Preventing Revival

There seem to be many initiatives at the moment aimed at revival in the church: including evangelistic campaigns and prayer gatherings. This is nothing new. I remember similar calls, during my student days in the 1970s. And there have been regular cycles of revivalistic enthusiasm at internals during my ministry life: from the New Churches in the 1980s, to prophetic predictions in the 1990s.

Now again there appears to be a desperate grasping out for the Lord’s intervention, to save his people, renew his church, and revive the country, with a fresh outpouring of the Spirit. I share this desire. No one who realistically considers the state of the church in Britain, in Europe, in the West, can fail to long for a new anointing: for the saints to be renewed inwardly, and for the gospel to be effective externally.

Not only do we want this for the sake of the church, as if it was only a matter of institutional survival or cultural legacy – even atheists like Richard Dawkins lament the decline of Christianity, if only as a source of ideas and imagery which have resourced our society, much on a par with classical Greek mythology. We are a weaker country for this decline. It also affects our heritage of political ideals. Historians, Larry Seidentop and Tom Holland, for example, have both written books outlining how Christianity influenced the development of western liberal political values. But this is to measure our faith by something extrinsic to it, and which, on other grounds, may actually be inimical to it.

There is no doubt, that the church needs revival; although its shadow side always contains much that is messy and fleshly. This is, however, the inevitable overflow of spiritual effervescence, as it fills individuals not yet fully sanctified, but nevertheless available for God’s Spirit to use. So, while business-as-usual will not cut it, for mission in the decadent West, the question remains: how do we actually get to experience revival?

We blame, depending on our theological perspective, lack of faith and moral compromise in the church, the absence of serious prayer and intentional outreach, or intelligent cultural analysis; perhaps external factors, like cultural changes, technological developments, or worldview attitudes. But in looking for the magic bullet, may we be forgetting something? If God is sovereign, then he knows what is happening, and why it is happening. Indeed, in his providence, he may even have caused it.

Psalm 80 suggests that it may God himself who is behind this decline in Christian faith and its churches. A plea for God to ‘restore’ and to ‘revive’, the Psalm nevertheless recognises that God’s anger is smouldering ‘against the prayers of (his) people’. He hears our prayers, but our sins prevent him from answering. He no longer goes out with our armies, or our evangelists. It is he who is ultimately the (second order) cause behind the (first order causes of) ecclesial and cultural demise. Only genuine repentance will persuade him to change his stand.