Thread: The notion of 'revival' Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on
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1. What, exactly, do people want revived when they pray for, or sing their little ditties about, 'send revival', 'revival in our land', etc.?
2. Why should/shouldn't people pray/sing about it, rather than just pray for God's will?
It's just another one of those charismatic-evangelical things things that has appeared in CofE churches in the last 15 years or so (at least, that's when I noticed it).
K.
[ 01. October 2012, 10:53: Message edited by: Komensky ]
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
1. What, exactly, do people want revived when they pray for, or sing their little ditties about, 'send revival', 'revival in our land', etc.?
2. Why should/shouldn't people pray/sing about it, rather than just pray for God's will?
It's just another one of those charismatic-evangelical things things that has appeared in CofE churches in the last 15 years or so (at least, that's when I noticed it).
K.
It's been going on for years. Part of my disillusionment with the whole movement came from the way that there'd be talk of how, whatever it was, it was just around the corner, and people would have "pictures" implying it was about to burst on us, and how God was preparing his people for it, and how He was going to do a New Thing, and everything carried on as normal.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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Welsh style roof-raising, maybe?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
1. What, exactly, do people want revived when they pray for, or sing their little ditties about, 'send revival', 'revival in our land', etc.?
What are the criteria for "little ditties"?
How do they differ from songs and hymns?
quote:
2. Why should/shouldn't people pray/sing about it, rather than just pray for God's will?
Perhaps some people think, with good reason, that revival is manifestly God's will.
quote:
It's just another one of those charismatic-evangelical things things that has appeared in CofE churches in the last 15 years or so (at least, that's when I noticed it).
If you had more than the merest nodding acquaintance with Church History you would be aware that it is a tradition stretching back to the early eighteenth century at least.
[ 01. October 2012, 11:10: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
1. What, exactly, do people want revived when they pray for, or sing their little ditties about, 'send revival', 'revival in our land', etc.?
Usually, a great turning to God, but often with an unthinking subtext, 'like the great revivals of the past', Wales 1904, Lewis 1949. There hasn't been one since. quote:
2. Why should/shouldn't people pray/sing about it, rather than just pray for God's will?
Just praying for God's will sounds a bit vague. Not praying that there should be a great turning to God is a bit indefensible unless one is a very extreme Calvinist. quote:
It's just another one of those charismatic-evangelical things things that has appeared in CofE churches in the last 15 years or so (at least, that's when I noticed it).
Is it? Why do you say that? I don't think it's quite as recent or as exclusively charismatic-evangelical as that.
If one looks further back over history, there seem to have been other times when the tide has been out, as it feels as it is now, and then when it has swept in. The second half of the eighteenth century saw something that looks like a revival in Britain. Something similar seems to have happened on the continent in the era of the early Franciscans.
Looking around, one has to be almost denying one's faith not to conclude that we desperately need a great turning to God. I suspect though, that when it happens, it won't look all that like the great revivals of the past. I also suspect that trying to bring one on by copying the externals of the great revivals of the past and somehow thinking God will reward that might be missing the point.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
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Some atheists look forward to the final death of religion. They're dissatisfied with the number of people who believe (or rather don't) as they do (or rather don't). It looks a bit like the flip-side of the belief that revival is just round the corner and there'll be lots of conversions - how much of this is driven by dissatisfaction with the number of people who believe as we do?
Just a kite I'm flying.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Some atheists look forward to the final death of religion.
I'm getting a picture of a slowly deflating bouncy castle. The people on it stop bouncing. They are no longer leaping around and crashing into each other. They look alarmed as it lowers gently them to the ground. "What's gone wrong?" they ask. Then they step onto the grass. They look disappointed. One or two of them try bouncing on the grass, but it doesn't make them happy. Then some of them sit down. They start talking to each other. Someone picks a daisy. A child finds a beetle. It's quiet without the blower, and you can hear birdsong from the trees. Someone opens a hamper. A wine cork pops.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
It's been going on for years. Part of my disillusionment with the whole movement came from the way that there'd be talk of how, whatever it was, it was just around the corner, and people would have "pictures" implying it was about to burst on us, and how God was preparing his people for it, and how He was going to do a New Thing, and everything carried on as normal.
FWIW I remember that one of those sermons was the final straw that turned me away from charismatic fundamentalism. Which with hindsight is a bit irrational in that the movement produces plenty of worse things to object to.
I take Enoch's general point that if we think Christianity is a Good Thing then we should indeed hope that lots of people become Christians. I think the problem is that there is a whole theology of revival that doesn't seem to have any counterpart in Scripture - including the notion that Pentecost somehow failed and that we need a 'fresh outpouring' of God's spirit. (Which, although it is Biblical language, comes hand-in-hand with an idea that the Holy Spirit is a kind of force or power that you can be plugged into rather than a Person.)
Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on
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I do have some grasp of Church history, though for me the eighteenth century is a recent part. I've heard of the Wales example, but what was 'renewed'? This hasn't been answered. Was it a flash in the pan or did it endure?
K.
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I think the problem is that there is a whole theology of revival that doesn't seem to have any counterpart in Scripture - including the notion that Pentecost somehow failed and that we need a 'fresh outpouring' of God's spirit.
There's a song (is it called 'Send the Fire'?) which contains the line 'We need another Pentecost'. I understand what the author was getting at, but doesn't it carry an awful, theologically way off beam implication? As if the first time God sent the Holy Spirit wasn't enough so we need him to do it again.
IMO it'd be fantastic if many people came to faith in Christ, or to a fresh sense of his presence with them, but I think what's often missing from talk of revival is a renewed desire to be obedient to God. From what I've read about various so-called revivals in the past (like the Wales and Lewes ones from the last hundred years, and also others from longer ago), there's always a small group of people who really get into praying and obeying God more closely, then passing that on to others in an expanding circle of influence.
Posted by Lothiriel (# 15561) on
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They may be thinking as well of the Great Awakening in North America. This article describes several other periods of revival, such as Le Réviel in Europe in the 18th century.
The notion of revival seems to be well-entrenched in evangelical Protestantism -- in my evangelical days I was quite accustomed to hearing prayers that a new revival might begin -- and this was in a church at the liberal end of evangelicalism.
I suppose it could be argued that the Protestant Reformation itself was a revival of sorts.
[edited for early morning inability to write grammatically]
[ 01. October 2012, 12:17: Message edited by: Lothiriel ]
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
I do have some grasp of Church history, though for me the eighteenth century is a recent part. I've heard of the Wales example, but what was 'renewed'? This hasn't been answered. Was it a flash in the pan or did it endure?
K.
What is prayed for is a twofold experience - 1) that the life of the church would be renewed in prayer and devotion to Christ and 2) that people would be converted and become Christians.
What has often been seen in the revival of the church is the removal of community vices - drunkenness, poverty, family breakdown, etc.
Revivals always last for a short time but their influence and effect is lasting and is seen in the maturing of the newly converted into lifelong members of the church and the community.
The Welsh revival's effects were seriously curtailed, I guess, by the numbers of the young men who were converted in 1904 being marched off to the trenches in the Great War.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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Our little shack is quite Charismatic/Evamgelical in tone, a fair number of people do go on about 'Revival' and some songs reflect that. That said, as many take the view that the Holy Spirit won't do it on His own, so people had better get out of the building and do more than wishful thinking of a Sunday morning, which some of it does appear to be.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I think the problem is that there is a whole theology of revival that doesn't seem to have any counterpart in Scripture - including the notion that Pentecost somehow failed and that we need a 'fresh outpouring' of God's spirit.
There's a song (is it called 'Send the Fire'?) which contains the line 'We need another Pentecost'. I understand what the author was getting at, but doesn't it carry an awful, theologically way off beam implication? As if the first time God sent the Holy Spirit wasn't enough so we need him to do it again.
IMO it'd be fantastic if many people came to faith in Christ, or to a fresh sense of his presence with them, but I think what's often missing from talk of revival is a renewed desire to be obedient to God. From what I've read about various so-called revivals in the past (like the Wales and Lewes ones from the last hundred years, and also others from longer ago), there's always a small group of people who really get into praying and obeying God more closely, then passing that on to others in an expanding circle of influence.
The song is
This One and was written by the Salvation army's Founder Rev (General) William Booth.
the original line was 'We want another Pentecost' but in this, the Updated Version thaty line was changed to 'We need another Pentecost.'
The thought behind this is that we need a fresh infilling, a new experience of the Holy Spirit. This is precedented in Scripture of course in an episode, subsequent to Pentecost, often called
The Little Pentecost
Some people, including some Salvationists it has to be said, have questioned the idea that the Holy Spirit can be given again for the reason that he was given to the church and is already here. I don't subscribe to that idea because the Church does not 'possess' the Spirit, it doesn't not keep it and then pass it on to it's members. The Holy Spirit moves as and where he wills and it is my understanding - along with that of the Apostles HERE that the Spirit comes again and again and didn't come 'once and for all' on the Day of Pentecost.
So, can we (need we) sing 'We want/need another Pentecost? Well, judging by the lifelessness of much of western Christianity, you bet we do!
Send the Fire!
Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on
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I see that we've already drifted into another problem. Rather than The Holy Spirit as part of the Trinity, the persion is seen as an 'it' and considered a magic power sent to us. I'm so sick of this; the idea that one person of the Trinity is a 'power' that we somehow 'get'. I got this same malarkey on Sunday ('send us power!', etc.).
Depressed by it all,
K.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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I think you misunderstand.
The Holy Spirit is never an 'it' and we affirm and gladly celebrate the unity of the Spirit with the Father and Son.
But the Scripture, indeed Jesus himself, does speak of the Spirit being 'sent' and on him 'falling upon' people and 'filling them.
When we speak of 'the fire' or 'the power' we are speaking of the effect that He has upon us - Jesus did say, of course, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
There is nothing wrong - indeed it's very right to do so - with allowing the Holy Spirit free reign independently, as a person, from the Father and Son; all three or course being one in essence etc, but having differing roles.
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
That said, as many take the view that the Holy Spirit won't do it on His own, so people had better get out of the building and do more than wishful thinking of a Sunday morning, which some of it does appear to be.
Exactly my view; God's chosen way of working seems to be, in the main at least, through his followers as we do what he asks.
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The thought behind this [we want / need another Pentecost] is that we need a fresh infilling, a new experience of the Holy Spirit. This is precedented in Scripture of course in an episode, subsequent to Pentecost, often called The Little Pentecost...
The Holy Spirit moves as and where he wills and it is my understanding - along with that of the Apostles HERE that the Spirit comes again and again and didn't come 'once and for all' on the Day of Pentecost.
Yeah but... ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I'm with you completely on the concept of people needing a fresh infilling or experience of the Holy Spirit. But to call it another or a little Pentecost - I think that detracts from the sense in which the first Pentecost marked a transformation of how God interacts with humanity. 'In that day I will pour out my Spirit on all people'.
Maybe I'm getting overly hung up on the precise language - it wouldn't be the first time! - but if we think Pentecost marked something unique, something new, then I think we should recognise that in the words we use. So 'fresh outpouring', 'fresh infilling' or whatever is fine, but I think I'd rather avoid 'another Pentecost'.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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Yes, I think you are getting hung up on the language. In fact you are narrowing the meaning of the Biblical language too much. You are suggesting that the Holy Spiorit could only be poured out on the very day of Pentecost in AD33. Can I ask then, how does he get to me? Who gives him to me?
The too-narrow lannguage stems from your misquote about 'on that day I will pour my Spirit on all people' - apart from the fact that not 'all people' were there on that day, and allowing for the fact that in the passages I linked to, the HS was poured out either again or for the first time on days after the day of Pentecost, I would want to quote correctly what the prophecy said:
"In the last days, God says, I will pour oput my Spirit on all people..."
