Reverend Got Tongue-Lashing for Beliefs

Church historians say the worldwide, tongues-speaking Pentecostal movement began with the exuberant 1906-09 Azusa Street Revival in downtown Los Angeles. Less known is that the charismatic renewal--a similar movement found today in mainstream Protestant and Catholic churches--first surfaced at an Episcopal church in Van Nuys.

On a pre-Easter Sunday morning in 1960, the Rev. Dennis Bennett announced to the early services at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church that he and some other members spoke in tongues--utterances that Pentecostalists said signaled a spiritual baptism for Christians.

An uproar ensued in the parish over Bennett’s disclosure that Episcopalians were succumbing to perceived “gifts of the Holy Spirit,” which was then associated with churches with a low economic and educational level.

Bennett, a native of England, had become St. Mark’s rector in 1953 and helped build the membership to 2,000. But his investigation of Pentecostal beliefs led him and about 75 members to speak in tongues in private prayer gatherings.

The vestry, or governing board, of St. Mark’s warned Bennett not to talk about these beliefs from the pulpit. When the priest broke that promise, one assistant priest threw off his robe and walked out. Confronted by parish officers, Bennett announced his resignation at the last of three services that Sunday morning. “I was being tried on the spot,” Bennett later wrote.

As Newsweek and Time articles gave wide exposure to the tongues controversy in Van Nuys, Bennett went to Seattle to become rector of a small, failing Episcopal parish. Twelve years later, it was one of the strongest churches in the Northwest as Bennett’s continued teaching about the charismatic “gifts” encouraged mainline churchgoers with similar experiences to speak about them.

Bennett died Nov. 1, 1991, at age 74, but not before seeing the charismatic movement gain small footholds with most mainline denominations.