History of Revivalism

HISTORY OF REVIVALISM

INTRODUCTION.
Revivalism is usually considered to be those movements within Christianity which emphasizes the religious appeal to the emotions as well as to intellect of individuals to restore them to an active participation in Christian activities. It believes that a vital Christianity begins with the response of the individual's whole being to the gospel call for repentance and spiritual rebirth to faith in Jesus Christ. This experience is the beginning of a personal relationship to God.
Some have sought to make revivalism just an American experience and only on the frontier in the early years of the American continental expansion. But revivalism can be seen to be a much broader Christian phenomena. The modern revival movement has its historical roots in the Puritan-pietistic reaction to the rationalism of the Enlightenment and to the Lutheran and Calvinistic theological creedal formulations of Reformation faith that characterized much of the seventeenth century. This reaction resisted the depersonalization of their religion. These revivalists emphasized a more experiential element of their Reformation faith which emphasized personal commitment and obedience to Christ and a life regenerated by the indwelling Holy Spirit. They also emphasized personal witness and missions as a primary responsibility of the individual Christian and of the church. Subjective religious experience and the importance of the individual became a new force in the renewing and expansion of the church. These concerns gradually permeated much of Protestantism, especially in the developing churches in America.
THE HISTORY OF REVIVALISM.
Revivals have occurred at various times in the modern period of a renewal of faith and life:
1. Pietism reacted to the deadness of the church and to the rationalism of the Enlighenment in 17th century;
2. Quakerism reacted to the sacramentalism in the English church;
3. John Wesley began an Evangelical Awakening in England in the 18th century;
4. Wesley's theology is essentially Arminianism, which is usually contrasted with Calvinism.
5. the First Great Awakening occurred in the 18th century;
6. the Second Great Awakening occurred at the beginning of 19th century;
7. Charles Finney spread the the Second Awakening.
8. The Blanchards preserved the effects of the Second Awakening.
9. the Fulton Street or Layman Revival began in 1858;
10. Dwight L. Moody conducted revival and evangelistic meetings from 1875 to 1899;
11. the Holiness revival began after the American Civil War in 1875;
12. the Pentecostal revival occurred at the beginning of 20th century;
13. the charismatic renewal movement occurred during the 1960's and 70's.
CONCLUSION.
Why are revivals needed? The answer is legalism. Salvation by works is one aspect of legalism which attempts to understand the relationship between God and man in terms of the law. Legalism is not just having a lot of do's and don'ts, rules and regulations. It is a misunderstanding of the rules and regulations and of the law of God. The law of God is not legalism; it was the covenant relationship between God and the people of Israel. In the Old Testament, Israel was not saved by meritorious works of the law; they were not under the law but in a covenant relationship to God (see the Greek of Romans 2:12 and 3:19). Legalism attempts to put all men under the law; that is, to define man's relationship to God in terms of the law. And in particular, legalism attempts to put the Christian under the law (contrary to Rom. 6:14).
"For sin shall not have dominion over you:
for you are not under the law, but under grace." (Rom. 6:14)

This legalism is the cause of many problems in the church. It is the cause of a dead orthodoxy and a cold, unloving Christianity. To correct these effects of legalism there have arisen in the church various revival movements such as pietism, the evangelical awakening, the deeper life movement, revivalism, etc. None of these movements went to the source of the deadness, coldness and unlovableness but often just reinforced the cause -- legalism. The great outpouring of the Spirit starting at the beginning of the twentieth century has been constantly burdened and limited by the frequent relapses into the same legalism. And the source of the legalism in practice is the legalism of the theology. Practical legalism is the result of theological legalism. The problem is not too much theology but bad theology, legalistic theology. This theological legalism has misunderstood the Gospel of our salvation.
With the present move of the Spirit, the time has come to remove the cause of this practical legalism by clearing the theological legalism out of our theology and again recovering the Bibical understanding of the Gospel of our salvation. Such a theological renewal should be the natural accompaniment of the move of the Spirit of God today and could produce a reformation comparable to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. This paper is an attempt to contribute to such a theological renewal and to prepare for the last great revival.