Last Sunday’s unprecedented national & even international event was the latest example of how many Christians are saying that America is in, or at the beginning of, a great revival. Is revival breaking out all over, or should we look at such claims with jaded eyes? I’ll admit that while I watched the Charlie Kirk memorial take place in a massive stadium filled with a multitude, & 100 million more all over the world watching just the stream (not including TV broadcasts & later posts), it wasn’t like anything I’ve witnessed before, or something that can be ignored. It may turn out to be the singular most-heard gospel presentation in history.
Charlie’s wife provided the most moving speech of the day by forgiving her husband’s murderer. She said: “After Charlie’s assassination…we saw what my husband always prayed he would see in this country. We saw revival. This past week, we saw people open a Bible for the first time in a decade. We saw people pray for the first time since they were children. We saw people go to a church service for the first time in their entire lives.”
I’ve heard many politicians on both sides of the aisle before make pandering religious statements in displays of cultural Christianity. But I was now hearing high-ranking government officials not offering pious spiritual platitudes, but unashamedly calling for a spiritual awakening & a return to following Christ. Only God knows how sincere they were. Just because people say religious things doesn’t mean they’re saved or doctrinally sound. Yet, there was no heresy, universalism, or theological liberalism promoted.
The Secretary of Defense proclaimed: “Only Christ is King, our Lord and Savior. Our sins are washed away by the blood of Jesus. …Put Christ at the center of your life.” The Vice-President declared: “…I always felt a little uncomfortable talking about my faith in public. As much as I love the Lord, and as much as it was an important part of my life, I have talked more about Jesus Christ in the past two weeks than I have in my entire time in public life. …It is better to be persecuted for your faith than to deny the Kingship of Christ.” The most stunning was to hear the Secretary of State give a clearer presentation of the gospel message than you’d hear in many churches (1 Cor. 15).
My default setting when it comes to talk of revival is cautious skepticism. Why? Because I’ve heard that kind of talk for decades, yet real revival never comes. America has had major seasons of revival in the past, including the 2 Great Awakenings in the 1730-40s & early 1800s. Another major revival was in 1857-58 during the Prayer Meeting (or Businessmen’s) Revival, which began in New York City with noontime prayer gatherings, & spread across urban areas. Lesser revivals took place in the mid-20th century, marked by Billy Graham’s stadium crusades, & the hippy Jesus Movement centered in places like Southern California, which led to the growth of contemporary Christian music. We’re overdue for a genuine national revival.
A couple of years ago, claims of revival came out of Asbury University in Kentucky with student-led, round-the-clock chapel services for 16 days straight, drawing thousands. This sparked similar events at other universities, resulting in mass baptisms. We’re all hopeful that young adults are getting saved, but are they really hearing the Word of God & responding to the plan of salvation (Rom. 10:17)? Or could it be that at least part of such revivalism is attributable to emotionally-driven decisions arising from crowd hype, pumped up music, & even emotional manipulation?
People do seem to be curious about Jesus, with a stirring among youth, especially young men. We’re being told anecdotally that churches are filling up after Charlie’s assassination. But is that really the case? Our church saw a small spike in part due to it. But I also recall how that was the case following 9/11. It was a short-lived “revival” as churches went back to normal shortly thereafter, & actually began declining even more in succeeding years.
In genuine revival, we should be seeing not just more worship events, but more repentance & holiness. Are people hungry for Scripture & dependent on prayer? Is there life-change in people’s temperament, language, habits, & entertainment choices? Are we seeing more virtue & less vice? It should usher in more doctrinal orthodoxy, not ecstatic visions & heretical teaching. Only time will tell if that’s the case.
I’m concerned when people keep saying, “This is revival” or “Revival is coming,” as if they’re going to make it happen by force of will. It reminds me of the scene in the movie “Mean Girls,” where one of the teen girls keeps using the word “fetch” in the desperate hope it will catch on as popular slang (meaning “cool”). But one of the other girls shuts it down by saying, “Stop trying to make fetch happen. It’s not going to happen.”
If revival is going to happen, it’s not going to be manufactured. It’s going to be evident in how people live daily after the momentary excitement of rallies wears off. In the meantime, I rejoice like Paul when he heard about some who were insincerely preaching Christ from wrong motives: “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice” (Phil. 1:18).