I recently heard about the response of one vicar several years ago, upon learning that another had been appointed to lead a Charismatic-renewal ministry: “Congratulations on joining the lunatic fringe.”
In all honesty, I think such descriptions still endure in some quarters, but, in this piece of scholarly theology, Helen Collins seeks to show that Charismatic thought and practice has an important contribution to make to the whole Church.
She neither shies away from the weird excesses of some Charismatic spirituality nor proposes an academic domestication of the Spirit’s work. (There is, for example, a helpful and careful discussion of demons, with an exhortation to “remain Christ-centred rather than demon-obsessed”.) In seven tightly argued chapters, she portrays Charismatic theology “as a valid and coherent expression of the wider Christian tradition”.
Read it all.Publication Day! We are very excited to announce the publication of Charismatic Christianity by Revd Dr Helen Collins, our Vice Principal (Academic) and Tutor in Practical Theology. Available today in hardback and kindle, and in November in paperback: https://t.co/BwWXcDZDQI pic.twitter.com/62PKIkdPmk
— Trinity College (@trinity_bristol) September 26, 2023