Episode Details

This Breakpoint was originally published on February 21, 2023.

___

Two weeks ago, what started as a routine (and, according to the preacher, “lackluster”) chapel service at Asbury University became something remarkable. Instead of heading off to classes, students stayed to pray and worship. Services have continued ever since, with people traveling from near and far to join in prayer, repentance, and song. What is being called a “revival” by some and an “awakening” by others has now spread to other Christian colleges.  

The past few days echo the revivals that were experienced in the recent past on other Christian college campuses, including one at Wheaton College in 1995, and those at Asbury in 1970 and 1950. In each case, there were seemingly spontaneous expressions from students of prayer, confession, and praise. The revivals of the past are an indelible part of Asbury’s historical memory, and many who experienced the 1970 revival have prayed ever since for it to happen again. 

Revivals have been, in fact, a consistent, distinct feature of American religious life since before our nation’s founding. The First Great Awakening, in the early 1700s, was part of a larger, trans-Atlantic spiritual renewal centered on personal conversion, an emphasis that had a transformative effect on the emerging American consciousness. The idea that a genuinely converted, common ploughboy was spiritually ahead of an unconverted bishop contributed to a growing anti-hierarchical attitude in the colonies. This, in time, contributed to a growing anti-monarchial mood, setting the stage for revolution. 

The Second Great Awakening, which swept the nation decades later, coupled a similar focus on conversion with postmillennial eschatology. Among the results was a drive for social reform. Abolitionism, temperance, and efforts against prostitution became calling cards of what came to be known as evangelicalism. 

Other revivals followed, and most included an added focus on foreign missions. The Prayer Meeting, or Businessmen’s Revival, of the 1850s was followed by revivals in the camps of both armies during the Civil War, the urban efforts and revival preaching of D.L. Moody of the 1870s and 80s, and the theatrics of Billy Sunday’s revivals at the turn of the century. Soon after came the Azusa Street Revival in California, which led to a massive growth of Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement worldwide, and then eventually led to the Jesus People of the 1970s.  

And those are only the “big” ones. Simply put, revivalism, with a focus on a personal faith with public implications, dramatically shaped American life and culture and is a major reason that America remained more religious than Europe for so long. At the same time,