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| Crowd of people worshiping in the chapel at the Asbury revival. Image source. |
My posts on the Asbury revival:
February 13 Blogaround
"There is no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred": What people do with "revival"
Does God Use Miracles To Take Sides?
The Logistics of a Revival
Why I Don't Want to be at a "Revival"
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Some news articles about the Asbury revival:
Asbury revival in Kentucky will end after two weeks of non-stop services, worship (February 19)
Here's why the Asbury revival is ending this week (February 20)
Asbury University has posted links to the livestream and the livestream archive. Not gonna lie, I was moved watching this. Part of me wants to worship, but, well, that's complicated because I'm ex-evangelical.
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I'm thinking about this "revival" at Asbury, and thinking about how everyone on the internet suddenly has a hot take about it. Like, first, this thing happens, and some people are there experiencing it, and then a bunch of people on the internet, who did not experience it, all have to give their opinions on it.
(I realize that I am doing the exact same thing, though... I was not there, yet here I am writing several blog posts about it...)
I'm thinking about how there's 2 separate things: "God does a thing" and then "people argue about it on the internet." And how I've heard some people (on the internet) say, about the Asbury revival, "Let's just let it be what it is. Let's not use it to prop up our own personal political opinions." Or, people who have been there, saying that people are experiencing feelings of peace and wholeness, and other abstract, vague, positive feelings, and that it's not taking a position on any culture-war issues.
But... does that even make sense? God's Spirit comes here, and is felt powerfully by a lot of people, but doesn't take any position on any hot-button topic? Even though Christians on both sides of the "hot-button topics" feel that being wrong on those topics is a huge problem which is literally hurting people. God isn't going to say anything one way or the other, in order to avoid people arguing on the internet about it afterwards?
The issue on my mind is acceptance of queer Christians. I'm a queer Christian, but I'm asexual and that's not something Christians are having a culture war about, and I'm straight and married to a man so on the surface it looks like I'm following the rules. (I am very much NOT following the rules, though- I explore my desires and what I want or don't want, instead of just repressing myself and then having sex that's all about my husband, like I was a told a good godly wife is supposed to do.) Queer Christians who are L, G, B, or T have a much harder time in churches than I do.
But to me, being queer-affirming (which in practice means total acceptance of same-sex relationships and transgender identities) is the key question I would ask if I was going to start attending a church. Even though I'm not personally affected by gay or trans issues, it's an indicator of whether the church believes people have the right to make their own decisions about their own personal lives, or if the church believes that Christians are in charge of making decisions for everybody else. Do they believe "you have to repress yourself and fit into this box that God said everyone needs to fit in" or do they believe "the diversity of the queer community is beautiful and reflects the image of God, and it is so life-giving to discover your identity, that God loves you and your queerness, and that you don't have to force yourself into the boxes that other people made"? See, those are very different churches.
Anyway, in the context of this revival, the students on stage and/or the Holy Spirit can't just "not take a position" on queer acceptance. Of all the people on stage leading the worship music, are any of them openly queer, or not? Either way, that's taking a side. For queer Christians, their very existence in the church is political. There can't be a "this revival is just about experiencing a sense of wholeness from God, and doesn't touch on any political controversies." (See this tweet- people arguing on Twitter about how the presence of queer people on stage at Asbury does or does not mean the revival is "really" from God.)
(Or, here's another issue that God and/or the students at Asbury may or may not take a position on: wearing masks. I haven't seen anyone in those crowds or on stage wearing a mask. Does this mean *God* believes we don't have to care about covid any more?)
This is one of the big reasons why I don't want God to intervene and do things to take sides on this or that issue. Because it won't do any good. For people who directly experience it- yes, because of the emotions of it, perhaps it is powerful and convincing and can change their opinion on some issue. Like to suddenly feel like "wow I see this in a different way now, and suddenly it all makes sense" and just feel so strongly that that's true- I've had spiritual experiences along those lines before. But for anyone who wasn't there directly experiencing it, what good does it do? If someone tells you "I had a spiritual experience which confirms that God agrees with XYZ opinion" then if you also agree with XYZ opinion, you'll be like, "wow great." But if you disagree with XYZ opinion, you'll think, "well this person obviously misunderstood what God was trying to tell them"- it's not convincing to you at all, because you disagree with XYZ for your own reasons, none of which are addressed by this person's spiritual experience.
So some people were there and experienced it, and the rest of us are here on the internet writing hot takes about what it means... so what good is it that God powerfully spoke to people there, if that's not actually useful for convincing anyone who wasn't there?
Or, maybe I shouldn't say "what good is it?" I don't want to deny that it's a good experience for people who are there. I guess what I'm responding to is that idea that it's more than that. Lotta Christians on the internet writing hot takes about how this *means* something so much *bigger*, and I just don't think it does.
Perhaps some queer person there felt like God was saying that God accepts their queerness, and some other queer person felt like God was saying they need to continue to repress themself. In the past, I've heard testimonies of both of these kinds of spiritual experiences. (See also: my post on the Nashville Statement.) My opinion on them is simply my opinion on whether repression is deadly or life-giving. Just because someone says they had an epiphany from God doesn't affect my opinion on that.
So, I mean, blah. I see all these evangelical Christians on the internet talking about "we want this to spread to more university campuses" and I'm just like, blah. It's just going to result in more people arguing on the internet.
And... the thing is... maybe we could have this idea of how the "ideal" miracle is one where God doesn't take a side on any big controversial issue that Christians argue about it- but in the bible, God does that ALL THE TIME. God uses miracles to take a side ALL THE TIME. To say "these people are right and those people are wrong."
