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226 C H A P T E R S E V E N Maverick yet Mainstream Christ Renews His Parish and Great Banquet Cursillo was the catalyst for CRHP. People couldn’t get into a Cursillo so we developed something in-house for them. —Bob Edwards, president, Christ Renews His Parish, December 14, 2009 It was when I started to become a second-class citizen in the Kingdom of Heaven that I decided to go my separate way. It always happens; the Holy Spirit will have a movement in the church and then people come in and institutionalize it. —Jack Pitzer, executive director, Lampstand Ministries You can drink coffee from all different kinds of cups, from old Styrofoam ones to beautiful ceramic cups, but what matters is what is in the cup. It doesn’t matter what weekend encounter it is, what matters is that Jesus is in the cup. —Pastor John Herfurth, Trinity Lutheran Church, Indianapolis While the mainline Fourth-Day movements we have encountered so far can trace their roots directly to the Mallorquín weekend Catholic Cursillos , still other movements and encounters have branched off of them. While technically not part of the Fourth-Day movement proper, the offshoots of Fourth-Day movements share in the major aims and goals of the Cursillo weekend encounters that inspired them. The proliferation of Fourth-Day movements and their offshoots indicates the depth of desire by contemporary American Christian men and women to encounter Christ, experience healing and renewal, and become part of a new community. These offshoots also signal something else that is peculiarly American—the pluralism of Christianity. In part because of the disestablishment clause, American religious history—in this case Christian—is replete with instances of sectarian movements. It would be historically inaccurate to say that America has a “Christian history.” Instead, the history of Christianity in the United States is about multiple Christianities, Maverick yet Mainstream 227 Christian histories. The absence of a legalized, nationally mandated religious tradition has allowed for the kind of experimentation and flowering of traditions that we find in U.S. religious history. What has always fascinated me about American religious history has been the inventiveness, moxie, and general chutzpah that men and women have shown. If Americans , especially Christians, do not like a tradition they try to reform it, and if their efforts fail then they break off and form their own movement. These breakaway movements are usually informed, at least in part, by the traditions from which they stem, and this historical link is part of the new movement’s history, too, whether or not it is publicly acknowledged.1 Those Christian retreats and encounters that branched off from Catholic and Protestant Cursillos were both inspired and repelled by their parent movements. Their aim has been to improve upon the Cursillos to create a better encounter for the individuals involved and to facilitate the continuity of renewal. Some of the founders branched off because of dissatisfaction with their Fourth-Day encounter; others were told that they could not make certain modifications and still call themselves a mainline Fourth-Day movement. While some kept the seventy-two-hour weekend others shortened it, modifying the three days in ways that are not deemed in covenant by Fourth-Day movement leaders. Yet despite the disagreements and differences that prompted their formation, when we examine the nonmainstream “Fourth-Day-esque” encounters, these branches of the branches, we see that they aim for the same thing as do their mainstream Fourth-Day counterparts: to put men and women in touch with the Holy Spirit and Christ. They offer a lay-focused weekend and method to cultivate a renewed Christianity. Fourth-Day movements and all of their offshoots, in covenant or not, aim to create a revitalized lay apostolate. The men and women who go on these retreats want to experience community, healing, and wholeness, and many take their weekend messages and experiences and try to make the world a better place, which for them means to live their faith in their daily lives. In this chapter I will focus on two of the more successful of these Fourth-Day movement offshoots, in terms of geographic spread and numbers of men and women who have made one of their retreats: Christ Renews His Parish (CRHP), the Catholic encounter that branched off of the Catholic Cursillos in 1969, and Great Banquet, which branched off of the Methodist Walk to Emmaus in 1992. They are mavericks in the...

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