Escondido's Harald Bredesen Dies After Fall At Age 88; Lutheran Minister Helped Form Pat Robertson's Ministry
(SCCN) -- December 29, 2006 - ESCONDIDO – The Reverend Harald Bredesen, a charismatic preacher who helped form the ministry of Pat Robertson, has died tonight after falling on his stairs Tuesday.
The 88-year-old died peacefully at Palomar Hospital from complications from the fall, according to his assistant Tom Gilbreath.
Bredesen was often called the father of the Charismatic Movement whose adherents now number in the hundreds of millions.
He had professional success immediately out of seminary, having worked for the World Council of Churches as the Public Relations Secretary for the World Council of Christian Education. However, Harald felt something missing in his life and walk with God. In 1946, he went to a Pentecostal camp meeting where he received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Bredesen became friends with evangelist Pat Robertson while they both lived in New York in the late 1950s. Robertson called his ministry to world leaders “legendary.”
In his introduction to Harald’s book, Yes, Lord, entertainer Pat Boone wrote, "Abraham . . . Moses . . . Gideon . . . Elijah . . . I think I've known a man like these. His name is Harald Bredesen. Miracles trail him wherever he goes."
Bredesen was the founder of the Prince of Peace Prize, given to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1980, Mother Teresa in 1989, posthumously to King Hussein of Jordan (with King Abdullah receiving in his father’s stead) in 1999, and to Billy Graham in 2004. Sadat called the occasion he received the award “the high point of my entire life, more important to me even than the Nobel Peace Prize. That was in the political arena. This was spiritual.”
A Lutheran minister, Bredesen became the first ordained clergyman from a mainline denomination to receive the Pentecostal experience of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, openly tell of his experience, and keep his ordination and credentials in a mainline denomination. In a letter to the editor of Eternity Magazine, Harald Bredesen and Jean Stone Willans coined the term “Charismatic Renewal.”
In the late-1950s, he introduced Pat Robertson to the experience. Robertson went on to found the Christian Broadcasting Network where Harald was a founding board member. In Pat Robertson: A Personal, Political, and Religious Portrait, historian David Harrell wrote, “In the long run it was a chance encounter with Harald Bredesen that had the most far-reaching effect on the life and career of Pat Robertson.”
He met and married Genevieve Corrick in 1954.
In 1957, he was called to pastor the historic First Reformed Church of Mount Vernon, New York and soon invited Robertson to join him as Assistant Pastor. Together with others who had received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Harald and Pat hosted Pentecostal style meetings in the old church during off hours. At one of those meetings, they felt the Lord wanted them to go public with their experiences.
Bredesen hosted the long running Christian Broadcasting Network television program, “Charisma.” He authored the books Yes, Lord and Need A Miracle?, the CD “Toolkit for Eternity: A Walk with Harald Bredesen,” and the video, “How to Receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.”
He is survived by his wife, Genevieve; his children, Dagni, Margaret, Christopher, and David; and five grandchildren.
Memorial Services are currently being arranged.
