Enchantment and the Asbury Revival
I expect many of you have been following the Asbury Revival. Wikipedia already has a page up about the revival if you need to catch up. Interestingly, Asbury has a long history with revivals. You can read about that history on the university website.
Not surprisingly, the news and social media commentary about the Asbury Revival has been all over the place. Over the weekend, I shared some texts with my good friend Sean Palmer, observing that how you see the Asbury Revival will depend a great deal upon your epistemological assumptions. Revivals are either social psychological phenomena, or outpourings of the Holy Spirit. Your view is either enchanted or disenchanted.
Beyond epistemology, there's also your degree of cynicism about church and evangelicalism. Some of us look upon revivals with hurt, jaded, or suspicious perspectives.
But the initial fruits of the Asbury Revival have been, to many observers, both happy and healthy. The revival hasn't been bombastic or filled with dramatic faith healings. Nor are there charismatic leaders running the show or dominating the stage. The Asbury Revival has simply been young people engaged in continual prayer and praise. What many people have seen at Asbury are young people longing for God. And that is a very hopeful thing.
I bring up the Asbury Revival to return to a point I make in Hunting Magic Eels.
Much of Hunting Magic Eels can feel "Catholic," as it recommends a variety of things by way of re-enchantment from the liturgical, contemplative, and Celtic streams of the Christian tradition. And yet, I also devote a chapter in the book to "Charismatic Enchantments." In that chapter I point to the power of contemporary praise music and the role of emotions in our journey toward re-enchantment, along with an open posture of receptivity to the work of the Holy Spirit. This is the enchantment we've observed at the Asbury Revival.
Many readers of Hunting Magic Eels didn't like my chapter on Charismatic enchantments, having had some bad experiences with Pentecostalism and the Prosperity Gospel. But I think the Asbury Revival has shown some of the good fruit that can come from charismatic expressions of faith as routes toward re-enchantment.
Even in this jaded, cynical, and skeptical world, the Holy Spirit still blows where she wills.
Spouts of Water, Thar She blows!
Like ancient whalers we set sail for sightings in far off seas, thirsting for a gulp or small sip of mystery in enchanted seas, yet all the while content to muster up dust devil whirlwinds in the parched and disenchanted deserts we call our home. Drawing down our snout and jowl with ring and bit, the zeitgeist and conjured egregore distract us from Beholding the Spirit among us. I can imagine the aroma and taste of the Spirit within the Ashbury prayer revival where two, three and one hundred are gathered in His Name.
Reengaging the enchanted around and within.
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the post. If you have some time to answer, I have a follow-up question for you:
How does one distinguish what is Spirit-led vs. what is simply emotional or psychological phenomena? This question has plagued me for some time, as I've had past psychological difficulties and even some current ones that force me to ask this question. It makes me, very consciously, weed out good and bad thoughts and feelings, the healthy vs. unhealthy, which leads me to question how one can really know if something is from the Spirit. Does the spirit act via our emotions? If so, how can we reliably tell? It's just that Christians, particularly charismatic ones and churches that have charismatic or charismatic-like worship, seem to get enchanted with the Spirit and take this question for granted. But due to my past and current experiences, my instinct is to push back and so I thus remain disenchanted--for fear of being taken for a ride. If one can't reliably tell what is psychological/emotional vs. what is Spirit-led, how can one keep one's feet on the ground?
If a lot of this is addressed in Hunting Magic Eeels, feel free to point me there. I am sure some of it is, and I am anxious to read it. But this question is probably the one that has gotten my spiritual growth in a rut more than any other. If you know of some basic distinctions I am missing, it'd be great to learn of them.
Thanks again. :-)