Jean Stone, Trinity, and the emergence of “charismatic renewal” c. 1959-1966 – Dr John Maiden (Lecturer in Religious Studies, Open University)

Various scholarly and popular accounts of the charismatic movement mention the role of American Episcopalian Jean Stone, the California-based Blessed Trinity Society, and Trinity magazine in the early development of the renewal movement. It was Stone who in 1960 persuaded Time and Newsweek to cover the story of the Revd Dennis Bennett and tongues speaking at St Marks’s, Van Nuys. Indeed it was she who with Harald Bredesen appears to have publically coined the term ‘charismatic renewal’. This paper offers an assessment of Stone’s ministry and the magazine she edited. It shows the ways in which Stone and Trinity narrated the spread of Baptism in the Spirit in the historic churches, and articulated the characteristics of the early renewal movement. It demonstrates the role, both nationally and transnationally, of this ministry in the early development and construction of charismatic renewal.