There’s been some discussion recently about whether or not the UK is experiencing what has been termed “The Quiet Revival”. For those of us involved in church leadership whether paid or voluntary, there is a benefit in learning to engage with data and learn from it. So, given that one of my primary audiences is those involved in planting and pastoring in urban contexts, I’ve engaged with the research that has led to this term being coined myself. In summary,
- I’m wary of giving labels like “revival” to things, especially close in to the event
- We need to handle research data carefully
- There are plenty of things to be positive about
- There are things we can learn that might help us with our churches.
I’ve been interested too to see what others are saying. Recently, I saw this article from David Robertson, often known as the Wee Flea. I am afraid to say that I don’t think this is a helpful model of engagement. You see, it seems to me that Robertson has already made his mind up about what is going on in a church context that he is extremely remote from, this affects how he reads and engages with reports.
First of all, let’s talk about the term “Quiet Revival”. As noted above, I personally am not keen on applying labels but when people do choose to use a label, it is helpful to know what they mean by it. Robertson writes:
Firstly, there is no quiet revival – at least the quiet bit. This has to have been the most publicised, broadcast and commented on revival in history!
It is important to check what those using the phrase mean though. Here are the introductory lines of the Bible Society report.
“The word ‘revival’ is freighted, particularly among Christians from the evangelical tradition, with folk memories of full-to-bursting congregations and dramatically emotional congregational experiences. This is not necessarily that. Our ‘Quiet Revival’ is low key, but it is widespread. It doesn’t draw attention to a particular leadership style, or way of doing church, or political influence. Instead, the story told in this report is revolutionary in terms of the public assumptions about Christianity in England and Wales, and transformational in terms of how Christians think about themselves”
In other words, the word “quiet” is not to do with whether or not something has been reported on. Rather it is to contrast cultural expectations of what revival will look like with something that seems quite understated. Our perception tends to be that “Revival” refers to something that is sudden, quick, noisy, highly visible. Charismatics and non-charismatics alike tend to expect an intense spiritual atmosphere with even physical manifestations. In the popular mind, revival means churches packed for days on end with people not wanting to go home, passionate preaching, people overcome with emotion and mass conversions. In the modern age, such an event would quickly catch the attention of both the Christian and secular media. Yet, here is something that seems to have only been picked up because of research done.
Whether or not we should refer to this as “revival” or not is perhaps debatable. Robertson says “no” because:
“In summary real revival involves conversions, powerful preaching, prayer and repentance, and it results in moral and social reformation. But most of all, real revival is a lifting up of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Spirit, to the glory of the Father. In passing, I note that many of the commentaries I have watched and read are full of talk about Christianity, sociology, data, and the excitement of seeing something happening – but very little about Christ. He is too often used as spiritual punctuation or religious language.”
Now, there are few things to note here. First of all, we should ask directly at this point.
“David, how do you define powerful preaching? And once you’ve defined it, how do you know whether or not it is happening in churches that you’ve never attended because even if you didn’t live on the other side of the globe, you wouldn’t be able to visit them all? How do you know whether or not people are praying and repenting? Have you personally met the people we have been baptising and looked into their souls.”
Secondly, it is worth remembering that the word “revival” is not a Biblical term and has been used to describe a wide range of historical events. There are things that seem to be common but there is also diversity. So, I’m inclined not to rush to question whether or not something is “revival” because a report on data does not describe what is happening in a way that fits our own preferred historical or contemporary event. I’m just more alert to the challenges of using a particular term.
What is it that those events have in common? Well, it seems to be that there was evidence of increased hunger for God, going against the apparent flow at the time. In that respect, surely increased Bible reading and church attendance fits with the common themes.
Thirdly, yes, any true work of God will lift up Jesus Christ. However, again, how do we judge that based on articles analysing reported data. All this tells us is that data can only show us so much.
David then goes on to question claims about increased church attendance. Has there been a 50% increase in church attendance? He says that there definitely hasn’t.
“What about the endlessly repeated assertion that church attendance is up by over 50%? It’s just not true. The reality is that 2,000 people out of 13,000 stated in a survey that they went to church at least once a month. This is higher than the previous survey, but it does not prove a 50% increase in attendance. Surely by now we have learned not to trust opinion polls – especially those commissioned by an organisation which has a vested interest in the outcome?
Now, I have been cautious about putting numbers on things and cautious too with the specific data in one survey. However, David goes beyond cautious when he says “it’s just not true.” It seems that David no more understands how opinion polls work than do the people he lambasts.
First, he questions the reliability of the Bible Society as a commissioning organisation, claiming that they have a “vested interest in the outcome.” Yet, if something is “simply not true” then it is his claim here. The Bible Society don’t have anything particular to gain from a survey showing increased church attendance. Their objective of encouraging Bible availability remains true whether or not church attendance goes up or down.
He then goes on to say:
“The Bible Society argues that YouGov is a reputable organisation which weights responders to filter out any bias. The problem is that a YouGov survey is not a census. It is filled out by those with sufficient interest to bother to fill out the forms and to self-report. I am a YouGov volunteer and regularly receive requests to fill out surveys. I have no interest in filling out a survey about golf, American politics or house prices in Wales! By definition those who fill out YouGov surveys are those who have signed up to do so – they are not representative of the whole population.”
This again seems to miss the point. Over time, opinion pollsters build up data on how people answer questions on a wide range of issues. They develop models which enable them to weight responses to factor in the very concerns he raises. And so, what was discovered many years ago was that a small, carefully weighted sample could give as accurate a picture as a very large sample, indeed more so.. Of course, as I made clear in my first response, there are questions to answer about confidence levels, margin of error, self reporting etc and how that is handled in the weighting. Opinion polling isn’t infallible but it is pretty accurate. That’s why it is newsworthy when the pollsters are well out in their predictions. And that’s why people do use pollsters whether political parties to know how they are doing and what the electorate thinks or businesses trying to better market products and services.
Additionally, we can build a better picture by looking at more than one source of information. This may lead to some questions, where for example there seem to be differences between the survey and the reports of denominations, though I don’t think those questions are insurmountable. On the other hand, a recent Evangelical Alliance survey of churches seems to support what the EA are reporting.
David goes on to mention how some churches and groups in his own past experience have grown and from that, makes the peculiar conclusion:
“In fact, what people are calling ‘revival’ is to me just normal church life. Or at least it should be!”
That is to miss the point. Yes, we want to see churches growing all the time. We want to see our own churches growing. We want to see this both in terms of more people being added, more conversions, more baptisms and we want to see it in terms of greater spiritual hunger, maturity, holiness and gifting. That’s why some of us would say that we are not particularly concerned about chasing after revivals. That’s exactly why we don’t want revivalism. However, this does not mean that churches in any one place are seeing or will see those things. So, there is nothing to prevent us from stopping and acknowledging when something different is happening.
David rounds off with a number of statements including that you don’t have a quiet revival by shouting about it. As I’ve noted above, those of us getting on with serving Christ in local churches up and down the UK are not shouting about anything. Someone has written a report and then commented on it. The disappointing thing about David’s article is that he seems to be more hung up with proving a label wrong than engaging with what the report is telling us. Now, what is happening in a lot of cases back here in the UK is that people, whether or not they like the term Quiet Revival, whether or not they think a revival is happening are engaging with the report and finding it helpful to understand what the data does show us about what is happening and to learn some lessons as we know our times better. Surely such an engagement from the Wee Flea would have better served the Church.
Faithroots 