Contact: Julia Duin, 202-636-3217, 202-374-7482 cell, jcduin@aol.com; Charles Eby, Crossland Foundation, 410-435-5990, eby@crosslandfoundation.org

BALTIMORE, March 26 /Christian Newswire/ -- April 3 marks the 50th anniversary of charismatic renewal, the biggest revival of the 20th century that is having repercussions even now. It was on that date in 1960 when the Rev. Dennis Bennett was forced to resign from his Los Angeles-area church after announcing from the pulpit he'd been 'baptized' in the Holy Spirit.

Charismatics and Pentecostals are the world's second largest group of Christians -- at 500 million strong -- after the Catholic Church. Julia Duin, author of a new book on the renewal, will be at the Empowered 21 conference in Tulsa, Okla. (April 8 - 10), to explain how the charismatic renewal and the Christian community movements merged to create an explosive combination of spiritual power and sinful practice.

In 1986, Julia Duin moved to Houston as the new religion writer for the Houston Chronicle. She visited the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Houston's blighted East End and fell in love with its gorgeous music and charismatic worship. After she met Graham Pulkingham, the spellbinding priest who led Redeemer into a powerful renewal starting in 1964, Duin became convinced the world needed to know the story of this immensely gifted man and the church that was half-inspired, yet half-haunted by its illustrious past. But as she began investigating Redeemer, some began warning her about a darker history behind Pulkingham that few knew.

In Days of Fire and Glory, Julia Duin, now religion editor at the Washington Times, reveals the details of the scandal that rocked the charismatic and Christian community movements, not to mention the Episcopal Church. Through deft storytelling and meticulous research, she provides a fascinating portrait of the glorious days of the renewal and its sister movements within Catholic and pentecostal churches; days when the Spirit's fire did fall and many within the baby boomer generation were drawn to God.

Ken Walker, of Charisma Magazine, has said: "Few books are deserving of the label 'masterpiece', but this one qualifies. Twenty years in the making, Days of Fire and Glory is worth the wait. Duin has crafted an eminently readable account of Houston's Episcopal Church of the Redeemer and other leading charismatic congregations that propelled the wave of the 1960s and 1970s."