John Stott, Michael Harper and the Charismatic Renewal in England

The charismatic renewal in the early 1960s was a significant development in global Christianity, creating theological and pastoral debates and disagreements with both local and international dimensions. This article sets the controversy between the leading Anglicans John Stott and Michael Harper within the wider cultural context that impacted the initial rise of the charismatic movement, and its subsequent growing global acceptance. The Stott-Harper debates contributed notably to the long-term domestication of the charismatic movement within an established Church, keeping most charismatic Anglicans within the Evangelical tradition. Conservative Evangelicals were enabled to adjust constructively to the growing ‘charismatisation’ of global Evangelicalism.