One Woman’s Publicity Push : Charismatics: Parishioner Jean Stone persuaded Time and Newsweek to write about the uproar in Van Nuys. She started a national magazine.

The 1960 blowup over speaking in tongues at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Van Nuys might never have been the starting point for the worldwide charismatic movement except for the publicity efforts of parishioner Jean Stone.

Although she and other charismatics in that church were told not to talk about their new beliefs, Stone left the parish and persuaded Newsweek and Time magazines to write it up.

“I thought it was too important to be forgotten as just a parish problem,” she said.

She started a national magazine in 1961 to chronicle and explain the movement erupting in mainline churches. The first quarterly issue of her Trinity magazine was mailed to every Episcopal priest in the country.

“Jean is the unsung heroine in the charismatic renewal,” according to the Rev. Harald Bredesen of Escondido, another pioneer in the movement.

“Although she was a laywoman,” Bredesen said, “she had a wonderful gift for packaging the charismatic renewal in terms that the historic churches could understand and accept.”

Recalling the turmoil sparked by the late Rev. Dennis Bennett’s announcement to St. Mark’s that he and dozens of parishioners were speaking in tongues, she said that the rector confided to her between services that he would offer to resign but that it was a ploy to rally support.

“He was sure the church couldn’t do without him, but the vestry accepted it right away and Dennis didn’t go back to the church,” she said.

Although Bennett wrote later that he had vowed never to talk about his experiences again, the newsmagazine articles pushed him into the spotlight and he became a leading national spokesman in the movement.

Meanwhile, Stone’s influence waned in 1966 when Trinity magazine folded, a year after her divorce. In 1967, she and new husband Richard Willans moved to Hong Kong and developed a charismatic ministry among drug addicts and street people.

Returning to this country, the Willanses have lived quietly for 10 years in Altadena, their religious activities mainly confined to a prayer group that meets in homes.

Told that her old parish in Van Nuys has a charismatic rector who has caused no stir despite admitting to speaking in tongues, she said wryly that it may be “the kiss of death” for the charismatic movement to have such easy acceptance.

“It’s become so respectable that it’s nothing anymore,” she added. “It’s not just a ‘nice experience.’ If people were doing it regularly, wonderful things would be happening.”

“We think it was the secret of the power of the early Christian church.”