We Don’t Need Revival

Anglican theologian J. Brandon Meeks writing at Mere Orthodoxy.  Do not neglect to read this one.

I humbly submit to you, patient reader, that the statement “we need revival” is false. It suffers from an odd mix of ambiguity and specificity, which just happens to be the exact recipe for confusion. Who is “we?” How is this “need” necessary? What is this “revival” of which it speaks? These are not difficult questions. They are the simple ones that no one seems to be asking. Once this line of critical enquiry begins, the dubious claim will fall like a well-upholstered woman at a Benny Hinn Tent Crusade. . . .

What is it that we have that is deemed to be so woefully ineffectual? We have the personal presence of the Triune God operating as both vanguard and rearguard as we march beneath the banner of the crucified and risen Christ. We have the delegated authority of the One who left death cold and lifeless in the grave. We have the very Spirit which raised Jesus working in us, upon us, with us, and for us. We have “Moses and the prophets,” that is to say, we have the Word of God—quick and powerful—unbound and unbridled. We have treasure in earthen vessels. We have meat to eat about which the world has never heard. We have the infinite power of creaturely weakness imbued with the sufficiency of God’s own Self. We have baptismal water that cleanses the conscience, confirms our faith, assures our hearts, and testifies to the faithfulness of our God. We have tangible promises; promises which we can eat and drink—promises that grab eternity by both ends and bring them into the present in the presence of Christ. We have lives we can live and deaths we can die for the glory of God so that there is no scenario in which a life cannot be offered in sacrificial service for the sake of Christ.

We have enough. And enough is enough. To say that we need revival is to say that the presence of God among his people is not enough. To say that we need revival is to say that the Word of God has lost its generative potency. To say that we need revival is to say the kerygma of the cross has lost its ancient power. To say that we need revival is to entomb the Church of God in an already evacuated grave. To say that we need revival is to say that two-thousand years of Christus Victor has been more regress than progress. To say that we need revival is to say that the Body of Christ is blind, halt, maimed, lame, or dead. To say that we need revival is to say that the fervent prayers of righteous men are ineffectual and avail nothing. To say that we need revival is to denigrate the blood of martyrs, devalue the sacrifices of persecuted brothers, and deny the worth of quiet fidelity. To say that we need revival is to err by knowing neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. Enough is enough.

What, then, is this “revival” that we need? It cannot be the presence of God, we already have that. It cannot be an infallible witness of God’s revelation of himself, we already have that too. It cannot be anything that pertains to life and godliness, we already have that.

This is where the waters usually get murky. Those who make the claim rarely have a coherent definition of this necessary revival. It usually ends up being described as something of a divine do-over; a redemptive-historical repeat. Those who argue along these lines can often be heard saying things like “we need another Pentecost,” or “you can have your own private Pentecost,” or still yet, “have you had an Upper Room experience?” Please don’t get the wrong idea here. I don’t reject such sentiments because I harbor some disbelief in the power of Pentecost; I reject such cavalier expressions because they deny the power of Pentecost.

Pentecost, like Calvary, was a singular epochal event in redemptive history. Like the cross, it was an historical moment of such potency and significance that it can rightly be described as transhistorical. That is, though it is rooted in a particular time and place, its effects are such that they burst the bonds of our normal notions of time and space. Even in the book of Acts, the effectuality of Pentecost was perpetual, while all of the accompanying phenomena were not.

Just as we need not have a repetition of Calvary in order for atonement to be made for sinners not yet born in the first century A.D., just as Jesus need not rise a second time from the grave in order to vindicate himself and his people before his Father, neither must there be another Pentecost in which the Spirit is made available in power to the people of God. To suggest that we need revival, if revival is conceived of as being a “fresh Pentecost,” is to make hash of the words of Peter, Paul, the Four Evangelists, and anyone else who may have mentioned the cross or the Spirit in the canonical Scriptures.

Or as I put it here about about the Asbury "Revival", "How unlike the original Pentecost (are these "revivals"), which gave rise to the Catholic Church 2,000 years ago, and wherein lies the true and abiding glory of the Holy Ghost in its quiet, mystical solemnity."

The "Convergence Movement" isn't Anglicanism.  This isn't Anglicanism.