The Last Days are not a couple of days at Pentecost bank holiday weekend the year Jesus died.
The Last Days are now. We've been in the Last Days since the resurrection!
And it's during these Last Days that the Spirit is available to all people - and all of us have our own personal, direct and living experience of the Holy Spirit that is not dependent upon or sourced from the first Day of Pentecost when the Apostles were filled.
Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on
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There is good scriptural precedent for the idea that the Holy Spirit is personally responsible for the empowerment of the various charismata, ecclesial offices and activities which he distributes to Christian people as he chooses.
It is also very possible for the church to have outward appearance of these gifts, services and activities without them being true manifestations of the Holy Spirit's empowering presence. They can be counterfeited.
Revival, as I understand it, is when the Holy Spirit empowers the gifts, ministries and activities of the church is an especially effective way thereby resulting in renewed devotion to Christ, new zeal in evangelism and an increase in conversions to Christ.
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
"In the last days, God says, I will pour oput my Spirit on all people..."
The Last Days are not a couple of days at Pentecost bank holiday weekend the year Jesus died.
The Last Days are now. We've been in the Last Days since the resurrection!
Apologies for the misquote, and also for not explaining myself clearly. I agree with your understanding of the Last Days but what I meant was that Pentecost marked the start of those days, a new era in which God will pour out his Holy Spirit on all people. If Pentecost marked the start of the new era, we don't need another Pentecost, right?
Posted by Ramarius (# 16551) on
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I agree with Mudfrog. If you chart the history of Israel you see cycles of apostasy and turning back to Yahweh - that's a kind of revival mirrored in the life of the church (the new community of faith). Revival outside the church is large numbers of people from various people groups turning to Christ in repentance and faith. I think that's a fairly standard definition, and as a working definition probably what most people I know would have in mind when they hear the words.
As for a "coming revival" I think we might be better off thinking of a "coming here" revival. There is massive church growth in S America parts of Africa, China and Korea. Even in the UK there are examples of large and growing churches, mainly in cities. Committed church attendance in N Ireland also remains strong despite all the political changes.
What a revival in the UK would like like is an interesting question.....
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
"In the last days, God says, I will pour oput my Spirit on all people..."
The Last Days are not a couple of days at Pentecost bank holiday weekend the year Jesus died.
The Last Days are now. We've been in the Last Days since the resurrection!
Apologies for the misquote, and also for not explaining myself clearly. I agree with your understanding of the Last Days but what I meant was that Pentecost marked the start of those days, a new era in which God will pour out his Holy Spirit on all people. If Pentecost marked the start of the new era, we don't need another Pentecost, right?
I agree that Pentecost did indeed mark a new dispensation - I am a dispensationalist after all ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
- Jesus had said of the Spirit that he lives with you with you and will be in you.
I agree that from that Day on, the Spirit was to be/was being poured out on all flesh.
And that beginning cannot be repeated. You can't have 'January 1st' twice in a year
But we need to look at the context of the song - and it's only a song:
'We want another Pentecost' is in a prayer for a revived experience of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Christ's people.
On the AD33 event the Spirit came with power, with a miracle of communication, with converting power as thousands came to know salvation in the name of Jesus.
It isn't a first descent of the Spirit, a new dispensation, that Booth was calling for in his song, it was a renewed occurrence of the power in the lives of the believers that he wanted. Power to be bold in wi
tness, power to be holy, power to see thousands brought into the Kingdom.
I cannot read these verses without feeling they should be turned into another verse of Booth's hymn, with the refrain, 'Send the Fire!' the answer to that prayer being this next sentence
Pentecost as a day of beginnings and a changhe in how God deals with people, a new dispensation indeed - no of course that is unrepeatable. But to pray for another Pentecost simply with a desire to see great a wonderful things done under the power of the Spirit - as of course we see repeated in Acts 4 - that that is an entirely different matter and wholly in keeping with Scripture and the experience of the church as revivals have come to it.
Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on
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quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
"In the last days, God says, I will pour oput my Spirit on all people..."
The Last Days are not a couple of days at Pentecost bank holiday weekend the year Jesus died.
The Last Days are now. We've been in the Last Days since the resurrection!
Apologies for the misquote, and also for not explaining myself clearly. I agree with your understanding of the Last Days but what I meant was that Pentecost marked the start of those days, a new era in which God will pour out his Holy Spirit on all people. If Pentecost marked the start of the new era, we don't need another Pentecost, right?
Well, it depends on how you see Pentecost doesn't it? If you see Pentecost as a once and for all time universal endowment of the Holy Spirit on the church, then I guess you'd think not. If, on the other hand, you see Pentecost as an event some aspects of which are unique and some aspects of which are repeatable (as I think we can see in the book of Acts) then I guess you'd think yes.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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The question still remains as to whether the Holy Spirit was (only) given at Pentecost - to 'the church', it seems - or whether he can come subsequently to individuals as a personal experience.
I guess there would be those who would say that this 3rd person of the Trinity has been given to 'the church' and it is therefore in the gift of said 'Church' to dispense 'the Lord and Giver of Life' through its Princes whenever they confirm a youth who kneels before themn in a local parish church.
I cannot see how the church can possess and then transmit the Spirit who, in the time of Jesus, but evidently no longer, used to blow wherever it pleases.'
Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on
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I tend to look at it from another angle. The Church proper is comprised only of people who have been baptised, by Jesus, in the Holy Spirit.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I tend to look at it from another angle. The Church proper is comprised only of people who have been baptised, by Jesus, in the Holy Spirit.
I entirely agree with you - we have all been baptised by the one Spirit into the one Body.
But, as the disciples discovered, they could experience the power of that Spirit in Acts 2 and then have a subsequent, similar experience in Acts 4
And as Paul suggests, we need to keep on beinjg filled. I know, as do you, that there are times when, for whatever reason, my vital experience of the Spirit wanes and I need to experience a fresh infilling, a personal pentecostal-type enduement for power, purity and and witness.
One of the greatest untruths foisted upon the church is to believe that it has an experience that it has never received. To presume an experience of the Holy Spirit just because others have that experience is likely to prevent one from having a vital experience in the first place. Once we stop seeking we stop finding.
Oh dear, this has turned into a rather bad homily...sorry ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on
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Also, I'm inclined to think that "the wind blowing wherever it pleases" isn't actually a reference to the person of the Holy Spirit. I think it's a reference to Spirit filled people. People do not know where Spirit filled people are "coming from". quote:
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8 ESV)
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
Also, I'm inclined to think that "the wind blowing wherever it pleases" isn't actually a reference to the person of the Holy Spirit. I think it's a reference to Spirit filled people. People do not know where Spirit filled people are "coming from". quote:
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8 ESV)
It's a play on words surely - wind/spirit?
So it is with everyone born of the Spirit - i.e. we don't understand how the new birth comes to everyone, it's like the wind blowing where it wants; the Spirit 'does his own thing'.
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on
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Mudfrog: quote:
Revivals always last for a short time but their influence and effect is lasting and is seen in the maturing of the newly converted into lifelong members of the church and the community.
And eventually there is a whole new crop converted or born into Christianity who could use the focused attention a Revival gives to the faith. The Church is close to 2,000 years old, but its current adherents are mostly under 100 and some might be kind of muzzy on the details and the personal umph.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Mudfrog: quote:
Revivals always last for a short time but their influence and effect is lasting and is seen in the maturing of the newly converted into lifelong members of the church and the community.
And eventually there is a whole new crop converted or born into Christianity who could use the focused attention a Revival gives to the faith. The Church is close to 2,000 years old, but its current adherents are mostly under 100 and some might be kind of muzzy on the details and the personal umph.
Indeed - we could sure use a revival right now
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Indeed - we could sure use a revival right now
I think that at the end of the day, this is exactly the sort of attitude that Komensky finds upsetting, and it runs in direct contradiction to that verse about the wind blowing where it listeth.
Revivals are not to use. Attempting to use a sovereign move of God? He's not a tame lion you know. That is not revival but revivalism. It's more like the prophets of Baal dancing round the altar than anything else.
Besides, even authentic revivals are not the panacea revivalists hope for. They can be a right pain in the neck. Read Jonathan Edwards or Wesley on the Great Awakening - and not just the bits revivalists quote. At the end of the day and taking the long view, they are not a better environment for the Church, just different.
I live where (arguably) one of the last great evangelical revivals in Western Europe started in the early 1960s: the gypsy revival, which subsequently spread worldwide, started a few miles from my house. Hard to believe here in secular France but there you have it. It had an undeniable effect and has spread worldwide. But its effect a couple of generations down the line is mixed. (Should I be happy that most of the inmates at my prison chapel services are gypsies?).
And Ramarius - the revival that's coming here? The problem I see with many of these fast-growing churches is that they are resolutely modernist in their culture (an insight for which I'm indebted to the book by former Economist editor Bill Emmott and some other guy called "God is Back"). It's great to have them, but how much can they say to a culture which is increasingly post-modern?
Finally, hatless, that was priceless. More Lord!
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
And Ramarius - the revival that's coming here? The problem I see with many of these fast-growing churches is that they are resolutely modernist in their culture (an insight for which I'm indebted to the book by former Economist editor Bill Emmott and some other guy called "God is Back"). It's great to have them, but how much can they say to a culture which is increasingly post-modern?
Ah, I read something about this point literally yesterday - here it is. The guy's coming from a particular angle (organic, simple churches are the way forward) but putting that to one side, he makes exactly the point Eutychus has just raised about much of organised Christianity being modernist in feel, but trying to operate in an increasingly post-modern environment. Here's a snippet:
quote:
I was asked to answer a simple set of questions for the Evangelical churches in Spain: why, since we have such a lovely Gospel, are Spaniards rejecting us?...
...here’s what my helpers and I came up with. Evangelicalism is an expression of Christianity that reflects the Enlightenment worldview. Spaniards skipped the Enlightenment. They went straight from the Ancient worldview[1] to postmodernism. That happened from the 1970’s to the 1990’s. Evangelicalism (and Liberalism, Pentecostalism, etc. etc.) expressed itself culturally in Enlightenment ways. That didn’t work for people with an Ancient worldview or a postmodern worldview. We weren’t speaking to them in their cultural language so the way we expressed ourselves sounded like static on the radio to them.
That’s fine for Spain but here’s the thing…the entire Western world is already postmodern. That includes the United States and Europe. You can hate postmodernism, complain about it, fight it, refuse to participate, do what you want, but in doing so you will choose not to communicate with postmoderns.
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
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I have no problem with charismatic evangelicals praying for revival, and I hope their prayer is answered - but it may not happen the way they expect it to.
Christian people have prayed for revival (and should do) long before there was any such thing as the charismatic movement, or even Protestantism.
I take a broad view - it simply means people turning back to God in Christ, never mind the hows, whys and wherefores.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I have no problem with charismatic evangelicals praying for revival, and I hope their prayer is answered - but it may not happen the way they expect it to.
That's like the Jews praying for the Messiah, and not recognising Him when He came. It won't just be the charismatic evangelicals who have difficulty recognising "revival".
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
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quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
here it is. The guy's coming from a particular angle (organic, simple churches are the way forward)
He apparently thinks that organic church means a load of youngish middle class professionals sitting round eating cookies with Bibles on their laps. ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
To my mind this picture could come from just about any church housegroup under the sun since about 1975 and there is absolutely nothing postmodern about it. (And besides, nobody in the next generation will be carting treeware around: they are more likely to be browsing their Bible on their iPad or smartphone).
I wish the church would stop studying the surrounding culture and trying to mimic it (usually about 20 years late) and simply start to live in it.
