Asbury Revival Baptist Press
During my last years of earning a degree in Religious Education at a church-related university, and after I graduated and started working on a church staff, I was involved (moderately) in the charismatic movement, and a movement known as Lay Witness Mission – both associated with revivalism. I yearned for–and received–a somatized, palpable experience of God’s reality and presence in my life and in the world. I felt forgiven, accepted, and beloved by God — things everyone deserves to feel.
In my church work, I was competent in conceiving, organizing, recruiting, and carrying out programs, especially for youth. Yet, in the revivalist-type events touching my life and people in my church, certain phenomena happened, and certain claims were made that, on an intuitive level, didn’t seem quite fitting, but I was unable to clearly comprehend or articulate why. I began to realize that if I was going to spend my life as a professional church leader, I needed theological and biblical knowledge and wisdom by which to help people better understand, nurture, and evaluate the Christian faith and life, and claims related to “things of God.” And so I enrolled in a seminary, and here I am now.
I continue to value the role those religious experiences played in my life, but they underwent sifting and sorting. In seminary I was relieved to learn that anything genuinely of God can withstand respectful theological reflection and scrutiny. One of my mentors in this was Jonathan Edwards, the great 18th century revivalist preacher and Congregationalist theologian. In light of the stirrings at Asbury -- and the mixed reactions I'm reading on my Newsfeed -- perhaps this is a good time to commend his 1746 “Treatise on Religious Affections.”
“Jonathan Edwards wrote this book after the Great Awakening with which he was closely involved. He wrote as both a friend, defending the authenticity of revivals - and also as a critic, warning against putting trust in things which were not certain signs of genuine Spirit-wrought affections.”
Amidst the rhapsodizing of Asbury on the part of some, Edwards issues a reminder that religious experiences and revivals aren’t beyond the reach of theological evaluation for fruits they produce. Even as the Second Great Awakening was key to inspiring the abolition of chattel slavery in our country, any genuinely Spirit-wrought revival today must inspire endeavors to counteract white Christian nationalism and its insidious enslaving effects -- on the conviction that every human being is an equally beloved child of God.
Dr. Susanne Johnson serves as professor of practical theology at UMC-related Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. This post is republshed with the author's permission from her Facebook page. Please conact the author viaa Facebook for permission to republsh this conntent elsewhere.