Forerunner of the Charismatic Movement

These few words of biography hardly do justice to the man and to his impact both short-term and long-term. Arnold Dallimore’s Forerunner of the Charismatic Movement: The Life of Edward Irving does a far better job. Dallimore describes the man in all his highs and lows, in all his strengths and weaknesses. I found it a particularly helpful book in that most of the biographies I read are of “good guys” or “bad guys.” Most of them are black or white, easy to understand. But when it comes to Irving there are such strange goods and bads that I hardly know how or if to categorize the man. His spiritual strengths shine through and I was left with a picture of a man who genuinely loved the Lord. And yet he had some horrible blind spots, some aspects of his ministry that were terribly unbiblical. This biography, more than any other I’ve read, bends the mind and presents a figure who was at times brilliant and at times hopeless. Read it all HERE