The Ten Greatest Revivals Ever by Elmer L. Towns; Douglas Porter

Author:Elmer L. Towns; Douglas Porter
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Christian Rituals & Practice, Christian Ministry, Christian Life, Christianity, General, Religion, Evangelism, Spiritual Growth, Pentecostal & Charismatic, History
ISBN: 9780830735051
Publisher: Gospel Light Publications
Published: 2004-02-29T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

The World War II Revival, 1935-1950

Whenever God intends great mercy for his people, he first sets them praying.

Matthew Henry

Some great revivals seem to be associated with a war. The Laymen’s Prayer Revival, for example, prepared many Americans spiritually for the trials of the Civil War. The World War II Revival has taken its name from the second great conflict of the twentieth century, but the dangers of war weren’t the only factor that gave impetus to the revival.

The Background of the Revival

The global collapse of colonialism began after World War I, when the political face of Europe was changed and great empires were losing their ability to control their colonial conquests. It was not that Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal could no longer control the emerging nations that they had ruled for 400 years. Rather, a new spirit of independence was sweeping the world.

The people of every nation wanted to rule themselves. In the past, the missionary had gone hand in hand with foreign traders, soldiers, and diplomats, but now native churches sought national religious leaders and wanted to rule their own congregations. The rule of Western civilization began to give way to indigenous leadership. Western political ways were thrown out, and the native way of doing things began to reemerge.

When the foreign politicians left, foreign businessmen arrived selling soft drinks, sleek cars, and a multitude of Western products. Quickly, the clothes, tastes, and practices of foreign nations became Westernized. What colonization couldn’t do from the top down, commerce did from the bottom up—transforming the thinking of entire cultures.

World War II brought a vast multiplication of new inventions and products to help win the conflict: drugs, plastics, prepackaged goods, new technologies in communication and transportation. After 1945, these products were used to make life easier. Every new nation sought to develop national radio, television, and highway systems, and they all joined the United Nations.

Meanwhile, shorter working hours, better and easier working conditions, conveniences, and newly discovered wealth diverted people’s thoughts from God. The church found it hard to keep abreast with the population explosion, and in many places found itself in a minority situation. Christians desperately needed revival.

The mushroom cloud of August 6, 1945, ended the war, and shortly thereafter a split developed between the First World (the United States and its allies) and the Second World (Russian Communists and their allies). So-called Third World countries became the focal point of humanitarian aid and development.

The church had for many years borne a great portion of the burden of such assistance; in 1963, for example, UNESCO reported to the United Nations that 85 percent of all schoolchildren in Africa were in Christian schools. World affairs were becoming in many ways more secular, however, and what the church had done for the world tended to be forgotten. The United Nations and other nonreligious organizations became the primary catalyst for international humanitarian efforts.

In academic circles, the growth of rationalism-that is, thinking apart from divine revelation—and evolutionism—a form of science that denies God’s creation of the world-led to the influence of liberal theology throughout Christendom.

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