Baptist Revivalism on the Decline

[Nathan_Finn]

The latest issue of the scholarly journal Baptist History and Heritage is dedicated to the topic of Baptists and Revival. Associated Baptist Press has a piece today summarizing Bill Leonard's and Lloyd Allen's respective articles about the decline of Baptist revivalism, particularly among Baptists in the South. Check it out: http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5956/53/

I'm interested in knowing others' thoughts on this topic. Do you agree that revivalism is on the decline? If so, where do you most often find pockets still committed to Southern Gopsel music, drawn-out altar calls, annual revivals, homiletical "audience participation," etc.? Do moderates and conservatives have differing perspectives on the relative merits of revivalism? Are there elements of revivalism worth preserving no matter what and others that need to be jettisoned ASAP?

Also, were any of you Southern Baptists or former Southern Baptists raised in churches that were less inclined toward revivalism? (FWIW, my own home church was a hybrid of downtown cultural elitism and what might be called "soft revivalism.")

[William Thornton]

Not that he needs introduction to some here (and many folks here skip the Welcome Forum), but Nathan Finn is Assistant Professor of Church History and Baptist Studies at the SBC's Southeastern Seminary. I missed the earlier exchange between Ed P and him.

I'll read the ABP piece and respond later...

[Blake]

The church I grew up in in Iowa used to have annual revivals. One of those years (early 90s) after a church split healing came between the factions and the church grew from 40-50 some people to around 400 before the decade was over. I don't remember any revivals taking place at my church in MN. In college, the local SBC church had an annual revival that eventually was renamed and slightly retooled to be a week long nightly Bible study with a guest pastor. I know some of the SBC churches in the area of Indiana I'm at now have tried to hold the occasional revival. Whatever the fruit, those churches are small and shrinking and the revivals aren't doing anything for them numbers wise. Whether the churches I was around was having them or not, I've never thought much of them usually because I was too young to understand or too busy to participate. For what it's worth, there's one Northerner's experience with revivals.

[Dave Roberts]

I served as a pastor for most of the last 40 years. When I began pastoring, you announced a revival and the whole community showed up. In the 80's and 90's I watched a diminishing return on revival meetings, regardless of who the evangelist was. Since about 2000, fewer and fewer people attended the revival meetings, and those who might feel inclined toward a commitment to Christ often waited until things were back to normal and came shortly after the revival meetings.

I have preached in several revivals over the years. Local churches have not generally been as responsive in recent years. Back in August of this year, I preached for a small church with a very strongly moderate pastor and was part of one of the better revivals in its spirit, attendance, and the kind of response I witnessed from the people. It seemed, however, that this particular congregation came to the services with a hunger to draw together and move forward.

The lives of people today have become stressed on the time continuum to the point that in many communities a revival meeting seems a burden. I think revivals certainly have their place, but a lot of thought needs to be given to format, timing, and awareness of the surrounding community. The idea that God can only work in the 3rd week of August or the week after the full moon in September is over. My opinion is that effective evangelism in this century is going to be relational, not just something that happens in a stirring of emotions and ideas.

[Sandy]

I was raised in a church that had a revival meeting every fall, and an evangelistic crusade every spring. This was a SBC church in a small town in Southern Arizona, but the membership of the church was made up largely of transplanted Southerners. The two pastors who served the church during the time I grew up in it were both careful to focus the revival on inward needs, and the crusade aimed at the "lost", though generally the bulk of the attendance at the crusade meetings came from the few other small evangelical churches in the community, mainly the "other" Baptist church (Conservative Baptist Association) the Assembly of God and the Church of God, rather than from the 90% of the population that was "lost," including the Mormons, Catholics and unchurched. I don't think the pastors ever really realized that strategies which enjoyed a measure of success in rural Southern culture wouldn't work as well in secular Arizona so they did them anyway. For the most part, the revivals did succeed in strengthening that small congregation, while the successes of the crusades were limited.

Since graduating from seminary in 1989, I've only served on the staff of one church that actually took the time to hold "revival" services, and that was because some of the older folks thought it would help the church's sagging baptism statistics. It didn't.

