Dynamics of Spiritual Life by Richard F. Lovelace

Author:Richard F. Lovelace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian history;Christian life;evangelicalism;spiritual theology;Christian living;Christian growth;spiritual life;spiritual growth;ministry;spiritual renewal;spiritual revival;sanctification gap;pastors;pastoral resources;Jonathan Edwards;theology of renewal;spiritual movement
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2019-12-06T12:58:57+00:00

How

Revivals

Go Wrong

8

IN WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN SAID ABOUT the Jesus movement and the Charismatic renewal, it is clear that not everything which accompanies a renewed surge of vitality in the church is necessarily healthy, productive and purely of the Holy Spirit. Almost every major revival recorded, in fact, has been surrounded by an aura of irregular religious activity and has also been centrally affected by elements of weakness and sin. As a result, successive eras of churchleaders have found it easy to immunize themselves and their followers against awakening movements by applying caricatures stressing the worst features of past revivals.

Some of these stereotypes are surprisingly different from age to age. During the Great Awakening the revival preachers were accused of radical innovation in doctrine and practice. The “Old Light” antirevivalists did not perceive that the “New Light” evangelists were simply restoring and reiterating the original Puritan emphasis on live orthodoxy in place of its rationalist erosion in the early eighteenth century. As often happens, yesterday’s modernism had become today’s dead hand of tradition. In the late twentieth century, on the other hand, proponents of live orthodoxy are most likely to be charged with being out of date and tarred with the brush of fundamentalist obscurantism. Two charges recur in the same form in almost every context, however: revivalism is said to be divisive, and it is accused of fanaticism or “enthusiasm.” The first of these accusations is important enough to merit an entire chapter later in this study, weighing its pros and cons. The charge of fanaticism, along with the evidence behind it, is the main subject of this chapter.

“Enthusiasm” has been a code word for the excesses of spurious revival since the days of the Reformation when Luther found his work of rebuilding blocked and discredited by the extremism of some left-wing leaders.1 Neglect of the written Word and an overdependence on the inspiration and leading of the Holy Spirit seem to be the central weaknesses of the Zwickau prophets and the Anabaptists of Münster. The same pattern was observed and attacked by English Puritan leaders of the revolutionary period in the Seekers, Quakers and other left-wing sects.2 The etymology of the word enthusiasm points to a delusive confidence in certain believers that they “have” or contain God’s Spirit to such an extent that their thoughts and actions are inspired and free from the sin and error of ordinary believers. Thus the label enthusiast is frequently applied to those who are perfectionist as well as spiritualist in their leaning.

Ronald Knox, in a study of this subject which is both fascinating and at times irritating because of its critical chauvinism, includes a wide range of historical movements under the rubric of enthusiasm: the Corinthian charismatics, the Montanists, Donatists, medieval perfectionists, both the Anabaptists and the magisterial Reformers, the Quakers, the Jansenists, the Quietists, the Moravians and the Wesleyan Methodists. This rather mixed list effectively shows how false and defective revival can be generalized to discredit genuine movements of awakening. It

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