[ 02. October 2012, 07:36: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
]He apparently thinks that organic church means a load of youngish middle class professionals sitting round eating cookies with Bibles on their laps.
To my mind this picture could come from just about any church housegroup under the sun since about 1975 and there is absolutely nothing postmodern about it. (And besides, nobody in the next generation will be carting treeware around: they are more likely to be browsing their Bible on their iPad or smartphone).
I wish the church would stop studying the surrounding culture and trying to mimic it (usually about 20 years late) and simply start to live in it.
I've not been to an organic church nor a housechurch. But it strikes me that housechurches were not set up on post-modern principles. I imagine those set up in the 1970s were churches (with fixed theologies, leadership structures and so on) but without buildings. Am I wrong about that?
Postmodernism would suggest groups which held less strongly to those things, which might suggest that they're a different thing. Those groups I've heard of sound like places where the questions are more interesting than the answers and that are less concerned about passing on 'correct' theology and practice.
I'd welcome correction from the more knowledgeable.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
I like to think that I help run a church that is quite postmodern, but that we have achieved this by accident rather than design - and that this is the only way it can be done.
I'm very sceptical of calculated plans to set up an 'organic' or 'post-modern' church. The result tends to be fancy dress rather than DNA.
But I apologise for derailing the thread. It's probably a whole different topic from revival.
Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on
:
Two quick things. The clip about the evangelical movement in Spain being rejected: 'Evangelicalism is an expression of Christianity that reflects the Enlightenment worldview.' Seriously? The magic-loving, anti-intellectual, hocus-pocus evangelicals are reflecting the Enlightenment worldview? I think 'rejects', rather than 'reflects', must have been the word intended.
Eutychus hit the nail on the head about the charo-evo churches mimicking the world. But I would go one step further. The world they mimic (and really adore and love) is pop culture; and all the banality and 'whatever' attitude that comes with it.
Last Sunday I attended a popular evangelical C of E church here in Canterbury and heard just about every heresy and medieval biblical error you could hope to avoid (with some homophobia thrown in for good measure). This is absolutely par for the course with evangelicals, even in the C of E. Needless to say there were prayers for 'revival' during what they told us were intercessory prayers (which was really some woman's right-wing theological muddle). The 'revival' that got everyone so excited was the idea that schools and government would be filled with evangelical Christians (and this woman then gave God 'permission' to 'get some people out of the way' for this to happen). I say 'God', but the prayers were such a modalistic muddle that it was hard to tell to whom she was really praying. I don't see that 'dream' as a 'revival', as the scenario for which they so fervently prayed has never existed before. I raised a few questions with friends there about the theology of these prayers: "oh, whatever".
Keeping to the OP, this sort of desire for 'revival' is all part of the modern charo-evo paradigm, rather than the general desire (that several have written about so well in this thread) that God's kingdom flourishes as he wants.
K.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'm very sceptical of calculated plans to set up an 'organic' or 'post-modern' church. The result tends to be fancy dress rather than DNA.
How do you plan an organic church? Isn't that equivalent to 'and now we shall have a spontaneous burst of applause'?
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
I quite liked the lines
"Send revival
Start with me".
Repentance seems to come first.
One of my favourite comments on revival came from a South American evangelist, who had seen rapid church growth in his neck of the woods.
"Revival is an evangelist's dream and a pastor's nightmare!"
I think revival is often taken to mean a rapid increase in the numbers of folks drawn to believe and worship together. All such thoughts probably need to be weighed against the parable of the sower. Some seed falls on stony ground, some does start to grow, but short roots mean that the growth in short lived. Some growth lasts and flourishes.
Where you get a lot of "short-rooted" growth, it may look good for a while. Perhaps it's easy see that as revival, particularly if one is desperately looking for some signs of God at work?
But "all that glitters ..."
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
here it is. The guy's coming from a particular angle (organic, simple churches are the way forward)
He apparently thinks that organic church means a load of youngish middle class professionals sitting round eating cookies with Bibles on their laps.
To my mind this picture could come from just about any church housegroup under the sun since about 1975 and there is absolutely nothing postmodern about it. (And besides, nobody in the next generation will be carting treeware around: they are more likely to be browsing their Bible on their iPad or smartphone).
I wish the church would stop studying the surrounding culture and trying to mimic it (usually about 20 years late) and simply start to live in it.
Surely not? How do you put highlighter pen and post it note bookmarks in an electronic one?
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
I'd suggest that the vast majority of people who join religious movements on the back of revivals (in the form we're discussing here) have a short religious lifespan. When something is built on emotionalism, the minute it reduces, people lose interest.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'm very sceptical of calculated plans to set up an 'organic' or 'post-modern' church. The result tends to be fancy dress rather than DNA.
How do you plan an organic church? Isn't that equivalent to 'and now we shall have a spontaneous burst of applause'?
My point exactly.
At the risk of getting all prophetic here, I recently did some work on green walls (walls with lots of plants on them). A botanist explained that many of these green walls fade quickly because they are installed using plants grown in ideal conditions in a nursery. These look very nice at first but quickly wither because of the relatively harsh environment they are placed in.
His solution was to examine what sort of plants thrived on industrial brownfield sites. He then took a load of the relevant seeds and put them in the greenwall substrate. Some thrive, others don't. You can't plan how your greenwall will look, and it might not be so nice at first, but you have a much better chance of it lasting long term.
I think there's a metaphor for successful, culturally integrated church planting in there somewhere. Nursery-grown models just won't do it.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
Just a couple of thoughts that somehow fit in to this idea of a modern church trying to speak to a post-modern culture.
It seems that the nineteenth and early twentieth century church was very much at the heart of the community - it entertained them as well as provided for expression of religious fervour and faith. It was not unusual for people to be at church in the evenings for social gatherings and fellowships and to find there all they needed.
That is so not the case today.
Secondly, the church provided something to belong to, to join, to be committed to, to be loyal to. From my observation, even among young Christians, people in today's society don't want to belong, they don't want to join up[, commit, sign up or be loyal to something - football being the only exception! Political parties, pop music fan clubs, local women's guilds, the Freeemasons and even libraries find it difficult to recruit new members - no one wants to join committees or commit to making the tea anymore.
That seriously impacts on church activities or all kinds.
And finally - when I look at the Salvation Army song book, apart from all the church hymns we have included - Anglican, Catholic and Methodist (lots olf Wesley!) - there are a lot of nineteenth century revivalist hymns, lots of songs about 'coming to Jesus', praying for forgiveness, asking for holiness and freedom from sin and death.
Is it this message that the postmodern world is deaf and blind to? Is it that we no longer worry about personal sin - what was a sin yesterday, today is personal choice, lifestyle choice, and has no bearing on our souls. Bad language, sexual desire, and so much else, is no longer a sin; and if it is 'wrong' our behaviour is a merely a 'weakness', a 'mistake', 'the way we were brought up', 'caused by the recession/unemployment social inequality', etc, etc. There is no (or very little) personal acceptance of our own sin.
Does this make the message of repentance, forgiveness, salvation and purity of heart (sanctification) a total irrelevance to the post modern world?
Why are we talking of a saviour to a world that doesn't believe it is sinning?
My only answer is this:
Before the Methodist revivals under Wesley, eighteenth century England was much the same - the bahvahiour of 'ordinary people' was a sinful and godless as can be. It is said that when Wesley cam,e to Newcastle he deplored the foul language of the Geordies (I'm surprised he understood it!). The preaching, combined with the revival power that came as the Holy Spirit 'moved' was the only way things changed.
In the mid nineteenth century things were similar - English society was either respectable but hypocritical or poor and godless. People who knew nothing whatever about the spiritual life, about the Christian faith, were 'swept into the church' under waves of conviction of sin and the need for their repentance.
I am convinced that we are in a similar state - and revival from God is needed for one thing alone: to "convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment." (John 16 v 8)
When people realise their need of a Saviour from sin, that's the time when the message of the church is needed, is heard and when people respond in thjeir thousands.
It has nothing to do, ISTM, with whether the church programmes are relevant to our culture, it's all to do with sin.
We are only relevant when people believe they are sinners. When the Spirit comes (in revival) it is he who will convince then of that fact. That is the common denominator of all revivals.
We will know it's a revival for one thing - people will repent of their sin before God.
(And that, incidentally, is why the Toronto Blessing was never a revival (whatever it may have been ) - there was no repentance.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Bad language, sexual desire, and so much else, is no longer a sin...
That was very bad: I don't mean to say that sexual desire is a sin! I meant misdirected or immoral desire - you know. I think you understand where I'm coming from...
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'm very sceptical of calculated plans to set up an 'organic' or 'post-modern' church. The result tends to be fancy dress rather than DNA.
How do you plan an organic church? Isn't that equivalent to 'and now we shall have a spontaneous burst of applause'?
My understanding of organic church, as Frank Viola describes it, is that it's not planned in the formal sense. What happens springs up as a result of particular giftings and needs. The conditions have to be right, as they do in a wild meadow. These days environmentalists often intervene to help create the right conditions for a wild meadow to attract native flora and fauna, but that doesn't mean they're 'planning' the meadow.
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I'd suggest that the vast majority of people who join religious movements on the back of revivals (in the form we're discussing here) have a short religious lifespan. When something is built on emotionalism, the minute it reduces, people lose interest.
Yes, I reckon you're right - with the caveat that if people become genuine disciples of Jesus (i.e. people seriously committed to following his example and teaching) then they may well stick it out. I've read in a few different places recently this idea that the focus should be on making (and ourselves being) disciples, not on growing the church as such. Jesus said he'll build his church; he told us to make disciples.
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It seems that the nineteenth and early twentieth century church was very much at the heart of the community... That is so not the case today.
Secondly, the church provided something to belong to, to join, to be committed to, to be loyal to. From my observation, even among young Christians, people in today's society don't want to belong, they don't want to join up, commit, sign up or be loyal to something...
My sense is there's a great yearning to belong, just this manifests itself in a different way than how it did, say, 30 years ago. Sure, membership of all kinds of organisation has been plummeting for many years - but I think that has come from a growing distrust of institutions. And that's what the article I linked to earlier was getting at - if our model of doing church is institutional (or just comes across that way) and has at its heart an expectation that people will formally sign up to something, then perhaps it's going to seem irrelevant to a growing number of people.
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The conditions have to be right, as they do in a wild meadow. These days environmentalists often intervene to help create the right conditions for a wild meadow to attract native flora and fauna, but that doesn't mean they're 'planning' the meadow.
That is a fabulous analogy! I shall steal it, if I may...
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I have no problem with charismatic evangelicals praying for revival, and I hope their prayer is answered - but it may not happen the way they expect it to.
That's like the Jews praying for the Messiah, and not recognising Him when He came. It won't just be the charismatic evangelicals who have difficulty recognising "revival".
I see what you mean - we could show them statistics of the sudden growth in other churches, but they would say, "ah, but they're not proper christians. Never-the-less, their prayer will still have been answered, even if they don't acknowledge it.
Disclaimer:
My example is pure speculation - this may not be what would happen at all.
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
:
Thanks for this Mudfrog. (I'm referring to your long post on the necessity of acknowledgement of sin and repentance for genuine revival.)
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
I actually have some sympathy with Komensky’s skepticism about revival, but dislike his supercilious tone (“little ditties”) and ahistorical attitude that revival is just another modern charismatic gimmick (oops, I’m doing it myself!) like the Toronto Blessing.
The problem is that there is no obvious NT theology of revival, so we have to create one from scratch, or try to draw lessons from church history.
There are various theories of revival, ranging from Calvinistic fatalism to Charles Finney’s surefire “scientific” method for producing one (which has given rise to the American practice, very disconcerting to non-Americans, of churches announcing that they will be holding a revival next week or next month).
