Nineteenth-Century Australian Charismata: Edward Irving’s Legacy*

Abstract

Abstract In recent decades, most interpreters have argued that as an organized movement, Australian Pentecostalism began in 1909 with Janet Lancaster’s Good News Hall. This article argues that Australian Pentecostal beginnings should be recalibrated to 1853, with the arrival of representatives of the Catholic Apostolic Church in Melbourne. The evidence indicates that the Catholic Apostolic Church continually taught and practiced the charismatic gifts in Australia throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. The existence of an established denomination in Australia embracing and exhibiting the charismatic gifts for the period 1853 to 1900 challenges the dominant Lancaster interpretation. This evidence also argues for a direct historic link between Australian Pentecostalism and the charismata of Edward Irving and the nascent Catholic Apostolic Church in 1830s London.