Dennis Bennett
Episcopal rector of St Mark’s, Van Nuys, who told his congregation on 3 April 1960 that he had spoken in tongues, resigned, and went on to lead the charismatic renewal in the Episcopal Church from Seattle.
The Episcopal Church’s dictionary gives his dates as 28 October 1917 to 1 November 1991 and calls him the “father of charismatic renewal in the Episcopal Church”. Born in London, he was ordained a Congregational minister in 1949 and an Episcopal priest in 1952, and became rector of St Mark’s Church in Van Nuys, California. On 3 April 1960 he told his congregation in a sermon that he had received the “baptism in the Holy Spirit” and spoken in unknown tongues. The opposition this aroused led him to resign, and in the same year he became vicar of St Luke’s Church, Seattle (An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church, Bennett, Dennis Joseph). His own account is in Nine O’Clock in the Morning (Bennett, Nine O’Clock in the Morning, his account of Passion Sunday, 3 April 1960). 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.