The church historian David Bebbington has pointed out that revivals in twentieth century Britain all took place in relatively remote and self-contained communities, which he lists as “Wales, Cornwall, East Anglia, the Moray Firth coast of Scotland and the Hebrides” - Gamaliel has pointed out in past threads some of the evangelical folkloric exaggerations regarding them.
It strikes me that there is a parochial tendency for evangelicals to limit revivals to a short duration, and to the English-speaking world.
Could not the growth of the church in China from the expulsion of Western missionaries in 1949 to the present, for example, be described as a protracted revival?
Stuart Piggin, in his Evangelical Christianity in Australia, applies six criteria which he derives from historical revivalism, to the 1959 Billy Graham in Australia, and concludes that revival did in fact occur.
The criteria are expectation; unprecedented unity; extraordinary prayerfulness; revitalization of the church; large numbers of conversions; sinful practices in the ambient society reduced.
These will appear narrow, quaint and naďve to some, and they certainly ignore broader social and cultural factors, but they are a useful jumping-off point for considering revival from within the evangelicalism which has traditionally valued and pursued it.
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Could not the growth of the church in China from the expulsion of Western missionaries in 1949 to the present, for example, be described as a protracted revival?
Too right it could! What I find interesting about the growth of the church in China is that it happened without a lot of the stuff that many Westerners would consider vital for churches - I mean well-equipped buildings, lots of resources, big teams of paid staff and so on.
I know there were (still are?) problems with the Chinese church, particularly around unorthodox beliefs, but the growth - in the teeth of severe hardship - amazes and delights me.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
I'm with Pope Benedict ion the subject of relevance.
He was asked on the plane that brought him to the UK what he was going to do to make the church relevant. He replied that it was not his job to make the church relevant, he wanted to make the church accessible.
The contortions the various churches are performing in order to chaneg and become attractive, relevant, post-modern, etc, etyc are in the main useless.
It's like a shop. You can make improve the lighting, change the background music, train the staff, install funky mirrors, put in new counters and shelving, improve the signs and even lower the prices. But if people don't want the stuff you're selling they won't come in!
This is where the Holy Spirit comes in - let him create the demand and, whatever style we choose, whatever programmes we stage, let us make sure people can access the Gospel of grace and redemption when they ask for our help.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The conditions have to be right, as they do in a wild meadow. These days environmentalists often intervene to help create the right conditions for a wild meadow to attract native flora and fauna, but that doesn't mean they're 'planning' the meadow.
That is a fabulous analogy! I shall steal it, if I may...
Yes, you can have that! It's an image that only just came to me.
I've read a lot on these boards about how charismatics in the 80s and 90s prayed for revival, and became disillusioned when it didn't occur. Their expectations were higher than those who attended mainstream churches, and so their disappointment was likely to be greater. Is the moral of the story that it's best to go to a church where noone expects too much...?
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The conditions have to be right, as they do in a wild meadow. These days environmentalists often intervene to help create the right conditions for a wild meadow to attract native flora and fauna, but that doesn't mean they're 'planning' the meadow.
That is a fabulous analogy! I shall steal it, if I may...
Yes, you can have that! It's an image that only just came to me.
I've read a lot on these boards about how charismatics in the 80s and 90s prayed for revival, and became disillusioned when it didn't occur. Their expectations were higher than those who attended mainstream churches, and so their disappointment was likely to be greater. Is the moral of the story that it's best to go to a church where noone expects too much...?
As one such disillusionee, it wasn't the praying and not getting; it was the drip-feed of prophecies and pictures and messages in tongues and whatnot saying that it would come, always "just around the corner".
I also remember being assured in 1988 that something really big would happen because it was 40 years from the establishment of the state of Israel.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
Karl
So, is the answer simply for churches to expect less? Was the problem just that the charismatics were always talking about revival rather than getting on with it? Would the expectations have been okay without the rash prophecies?
Which church has got it (more or less) right in terms of preparing for revival?
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Karl
So, is the answer simply for churches to expect less? Was the problem just that the charismatics were always talking about revival rather than getting on with it? Would the expectations have been okay without the rash prophecies?
Which church has got it (more or less) right in terms of preparing for revival?
I think the problem is another expectation - that God is going to give out prophecies, messages and so on every Sunday evening without fail. If he doesn't, then the human imagination will be quick to fill the gap, generally, it seems, with wishful thinking.
I'd rather think in terms of hope than expectation.
Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on
:
[tangent] 'Getting pictures' is yet another one of those charo-evo inventions that is treated like dogma. Dangerous stuff.[/tangent]
K.
PS. I said 'little ditties' because they are 'little ditties'. The rejection of substance and profundity is part of the charo-evo paradigm that must be accepted. I believe that there is a place for little ditties, but if go to charo-evo church that's pretty much all you're going to get because the average worship band only flirts with musical competence and they can't manage even a few hymns because they usually contain at least a secondary dominant. Give the plebs the same rubbish that they get in lifts or in the supermarket, they'll love that.
Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on
:
Back to the subject at hand; setting people up for a big fall is part of the problem with too many segments of the evo movement(s). The prosperity gospel has a big part to play in this; that you should be healthy and successful and if you aren't, you don't have enough faith or you have a disobedient spirit, etc., etc.. It used to be that you only heard this sort of tosh in Hillsong or other cultish groups, but now you hear it many C of E churches--and not just the wacky ones. We already had a thread about this, but I heard Pete Grieg say, after a mutual friend died of cancer, that we had 'lost a prayer battle'. It's all part and parcel of the same tainted theology; or at least seems like the same parcel from where I stand. Perhaps I'll learn more.
The 'revival' idea can get bogged down in this theological abyss too; the revival will come if only we could get the recipe of prayer 'power' right or 'have more faith', etc.
K.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
This is a subject which interests me and I'll come back to it in more detail when I have time.
Suffice to say, for now, that whilst I am no longer as 'reformed' as daronmedway I am still with him on the 'sovereignty' aspect when it comes to the phenomenon we call revival.
Suffice to say for now that although I am no longer as ardently 'Wesleyan' as Mudfrog (although some of the legacy is still there), I am with him on the need for repentance and agree that a laisser-faire attitude to sin/judgement etc is one (but not the only) factor in the current low-ebb of Christian commitment we see in the West.
Equally, I would agree with Kaplan on the some of the excellent points he's made.
By the same token, I do think that there is a lot of romanticism and - dare I say - an over-eggedness going on here. As much as I admire the Wesleys it's an incontrovertible fact that the Methodists exaggerated the parlous state of spirituality in the UK in order to make their achievements look all the greater - or, not to impugn them too grossly, to glorify what they saw as the work of God through their networks and channels.
A lot of good stuff came out of that. No question. But it wasn't all sweetness and light and neither was the Welsh Revival - there was an ugly side to it.
Welsh casualties in the WWI can't be blamed for the tailing off of early 20th century revivalism. The death toll in Wales was high, but a lot less in proportion to the size of the population than in other parts of the UK.
No, there's only so long that you can stand in a chapel belting out revivalist hymns. The same 'energy' that fuelled the Welsh Revival (and it was largely a young people's thing) also flowed in to the Eisteddfod, nationalism and into Labour Party politics. In fact there was a massive reaction against the other-worldliness of the chapels which clamped down on sports and other innocent pasttimes in a very narrow and Puritanical way.
You can't sustain revivalism for very long. It wears you out in the end. It ruined Evan Roberts's health.
Where it is sustained the longest is in those instances where it becomes harnessed to more grounded or longer-term efforts - arguably the Salvation Army has succeeded better than other revivalist movements because it has accompanied the zeal and the zest with some good, solid, social action.
Pentecostalism can sustain itself, of course, but it does so by a constantly revolving turnover of personnel - I think it's been shown that Australian Pentecostalism practically replenishes itself every 10 years or so - ie. there is an equal number of people joining to compensate for the people who leave.
I would also make a distinction between pre-1950s revivals - which tended to be more serious and sober affairs - and those that have been claimed among the post-1960s charismatic movements. I'd also make a distinction between revivals and what missiologists call 'people-movements' such as the widespread turning of the Lisu people of Myanmar to Christianity in the 19th/early 20th centuries.
I'd also make a distinction between revival as it is understood in a Western, Protestant sense and analogous movements that one might discern at times within the RC and Orthodox Churches. I'm thinking of 13th century Italy here, or the work of Fr Zosima in Greece in the 18th century which echoes that of the Wesleys to a certain extent.
That's not to say that we're comparing like-with-like though - it's much more complex than that.
I'll expand when I have time ...
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
In short, and sorry to double-post, I think there's a lot of truth in what's been said by varied voices on this thread - including Komensky's contributions.
What Komensky is describing is revivalism.
I'd rather got the impression that this sort of thing had died down in the last 15 years - but apparently not. I suspect that the baton of this kind of dumbed-down and mickey-mouse revivalism has been handed on from the independent charismatic outfits to the New Wine style Anglicans and New Wine wannabes among some of the Baptist and other churches.
I don't have any time for any of that any more.
That said, there'll be a core of good stuff beneath all the froth, but you'll increasingly have to look harder to find it.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
In my previous post, I mentioned church historian Stuart Piggin’s opinion that the 1959 Billy Graham Crusade in Australia was an example of a genuine revival.
Two statistics which he quotes regarding the Sydney crusade, however, raise some interesting questions.
Of the decisions registered, only 25% were made by the unchurched, and only 7.5% were made by those employed in manual or labouring jobs.
In other words, the vast majority of those who responded to the gospel preaching were middle-class church members.
The Western working class, despite well-loved stories from the past of Wesley and Whitefield preaching to the Kingswood coal miners, or William Booth converting the London poor, was finally largely lost to Christianity.
And it must be remembered that until well into the twentieth century most of the working class, even if they had stopped going to church, were still under the hegemonic influence of institutional Christianity and in theory believed that it was a good thing, and that they probably should be following it.
The Sixties saw a precipitous drop in church numbers in the West, meaning that a mass revival in the traditional sense, amongst today’s post-Christendom, post-modern, scripturally and religiously illiterate middle-class is, barring miracles, extremely unlikely.
The raw material for a revival, ie a population with some basic knowledge of, and some sort of commitment to, Christianity; a family tradition of denominational identity; and a vaguely uneasy conscience; just doesn’t exist any more.
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The Sixties saw a precipitous drop in church numbers in the West, meaning that a mass revival in the traditional sense, amongst today’s post-Christendom, post-modern, scripturally and religiously illiterate middle-class is, barring miracles, extremely unlikely.
The raw material for a revival, ie a population with some basic knowledge of, and some sort of commitment to, Christianity; a family tradition of denominational identity; and a vaguely uneasy conscience; just doesn’t exist any more.
I'd start from the other end and define the raw material for a revival as Christians who are willing to love and obey God with everything they have, and to love those around them in a self-sacrificial way. Maybe then people will 'see our good deeds and praise our Father in the heavens'.
I think maybe the raw material of a population with some basic knowledge of and commitment to Christianity is only necessary if we're talking about an institution-based, attractional (i.e. 'Come to us - come to our building and our events') model of church. ISTM this model is becoming increasingly outmoded and irrelevant as the proportion of people with any positive leanings towards the church (in the institutional sense) declines.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I agree with Kaplan, South Coast Kevin.
There are examples of 'people groups' turning to Christ - various tribes in north India and the Lisu peoples of Myanmar/Burma are missiological examples that have been widely cited and studied.
But 'revival' in the more Wesleyan sense - which is what we seem to be discussing here - has generally been a feature of societies where there has been widespread nominal or marginal involvement with church or where Christianity has exercised a widespread hegemony - irrespective of whether people were actively engaging with it or not.
