By Gretchen Keiser

When leading figures in the Catholic charismatic renewal come to Atlanta, as likely as not they are coming to the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Philip, rather than the Catholic cathedral across Peachtree road.

It has been a special strength of the charismatic renewal in Atlanta that it has, as highly visible and internationally active members, the Very Rev. David B. Collins, dean of the Episcopal Cathedral, and his wife, Virginia. Since the Collins – first Virginia and then Dean Collins – become involved in the charismatic renewal more than 10 years ago, they have underscored, by their presence at Catholic charismatic gatherings and by their activities at St. Philip’s, the ecumenical quality of the charismatic renewal.

This special relationship will be changing, to a degree, this summer. After 18 years as dean of the Cathedral, Dean Collins will be retiring July 1 and he and Virginia will be moving to the Georgia coast. However, Dean Collins, who is 61 years old, said that they intend to remain highly active in ministry within the charismatic renewal as they feel called to particular work.

In an interview in his wood-paneled office at the Cathedral, Dean Collins said he and his wife would be devoting time to prayer, study, writing and teaching on the charismatic renewal and would be available as speakers for renewal weekends. “The main message we’ve gotten is to be available,” he said, emphasizing that their departure from the Cathedral would allow them time to go to prayer groups as teachers and speakers. “First you learn and then you go out and share what you’ve learned,” he said.

Dean Collins’ learning about the charismatic renewal began in the early 1970s when, during a time of serious family difficulties, his wife began to become involved in an ecumenical charismatic prayer group. Through her interest, he became aquatinted with contemporary Christians who were encountering the power and the charismatic presence of the Holy Spirit in the same transforming way that encounter is described in the Acts of the Apostles.

“The Lord was really very good in paving the way for me,” said Dean Collins, describing the sequence of events – of people and books and outstanding speakers, like Pentecostal David du Plessis – who helped him to be open to the charismatic gifts of the Spirit and to become a part of the renewal movement.

The son of an Episcopal priest, Dean Collins was valedictorian of his college and seminary classes at the University of the South in Sewanee and served as chaplain of the University for 13 years before coming to St. Philip’s as dean.

Despite his years in ministry, he experienced a new dimension through the charismatic renewal. “What I experienced in the charismatic renewal is the love of Christ. There was a quality and a depth that I had not experienced before,” he said.

While some may see the charismatic dimension as somehow separate from the nature of mainline denominations, Dean Collins believes that they need to be as intimately connected to one another as strands of fiber in a rope.

Using the analogy of a three-strand rope, he said that he saw three ways that people and churches tended to approach the experience of becoming a Christian. One is evangelical, he said, where the Gospel is preached and a person comes to repentance and in faith accepts the Christian message. The second is sacramental, where by sacraments a person is brought into the body of Christ and membership in the church. The third is charismatic, where a person experiences the power and presence of the Holy Spirit and the living presence of Christ.

“These were not meant to be alternatives,” he said, “but God meant these to be together – three strands making one rope. So often we have made them alternatives, but they are intended to be together.”

“When they are together,” he continued, “they balance each other, correct each other and bring that balance, I think, at the heart of the church.”

For Western Christianity he sees a struggle between this “full Gospel” and “essentially ‘enlightenment’ Christianity where we’ve really only got our own resources…God helps, but I must plan it and do it as if God doesn’t exist.”

“An awful lot of our plans and programs are our plans and programs and then we ask God to bless them,” he said. “We don’t often go to God and say, ‘Hey, God, what would you like us to do?’”

The Collins’ became involved in the Catholic charismatic renewal during its early years, perhaps five years after the first stirrings of the movement began with students at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh in 1967. While in Rome for a meeting of Episcopal deans in 1975, they were able to attend that year’s international Catholic charismatic conference and later ecumenical conferences at Kansa City in 1977 and Canterbury, England in 1978.

Dean Collins was among “four or five Episcopalians and maybe one of two Lutherans” to attend the 1976 charismatic priests’ conference at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. Asked about his constant ecumenical presence at renewal gatherings, he said, smilingly, “I think part of my function is to say, ‘You’re not going to get by without us.’”

The charismatic renewal movement, since it cuts across denominational lines, has always had a strong ecumenical aspect, he noted. And he is personally very dedicated to preserving its ecumenical quality even if that creates a certain tension about the movement and within it. The charismatic prayer group at St. Phillip’s and the “third Mondays” program which brings speakers to the Cathedral has always been ecumenical and is deliberately structured to remain that way, Dean Collins said, recognizing progress toward unity in the body of Christ as a work of the Holy Spirit.

He called the Atlanta covenant signed by bishops of the Catholic and Episcopal dioceses in January “a great step” ecumenically and a particularly valuable move because it is realistic and “not lightly done.” In the ecumenical movement, he observed, many of the first and obvious steps have been taken over the last 20 years and now continued efforts toward unity are slower, more difficult and more demanding.

Similarly he senses a stage in the charismatic renewal, now more than 15 years old, of “settling down and growing deeper.”

The early years of the renewal movement were characterized by great exuberance, joy and by major conferences which brought together thousands of people who were experiencing an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Now, Dean Collins mused, he sees “a deepening, a digging in…almost a getting ready…” not necessarily for a specific event, but for the “long haul” of living committed Christian lives, obedient to the Lord.

“I keep thinking of all the sayings of Jesus about putting your hand to the plow,” he observed. After the initial days of following the Holy Spirit, Christians come to the sticking point of “Is it what I want done or what He wants done?” he said.

“I see God training a lot of us to look more for what He wants,” Dean Collins said.