The Internet Monk
"Read.Think.React.Write.Live."
A Webjournal edited by Michael Spencer
Why The Show Must Not Go On
My Problem With Revivalism
by Michael Spencer
I
have grown up around revivals. I realize that sentence is going to
connect- or not connect- with my readers on a number of levels. If you
grew up in southern fundamentalism, then you know exactly what I mean by
revivals: week long meetings. Evangelists in colorful suits. Special
musicians. Excitement and enticements to fill the building every night.
(Pack-a pew night) Lots of sinners getting saved (and resaved) and lots
of Christians "rededicating" or otherwise getting right with
God.
If you grew up in another tradition, you may associate revivals with rural, southern religion, emotionalism and shady "Elmer Gantry" tactics. If you are an evangelical of less fundamentalist roots, you may think of Billy Graham crusades. If you are a modern charismatic or Pentecostal, then revival may mean an unusual demonstration of the Holy Spirit's power, resulting in manifestations running the gamut from healing to laughing to passing out. If you are more reformed, you may think of revival as an extended, unprompted visitation of the Holy Spirit, doing His ordinary work in extraordinary ways. If you are a Roman Catholic or an unbeliever, you may have no idea what a revival is, and you are probably grateful.
I grew up around revivals, and I have not been able to get away from them. In the situation where I minister and the culture where I live, revivals are alive and well. The ministry I serve has two a year, with outside preachers, special musicians and lots of aisle walking and public decisions. I've sat in revivals that were obviously blessed by the Holy Spirit with Christ centered preaching and a genuine work of grace. And I have sat in revivals that were embarrassing in their foolishness and tackiness. Now I know that God is not hindered by our foolishness, and often chooses to use it, but I also know that much of what I have seen revivals would qualify as an affront to God and a declaration of independence from any loyalty to scripture.
I have taken the time to understand the history of revivalism, and it has helped me understand how deeply imbedded they are in the consciousness of many Christian traditions. That history is available to anyone who wants to read it (Revivals and Revivalism, Ian Murray). In short, revivalism is the victory of pragmatism over the authority of scripture. It is the explication of Finney's belief that means are neutral if ends are evangelistic, and that when sufficient means are employed, the desired results are insured. I grew up with this explicitly Finney-esque pragmatism. We had systematic prayer meetings, manipulative promotions and military-style campaigns and organization. I've watched evangelists use every trick in the book to get people down the aisle, including wrenching stories, mesmerizing music, grotesque pictures and nearly irresistible peer pressure. And I have lived with the resulting hallowing of pragmatic methodology, taking the church away from its confidence that scripture is sufficient in matters of method as well as message.
Those who regularly read IM know that I have very little good to say about the seeker sensitive movement, but I will commend them for eliminating revivals. They reasons are quite pragmatic- unchurched Harry and Mary don't get it- but I will commend them for one honest discovery. Revivals are no longer evangelistic. The revival era I grew up in was utterly convinced that non-Christians would come to such meeting, but with the exceptions of true spectacles like a Billy Graham Crusade or a meeting featuring converted athletes, rock stars or celebrities, unbelievers stayed away like Enron executives from an IRS audit. That's a worthy discovery, and if we are going to have "special and protracted meetings," then let's at least use them to build up and encourage the Christian, rather than pretending that the building is full of unbelievers.
This brings me to one of the problems of revivalism that very few want to face. Because unbelievers are not present, and evangelistic results are crucial for revivals to be justified, revivalists have accepted the "reconversion" of Christians as an acceptable work of the Holy Spirit. Anyone familiar with revivalism knows that the results of any meeting will contain a large majority of Christians deciding that really weren't Christians after all, but now, under the guidance of the evangelist, they are really going to be Christians this time. As a youth minister for 27 years, I have seen the worst of this, and even my own personal and vocal opposition to rebaptism hasn't stopped young people in my ministry from being baptized as many as five times.
The Biblical and theological problems here are immense. My main objection is the denial of the nature of saving faith as simple trust (minus emotion) for some notion of "perfect event and perfect feeling" faith. When dealing with young people, their normal sense of growing and changing from year to year provides a playground for revivalists to use the "Are you absolutely sure?" approach and get lots of Christians to decide they aren't sure, and therefore aren't Christians. With a definition of faith that stops and ends with "feeling close to God," this is an insurance of many reconversions. Revivalists even love to brag about this sort of thing, seeming to think it is really great to say here is someone who was a deacon and a Sunday School teacher for 25 years, and is only now getting the real deal. This is, of course, considerably upsetting to the individual's spouse, children, students, parents, etc. I have seen deacons reconvert and continue serving as deacons. Since they weren't converted when they were ordained, isn't there a problem here?
