Fr. Dennis Bennett and the Charismatic Renewal at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

Abstract

Two years before the world’s fair was held in Seattle, Washington, the small Episcopal congregation of St. Luke’s prepared to welcome a new priest. The latter half of the 1950s had not been kind to the congregation as it struggled with financial viability and decline in attendance. The congregation had operated for seven decades in the thoroughly Scandinavian Lutheran neighborhood of Ballard where Episcopalians were few and far between. In its seven-decade history the church had seen services suspended on occasion and functioned as a mission outreach of other parishes in the diocese. By 1960 the congregation was desperate for any semblance of viability and the newly arrived bishop of the diocese, William Fisher Lewis, was also eager to make risky changes. He reached out to the former rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California, who had recently resigned from his parish after sharing publicly about his experience of speaking in tongues. Fr. Dennis Bennett left a 2,600-member parish and took a $4,000 pay cut to come to St. Luke’s, but he did not leave behind his emphasis on the Pentecostal gift of tongues. His focus on the gifts of the Spirit was welcomed by Bishop Lewis who reportedly encouraged Fr. Bennett to “bring the fire” to this new assignment. Even though both Bishop Lewis and the congregation of St. Luke’s were somewhat aware of what they were getting with Fr. Bennett, no one could foresee the global influence that would emanate from the little church in Ballard, Washington, over the next two decades. By the time he stepped down from parish leadership in 1981, Bennett had become a leading figure within the Charismatic Renewal. The congregation would host multiple services throughout the week in which visitors from around the world filed into the parish hall to worship and learn about the Pentecostal gifts of the Holy Spirit. Reporters described services attended by nuns in habits and hippies in sandals sitting side-by-side in worship. And throughout the eclectic experience, Fr. Bennett and the people of St. Luke’s understood their worship to be both thoroughly Episcopalian and Spirit-filled. Bennett’s influence on the Charismatic Renewal has often been cited in both popular and academic work, but there remains little, if any, academic treatment of his life and ministry. Close exploration of worship practices at St. Luke’s are also wanting. In this article I will provide an overview of Fr. Bennett’s tenure at St. Luke’s (1960–1981) with particular focus on the liturgical developments that occurred during the first decade of his appointment. Special attention will be given to the ways in which St. Luke’s remained decisively Episcopalian and distinctively Charismatic. Finally, I conclude by highlighting some lessons we might consider as we think about the interplay between mainline worship practices and Pentecostal piety. While we are not