How do you feel when you hear reports of what is being called a “Quiet Revival”? I’m sure there will be a variety of feelings and responses. Some of you will be feeling really excited at the moment because you are the ones seeing young men turning up seemingly out of nowhere. Others may be feeling a little disappointed and may even be reserving judgement. You may be unconvinced that anything at all is happening because you just ain’t seeing it where you are.
Then some may be sitting somewhere in the middle with tons of questions and that might be because yes, you’ve seen stuff but what it looks like doesn’t seem to fit with what is being reported and labelled as the revival.
Let me use myself as an example of the third category. Our current church family has seen significant growth over the past 3 or 4 years coming out of the pandemic. That’s been a mixture of existing Christians moving, as far As we can tell, for good reasons, people coming back to church and some people turning up who were not Christians. However, we are not seeing the kinds of things reported elsewhere. That probably reflects our context.
Going back further, I pastored another church for ten years. During that time, we saw quite phenomenal growth. We went from one congregation to 3 with a fledgling bi-lingual church plant, another congregation on its way and we were about to support a church revitalisation. We were seeing particularly the marginalised coming in: asylum seekers, homeless, ex-convicts, drug addicts and prostitutes. We were not alone in experiencing that but I have found that a lot of people weren’t aware of what was going on up and down the country on estates and in inner cities and so that it never attracted words like revival. Similarly, exciting things happened during the pandemic but because it was online, it never got that kind of label too.
For some of us then, the temptation may be towards jealousy a little. Why are some things recognised and others not.
Now, my point here is this. It is perfectly fait and good to have questions, to not want to rush to label something and even have questions about some things going on, theology and practice wise. However, there are ways to do this and not to do this. We need to be careful that we don’t begin to talk about others in a manner that betrays cynicism or bitterness. If we do find ourselves doing this, it may say more about what is happening in our own hearts than what is happening out there.
I’ve noticed something else too. First, I get the impression that sound people who a couple of months back were talking in sceptical terms are now happily using revival language. What seems to have changed things? The answer is “that march”, the one on the 13th September.
Secondly, around that same event, we’ve seen others, especially from charismatic backgrounds who have been quick to start talking in a way I’ve seen before. I remember it particularly from the Toronto Blessing and its aftermath in the 90s. Some people began to say that if you had questions or challenges, then you risked grieving the Holy Spirit. You were going to be left behind and the edge to it was just if this was how God was moving his church then this did not just mean missing an experience but being left behind by the Holy Spirit and the Church.
Now we are seeing the same kind of language again but it’s not about the spiritual phenomena this time. If in the 90s you weren’t sure about people laughing hysterically or making animal noises then there was a silencing of your concerns. Now, it’s if you dare to question an association with far right politics and ethno-cultural nationalism.
There are two major issues here. The first is that it becomes highly manipulative. It comes about seeking to control the narrative and events. It presumes to speak for God on things he hasn’t said and in a way that we don’t seem to see him speaking. It really doesn’t sound like the Shepherd’s voice.
Secondly, the fact that it has this partisan political focus and the nature of those politics also sets some red lights off. Why are we being told that we must not question what has long been a very murky and questionable area of politics? Why is it the very people who have been subject to hate, rejection and marginalised in society, the very people who the world wants to leave behind and their friends and advocates (who the world is also keen to leave behind) that are being threatened with the same by spokesmen from the church, not for failure to respond to the Gospel but for failure to accept a political agenda.
If that is the dominant voice in your church and in your social media circles, of it’s your own dominant voice, then you may need a heart check just as much as the cynics.
Faithroots 