Other examples would be the growth of Pentecostalism in South and Latin America. This didn't occur in a vacuum but against the background of a kind of folk-Catholicism. The Pentecostals had something to 'work with'.
You could say the same with the growth of marginal groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses in Poland and Spain - I've heard that the bulk of JWs in those countries were nominally Catholic and had at least some knowledge of the Bible/Christian story in residual form. Otherwise, why would they listen when someone came along saying, 'Look, we can tell you what the Bible really means ...'
Older revivalist material talk about 'quickenings' and 'awakenings' - the 18th century Great Awakening (of which Wesleyan Methodism was a part) didn't happen in a vacuum either. It came out of an older Pietist tradition and had roots in German Lutheranism, the Moravian movement, earlier Puritan movements in 17th century England and the more 'high church' spirituality of men like William Law and the Non-Jurors.
I once attended an academic conference on revival (which pretty much echoed the sort of thing that Kaplan is saying here) and some of the more fervently evangelical or Calvinistic delegates were shocked to hear sociological insights applied.
I don't have any problem with that whatsoever. Christianity is an incarnational faith. It is lived out by real people in real times and in real places. One of the papers presented examined the way that 19th century revivals in North East Scotland took on a different flavour in different socio-economic and demographic circumstances.
So, for instance, in Aberdeen and other urban centres it took on a more Moody & Sankey large-lecture hall, preaching and singing form. Along the coast, in the fishing villages, it took on a more intense form - with fishermen pondering their eternal destiny out at sea and so on. There were also small group cottage meetings and the 'phases' of the revival followed the pattern of the fishing fleets.
Inland, in more rural communities, it was less intense and with less of the large rallies or the kind of reflective 'conviction' found on the coast. There the pattern of the revival seemed to follow the pattern of the agricultural seasons.
Why should we expect things to have been otherwise?
There is, I believe, something in the 'revivalist' notion that if we ourselves are 'on fire' then others will gather to watch us burn ... as Wesley put it.
But it ain't just that and it never has been.
You can be as pietistic and intensely spiritual as can be and there's no guarantee that it's going to have a massive impact on society.
I'm not knocking the faith, zeal or commitment of the more revivalist among us - but I do question the methodology and false expectations of much contemporary revivalism.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
I'm not sure there is a revival on the way anyhow.
Ypou'll say, 'well you wiould say that wouldn't you?' but my view of the 'end-times' is that there will be a huge falling away, an apostasy. I don't think Jesus will return to a revived and fervent church.
He will come back to a remnant in a church, a world, that is lukewarm to Christ and the Gospel.
But it won't stay that way for long
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
I'm not sure there is a revival on the way anyhow.
Ypou'll say, 'well you wiould say that wouldn't you?' but my view of the 'end-times' is that there will be a huge falling away, an apostasy. I don't think Jesus will return to a revived and fervent church.
He will come back to a remnant in a church, a world, that is lukewarm to Christ and the Gospel.
But it won't stay that way for long
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I've long since given up speculating about eschatological issues, Mudfrog, although one could say that my gut-level repulsion from anything that smacks of dispensationalism/pre-millenialism is itself a form of eschatological speculation ...
I don't think we're heading for revival either. Not because I think there's going to be a widespread apostasy/falling away necessarily - although I can see the scriptural reasons for such a belief - but because the conditions don't look right to me.
Conditions were 'right' for the 18th century Awakening and I once attended a fascinating talk by a Methodist historian which explained why.
Rather than there being the parlous spiritual state and general apostasy that the Methodist hagiographers have claimed, there was actually a whole load of things going on that they were able to tap into. For instance, when Wesley set up his Fetter Lane Society there were already 40 similar religious societies in London alone.
In Yorkshire, where the Wesleyans were to become most numerous, there were religious study-groups and nascent 'societies' operating alongside or outwith the parish system - those attached to Benjamin Ingham (the 'Inghamites' were among the largest and most influential). There were others.
In the large houses at least there were family prayers involving servants and family members etc - and these were common even among people who weren't particularly fervent in their piety.
Sure, there were plenty of unchurched and unreached people such as the Kingswood miners and the great unwashed of Newcastle-upon-Tyne but the idea of an almost totally godless society before the Wesleys rode into action is something of a myth.
What the Wesleys introduced (alongside Whitfield, Howell Harris and some of the more Calvinistic revivalists) was open-air preaching and more systematic 'class system' for the organisation of the societies or 'classes'.
Other than among some migrant communities and marginalised people groups, I don't see any signs of revival whatsoever. All the talk and hype about it that's come from restorationist quarters and from Anglican renewalists such as HTB and its ilk is wishful thinking, overly exuberant and based on category-errors as to what we're actually talking about when we refer to revival.
Komensky might sound a bit supercillious at times, but his assessment of the muddle-headedness, fuzziness, 'whatever'-ness and naffness of much contemporary charismatic evangelicalism isn't a million miles wide of the mark IMHO.
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't think we're heading for revival... because the conditions don't look right to me.
I know you and I are defining revival in somewhat different ways, but were the conditions right in Maoist China? Or, for that matter, in the first two or three centuries AD when Christianity spread through the Roman empire?
Christianity is such an adaptable, incarnational faith that I'm not sure how much the external conditions really matter.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't think we're heading for revival... because the conditions don't look right to me.
I know you and I are defining revival in somewhat different ways, but were the conditions right in Maoist China? Or, for that matter, in the first two or three centuries AD when Christianity spread through the Roman empire?
Sure, but equally when you actually start to analyse the features of the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire it tends to be that of a steady rise with a large amount of syncretism rather than 2 centuries of revival - see Rodney Stark on this.
[Leaving out the thorny question of comparing it to a possible 'Islamic revival' in the Middle East during the first few centuries after Mohammed].
It's possible to be moved by narratives like that of Andrew Walls - showing how Christianity has always moved it's geographic centre over the years, almost anticipating the rise of civilisations, while simultaneously acknowledging the very human realities of such movements.
Yes, Pentecostalism experienced a huge surge in South America - against a background of folk Catholicism. However the brands of Pentecostalism that have emerged borrow heavily from strains of folk-religion, while simultaneously not really touching modern life in South American cities. It is possible to go to Sao Paulo or Beunos Aires without really experiencing much religion at all.
Reading between the lines - even OT revivals seem to have a very mixed character - after all there wouldn't be shrines to Molech/Baal etc in the reign of King X+1 if King X had really destroyed all of them and put to death all its priests. Don't forget too that there were often centuries between such massive revivals.
The question comes down to whether or not we are happy with the ordinary means of grace that God has provided, or whether we set some notion of revival on a pedestal and assume that that is what God wants to do in our particular place and time.
[ 03. October 2012, 19:31: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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The external conditions shape what happens, South Coast Kevin. Pour sand into a bowl and it'll assume the shape of the receptacle you pour it into.
So Christianity (or any other religion) will take on different characteristics depending on where it finds itself. That's the point I was making and one that seems axiomatic.
Your Vineyard fellowship is just as much a product of our modern, consumerist society as the jeans the people who attend it wear or the Starbucks or Costa Coffee places they socialise in.
That's not to take God out of the equation. Far from it.
But we don't exist in some kind of disembodied state. We are part of the societies and cultures we inhabit and its inevitable that whatever form of Christianity we espouse is going to bear the hallmarks of that too.
At any rate, I remember hearing George Verwer of Operation Mobilisation - remember him/them? - at Spring Harvest in 1982 saying that what we needed wasn't 'revival' but 'vival'.
I'm all for having a living and vibrant faith - but it might not always look like the kind of thing that contemporary revivalists expect.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I'd also suggest, South Coast Kevin, that the notion of revival you're working with is a very modernist one.
Would you describe the conversion of the Slavs to Christianity as 'revival' - or was that a case of people simply adopting the faith their ruler's espoused and gradually becoming Christianised? As in Anglo-Saxon England and elsewhere?
You couldn't have had a 'revival' in the Wesleyan sense back then because the historic conditions didn't exist for it.
I would also suggest that the growth of the church in China was a different phenomenon again - although, coming as it did after the advent of modern, Western missionary activity - and its withdrawal and suppression - it inevitably had features of the kind of revivals we've been discussing on this thread.
And like Chris Stiles, I think we're seeing something different again in terms of the growth of early Christianity. It was more a case of a steady permeation of society rather than whizz-bang revivalism.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I'm not sure there is a revival on the way anyhow.
Ypou'll say, 'well you wiould say that wouldn't you?' but my view of the 'end-times' is that there will be a huge falling away, an apostasy. I don't think Jesus will return to a revived and fervent church.
He will come back to a remnant in a church, a world, that is lukewarm to Christ and the Gospel.
Maybe you're right.
The downside of this way of thinking, though, is that it seems likely to absolve us (particularly in the mainstream, more liberal churches) of doing more than paying lipservice to the notion of evangelism and of engaging seriously with the wider society. Why bother, if it's not going to do much good?
Threads like this tend to focus on how inadequate evangelicalism is, but unfortunately, the alternative never seems to be terribly invigorating either. What's proposed is that the evangelicals should calm down, other Christians should continue to do the unexciting things they normally do, while in the 'real world' noone should be expected to take much notice of either. Nothing will get much better or worse. (Our churches will be emptier and many of them will close, but noone who sensibly avoids the silliness of revivalism really minds too much about that). And at some point or other Jesus will come back. Isn't that the long and short of it?
Posted by WearyPilgrim (# 14593) on
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This is a very interesting thread. I think that for all of us the burning question is one of how to engagingly and effectively communicate the Gospel --- which, as Mudfrog indicates, necessitates pointing out to people their need for a Saviour --- in a culture in which many, if not most, people have no Christian frame of reference at all? This is the single greatest challenge facing the Church.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The downside of this way of thinking, though, is that it seems likely to absolve us (particularly in the mainstream, more liberal churches) of doing more than paying lipservice to the notion of evangelism and of engaging seriously with the wider society. Why bother, if it's not going to do much good?
I don't see why it would have this effect. Evangelise vigourously, leave the results up to God, and don't be disappointed if there is no revival.
Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on
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Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that the modern church needs to just be in the church rather than try so hard to imitate it (particularly the most banal elements of it. The modern revival ideas that Gamiel so nearly explained are part and parcel of the modern charo-evo church: they are dogma and may not be questioned. Someone from HTB said to me a few weeks ago that there is a 'full on revival in China'. I asked 'revival of what? What, exactly is being revived?' Needless to say that was the end of the conversation; if you don't accept the dogma, there's nothing to discuss. Of course she didn't really mean 'revival', but that should have gone without saying.
I do apologise for being cantankerous about all of this, but over the past three years or so I passed a breaking point.
Most of the charo-evo concept of revival, like so much of their recently concocted ideas is indicative of their whole approach. A great deal of the whole movement is very much like a soap bubble: it seems beautiful and shiny and wonderful as it floats mysteriously before your eyes, but even the gentlest examination of it leaves you with slightly damp nothingness.
K.
Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on
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Nice one. I meant 'in the world', not 'in the church'; though that would be fine too.
More coffee now.
K.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I can see what you're getting at, SvitlanaV2 and this is the kind of dilemma I personally face - ie. I'm as fed up as Komensky is by the shallowness of much contemporary revivalism but recognise that if I'm going to do 'Deep Church' (to use Andrew Walker's recoinage of a term first minted by C S Lewis) then it could equally end up as a form of self-indulgence ie. going on retreats, having a privately liturgical prayer life and so on - rather than going to ra-ra-ra full-on HTB/New Wine style revivalist meetings that leave me cold.
Meanwhile, it makes no odds whatsoever to my neighbours and friends whether I'm swaying about and speaking in tongues on a Sunday morning or lighting candles and kissing icons.
