Your Sons & Daughters Shall Prophesy - Prophetic Gifts Today In The New Testament Church

Insights from Modern Church History (A.D. 1830-1980)

Irving allowed women and men not properly ordained to speak out in tongues, interpretation and prophecy during the services. To put it another way, he "allowed public services to be interrupted by persons not mem bers or licentiates of the church of Scotland." 12 For this he was censured by the London presbytery in 1832, then expelled from his own pulpit on April 26 of the same year. The trustees refused to deal with the substan tive issue of the manifestations themselves-whether they were genuine or not-but moved against Irving on the purely technical grounds that he had allowed non-ordained persons to "minister" in the church building. 13 On May 3, the day after the London presbytery rendered its guilty ver dict, "the press celebrated the victory of the trustees with unanimous con gratulations. Irving was everywhere dismissed with contempt." 14 The next day those who gathered for the early morning prayer meeting found the church doors locked against them. So eight hundred members proceeded to form the first congregation of what would later become the Catholic Apostolic Church, assembling in a large, remodeled picture gallery on Newman Street. The sad story continues. Irving was defrocked as a clergyman in the Church of Scotland on March 13, 1833, "over a hair-splitting theologi cal issue unrelated to the question of the charismata." 15 The biggest sur prise, however, came from the local church. Returning to London after traveling in ministry, Irving found that the "Apostles and Prophets dom inated the work, and they even reprimanded him for preaching when his ordination had been revoked. All authority rested with them and Irving had become little more than a servant, subject to their utterances and therefore to their commands." 16 Considering the newly emerging church a work of the Holy Spirit, Irving graciously, quietly accepted a subordi nate position (to the astonishment of many) and rendered spiritual obe dience to those who were his own children in the faith. The problems continued. Irving's young son died. People in his church lost their faith. The doctrine of healing was challenged. He died soon after of pneumonia in Glasgow and was buried there in the cathedral crypt. Fit tingly, perhaps ironically, the window over his tomb is of John the Baptist. Some of the grandest compliments ever penned about a servant of God have been directed toward Edward Irving after his death-some by his critics. Surely this was one of the saddest and most challenging chapters in Church history. Yet as Larry Christenson points out in his gracious evaluation: A sober reading of the evidence, in the light of the Church's experience with the Pentecostal, and more recently with the charismatic movement, renders possible a new understanding of Irving's place in Church history: He was a man ahead of his time, pointing to things yet future for the great

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