The Internet Monk
"Read.Think.React.Write.Live."
A Webjournal edited by Michael Spencer
What Happened to the 9/11 Revival?
We're all so "spiritual" now- right?
by Michael Spencer
It
is a fact, I suppose, that there were more people in church in America a
few Sundays following 9/11. The media, both those who should know better
and the utterly ignorant, proclaimed this a revival. Now, a year later,
the spike in attendance has vanished, and America has turned its back on
God again. (Sigh) Another spiritual awakening comes and goes.
Like the Gulf War revival, the Laughing Revival, the Brownsville Revival and the recent announcement that the baby boomers were going back to church, this most recent spiritual mountaintop turned into a very temporary molehill. TBN has one four times a year, Benny Hinn is revival personified, and every evangelist I know claims to have been in the center of several revivals since the last time I saw them. We love spiritual awakenings in America. Hey, have you seen the sales of Christian music lately? Must be.....A REVIVAL!!
O yes reader, I jest. In the largest possible way. Like competing local weather broadcasts, the "spiritual awakening specialists" jump out of their chairs at the slightest blip on the screen. And I don't buy it. I'm not sure the majority of American media- Christian or otherwise- would know a true revival if it hit like an asteroid. The willingness of many religion watchers to portray the slight increase in post 9/11 church attendance as a "spiritual awakening," shows how totally clueless these people are about what genuine, God-sent, Biblical revival would look like.
Let's get one thing out of the way: people going to church in a time of national crisis may be a lot of things, some of them good, but its not revival. American churches have a harmless role that the citizenry shows up for from time to time. When a 9/11 happens, some people feel the need to stop in the office and make sure the insurance policy is paid up. Others go like angry reporters, expecting God to give an answer. (C.S. Lewis's "God in the Dock" image comes to mind.) Some people go with genuine motives to try and be better people, just in case they should wind up dead at some point. I am sure many go with no idea why they are there.
Of course, nothing about 9/11 brought anyone to church to hear the Gospel of Christ, though I am sure many heard it, a few received it, and most said "What does that have to do with anything?" Churches that avoided the Gospel might have had a better go of it, with sermons of recovery from tragedy, and helping victims cope and making sense of it all. Perhaps some firefighters and rescue workers were recognized. If the church was compassionate, perhaps some families were comforted. These are good things, in various degrees, but they are not spiritual awakenings, and they did not last.
(Apparently some churches thought that the 9/11 anniversary would bring another wave of high attendance. Alas, 'twas not to be. That brief moment of relevance- that moment when they liked us, they really liked us- it's over. More likely to be heard now is the cynical voices blaming all religion for making these events happen in the first place. So much for all your trouble.)
If you are a Christian whose brain contains more Bible than blah blah blah, then you have already figured this out. There was no spiritual awakening in 9/11. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is just as irrelevant to most Americans today as it was a year ago. The cross is just as offensive, the real Jesus (not the one in the Marine uniform and rifle) is just as ignored as before. The Bible is just as boring. Repentance has been bandied about some in the media, but I see no evidence that even minute numbers of people have a sense of their guilt before God. In fact, our national arrogance number is probably up a bit these last 12 months, at least when it comes to the question of "Will I go to hell if I died as I am right now?" We aren't justified by faith in Christ. We're justified by not being Islamic fanatics.
You see, the media is watching something we have labeled "spirituality." Spirituality is so vague, so nothing-in-particular and everything-in-general that one has to be educated into imbecility to even know what it is. It has nothing to do with actually believing a particular set of truths. It has nothing to do with sin, repentance, the Bible, hell, judgment, the cross or the Gospel. It's kind of an "everyone's invited" religious potluck, where everybody brings Jello and a non-descript Casserole. Then, when they ask you what you've eaten you say "You know, I have no idea, but it had cheese in it." So what's the point? Spirituality doesn't have a point. You can do whatever you want, and say you did it/believe it because you are spiritual. (Not religious, but spiritual. This disclaimer is mandatory to participate.) Whatever it means, there seems to be more of it than it than there used to be. And some people think that's a revival.
This distraction with spirituality means real spiritual awakening would not just be unrecognized. It would be unwelcome. Generic American Spirituality is all heaven and no hell. All group hugs and no judgment. Sin is unheard of and everyone is headed for the tunnel of light. Everyone makes it to that big Oprah show on the other side. Holiness, sin, conviction, the fear of the Lord- you'll never hear these things spoken about when Larry King interviews Marrianne WIlliamson and T.D. Jakes about America's post 9/11 spiritual awakening.
Evangelicals have another issue here. For the last two decades, they have sighted revivals everywhere. With so many books and conferences on revival and spiritual awakening, we have to actually have one. Or several if possible. So any church that can keep a crowd coming more than three days in a row is in a revival, even if it includes braying like donkeys and standing in one spot swaying for hours like a mental patient. Then the resulting books, tape series, cds, t-shirts and conferences will tell you how to have one, too.
Is this real, post 9/11 spiritual hunger? Perhaps one of the most distressing Biblical pronouncements is the verdict that "as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God." (Romans 3:10-11) The Bible's message that we are at war with God, and actually prefer hell to obeying our Creator seems to fly in the face of all those candle-lit 9/11 prayer meetings. Who is reading all those Chicken Soup For The Soul books? My answer won't be popular. With few exceptions (but some exceptions,) the spiritual boom town in America is not populated by people who have any interest in the God of the Bible, but is full of flattered and flattering idolaters dressing up their contempt for God in the costume of 'spirituality."
To the extent that American Christians go along with this, they participate in idolatry, and instead of giving a clear witness to the Gospel, give a false assurance to those happily taking the road to hell that they are on the path to heaven. The cross at Ground Zero is a powerful symbol- for those who believe the Son of God is the ultimate Ground Zero, and their sins the ultimate terrorist weapon against the most innocent of victims. But to those who believe that an undiscriminating god is sprinkling signs of his unconditional approval and sympathy on us without a call to repentance and Holiness, it is deception, pure and simple.
There is no 9/11 revival. The revival we should be praying for is a revival of God's glory and God's gospel in our churches and among Christians. The "spiritual awakening" you'll see on 20/20 is one more manifestation of human depravity and confusion. The false prophets and pathetic shepherds who extol and approve this phenomenon as genuine are manifesting their own spiritual darkness. Those who see in the events of 9/11 a warning to flee from the wrath to come and an echo of Jesus' words, "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish," they are the true voices of hope.