Evangelicalism (I) 19th Century and the Revival

Hi! Here are some of my reflections from all the reading I did for my exam. I passed, by the way! Could be long and boring, but I wouldn't know. I just find it fascinating!! :)

For those of us who are interested in people becoming Christian, the idea of 'revival' is held out at a kind of nirvana. Many, many people becoming Christians all at once is basically what a revival is all about, and that is what most of us long to see happen.

And in the 19th Century, the 'revival' was studied and various means were invented to replicate it. This is particularly the case with Finney's publication regarding Revivals, which changed the shape of revivals in America, but my interest at the moment is the UK, and the change there is considerable.

The revival fitted with church reality after the Wesley and Whitfield revivals of the late 18th Century.* But it was far more of an 'event' by the end of the 19th century. Revivals in the 18th entury particularly occurred among the lower classes, who had no access to the Bible because they couldn't read and were absent from church and didn't hear it read. The Gospel therefore was not something they were familiar with, and often heard it the first time as the W's preached.

And of course, part of the genius of the Wesley and Whitfield approach was the establishment of 'classes' in which people learned to be Christian, often learning how to read in the process.

This was often the case with subsequent revivals. They often were localised, particularly among a group of the same kind of occupation - so fishermen, etc - in the same place. Sometimes there was very little to explain them. They just happened. So, a group of men playing cards suddenly fall down on their knees and cry out to God for mercy for hours. And there's a revival. Sometimes it's more prosaic. A group of Primitive Methodists enter a village with singing and processing through the streets to the field where they try to hold their open air meeting. The village clergymen comes against them with a group of thugs, including a full band. They try to preach but can barely be heard above the band. Then, suddenly the drummer of this band is convicted of sin and then others and revival breaks out.(Presumably this is a lot easier after the drummer starts sobbing and ceases drumming). Of course, sometimes it doesn't work that easily: the preachers are beaten up and some even die in the course of events.

But mostly, these revivals look to me like quicker ways of doing mission. So, in a good church when the Gospel is preached, people in the church will be telling their friends about Jesus and bringing them along to hear the Gospel. And that means that the same kind of dynamic which we see among say the fishermen at Cornwall is at work in that church, only a lot slower. It's not that revival isn't supernatural, it's just that it's as supernatural as all other gospel work, and there's a kind of continuity between the two.

After about 1845, this changed dramatically. People are inventing ways to do revival in a dramatic way. These come to Britain from the USA often, and start to change the way revivals are perceived. The Methodists had started to seriously distance themselves from revivals from the early 1800's, but in the 1840's they send home a revivalist named James Caughey for illicit revival practice. Many Methodists are committed to revivalism and struggle with this rejection of revival and leave (and that's a story in itself). Other Evangelical denominations which have imitated many of the Methodist type strategies - church planting, small groups at churches, centralisation, etc, etc - distance themselves from revivalism also.

The kind of things which start to be a factor in revivals now characterise our understanding of 'revivals': different speaking techniques, singing, altar calls, planting people in the congregation to stand when asked and so on. Prior to that, mission meetings looked different. There were still strategies, but they reflected a different set of priorities. At the camp meetings the Primitive Methodists held, for example, the speakers were limited in how long they could speak, there had to be at least one speaker for the children, people were to be aware of God moving and stop what they were doing if it wasn't contributing. There was no 'revival leader' in these events as such, though a lot of known speakers. I could be wrong, but I suspect it was more of a group affair: people invited their friends, were involved in setting it up and pulling it down (it was a literal 'camp') and were there for people in the event of their conversion and subsequent discipleship. I think you see this also in the interest they have in preaching to children as well - that's the kind of priority that a church type group has. Sometimes of course there were big name speakers, but this was the kind of rhythm of the revivals.

So, I think revivals were part of the way the community of believers did mission(after the initial Wesley ones), and as they became 'professional' they were managed by travelling groups rather than owned by churches. Evangelicals couldn't ignore them, and didn't because of conversions, but they were different, and there was a definite distancing from them in the 1850's, which changed as the century progressed.

Any one of us coming to Christ is miraculous. When God pours his mercy out on many, many people all at once it is mind blowing. But I think the idea which grows up with Finney and others, that we should actively seek revival, is distracting. If we prayerfully work hard to know and speak the Gospel we are doing all that we are responsible to do. God might pour out his blessing, slowly or all at once, but this is his work. And we rejoice in his work when we see it, in big or small ways!

* Note that I'm not claiming that the Wesley revivals were part of the COE church experience. These intial revivals are unusual, but the subsequent ones I think are in the context of the community of believers.