Revival & Revivalism
Author: Iain H. Murray
Written: 1994
“My thesis in this book is that in the period of our study, American history was shaped by the Spirit of God in revivals of the same kind as launched the early church into a pagan world.”
Hello Ordinary Readers,
This has been one of my favorite books I read this year. I never knew I enjoyed just learning about history. He weaves biographical accounts into the narrative, trying to follow what happened. Murray’s sub-title really gives a good summary of the book, Revival & Revivalism: The making and marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858. This book is chock-full of church history in America and how the first great awaking led to the spread of the gospel in America and influenced the second great awakening. As America expanded from the 13 colonies, so did the work of the Spirit of God, specifically in revivals. But a shift happened where revival’s were no longer just a movement of the spirit but increasingly began relying on man-made means.
Murray lays the groundwork in the first portion of the book showing how revival, in the beginning, was happening during the regular preaching of the word each Lord’s Day. It wasn’t a special service with extra prayer or extra singing, it was just through the regular preaching of the word. Then you see a shift over time of big tent revivals and using manmade means to see conversions. This included the introduction of ‘alter calls’. As Murray unfolds the history it also brings out that this shift really came as more Arminian beliefs started intermingling with the Calvinistic theology of the congregational, presbyterian, and baptist denominations.
I think everyone should read this book to understand the history of the American Church. Even if you don’t agree with all of Murray’s conclusions it is founded upon many journals and biographies that give a good view of how the Church changed and how many of these ideas are still in the church today. I say that to also say that I wouldn’t require someone who finds biographical history boring to give it a read. It can be long in sections with details that many would find tedious.
Happy Reading!
Quotes
“it can be further noted that what happens in revivals is not to be seen as something miraculously different from the regular experience of the church. The difference lies in degree, not in kind.”
““The lives of men and women who were formally unconcerned were now marked by ‘deep feeling and much anxiety’ as they awoke to a knowledge of the nature of sin and of the justice of God. Ninety-four were added to the Morristown church in that one year””
““What they deplored was the deliberate use of emotion to increase the number of converts without regard to the danger of counting as converts the spurious as well as the true””
“But it was said, ‘If only some souls are saved by the use of the new measures, we ought thankfully to own their power, and give them our countennace’. Conversion is so important that if any cases prove genuine is not enough to justify the method”