In one of his essays, Walkers say that we need 'revival' and revivalism to a certain extent as others there ain't going to be that many new Christians around - but somehow we need to harness all that to what Chris Stiles has called the 'normal means of grace' and to features such as th retreat house, the way of contemplative prayer, the spiritual formation afforded by the daily office, the lectionary and so on.
I don't know how we do that.
As Komensky says, the idea of supposed spontaneity and putative 'words' from God and so on and so forth are such a 'given' in charismatic evangelical circles that to question, challenge - or even try to gently redirect the attention (as I have done) onto other or apparently 'deeper' issues is to close the conversation.
They're organising a 24-hour prayer rota at our parish church and I sense some concern/desperation that no-one has volunteered for some of the wee small hours. I've put myself down for some day-time slots on the proviso that my name doesn't appear on the rota - it smacks of 'practicing your piety to be seen by men' to me - the sort of thing Jesus warned against - big phylacteries and praying on the street corners etc.
'Look at me, I've signed up for the 2am slot so I must be spiritual ...'
Now, I know that's not the motivation nor the intention - the people behind this initiative are very, very sincere. But I dunno ... it's just not thought through. It's almost as if they're expecting the Almighty to pay us more attention if we've got every slot covered even 2am and 3am.
As if it'd put the kibosh on the whole thing if the full 24 hours aren't covered. 'Alright then, I'm not listening now,' saith the Lord. 'You big wusses couldn't even get up at 1am or 2am to pray, so therefore I'm not going to listen to those prayers uttered at 2pm or 5pm ...'
It doesn't work like that, surely.
So I'm on the horns of a dilemma, in a cleft stick. On the one hand I admire the zeal and commitment of the charismatics and evangelicals - and at least they are trying to evangelise - but on the other the whole thing drives me potty - as it does Komensky.
So what are the alternatives? I don't want MOR and moribundness - I warm to aspects of bells and smells but that can become rather smug and akin to a specialist club ...
There ain't no easy answer so far as I can see.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
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I'm with you. I often feel pretty luke-warm (and as you know unsure of the whole truth of the thing anyway) and part of it is this great divide between the evo-charismatics on one side and the traditional liturgicals on the other. I know in theory it's a spectrum but it often seems not unlike W S Gilbert's observation that:
[every child] born in to this world alive
Is either a little liberal
Or else a little conservative
Except in terms of preference for style in service. Those in the middle often seem to me to be looking towards being one or the other.
YMMV, of course, but that's my observation.
I can't hack the charismatic-evo side any more - put it another way, I run a mile on spotting a drum kit at the front of a church. But on the other hand I do think it's easier, albeit far from inevitable, to freewheel in the liturgical tradition.
I'm hoping that These guys might be the sort of thing that'll work for me; Mrs Liberal Backslider has been involved with the Simple Church movement of late but personally I find that far too evangelical in assumption. However, I'm fascinated that there are so many refugees from existing churches, of either or any wing, to form these various fresh expressions (with or without capital letters )
Probably dragging this thread well off tack now.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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No, I'm not sure that it is off-tack, because it addresses one of the issues that seems endemic within revivalism - and that is that 'revival' or a white-hot condition of enthusiasm is somehow the church's natural or expected state and that anything that falls below this in terms of intensity is somehow as 'lukewarm' as the Church in Laodicea.
I'm all for spiritual warmth. In essence, I warm (pardon the pun) to the whole Wesleyan thing of 'my heart was strangely warmed'. Bring it on. We need warmth.
But warmth and zeal needn't imply freneticism. That way leads to burn out.
Or else to a kind of artificial stoking of the fires to keep the whole thing on the boil.
I s'pose a marriage or some other close relationship may be the best analogy (although an imperfect one, as all analogies are). There will be times of passion but there will be longeurs too, and times of arguments and silence - and times where you've just got to get on with things and make the best you can of it.
I don't for a moment suggest that revivals are all flash-in-the-pan with little lasting impact - but I am suggesting that the impact may be seen in different ways. Success looks different to different people.
The concept of revival and revivalism and so on only makes sense in a Protestant paradigm. The RCs and the Orthodox would have a different criteria for what 'success' looks like - if we can put it like that. They might measure spiritual renewal in terms of a greater take up of monastic vocations, of more regular Mass attendance, more people going on pilgrimages etc etc etc.
I'm not dismissing or disparaging those things, simply saying that there's a different set of criteria and evaluation at work.
The problem, it seems to me, with contemporary revivalism is that there are category errors about what they expect to see and how they go about trying to create the conditions to induce what they expect. Theirs is a partial vision (as is the case with all of us) and is based on a highly selective reading of biblical texts and revivalist histories and hagiographies - many of which are over-egged or propagandist.
When I first read some of the source material behind the rosy-tinted revivalist nostalgia, I realised how propagandist it all was. It had an agenda - whether it was to promote Calvinistic or anti-Calvinistic views to affirm or assert the value of one particular movement or preachers' take over another.
I'm not denying the historicity of the events they describe, but they are putting a particular slant and interpretation on them which needs to be understood if we are to understand the context correctly.
I grew up in South Wales at a time when there were still a few old-stagers around who could remember the Welsh Revival or people whose parents and relatives were involved with it. The level of myth and misinformation was extraordinary. Although, that said, I did pick up some more balanced accounts from people who knew people who were around at the time.
It's like anything else, the whole thing is a curate's egg.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
The Order of The Black Sheep?
They'd be better off having a pint of Black Sheep and getting over it ...
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
In one of his essays, Walkers say that we need 'revival' and revivalism to a certain extent as others there ain't going to be that many new Christians around - but somehow we need to harness all that to what Chris Stiles has called the 'normal means of grace' and to features such as th retreat house, the way of contemplative prayer, the spiritual formation afforded by the daily office, the lectionary and so on.
That's a very interesting point.
From my understanding, both the cause, the effect and the identifying factors of true revival include the renewal of the church
as it is and not a sudden veering off into barking, laughing, singing ditties or becoming charismatic.
Authors have identified that revival brings a number of things - a renewed interest in prayer, in preaching(!), in personal evangelism, in children's work, in social outreach and not least in the desire for holy living.
As far as worship is concerned I could point to 2 revivals as brief examples and, reinforcing a stereotype, suggest that singing in the Welsh revival didn't suddenly become 'contemporary (as in contemporary to 1904), they simply sang the old hymns with greater gusto and deeper reverence (that's not a quality you often see in con-evo gatheriongs!)
I understand also that in the Hebridean revival, before the event, the people sang metrical psalms in church with no musical instruments. During the fervour and intensity of the revival the people who packed out the churches sang metrical psalms with no music instruments and after the fervour had died down, they carried on singing metrical psalms with no musical instruments.
That, to me, suggests something with integrity and substance. When the church is revived it is 'merely' a revived and more Spirit-filled version of what is aways there.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The Order of The Black Sheep?
They'd be better off having a pint of Black Sheep and getting over it ...
Funny you should say that. BYOB there stands for bring your own bottle, not bring your own Bible as I have seen...
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I think that's true, Mudfrog. There were songs that became, as it were, the 'theme tune' of the Welsh Revival, but they were ones that were already there and which took on a stronger or a greater resonance, rather than being adapted or written for the purpose.
And yes, the Hebridean Revivals took place in the existing context of the Kirk with metrical psalms and so on and so forth.
I suppose if one sees the resurgence of Orthodoxy in former Soviet Bloc countries as a 'revival' of sorts, then the same holds true there - the ancient forms continue and haven't been adapted in any way ...
Romanian friends tell me that they suspect that the current interest in the Church will die off as people become wealthier, more Westernised and more secularised - but they do tell me that there is genuine devotion and commitment there and that it isn't simply a matter of people following the crowd and going back to the Orthodox Church simply because it has some kind of cachet because it was persecuted under Communism.
At any rate, I think my curate's egg analogy holds true there, too. There are ugly nationalist and xenophobic elements associated with the resurgence of the Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe.
Coming back to the point you've made ... which is a very good one, I think ...
Could it be that contemporary revivalism is mistaking the form for the substance? I'm not for a moment questioning the zeal, commitment or interest of charismatic evangelicals in issues like prayer, preaching, kids-work, personal holiness etc etc - most charismatic evangelicals I know are very active in all these things and a lot more besides. And all of that is very commendable.
However, they run the risk of shooting themselves in the foot and destroying what they've worked so hard to build by this almost slavish adherence to what appears to be a deficient view of 'revival'.
The levels of disillusionment are substantial.
I don't know how we can combine enthusiasm and the nitty-gritty every-day. It must be possible.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The downside of this way of thinking, though, is that it seems likely to absolve us (particularly in the mainstream, more liberal churches) of doing more than paying lipservice to the notion of evangelism and of engaging seriously with the wider society. Why bother, if it's not going to do much good?
I don't see why it would have this effect. Evangelise vigourously, leave the results up to God, and don't be disappointed if there is no revival.
Unfortunately, it's very difficult for people to give themselves completely to a venture if they're not allowed to expect any kind of outcome. It seems to go against human nature. The modern church is a perfect example of this: those Christians with low expectations seem to be the least likely to engage in vigorous evangelism. Those with high expectations do much more, but of course are more likely to suffer from disappointment.
I understand the disapproval of revivalism, but I suspect that it's unwise for moderate Christians to try to stop it. The truth is that mainstream churches benefit from the after effects of revivalism, because many people who become Christians, or whose religiosity increases, do so through the ministry of revivalistic churches. In due course, a proportion of them (or their children) will mature and 'graduate' to less frenetic, more moderate churches. Revivalism provides the raw material for moderate, mainstream Christianity to work on!
So the answer, perhaps, is not to condemn revivalism, but for mainstream, moderate churches to develop a ministry to people who've come through revivalism but are now looking for something else.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
[QB] Unfortunately, it's very difficult for people to give themselves completely to a venture if they're not allowed to expect any kind of outcome. It seems to go against human nature. The modern church is a perfect example of this: those Christians with low expectations seem to be the least likely to engage in vigorous evangelism. Those with high expectations do much more, but of course are more likely to suffer from disappointment.
I didn't say that people shouldn't expect any sort of outcome - merely that they shouldn't pit their hopes on revival.
And indeed there are plenty of such efforts up and down the country - various forms of outreach that done by people who have faithfully committed themselves to it year after year, who over the years have been responsible for bringing in many people into the church.
I think that's vastly preferable to always telling ourselves the glory story about each new endeavour.
quote:
The truth is that mainstream churches benefit from the after effects of revivalism
My experience is just the opposite - revivalism leaves behind burned over districts in which nothing grows - least of all any sort of hypothetical 'moderate christianity'.
Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on
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Svitlana and Chris are making good points here. I don't object to praying for the growth or even 'revival' (whatever that might mean; I mean, I don't want the Hottentots, Constabularians or the Adamites revived…); it is the *obsession* with it. Healing and countless other acts of God are presented as if they are in our hands if only we prayed more ("let's set up one of those 24/7 prayer things!") or if had 'more faith' or even stranger, 'more power', if only... if only.
These kinds of movements just set people up for fall. Just like those cults expecting spaceships to come collect them. What do you do when the mothership doesn't come? You would quite rightly question the whole endeavour; but their are worse outcomes too. What the charo-evo lot have somehow lost sight of is the Resurrection. "Es ist vollbracht' and achieved by God, not by us. The evangelical obsession with this stuff steers the hearts and minds of the church away from God's saving grace and toward whatever their current fad happens to be.
K.
[ 04. October 2012, 13:59: Message edited by: Komensky ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sadly, SvitlanaV2, my own experience echoes that of Chris Stiles. Whilst I've known a number of individuals who have ended up in more moderate churches - mostly Baptist or Anglican - after earlier involvement with more full-on revivalist settings, for the most part the disillusioned end up in the wilderness with little or no church affiliation.
