal.
In the timeline
- 1960 to 1967, firm dateThe Charismatic Renewal
Speaking in tongues and other gifts associated with Pentecostalism appear in the older churches. An Episcopal rector in California tells his parish of his experience in 1960, and Catholics date their charismatic renewal from a retreat of students near Pittsburgh in 1967.