A good friend of mine, Drew Fralick from Detroit Michigan, invited me to periodically contribute to his blog. This article is part of that series. Drew is a counsellor, pastor, writer and an award-winning comedian. You can find him at: https://www.drewfralick.com/
A few years ago, a friend shared a story about a worship convention that she encountered in Texas centered among its vast oil fields—a convention of around 10,000 Christians.
Driving through these oil fields, past this Texas size worship convention, there was a traveller with her who marvelled about the magnificence of so many people worshipping in one place.
This juxtaposition of worship among the center of ecological destruction is thought-provoking and reminds me of one of my favourite movies when I was growing up, Pure Luck (1991) where Martin Short's character, Eugene Proctor, regularly finds himself in hilariously unfortunate situations due to his propensity to bad luck.
In one of the scenes, Eugene is flying on an airplane with Raymond the detective he has been assigned to work with. Eugene is allergic to bees, and he’s just been stung but he doesn’t realize it. We, the viewers know because his body is starting to have an allergic reaction and it's growing three times its size. Buttons are flying off his shirt and his face growing rounder. Yet Eugene, so caught up and immersed in the nature around him, is completely unaware that his life hanging in the balance, until of course, the swelling begins to affect his breathing.
Much like Eugene who was so engrossed in nature that he failed to recognize his impending struggle for air, I see the Church similarly, captivated by a form of worship that is grounded in doctrine, which unless re-examined in light of recent scholarship, will lead our world, and all of us, down a suffocating path towards Gehenna.
Biblical scholar Pete Enns points out in his book The Bible Tells Me So that Jesus never talks about hell as we understand it to be. What Jesus did do, however, was make metaphorical references to Gehenna. This is not some underground place of eternal damnation for the ungodly. It was an actual place on earth that was feared and avoided. It was just outside the Jerusalem walls, where, in times of ancient kings, people would sacrifice their children to foreign gods, and everyone would hear their screams echoing through the city. During Jesus’s time, [as the story goes] it became a smouldering garbage dump mixed with the corpses of condemned criminals. It was burning ash, always on fire and completely abandoned. It was “the place where the maggots never die and the fire never goes out.” (Mark 9:48)
Throughout 2023 so far, the world witnessed its worst 21st-century wildfire season, largely driven by human reliance on fossil fuels, inadequate land management, and mining activities. In Canada alone, wildfires consumed 15.3 million hectares, nearly ten times more than in 2022, equivalent to the combined area of several European countries. This unleashed 290 million tonnes of carbon, akin to the annual emissions of over 285 coal-fired power plants.
Greece. Maui. Spain. Kansas. It’s happening everywhere at an alarmingly increased rate.
During this same year, North American evangelicals were captivated by students from Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky, USA. They were lost for days in an ecstasy of worship. The word revival was on the lips of the hopeful.
Is this the revival we’ve been praying for?
While I value meaningful contemporary worship, over my decades of attending services, I've seen it have two effects on the Church: soul-nourishment leading to repentance and positive action, or, as Karl Marx hit it, an opium of the masses, providing temporary comfort that leads to apathy.
Comfort and apathy can easily shroud our capacity to see the connection between our aspirations for revival and a world in the throes of devastation.
Part of the problem is that there is a lot of confusion as to the meaning of revival.
Some people view revival as a movement of the Holy Spirit that will bring people to faith in Jesus. However, in the article The Old Testament Concept of Revival within the New Testament, Ervin Budiselic points out that these movements, such as the tent meeting revivals of the good old days, are not revivals but simply movements of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes these movements bring people to faith through intense spiritual experiences, or they bring people closer to God. Sometimes they include miracles and the expulsion of evil spirits, and sometimes they do not.
Others in the church feel powerless about national or international crises, and they long for the time when the church possessed the power to turn the world around to how they think it should look. They believe if a wave of new believers come to faith through revival, they will have an impact in those places of power and authority once again.