My observation is that a continual diet of revivalism (or any continuous emphasis on evangelism for that matter) uproots the foundations of Christian growth and seriously hinders the development of Christians into maturity. Again, my experience in youth ministry in this environment is that a continual emphasis on "Are you sure you are saved?" does not produce Christians motivated to grow in Christ and serve God from a knowledge of God. In fact, when I came to my current ministry, I noted with irony that many (sometimes most) of the Christian youth who were motivated to grow and had assurance of salvation came from backgrounds of infant baptism, and not from fundamentalistic revivalism. Yes, Roman Catholics more interested in discipleship than those good Baptist kids in my youth groups. Thank you, revivalism.
Revivalism has also had a lethal effect on worship. In churches with a strong revivalistic tradition, worship as a Biblical covenant renewal ceremony has often ceased to exist, and worship services became generally pragmatic evangelistic endeavors with a great focus on the invitation. I hardly knew what worship was after growing up in this atmosphere. When I began to grow as a Christian by studying the doctrines of the Bible and discovering the great heritage of faith that existed in the worship of other churches, I felt cheated, and later, manipulated. Today, revivalism has allowed churches to be turned into everything but worshipping, teaching congregations. The only question that will be asked: Will it Work? Or, to be more exact, did we get decisions?
I fear the seeker sensitive movement took the whole bait and swallowed the hook entirely. The displacement of worship for evangelism and church growth in those churches is producing a generation of Christians who know less about the faith than any generation in history. I see this in college students who come to work with our ministry. With extremely rare exceptions, these students seem almost totally clueless about the gospel, and many of their testimonies and sermons could easily be accepted in non-Christian settings. There is little or no evidence of discipling beyond learning the lyrics to Contemporary Christian songs and listening to an occasional motivational speaker. I do not think this is their fault. I think it is the heritage of revivalism, and it's emphasis of evangelism to the exclusion of everything else.
In fact, revivalism seems to produce a certain kind of Christian. I am talking about Christians highly oriented towards individuals as conduits of the Holy Spirit. Not simple celebrity adoration or fan behavior, but a sense that anointed individuals speak for God more than scripture speaks as God. I am also talking about Christians who desire crisis experiences rather than ordinary growth in grace and knowledge of Christ. Revivalists often announce that the meeting is a crisis point, and endue individual meetings and events with bizarre significance. (One most hear Rod Parsley's constant promotion of a meeting as divine breakthrough or blessing or inauguration of the end-times to appreciate how this works.) And I am talking about Christians who are remarkably disengaged from anything other than evangelism. The Great Commission is the command of Jesus, but evangelism is an end result, not the be all and end all. The misplacement of evangelism into the entire definition of discipleship has produced a self-centered, numb sub-culture of revivalism.
Revivalism has given itself the mantle of the highest work of God within His church. It is remarkable how many Southern Baptist pastors of my acquaintance are blindly devoted to revivalism, and believe the answers to problems in the church are the right meetings with the right evangelists leading to the right people walking the aisle. (The entire denomination has this fascination, with evangelists themselves leading the emphasis.) This seems, well, pathetic, given what we are facing. The issues facing the church today demand a thorough reformation and a sweeping revival, with revival being a deep and thorough work of the Holy Spirit in restoring the place of the Bible and the sovereignty of God over the failed pragmatic efforts of human beings. Such a revival and restoration have happened in history, but has little relationship to the revival meetings under discussion..
Thankfully, there are revival and reformation movements alive in nearly every denomination today, and God is stirring up his people to pray for the restoration of the Gospel and the Word of God in our sick churches. But part of reformation is the dismantling of the idols of the past, and revivalism must be dismantled if the regular worship of the church is to be restored to its Biblical place, and if the authority of the Bible in methodology is going to be restored as well. My own opposition to revivalism is often misunderstood, but I am against revivalism for a simple reason: because I love the church, and our churches will not be strong again until the false answer of revivalism is rejected.