Okay let me give you some examples. Maybe the biggest example is when Elijah and the prophets of Baal both set up altars in a contest to see which god would light an altar on fire. (1 Kings 18) In a big, dramatic miracle, Elijah's God sent fire that "burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench." Then the crowd responded by killing all the prophets of Baal- was that what God wanted?
There's Moses telling Pharaoh "let my people go" and performing miracles to outdo the miracles that Pharaoh's priests do. (Exodus 7-14) Notice that Moses never made any argument along the lines of "slavery is wrong"- instead, it was all about "my god can beat up your god." To prove a point, God does more and more violent miracles, culminating in killing all the firstborn sons of Egypt and then drowning Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea.
There's Numbers 16, where Korah challenged Moses's authority, and God caused the earth to open up and swallow Korah and his entire household.
There's Joshua 6, where God commands the Israelites to walk around the city of Jericho for 7 days, and when the Israelites obey these instructions, God causes the walls of Jericho to collapse, and then the Israelites go in and kill all the inhabitants of Jericho (except Rahab's household).
A lot of stories where God steps in and basically says "these people are right, and those people are wrong." Though I gotta say, I suspect that a lot of these things didn't really happen, and we should be asking questions about the motivations of writers who wrote "oh yeah XYZ is totally true and God thinks so too."
Moving on to the New Testament!
Jesus tells a paralyzed man "your sins are forgiven" and the teachers of the law get mad about that, because only God can forgive sins. Then, to prove a point, Jesus miraculously heals the paralyzed man. (Matthew 9)
Jesus healed people on the Sabbath, which also was taking sides and making the Pharisees mad. (Mark 3, Luke 13)
And when the devil tempted Jesus, he wanted Jesus to jump off the temple so God would do a miracle and rescue him- and Jesus refused because "do not put the Lord your God to the test." (Matthew 4) So, maybe not cool to do a miracle just to win an argument.
Ananias and Sapphira lied to the apostle Peter, and immediately fell down and died. (Acts 5)
And when the early Christians were arguing about whether Gentiles could be Christians or if only Jewish people could, God poured out the Holy Spirit on the Gentile converts and they spoke in tongues. (Acts 10) In Acts 15, Paul and Barnabus used this in their argument for Gentile inclusion. If God accepted the Gentiles by doing miracles among them, they argued, how could the Jewish Christians exclude Gentiles by requiring them to get circumcised and obey the Jewish laws?
So if we want to say, "There are Christians with strong opinions on both sides of Big Controversial Issue X, and both sides think that the other side is horribly wrong and harmful, but we don't want to get into that, we just want *unity* and *love*"... well, lol, that's not what we see in the bible at all. And really, aren't those the big issues that we would want God to give us some answers on? (Or... maybe these are the issues that we won't change our mind on, even if God comes right up and says we're wrong...)
(But again, yeah, let's be a little suspicious of writers who wrote about "we believe in XYZ because this one time God did a miracle" and you have no way to verify if the miracle actually happened...)
But, like I said, in reality isn't this useless? For people who experienced the "miracle" or "revival" or whatever, it's convincing, but for anyone who wasn't there, well, it doesn't mean anything. I'm sure we could come up with all kinds of reasons that the writers of the bible took things the wrong way and actually they were totally wrong about whatever they said the "miracle" meant. Like, oh, how tragic that Joshua led the Israelites to kill all the people of Jericho and claim that they were doing God's will.
So... then what? If God comes and actually takes a side, it just leads to people arguing on the internet, because they can't actually believe that God would disagree with them- and a secondhand miracle isn't good evidence at all because you can't really be sure what exactly happened, and it doesn't address any of the actual reasons that you hold your opinions. But if God performs miracles which never take sides, isn't that kind of ... weak? Aren't those the issues we need God's input on? And in today's church culture, the only way to "not take a side" is to never acknowledge the existence of queer Christians, never say anything good or bad about being queer- which kind of is taking a side, if you ask me.
Okay I know I'm oversimplifying this- there are definitely miracles that are not "controversial." (I mean, there could be, hypothetically, though I personally am skeptical of any miracle claims.) Like, maybe God heals a sick person.
But... uh... actually that could still be "controversial", because what if it's someone that Christians think doesn't "deserve" to be healed? Remember when conservative Christians didn't want to help people who had AIDS? Or, more recently, when conservative Christians didn't want their daughters to get the HPV vaccine?
Okay but anyway, there must be some miracles God can do that won't be taken to mean that God is Making A Point, and then everyone has to give their opinion on said point. And maybe the fact that these spiritual experiences are very powerful and meaningful to the people actually there experiencing them, is more important than the fact that other people will argue about it on the internet. So I am oversimplifying.
But anyway... I'm just not on board with the Christians who think this "revival" is automatically a good thing. Or the Christians who want it to just be a general positive thing that doesn't take sides on any political issue- because in the bible, miracles are often used to prove a point. And I'm also not on board with the Christians who want to use it to prove a point- because how can that possibly be convincing to anyone?
Like I said in my previous post, there's what God does, and there's how people respond. We have some people who actually were there and experienced the Asbury revival, and the rest of us who weren't there, who are writing our opinions about it on the internet. (I include myself in this group.) What good is that? For people who were there, it's great and meaningful, but for people who weren't there, it's just another thing to argue about. Is that how miracles are supposed to work?
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Related:
I Would Love to Know If God Intervened to Stop Covid From Spreading in Churches
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