On February 8, 2023 Asbury University students attended chapel and then didn’t leave. They maintained fellowship and worship in shifts until the 24th, attracting curious outsiders to come and see this alleged work of God. This predictably sparked a debate among Christians about what counts as a real revival.
Many evangelicals flocked to Asbury to be a part of what they saw as a genuine move of God, while many others looked for flaws. The critics compared what took place with their own church’s style of worship and with revivals of previous centuries which have become examples of “good old days” “old time religion.” But are these comparisons legitimate? What is a revival and how do we know when God is truly moving?
DEFINING OUR TERM
Revival is not a biblical word, though our ideas about it are modeled after biblical events when the people of God gathered and the Spirit moved–the day of Pentecost, Solomon’s dedication of the temple, etc.
In popular American usage, a small group of committed, rural Christians preaching and singing in a tent might be called a revival. Some churches will even schedule this spontaneous move of the Spirit and advertise “Revival next week!” on their road sign. Some have hoped for revivals that would spark political change like banning alcohol, abortion, slavery, or electing their favorite politician to the White House. But perhaps the most basic vision of what a revival looks like is when lots of people in a place that was historically seen as majority Christian (to revive means to bring back to life something that has died) become saved or make a serious commitment to Christ.
A “REAL” REVIVAL?
So does what happened at Asbury count as a real revival? The arguments against it are largely factional. Charismatics were skeptical of what happened at Asbury because it was too orderly–the Spirit was “being quenched” by the leaders’ desire to structure the event and not let it turn into a circus. Fundamentalists doubted it because it wasn’t happening at a KJV-only school, they heard that a few of the students identified as gay, or because it was too “emotional.” Some Calvinists were skeptical just because it was happening at an Arminian seminary.
In any alleged movement of God, how can we actually know that it’s truly God and not something humans are manufacturing? This isn’t as easy to answer as we’d like it to be because humans make choices. Everything God does in our lives will be interpreted or responded to by us. When the Spirit moves, we don’t turn into pre-programmed robots who do only what God commands us to.. Instead, God moves in us and through us with our cooperation. We may misunderstand what He wants to do or try to force the move of the Spirit to look like something it isn’t. He may also give us the freedom to understand what’s happening in a way that makes sense for our time and place.
God may be more likely to move when we’re receptive. But then again He could also move even when we aren’t open to it. The latter may look more like revival to us, but the former is also revival. All revivals include both God and humans, so disentangling the two is very difficult to do.
We have similar debates about using music, lights, and emotional appeals to manipulate a spiritual experience. It’s been said that when Jonathan Edwards read his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” he did so in a monotone to avoid manipulating the crowd (though that didn’t stop him from using dramatic and frightening language in the sermon itself). Nevertheless, his hearers were weeping and fainting in the aisles anyway. Does his lack of emotional cadence prove that it was God and not Edwards who was convicting the hearts of the people?
Another revivalist, Charles Finney, used what had been learned about psychology to make more effective appeals to his audiences. The much revered George Whitefield had been a stage actor before he was a revival preacher, and he used that skillset to become one of the most effective revival preachers of all time. Does their intentional appeal to human nature mean Finney and Whitefield “faked it?”
Not at all. Humans are embodied and not just spiritual beings. God made us that way. There’s nothing wrong with appealing to our embodied experience, so long as the appeal is not manipulative or dishonest. Even so, Asbury did not begin with an appeal to emotion, but with a fairly standard sermon that the preacher himself felt had landed with a thud.
If you’ve romanticized the revivals of centuries past but don’t trust what happened at Asbury, you may be in for a rude awakening about just how complicated these past revivals were and how similar their circumstances were to what took place at Asbury.
THE GREAT AWAKENING VERSUS THE ASBURY OUTPOURING
To keep it simple, let’s focus on one famous past revival–The Great Awakening.
The Great Awakening was a series of revivals originally centered in the northern American colonies in the early 1740s. While they are now seen by many conservatives and fundamentalists as a great movement of God that we should desire today, the Great Awakening was not seen by more conservative Christians of the time as a movement of God or even a positive social force.
Just as with Asbury, there were Christians who were fans of the movement, Christians who saw it as a bad thing, and lots of Christians in the middle who gave the revivals a mixed reception. Enthusiastic supporters were more radical and included elements that were more charismatic and anti-church authority. Detractors supported structured church power and saw the revivals as socially dangerous and disruptive–they didn’t like the radicals’ idea that the Holy Spirit enabled regular Christians (including women, children, Native Americans, and blacks) to be preachers and prophets. It was these white, male college graduates who were the elite. They had been trained to lead churches, not the populist revivalists. As a result, they protected their special authority. Six different ministerial associations joined the faculties of Harvard and Yale in advising ministers to not allow revivalist superstar George Whitefield to ever preach from their pulpits. In some ways the anti revivalists had a point about the disruptiveness of some revivals, such as those marked by uncontrollable laughter and over the top preachers like James Davenport who once took off his pants and threw them into a bonfire.
It’s worth noting that unlike the Great Awakening revivals with these more charismatic elements, Asbury was not marked by this kind of bizarre enthusiasm. One could argue that a conservative who favors the Great Awakening should appreciate the Asbury Outpouring even more.
Also much like Asbury, the Great Awakening was sparked by young people (see Joel 2:28–”Your sons and daughters will prophesy”). The 1734 Northampton revival began when Jonathan Edwards exhorted local youths to be born again and their fervor spread to the whole community. Edwards was a more moderate defender of the Awakening, as well as one of its chief figures, who argued that the emotionalism found at many of the revival meetings was neither an argument for or against their legitimacy. What was really important was whether real spiritual fruit like love, holiness, and generosity was produced in them. The “Old Light” antirevivalists disagreed. They thought conversion should be a sober, thoughtful process instead of an emotional one.
Did the Great Awakening spark an interest in social justice that more progressive minded Christians think should accompany revival? Yes and no. Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield remained slave-owners as they preached, but the revivals also often had an equalizing effect between colors, economic statuses, and sexes. Some historians have argued that without the Great Awakening’s egalitarian emphasis, the American Revolution might have never taken place.
CONCLUSION
Whenever I hear critics of Asbury comparing it to past revivals, I’ve noticed that the comparisons they’re making are not between two real things, but between a false nostalgia for the past and an imbalanced humbuggery about the present state of the church. They’re telling a story about contemporary decay that doesn’t quite match the realities of history. There’s a good chance that these more conservative critics would not have been supporters of the Great Awakening that they yearn so much for. These kinds of critics need to be both more generous to their opponents and more realistic about how moves of God are filtered through human experience.
Not everything that comes out of Asbury is going to be perfect, but if God uses it to change hearts and move people toward Him, then praise God. The so-called “real revivals” of previous centuries didn’t end slavery or create perfect Christians, but they were still moves of God. Will everyone who participated in the Asbury revival be forever changed by the Holy Spirit? Certainly not. As highlighted above, every revival has attracted charlatans and spiritual tourists. This was the point of Jesus’ parable of the sower: God may sow the good seed of the gospel in our hearts, but it’s our duty to prepare the soil.