They've been taught for so long that the mainstream denominations and churches are 'dead' that they don't bother going to have a look.
My brother-in-law came from a Pentecostal family of around half-a-dozen siblings. He's the only one who is still involved with church. The others (apart from one who sadly died young) are all exhausted, disillusioned and not attached to any kind of church or fellowship - although for the most part they haven't abandoned their faith.
I'd like to think that what you say is true, that the more moderate churches are revitalised by an influx of people from the more full-on and more charismatic or revivalist settings. But it ain't what I'm seeing.
Sure, there are a number of relatively high-profile people such as David Tomlinson from this kind of background - but they are few and far between.
When people drop out of revivalism they tend to drop out of it with a big crash.
The higher the levels of expectation and the more over-egged the pudding ( ) the greater and more cataclysmic the fall.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Thinking about it, some university chaplaincies already see themselves in the role you've described, SvitlanaV2.
A university chaplain once told me, 'In the first year they all go to [insert name of your friendly-neighbourhood-full-on-evangelical-revivalist church here] but by the end of the second year they've been through all of that and are coming out the other side. We're here in the third year to show that there is another way ...'
If that's the case, then the acceleration through the Fowler's Stages of Faith is happening a lot more quickly than it did in my day ... ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
I'm not quite sure it works as neatly as that. I don't see huge numbers of former evangelicals in the more MOR or the more liturgical/sacramental churches - but I daresay they are there.
I wouldn't say it represents a pattern or trend, though. Most former revivalists end up either as former believers or else on their lonesomes bewailing the parlous state of things.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
Chris, Komensky and Gamaliel
Yes, I've heard of the outcome of 'burnt over districts', where people become so disillusioned that they leave the faith (or hopefully, just the church) altogether.
What I've heard of 'burnt over districts', via online critiques of Charles Finney, only serves to convince me of the potential value of the organic church concept, rather than revivalism. Revivalism seems to be a mixed, bag, though, and it has a good side and a bad side. Obviously, if the outcome is burn-out and/or atheism, then one has to ask what the underlying problems are. But there are more positive outcomes too, as we surely know. Furthermore, the persistent expression of anxiety about revivalistic evangelicalism does lead me to wonder: If it's such a dead end, why hasn't it actually died out yet? If the alternatives are better, why aren't they geared up and ready to steal the limelight? It seems to me that the most urgent problem isn't necessarily with revivalism, but with the weakness of viable alternatives. Nature abhors a vacuum, so anything, even something rather questionable, has to fill up the space.
This may be something of an overstatement, because I'm well aware that lots of ordinary churches across the country are engaged in all kinds of outreach, Fresh Expressions, Back to Church Sundays, kids' clubs, community events of various kinds, etc. Maybe all this good work suffers from a lack of publicity, because it's barely mentioned on these boards, even though most of us attend churches that engage in projects like these. No - the emphasis is usually on the evangelicals, and how they're ruining things. But if your church is doing brilliant stuff in a different way, then it might be wise to focus on the positive, rather than the negative.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
What I've heard of 'burnt over districts', via online critiques of Charles Finney, only serves to convince me of the potential value of the organic church concept, rather than revivalism. Revivalism seems to be a mixed, bag, though, and it has a good side and a bad side. Obviously, if the outcome is burn-out and/or atheism, then one has to ask what the underlying problems are
I have no idea what you are arguing for or against any more.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
chris stiles
I'm not terribly binary. I've been fed for most of my worshipping life by MOTR Methodism, but my spiritual and cultural heritage is more along evangelical Pentecostal lines. The story of early Methodist revivalism inspires me, but the story of Finneyism and its influence on later revivalism disturbs me. Moderate churches conveniently leave me alone to do my own thing, (which wouldn't be the case with Pentecostal churches), but they don't inspire me as they should, which is a shame. I'm interested in the organic church concept (which has charismatic origins, I suppose), but it's just a concept, as far as I can tell; there are very few actual Christian communities that run along organic lines. And I don't know if it's my calling to sow any seeds in that direction.
In other words, things are a bit complicated for me. But my main point is, I don't think it's fair to highlight a problem without also addressing the need for a solution. If you're saying that revivalism has more bad points than good points, then you need to propose some kind of alternative. That's how I feel, anyway. Others will take a different view.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Thinking about it, some university chaplaincies already see themselves in the role you've described, SvitlanaV2.
A university chaplain once told me, 'In the first year they all go to [insert name of your friendly-neighbourhood-full-on-evangelical-revivalist church here] but by the end of the second year they've been through all of that and are coming out the other side. We're here in the third year to show that there is another way ...'
If that's the case, then the acceleration through the Fowler's Stages of Faith is happening a lot more quickly than it did in my day ...
I'm not quite sure it works as neatly as that. I don't see huge numbers of former evangelicals in the more MOR or the more liturgical/sacramental churches - but I daresay they are there.
Indeed - we are a uni. chaplaincy church and we don't see them, with a few exceptions, until about the middle of their postgrad years if at all.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I understand where you are coming from, SvitlanaV2.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that evangelicalism and revivalism and so forth is 'all bad.' I'm certainly not. I spent 18 years in a full-on charismatic church followed by six in a moderately charismatic Baptist church with post-modern/post evangelical overtones. I'm now in an Anglican parish that is trying to become more charismatic and I'm like King Canute trying to halt the waves ...
I think you're right about trying to find viable alternatives. I just wish that the zeal and oomph of evangelical/charismatic churches could be harnessed in a different way - whilst retaining he underlying warmth and energy.
This is the 'magazine for Christian Unrest' so you can't expect evangelicalism or charismatic spirituality not to get a rough ride.
There are plenty of other sites where these things are discussed less critically than they are here.
I'm very grateful for my evangelical/charismatic heritage in a lot of ways. But it was a mixed bag, like everything else.
I suspect part of the thing here, if you don't mind my saying so, is that you feel the need to challenge any prevailing hegemony that seems to present itself - that's a very nonconformist thing to do and none the worse for that.
Consequently, if the rest of us are slagging off evangelical charismatic stuff you will rush to its defence and try to find the positives or the other side of the issue. Which is fine.
But a lot of us here have been through it and out the otherside. These things can look very attractive if you are in a MOTR church or would like to see a lot of lively young people in your fellowship. Fair enough. But my experience is that this stuff comes at a price. Again, that's fair enough too - but I can only speak as I find.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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I thought a 'burnt over district' meant something different, that it is one of those phrases like 'dark night of the soul' that people guess what they think it means, and guess wrong. I thought a 'burnt over district' was one that had been preached over so much that there were no longer people in it that hadn't heard and so would respond to further preaching.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I thought a 'burnt over district' meant something different, that it is one of those phrases like 'dark night of the soul' that people guess what they think it means, and guess wrong. I thought a 'burnt over district' was one that had been preached over so much that there were no longer people in it that hadn't heard and so would respond to further preaching.
It can mean that, but it also has a pejorative overtone, referring to an area that has been whipped up into a kind of highly emotional, theologically suspect evangelistic frenzy, but is then left in a state of spiritual barrenness after the excitement has gone, rather than creating an environment where people who are ready to grow to spiritual maturity.
Gamaliel
I understand you. I'm not saying that revivalism shouldn't be criticised, but rather that there should be a way of moving beyond mere criticism so that solutions can be found. My main worry is that the mainstream churches are going to die out, and that just challenging revivalism isn't enough to prevent this happening. But I accept that other people will have different concerns. And I agree with your comments about my tendency to want to 'challenge any prevailing hegemony.'
Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Bad language, sexual desire, and so much else, is no longer a sin...
That was very bad: I don't mean to say that sexual desire is a sin! I meant misdirected or immoral desire - you know. I think you understand where I'm coming from...
I'm glad you clarified that. Is there anything you want to say about this?
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What has often been seen in the revival of the church is the removal of community vices - drunkenness, poverty, family breakdown, etc.
...poverty is a vice, now?
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
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The rich ignoring or condoning the wretched state of the poor certainly is. Rich man and Lazarus, anyone?
Mudfrog is a member of the Salvation Army, anoesis. You can be sure that was what he was getting at.
[ 05. October 2012, 07:32: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The rich ignoring or condoning the wretched state of the poor certainly is. Rich man and Lazarus, anyone?
Mudfrog is a member of the Salvation Army, anoesis. You can be sure that was what he was getting at.
Well, I agree with you Barnabas. I'm not so sure about Mudfrog. This (italics mine) sort of thing:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
what was a sin yesterday, today is personal choice, lifestyle choice, and has no bearing on our souls. Bad language, sexual desire, and so much else, is no longer a sin; and if it is 'wrong' our behaviour is a merely a 'weakness', a 'mistake', 'the way we were brought up', 'caused by the recession/unemployment social inequality', etc, etc. There is no (or very little) personal acceptance of our own sin.
...is not associated, in my mind, with people who are questioning the role or censuring the behaviour of the structure or institutions of our society...
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I think, anoesis, that the Salvation Army has something of a track record of addressing societal evils, as it were, as well as censuring personal sins - although at the base of it, of course, is the idea that the achievement of personal holiness is perhaps the best way of overcoming both our individual and corporate/societal sins.
That's written into the Salvation Army's spiritual DNA and comes from the Wesleyan holiness tradition from which it emerged.
Now, there is always the danger, of course, that such a stance can hive off into a concern about personal piety and a list of dos-and-don'ts in a fairly Pharisaical way. All pietistic and holiness movements can be prone to that.
In the case of the Salvation Army, though, I would suggest that this tendency is balanced out by a practical concern for social action - and the Army has been exemplary in this respect.
I suspect what Mudfrog is getting at is that the more 'liberal' forms of Christianity can be guilty of an equal and opposite error - of eliding issues of personal sin and morality in order to focus on social and corporate evils. I would imagine he would say that the balanced way is to achieve a both/and approach not either/or.
@SvitlanaV2 - Yes, believe you me, I would be very keen to find some kind of solution or way out of the impasse/dilemma I've described.
Like you, I am concerned that the mainstream and MOTR and moderate churches could disappear - leaving forms of revivalism as the only kid on the block.
I really don't know what the answer is on this one. The main reason I've stuck around at my parish church despite it raising my hackles continually is because it is at least evangelising the town - even if that means it tends to draw like-minded people from parishes round about rather than converting the unchurched - although it is doing that too to some extent.
I am sure there are other places I could go which would be more satisfactory for me personally - in terms of the aesthetic, the worship-style and so on and so forth - but these don't appear to be engaging with the unchurched to the same extent - although they do some very good and worthy things.
It's a dilemma. Do I put up and shut up? or do I move on and get involved with something that isn't evangelising to any great extent?
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
Is there anything you want to say about this?
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What has often been seen in the revival of the church is the removal of community vices - drunkenness, poverty, family breakdown, etc.
...poverty is a vice, now?
Note the word 'community'.
These things are not always personal sins, though personal sin might be associated with them. These are things that blight our communities, our neighbourhoods; these are things that entrap some people. They are a reproach to the nation to have poverty, drunkenness and family breakdown - and some of this may well caused by personal sin.
Is not poverty sometimes caused or made worse by drunkenness, crime, gambling?
My mother, wioth 2 small children, was plunged into homeless and poverty simply because her middle-class, middle-management husband went off with anoither woman.
Is there really not a vice that can cause poverty? It is fare too simple to say that poverty is experienced by nice, ordinary, respectable people with middle-class values who just happen to have very little money. Some, not all, poverty is inextricably tied in with the sinful behaviour of someone, somewhere, who has caused it.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Is there really not a vice that can cause poverty? It is fare too simple to say that poverty is experienced by nice, ordinary, respectable people with middle-class values who just happen to have very little money. Some, not all, poverty is inextricably tied in with the sinful behaviour of someone, somewhere, who has caused it.
