Revival?

Horror scenes make for compulsive viewing and the God Channel is no exception! The gross familiarity with the Deity of many of the 'performers', ego-trips and stereo-typical methods of delivery are as offensive as their idea of revival is false. Where does it come from? Does it have antecedents in the history of the church? As a Welshman I am intrigued by the relation of past revivals to the present state of the church.

Brian Edwards, in his book, Revival, bases his understanding of revival largely on the reformation instituted king Hezekiah of Judah. Reformation seems to be at the centre. The Welsh language has the same word for reformation and revival. So if reformation and revival are synonymous, was what happened, for example, in 1904 really a revival?

Evan Roberts was born in 1878 into a Christian home in the town of Loughor in the county of Glamorgan. In the spring of 1904, before commencing training for the Presbyterian ministry, he awoke early one morning in a kind of ‘out of body’ experience. This he understood to be communion with God. He had similar experiences over the next three months.

It has been said that the character of a revival is, to a degree, influenced by the experience of its leader(s). 1904 was no exception. In a spiritual agony, Roberts sought permission of the Holy Spirit to articulate a prayer. ‘As one and the other prayed’ he wrote, ‘I put the question to the Spirit, “Shall I pray now?” “Wait a while”, said he … and as each one finished I asked, “May I pray now?”’ It set the tone for what followed. The Western Mail of November 11, 1904 reported that ‘the ancient township of Loughor, near Llanelly, is in the throes of a truly remarkable “revival,” the influence of which is spreading to the surrounding districts.’

The controlling principle of the revival was the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit, which sounds noble enough, but in reality it opened the door to a species of confusion and human experience, which militated against genuine reformation and revival. To be fair, Roberts had affirmed from an early stage that his mission was to the church first. There is little about what happened thereafter to contradict this, but the 'revival' did not result in a revived church, which only goes to show that what we say and what we do are not always the same.

What I mean is that the traditional denominations, already in irremediable decline, were not revived. Some have explained this by reference to the special circumstances surrounding 1904. Whereas the church prior to the revival of 1859 had remained faithful to traditional orthodoxy and practice, the churches of 1904 had, in significant measure, already become heterodox. This is fair comment. By the end of the nineteenth century rationalism and theological liberalism had begun to influence the seminaries and pulpits of Wales. Even theologically conservative ministers and teachers were not as conservative as before.

But the explanation of why the church was not revived in 1904 lies partly in the nature of the revival itself. From our present perspective we might regard Roberts as very old fashioned but ‘his’ revival embraced a number of distinctive, modern features. He was experiential rather than doctrinal, mystical rather than dogmatic and individual rather than collective and like Søren Kierkegaard, proceeded in the belief salvation depends on our existential choices.

The fact is that the prevailing existentialism & mysticism of 1904 could do nothing to release the church from the stranglehold of liberalism, despite the valiant efforts of courageous men like Nantlais Williams, himself a product of the revival. The net result is that while many were converted, the institutional church lost ground on a massive scale. Some of course, left the established denominations in the belief that ‘the Glory had departed’. They became the first generation of the newly formed Pentecostal churches, which embraced Roberts’ emphasis on the Holy Spirit and developed it even further.

But were the ‘older’ denominations really past reviving, say, any more than the church at the time of the Protestant Reformation? That, for me, is an important question because the one thing necessary to halt the forward march of heterodoxy is truth combined with commensurate experience, not experience by itself. It is a serious indictment, that a so-called revival is characterised by a culpable absence of the preaching and teaching of God’s Word. Reformation and Revival are synonymous. The former leads to the latter and the latter can’t exist without the former. As the psalmist says in Psalm 119: 25, ‘My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to your word.’