09.13.06
revivalism.. dangers
“By now it is becoming possible to see that the most unfortunate result of revivalism may not have been its excesses and distortions. The deeper problem is that frontier revivalism could not be one or two of the means used by a developed church to express aspects of its faith and life. Revivalism did not serve a church that knew much more. Instead revivalism itself had to create and sustain the Christian community. And this meant that the church thus created tended to remain fixated around the emotions and the doctrines of its beginnings. The most demonic result is that the success of the movement has tended to limit its descendants to that level of human need which it was designed to satisfy. Its victory acted as a brake on Christian maturity. Churches created by revivals have found it almost impossible to break free from the moods and the ideas appropriate to adolescents.”
Delbert Wiens, “From the Village to the City”
eric said,
September 13, 2006 at 12:32 pm
My theological roots are in a denomination influenced and shaped by frontier revivalism; though not Pentecostalism.
While emotion is and was a big part it is not the only element that harms results. The desire to be transformed “instantly,” the lack in subsequent to truly seek God rather than the experience, the tendency toward legalism, anti-intellectualism, the list could go on and on.
It has simply gone the way of every earthly organization and denomination: the fervor of the fathers is lost in the organizations of the children. Compound that with the development of a consumeristic, middle-class society and you have more converging streams of problems.
But, if you look beyond frontier revivalism to the roots in the Wesleyan Revival you will see a strong desire for holiness, social reform, and self-sacrificing growth in grace. I have never really like what frontier revivalism did to my forefathers in the faith, but it seems simplistic, if I understand this quote correctly, to lay the blame solely at the feet of emotionalism (which is the search to relive an experience).
len said,
September 13, 2006 at 3:43 pm
True enough, and that’s why quotes out of context are often unfair. It’s also good to add what David Fitch says about “immersive worship.” Do a search here..
Fitch calls for immersive worship: a worship when the self is immersed in God"s goodness and glory so that the self is formed by the truth of God"s reality. “Only when self is immersed can it be shaped into a reality beyond itself… both traditional and charismatic forms of evangelical worship thwart the immersion because they put self at the center of worship.”?
“Traditional evangelical worship targets the mind of each individual as the center from which each worshiper digests teaching and makes decisions as to what he or she agrees with concerned the pastor"s sermon. In the same way, contemporary worship targets the individual"s emotions and experience as the center from which God engages and meets the worshiper in the service. In both cases the Holy Spirit"s involvement with this process is assumed. Yet in both cases, the worship service isolates the self at the center of worship in relationship to God. Sitting in the pew, the self is separate from God and is essentially stiill in control. Therefore, our worship cannot form the self …”? (105)
eric said,
September 14, 2006 at 5:32 am
It seems most forms of worship over-emphasize one or the other: emotional or intellectual. There is very little middle ground in regular use by churches today.
Revivalism | Based on a True Story said,
September 4, 2009 at 10:25 am
[...] I was reading Next Reformation, and this quote was his latest post. Guess I’m not the only one in the world that thinks its dangerous, and maybe some of the things I said in my open letter make some sense. “By now it is becoming possible to see that the most unfortunate result of revivalism may not have been its excesses and distortions. The deeper problem is that frontier revivalism could not be one or two of the means used by a developed church to express aspects of its faith and life. Revivalism did not serve a church that knew much more. Instead revivalism itself had to create and sustain the Christian community. And this meant that the church thus created tended to remain fixated around the emotions and the doctrines of its beginnings. The most demonic result is that the success of the movement has tended to limit its descendants to that level of human need which it was designed to satisfy. Its victory acted as a brake on Christian maturity. Churches created by revivals have found it almost impossible to break free from the moods and the ideas appropriate to adolescents.†[...]
NextReformation » Hauerwas on leadership said,
January 5, 2010 at 9:13 am
[...] “The church’s liturgy has been a history of constant innovation. Innovation should occur in a way that we recognize continuities through time. It was a bad innovation when the revivalistic structure overtook the church’s primary liturgical form in a way that charismatic preachers replaced the centrality of Eucharist…” [...]