Probably not. Consider the poverty caused by corporate greed, all in the name of making a return on investment for shareholders. Difficult to tie down too - how can a corporation sin? Have bodies corporate been designed to deflect individual responsibility?
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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Of course some poverty is caused by greed and injustice; no one is saying it isn't!
But poverty can also be caused by poor spending choices, by addiction, family breakdown - as I have already related, my mother, me and my sister were plunged overnight into poverty because of the lust and adultery of my father; there were no bankers involved in that!
Poverty can be caused by the husband/partner being sent to prison for assault, leaving a family with little income. Poverty can be caused by so, so many things.
Not everything is caused by someone else - there are many occasions when it's someone's 'fault' which means that the innocent suffer.
It is also necessary NOT to apportion blame in the relief of that poverty. There is no such thing as the 'deserving' or 'undeserving' poor.
HOWEVER, to get back to the subject in hand, a religious awakening, a renewed sense of what is right and what is wrong, a release from addiction and a desire to 'do good' are also very good poverty relief measures'.
Two little anedcotes from Salvation Army history:
The testimony of a converted drunkard-now Salvationist bandsman - was "I used to beat the wife, but once I got converted now I only beat the drum!"
And secondly, someone was asked if they really believed Jesus could turn water into wine, to which the reply was, I don't know but he's turned beer into furniture.'
The entire temperance movement in the nineteenth century was basically a fight against poverty that was caused by drink. In many, many situations a change of behaviour is the way out of poverty caused by recklessness.
TANGENT
As far as poverty caused by someone else is concerned, my latest figures for people asking The Salvation Army for food parcels in the North East of England, show the 55% of them ask for help simply because bureacracy has let them down and the benefits that are due to them have been delayed. Granted that many people in receipt of benefit are scraping to make ends meet, but it is the system of payments that needs looking at. If people are entitled to benefits, then they must be given those benefits regularly and on time.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
TANGENT
As far as poverty caused by someone else is concerned, my latest figures for people asking The Salvation Army for food parcels in the North East of England, show the 55% of them ask for help simply because bureacracy has let them down and the benefits that are due to them have been delayed. Granted that many people in receipt of benefit are scraping to make ends meet, but it is the system of payments that needs looking at. If people are entitled to benefits, then they must be given those benefits regularly and on time.
I appreciate that 'poor choices' cause poverty but I really wonder how much poverty is due to these and how much is due to external factors, like being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As for the benefits system, I've long been of the belief that its cumbersome and piecemeal nature is a delibrate ploy to discourage and delay claims. I doubt that the 'Universal Credit', supposed to unite benefits will do anything other than apply a cap to benefits, irrespective of the claimant's needs.
[ 05. October 2012, 13:24: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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Speak up I can't hear you
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Speak up I can't hear you
Mea culpa, finger trouble.
Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What has often been seen in the revival of the church is the removal of community vices - drunkenness, poverty, family breakdown, etc.
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
…poverty is a vice, now?
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
....These things are not always personal sins, though personal sin might be associated with them. These are things that blight our communities, our neighbourhoods; these are things that entrap some people. They are a reproach to the nation to have poverty, drunkenness and family breakdown - and some of this may well caused by personal sin.
Well, I agree with your substantive points - but I do think that that 'vice' is a bad choice of word to describe poverty, unless we have widely divergent understandings of the meaning of the word. Poverty is neither a bad habit nor a morally dubious behaviour. It is a state of being which might, possibly, as you say, arise from one of these things. Or it might not.
A couple of more specific things:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Note the word 'community'. Is there really not a vice that can cause poverty? It is fare too simple to say that poverty is experienced by nice, ordinary, respectable people with middle-class values who just happen to have very little money.
I imagine there are plenty of vices which can, in certain circumstances, lead to poverty. Drinking and gambling spring immediately to mind - but I find it interesting that you have introduced concepts of 'niceness' and 'respectability' in here. Do people who were once nice and respectable cease to be so, once they are in poverty, or is the fact that they end up in poverty an indicator that they were never really very respectable in the first place?
Oscar Wilde once said, 'Work is the curse of the drinking class' - I used to have this framed on my wall, in fact. Not because I wished to glorify drinking, but because I loved the way it turned everything upside down. 'Drink is the curse of the working class' was a favourite saying of 'the respectable class', and implied that they brought all their problems on themselves by drinking to excess. Wilde wittily points out that it is not the drinking itself which is the problem - the wealthy throughout history have consumed staggering quantities of alcohol - but that there is a collision of value-systems between the drunkards of the working-class and the drunkards of the ruling class. Specifically, a member of the working class is meant to place great importance on having a clear head in the morning so he can fulfil his societal duty by working. The wealthy nabob, on the other hand, does not cause the downfall of his family by nursing a sore head until noon on a regular basis. Hence his drinking is not a 'vice'.
Which is a long way of saying that vice is a very loaded word.
Posted by Arminian (# 16607) on
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Poverty is complex. Usury is the origin of much debt poverty we now have. The Bible has plenty to say about forgiving debts, the OT had this requirement built into the Mosaic law. Jesus made reference to lending without expecting back.
Contrast this with payday loans of 2500%, predatory lending targeting those of limited intellectual capacity, online gambling, the move to indirect taxation away from taxation based on earnings, and any number of other dubious financial activities. These are backed by sophisticated advertising campaigns with the latest research in psychology being used to maximum effect. The wider church remains largely silent to this. The Bible doesn't.
There is a lot more about the wealthy exploiting the poor in the Bible than for example homosexuality. Its not just the OT either - James has a rant about the rich, and so does Jesus, particularly when its the rich religious elite that are up to their neck in money making scams.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Like you, I am concerned that the mainstream and MOTR and moderate churches could disappear - leaving forms of revivalism as the only kid on the block.
I really don't know what the answer is on this one. The main reason I've stuck around at my parish church despite it raising my hackles continually is because it is at least evangelising the town - even if that means it tends to draw like-minded people from parishes round about rather than converting the unchurched - although it is doing that too to some extent.
I am sure there are other places I could go which would be more satisfactory for me personally - in terms of the aesthetic, the worship-style and so on and so forth - but these don't appear to be engaging with the unchurched to the same extent - although they do some very good and worthy things.
It's a dilemma. Do I put up and shut up? or do I move on and get involved with something that isn't evangelising to any great extent?
I wanted to return to this, because it's a key issue now, I think. Nomatter how caring, sharing, tolerant and reasonable a church is (or thinks it is), it's not going to grow, or even remain stable, in our society if it doesn't inspire people in the community to know more about God. The social gospel isn't enough, because the welfare state has separated social care from religion and people no longer see an inevitable connection between the two, even if some of that care is coming from a church environment.
There are different responses to the current situation. The new Moderator of the URC Assembly, a man I know slightly, has stated that churches should stop freaking out about statistics, and instead be joyful people who recognise the value of smallness. Then there are are people who deliberately leave a flourishing evangelical church because they want to support a small, struggling church that they normally drive past every Sunday. There's the potential for ecumenical ventures, or bigger churches mentoring smaller churches within the same denomination. The Fresh Expressions model means that the traditionalists in mainstream churches can carry on doing their thing while resourcing alternative forms of church to attract satellite congregations.
In some moderate mainstream church circles evangelism is viewed with some distaste. It's not preached about. The denomination may hold seminars and discussion groups that you can attend if you're interested, but it's not part of the marrow of churchgoing life. A few years ago I read a Methodist document that described evangelism as 'flavour of the month'. If revivalists take it more seriously, it's hardly surprising that they'll have better outcomes.
Someone needs to do some serious research into the long term viability of ordinary mainstream churches, and their potential for transformation. And then someone else needs to come along to popularise this information so that the churches themselves can pray about it, reflect on it and decide on their response. When I visit Christian bookshops I'm surprised at how little I find that deals with these issues.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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My issue with some 'mainstream' groups and their sniffy attitude to evangelicals is that this tends to reveal their somewhat smug attitude that they are the 'proper' expression of Christianity and that all others are 'lite'.
I would remind them that this attitude is not new and that Jesus had something to say about it when he said that if God wanted to he could make children of Abraham out of stones lying on the floor! Let the 'mainstream' not think that it alone is the repository of truth, decency and authenticity.
Some of it is nothing more than a whited sepulchre, keeping dead men's bones in neat array.
Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on
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Mudfrog, I think you are right that more orthodox and liturgically observant churches can be sniffy about a number of things. There is certainly a longer history with that; but I think that a number of things that have come out in this thread (and a few other recent ones; like 'speaking in tongues') suggest that parts of the evangelical movement have lost touch with orthodox doctrine and the shape of 'worship'. The congregations are now audiences and entertainment is most important thing. I have, somewhat against my will, attended an evangelic CofE church here in Canterbury and I could not put my hand on my heart and tell you that they are even Trinitarian.
What is great about the evangelical movement(s) is that they so often work so hard and with much success in being 'in the community'. But I would argue that that has changed in the past 20 years or so and then the charo-evo churches have transformed a community devotion to our Lord into a Jesus-themed entertainment 'event'. Revivalism is part of that paradigm. It helps keep their narrative going, just like waiting for the rescue boat to arrive at Gilligan's Island…
K.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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It is also true that some of the modern evangelicals can be a bit sniffy with others who have not morphed into charismatics! The Salvation Army lost a lot of people in the 1980s to the House Church movement. AS friend of mine left his SA ministry with the triumphant declaration that 'The Salvation Army is no longer in God's plan for the church'. Nice of God to tell US that!
Another friend of mine was in training to be an officer and returned one day to his car to find a leaflet under the windscreen wipers: "Ten Reasons Why The Salvation Army is Not of God!"
I look at the religious TV programmes and see the Abundant Life church and others. If one turns down the volume one would simply assume it was a recording of a pop concert! This worries me intensely. You are right, these kinds of people who are evidently(!) more 'of God' than The Salvation Army (goodness knows what they thing of Methodists and, God help them, Catholics!) are so shallow you would even get your feet wet!
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
Parts of the evangelical movement have lost touch with orthodox doctrine and the shape of 'worship'. The congregations are now audiences and entertainment is most important thing. I have, somewhat against my will, attended an evangelic CofE church here in Canterbury and I could not put my hand on my heart and tell you that they are even Trinitarian.
The only solution is for all of these 'unorthodox' congregations to split off from the CofE. Then the CofE can be what many English people appear to want it to be; a traditional church, formal in terms of worship, caring, in the theological centre, tolerant, trying to be relevant in a culturally low-key way. Unfortunately, such a split would mean losing a lot of active churchgoers. If these were truly revival times that wouldn't matter, but as it is, I doubt if the powers that be would seek to remove them, nomatter how much they disapprove.
I can only think of one reason why people with such unAnglican practices (and possibly beliefs) as you describe, remain in the CofE: it gives them the oxygen of publicity, and a public platform that being in a new denomination wouldn't give them. They're probably less likely to 'tone things down' than if they were in some other denomination, because, after all, they have the status and privilege of the CofE to protect them! So I'm beginning to see see why other Anglicans are perplexed by these people in their midst; you can't live with them, but then again, you can't live without them, and while the CofE retains its established status, most of them are unlikely to leave. Indeed, people are likely to join them from other denominations. No doubt, plenty of them get burnt out and walk away, but plenty of people walk away from the MOTR congregations too.
Usually I'm into a degree of postmodernism and hybridity in the church, but in the CofE it seems to be a bit off the scale!
Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on
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Yet another new church group is starting up in our neighbouring parish - The Revival Fellowship, this time.
Deep Joy - now we all know where to go.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Ian J.
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