Charismatics, Liberals and New Reformations in the ‘Long’ 1960s: ‘Can these Bones live?’

Charismatic renewal and radical Christianity were movements of the ‘long’ 1960s. They both saw themselves as ‘new Reformations’ but have seldom been examined together. This article claims that ‘renewed’ and ‘religionless’ Christianity were more related than usually assumed. Both responded to a profound sense of religion-in-crisis. They were deeply eschatological and in different ways emphasised the Spirit. Despite some obvious dissimilarities, they were opposite sides of the same coin. Furthermore, they were entangled in unexpected ways. This points towards deeper undercurrents of religious thought and experience at work during the period and invites a wider appreciation of the significance of both eschatology and pneumatology in the Churches during the Sixties.