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‘Days of Fire and Glory’ traces charismatic communities — and the roots of today’s Christian nationalism
A religion reporter spent four years and interviewed nearly 200 people to uncover how one celebrated Episcopal church’s community collapsed under hidden sexual abuse — and what it still has to teach us.
By Julia Duin | FāVS News Columnist
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News.
I’d like to recommend my book “Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community” to anyone who wants to know what happened to the best and brightest of the Jesus people of their parents’ generation.
First, a brief bio — after graduating from Lewis & Clark College, I moved into a covenant community (charismatic with Baptist roots) in downtown Portland (they were the rage all over the Pacific Northwest back in the 70s and early 80s) for two years, then left under a cloud before they thought I was “ready.”
During my 20s and early 30s, I was visiting every covenant community I could around the country: Mother of God in Maryland/suburban D.C.; Word of God in Ann Arbor, Michigan; a Bruderhof group south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston, Illinois. This was just to see how people were doing common purse, leader/follower relationships, worship and so on.
Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community” is available as a free gift to FāVS readers who donate $25 or more.
The communities were where the radical Christianity was being practiced. Back then people were living in households and pooling all their money Acts 2 style. Nowadays, local zoning commissions would never let us get away with the amount of people living together that happened back then.
I got hired at the Houston Chronicle when I turned 30 as one of two religion reporters. When I moved to Houston, I was aware of a famous Episcopal church — Church of the Redeemer — that had one of the most famous communities in the world.
People came from around the world to visit the household system there. Tons of worship albums came out of the place; I found that a lot of these 70s-era communities locate themselves near universities. That was super true of the Catholic ones, and we had the University of Houston literally walking distance from Redeemer.
Four years, 180 interviews, one devastating finding
It is a long story about how and why I ended up writing a book about Redeemer and its famous founder priest, Graham Pulkingham. Redeemer’s community had faded into home groups by the time I arrived in 1986 but the aura was still there.
I spent four years working on that book, interviewing 180-some people around the country plus many priests and several bishops as to what went right and wrong.
My investigation unearthed the fact that Pulkingham — who was very personable but had this scary quality that drew people to follow him no matter what — had been hitting on men during counseling sessions and that he’d had up to 12 homosexual affairs.
My book tells how this all happened, how Pulkingham got kicked out of the priesthood as a result of my digging; how he died an untimely death a year later; and how I got blamed for reporting on it.
I also did a master’s thesis at the same time on authority and hierarchy in charismatic renewal and Christian community because I kept on running across Watchman Nee theology regarding obeying one’s leaders no matter what, even if your own self doesn’t feel right about it.
I also did research on the shepherding movement out of Ft. Lauderdale in the early 70s that formed a basis for so much of the abuse.
People who read the book feel that I bring back the memories and feel of what it was like back then when heaven seemed to come to Earth for the brief few years that such communities flourished during the height of the charismatic movement.
My book took 15 years to get published; publishers liked it but were frightened they and I would get sued. That never happened, thank God, although I got some threats.
A tiny publishing house (with a good libel lawyer) took me on and the book came out in 2009. I wanted it to be a warning to the next generation of what not to do, but, unfortunately, the book got very little public relations. The top evangelical magazines at the time were not interested in what I had to say.
That is a shame, as “Fire and Glory” has so many insights in it that provides readers with a sense of how this movement got started and how many baby boomer evangelicals crashed and burned within it.
Why it matters now
The book shows how the seeds of the community movement and authority-and-submission theology that came out of it have blossomed into American politics under the first and second Trump administrations in ways its founders never dreamed would happen in their worst nightmares. Those who do not learn from history, as the saying goes, are doomed to repeat it.
Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community” is available as a free gift to FāVS readers who donate $25 or more.
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