A Charismatic Time Was Had by All

Some good old-fashioned body-swaying, arm-waving, eye-rolling times were had last week in Kansas City as 45,000 members of the Charismatic Christian movement met in their first interdenominational assembly. Said Kevin Ranaghan, a Roman Catholic who was chairman of the conference: "I believe this is the largest grass-roots ecumenical movement in 800 years."

President Jimmy Carter sent a telegram asking the Charismatics to pray for him to make "the right decision toward bringing world peace." The President's sister Ruth Carter Stapleton appeared in person to tell how prayers had resolved her daughter's emotional problems. "We have to stop condemning all these problemed people," she said, "and to know that within each one there is a little hurting child, and that child is able to be healed."

At one point, the Rev. Bob Mumford, a nondenominational evangelist from California, halted his speech at the Arrowhead Stadium, where the Kansas City Chiefs play football, and called time out for "a Holy Ghost break." He began to shout: "Glory to God! Jesus is Lord." The audience rose and joined in. The Scoreboard flashed JESUS IS LORD and then displayed an illuminated portrait of Christ. As the excitement built, a gurgling sound rose from the audience: "Ye ked ee aky shangda." The Charismatics were celebrating the New Testament-period practice of glossolalia, or speaking in tongues.

The original Pentecostal movement, which took its name from the 50th day after Easter, Pentecost Sunday, when the Holy Ghost descended to the twelve Apostles, was born in nearby Topeka.

There the Rev. Charles Parham founded his first Pentecostal Bible school in 1900. He taught that every "full Gospel Christian" must be "baptized in the Holy Spirit." From this followed such gifts as glossolalia, faith healing and prophecy. Parham encountered resistance from local church leaders and eventually moved off to Texas, where his Pentecostal churches found their roots among the South's rural poor (current membership: about 4 million).

Growing Fast. In the troubled '60s there began to appear the "neo-Pente-costalists," most of whom prefer to be known as Charismatics. They share Par-ham's belief in baptism by the Holy Spirit, but they prefer to remain in their own churches rather than join a Pentecostal church. They are predominantly white and middle class, and they are growing rapidly. Starting within one parish in California in 1960, the Charismatics now number about 5 million.

Though neo-Pentecostalism first caught on with Protestants, it has found a large audience among Catholics, some of whom seem dissatisfied with the newly demystified rituals of their church. The first meeting of Catholic Charismatics was at Duquesne University in 1967 and attracted only 90 people. In 1973, 25,000 Catholic Pentecostals met at Notre Dame, and about half of all the delegates at the Kansas City convention were Catholics. Among the featured speakers they came to hear was Leo Jozef Cardinal Suenens of Belgium, a leader of Catholic liberals, who celebrated Mass at the stadium. At one point he began chanting, "Ad gallum hum ..." Was it Latin? No. he too was speaking in tongues.

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