We are planning for our revival, but how do we know revival is occurring or has occurred? Does simply hanging a sign outside of a tent automatically assume revival?
In one sense, yes, it does … according to our culture’s definition of revival. A revival in this understanding is simply a planned set of special services that involves an out-of-the-ordinary preacher delivering heart-stirring sermons. If one’s heart is stirred, then one is said to have experienced a good revival. Yet, regardless of the quality of the speaker, revival is experienced. It could be a good experience or a bad experience.
Another understanding of revival comes from Jim Wallis, a leader in the evangelical leftist movement. In a sermon delivered at Asbury Seminary a couple of years ago, Wallis asked us not to call the Billy Graham movement a revival. To his credit he did not speak against what Graham did. He in essence said that though Graham lead many to the altar at his crusades, this was not revival. Revival, according to Wallis, is measure on how deeply Christian people respond to the Gospel call to minister to the physical needs of the “least of these.” Yet, according to Wallis, this is only one facet of revival. True revival will happen when the people of God, respond to the evangelical call of God, take the Gospel to the streets in message and physical ministry … and … this is the kicker … the poor have their justice secured for them. According to Wallis … at least on that day … justice for the poor is the result of there being no more poor people. To Wallis’s credit, he does not simply offer a pure, 20th Century Social Gospel. He underscores the need for both message and ministry … sort of.
I think both of these examples miss an estimation of true revival.
In the first point, offered by my adopted tradition, the ability to plan for revival is underscored. This is certainly good. Whatever we call our series of meetings, we certainly miss the heart of God, if we never plan and never expect God to show up with something personally for us. However, this first example falls far short of the Scripturally robust picture of revival. My people expect to little of God in this picture, by merely expecting what amounts to a private, heart-stirring and heart-warming message for each individual. The mark of Christian faith is not what facts I believe in my head. Rather the mark of Christian faith is what I do with my beliefs for other people inside the church and inside the world.
In the second example Wallis emphasizes the need for revival to result in deep involvement outside the church walls. That is good. Wallis emphasizes that revival is more than a private heart-warming and heart-stirring message. That is good. Wallis said quite pointedly, “Christianity may be personal, but is never private.” To often in my tradition, we have abdicated our place of influence in the world, because we have only emphasized a come-to-the-altar-and-wait-on-heaven Christianity.
However, Wallis emphasizes that revival is only true revival when the poor are no more. This is akin to saying that evangelism is only true evangelism when there are no more lost people. And somehow the whole of the responsibility lies with us and our selfishness.
Thomas Sowell emphasizes in his book, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-congratulation as Social Policy, that results are not the proper target of social policy with regard to justice. For no person or special committee of people is so infallible and so omniscient as to lay out policies which will take into account all of the minute details involved in applying different but fair standards of policy that secure just results. The Almighty, in his estimation, is the only one who is capable of doing such an extensive job. Rather it is a far more appropriate goal, given our limitations (selfish human nature, human mental fallibility, etc.) to focus on securing just social processes … despite whether the results secure mathematically just (equal) results.
Similarly, I think Wallis is wrong in making the end of poverty the marker of true revival. Rather, I think a better understanding of true revival is deep and intense Christian involvement in society with the full-Gospel … without using results as the true measure. I’m not saying we should pay attention to results, for certainly our ministry methods can in many places be alterred and improved, depending on the culture in which we’re working.
Yet at some point “perfect results” are out of our hands. For there are two other players in our revival scenario. There is God, the one who ultimately builds his church. There is also the people we are targeting for robust Gospel ministry (which most certainly includes evangelism). If we take total responsibility concerning God, we deny him his power and claim it for our own. If we take total responsibility concerning the people we are targeting, we end up taking personal responsibility away from them and enabling bad behavior to continue. Thus, Wallis’s poverty-ending-result-oriented definition of revival is self-destructive.
