Abstract
This thesis traces the uncomfortable relationship between a mainstream Christian denomination in New Zealand, the Anglican Church, and a movement of religious enthusiasm, the Charismatic Movement. The institutional Anglican Church's struggle with the movement went through different stages from initial discomfort and concern, to some cautious acceptance before moving to marginalise it. This marginalisation led to the creation of Anglican Renewal Ministries New Zealand (ARMNZ), an Anglican charismatic institution within the Anglican Church.
The reasons for this "struggle to embrace" were that the movement originated, and was resourced from, outside the institutional New Zealand Anglican Church structures; fulfilled needs that the institutional Church in New Zealand was perceived as having failed to fulfil; introduced beliefs and practices perceived as "un-Anglican;" and competed with other initiatives within the New Zealand Anglican Church. This uncomfortable relationship contributed to the failure of the Charismatic leaders to renew spiritually the whole New Zealand Anglican Church. The movement however, helped to broaden the scope of New Zealand Anglicanism and left a legacy of some large charismatic churches.
This is the first substantial study of the Charismatic Movement in the New Zealand Anglican Church covering the period from the emergence of the movement in the mid-l 960s, through the growth years in the 1970s marked by the formation of a national and ecumenical charismatic agency (Christian Advance Ministries), to the establishment of the Charismatic Movement as an institution within the Anglican Church in the early 1980s.