However, this notion of revival is also deeply flawed. As Brian McLaren points out in his book, Do I Stay Christian: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed and the Disillusioned, it is true that Christianity has brought a legacy of schools, hospitals, orphanages and other institutions intended to improve our quality of life. Yet, in its desire for political power and its possessiveness of orthodoxy, the Church has also promoted the Doctrine of Discovery and European Christian colonialism which unleased a wave of catastrophes that continue to shape our global situations today. Over hundreds of years, the Church; Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox, have reaped obscene profits from their domination. Sadly, our planet is no longer able to sustain the world that has been built on the back of this legacy.
Therefore, we must look to the definition of revival that is deeply rooted in the Old Testament, and it's from this context that we must derive its true meaning. First, we must recognize that it is not a term that is found in the New Testament.
In the Old Testament, revival is about awakening and renewal within Israel (and therefore, later, extended to all of Yahweh’s children) when Yahweh’s children recognize how their sin has led to the destruction of the land, and thus, their repentance and return to the covenant with Yahweh.
Old Testament scholar, John Walton, in his book Covenant: God's Purpose, God's Plan, talks about covenant as the single most important structure in the Old Testament, in the same way that democracy is to many countries in the Western world. Thus, both the Old and New Testaments weave their theology with this thread. New Testament scholar, N.T Wrights says this about the connection between covenant and the land:
Deuteronomy, and particularly its long exposition of the covenant in chapters 27—30, brings together creation and covenant in terms of the land: if Israel obeys the voice of Yahweh, the created order within the promised land will be abundantly fruitful, but if Israel disobeys, the land itself will turn against them, and ultimately drive them out into exile, whence they will only return if they turn back to Yahweh with all their heart and soul.
Yahweh provides and blesses his people through the land, and when people rebel against the way of Yahweh, they must face the consequences (not punishment) of their sin, also by way of the land, such as through slavery, drought, famine and other forms of distress.
In the book, The Insect and the Buffalo, Roshan and Andrew help us understand the rhythmic story of Israel this way:
The Bible is a little bit like Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Although its storylines, characters and scenes are wide-ranging and diverse, a simple theme echoes throughout the whole of scripture:
God Creates; humanity rebels; God redeems his people. Creation, Fall, Redemption.
This is what Old Testament salvation is all about.
Old Testament salvation does not refer to the salvation of the soul of individuals or nations, but rather liberation from the consequences of sin in the here and now as it impacts the land.
Revival is about the physical salvation of the whole world including the land and the restoration of Creation.
It is the Kingdom of God that Jesus taught, preached and died for. Thus, when we pray, your kingdom come on earth, it is our revival prayer.
“Reconciliation with God and reconciliation with the rest of God’s creation are … inseparable” - Richard Buckham
Evangelicals often diminish the good news of the kingdom to the expulsion of evil spirits and miracles that mainly focus on individual healing, rather than the community or the land, and much less the whole of creation.
As it is crucial for us to prevent the expansion of Gehenna on earth, we are required us to reevaluate our worship practices and our aspirations for revival. When we solely concentrate on our own self-serving needs, I believe we inadvertently repeat the same mistakes as the first settlers of Babylon, in the story of Babel...
...a form of worship which was ultimately rejected by Yahweh.
I’ll pick on this in my next post.
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
-2 Chronicles 7:14-
References & Suggested Readings
Land Matters Podcast: Summer of Smoke and Swelter: https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/articles/2023-08-land-matters-podcast-the-science-behind-climate-induced-wildfires
McLaren, Brian, Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed and the Disillusioned
Budiselic, Ervin, The Old Testament Concept of Revival within the New Testament: https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/184365 * While I don’t align with everything in this article, I found it helpful.
Allpress, Roshan and Shamy, Andrew: The Insect and the Buffalo: How the story of the Bible changes everything, p.23.
Pete Enns, The Bible Tells Me So: Why defending scripture has made us unable to read it.
N.T Wright: Creation and Covenant: https://ntwrightpage.com/2016/04/05/creation-and-covenant/#:~:text=Deuteronomy%2C%20and%20particularly%20its%20long,will%20turn%20against%20them%2C%20and
Walton, John, Covenant: God's Purpose, God's Plan
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