I'd guess that the "revival" is probably confined to the rural south, and even there it might not be what it once was.

[Tim Bonney]

I was raised in two churches growing up. Up to age 15 I was at Vandover Baptist Church in Fenton, MO. We had several revivals that I can remember. But after moving to Kirkwood Baptist I remember only one revival style event. When I was serving in American Baptist churches I knew of some churches that held revival services but not many. My experience is that now revivals only draw in the already convinced rather than anyone that needs convincing.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

[William Thornton]

[Tim Bonney]

[johnfariss]

I was not raised in church, and have been a Christian only since about 1982 or '83. The only time I attended a revival before then was when I was drug as a child (early 60s maybe) to a city-wide one in my hometown in east Alabama. The revivalist offered free airplane rides to the kids who brought the most kids, and tried to scare Jesus into all of us. It left a bad taste in my mouth. I have pastored churches since late 1986, mostly in North Carolina (both eastern and western) and southside Virginia. None of those churches were liberal; the most you could say about their theology was that they not as conservative as some, and if you eleminate judging them by adopting the BF&M2K and having female deacons, they were themselves quite conservative. They ranged from rural crossroads churches to village and small town to city churches. All of those churches traditionally had revivals every year (the last one I served, in a city of some 40,000, had revivals every two or three years instead of annually), and there was a faithful core group in each that not only looked foreward to them, but would not allow anything to deter the church from holding it. We held some with pastors from surrounding churches, and others with vocational evangelists, and I even preached at one or two (for other churches); some had virtually no planning, a "just have it and let the Holy Spirit determine who needs to be there" attitude; others had careful planning, publicity, cottage prayer meetings, etc., as preparation; some speakers were quite good, and others didn't know when to quit or how to be anything but loud, snarky, and frankly obnoxious. And all of them have had much the same result: they attracted virtually no unchurched or unsaved folks, and only a fraction of the regular congregation. Those who did come mostly seemed to regard it as an opportunity to get recharged and revived themselves, rather than for the unchurched to get "vived" initially.

Here in southern Maryland, in the DC suburbs, I know of no churches that have them at all--maybe some of the rural churches farther south, but none in my community.

John

[johnfariss]

[linda]

I'm a dinosaur, I guess.

I come from the time and places where revivals were twice a year. They focused on reclaiming the backslider and evangelism.

They were well attended when they dropped off the radar.

Personally, I think maybe we could use a good revival.

[John Wylie]

I personally agree with what others have expressed here about revivals being for the saved and evangelistic crusades being for the lost. In Oklahoma, January Bible Studies are very popular and fairly well attended. I think that they are more productive that the typical revival meeting with an evangelist preaching his five best sugar sticks.

[Stephen Fox]

While she doesn't speak to Revivalism in particular, Marilynne Robinson's Gilead is interesting take on Era of the 50's when Revivals were in vogue.
Like many of you I was in the drama of two week events in the 60's and they made an impression on me.
Heard a story the other day about Don Harbuck and the possible danger of too much emotionalism. And Harold Bloom has an interesting take on religious ecstasy which sometimes were part of the experience.
Garry Wills has pretty good treatment of Billy Sunday in American Christianity, and there was an interesting Revival meeting in Nathaniel West Day of the Locust.

Those are some of my random thoughts.

other than that as Daniel Plainview says in There Will Be Blood....

Luc Sante as I have reported before is fascinted with the hardscrabble evocations of them in the American experience.

[Ed Pettibone]

John Fariss wrote "Although I never went to one, I had a DOM in central NC tell me that was the pattern of the "Real Evangelism" (I think that was its name) led by Bailey Smith back in the '80s and early '90s. He said the methods used there virtually split the association, and he left over the issues it caused to be DOM for a mostly rural eastern NC association.

Ed: Bailey Smith Is most famous for his line that "God does not hear the prayer of Jews". He was elected President of the SBC in 80 and 81.

[Dave Roberts]

The older pattern in the south was a 2-week revival with the first week focused on getting the church members revived and the second week focused on reaching the lost. With the gradual shortening down to 3 or 4 days, all distinctions were blurred.

[KeithE]