Revival and Presence

I have been following with fascination the spontaneous religious revival that has broken out at Asbury University near Lexington, Kentucky. It began at a regular chapel service on February 8, but when the service was over the students didn’t leave. They stayed to worship, day and night, for twelve days, until the college administration made a decision to gradually wind down the revival this week. It will be interesting to see if God – and the students - go along with the university president’s plan!

I know a little bit about Kentucky and revivals. I attended the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1970’s at a time when revivals were commonplace in Baptist life. While in seminary, my first position was as a part-time pastor in a small Baptist congregation in Kentucky. At my first fulltime church in Southern Illinois we used to conduct revivals. These multi-day events featured a visiting evangelist and “special music.”

One revival I hosted at my church was preached by a good friend who was the pastor of a Baptist church in a neighboring town. I later reciprocated by preaching a revival at his church. This friend is now the head of a large international ministry called Global Awakening that does revivals around the world, focusing on healing miracles.

The Asbury revival is different from many religious revivals that have swept across our country in past centuries. There are no special effects. No miracles, at least of the physical kind. There is very little preaching. This revival is neither sermon-centered nor music-centered. There is music, of course, but it is mostly an acoustic background for prayer, worship, and personal transformation.

This revival – from what I can discern from the testimonies of people interviewed - is centered on the presence of God. One participant made the insightful observation that it is not about emotion or religious experience; it is about the presence of God. Participants speak about sensing the glory of God and the “palpable” presence of God. If this is true, then I respond with a hearty “AMEN!”

Christianity needs to recover a sense of the presence of God. This country needs to know the presence of God. The Presence of God is the gospel that I preach. I may use different words and ideas to describe this Presence than the students at this Wesleyan-Holiness school. My stand on ethical and social issues may be different from those held by the majority of participants.

But that is alright. We agree that there is a need for the immediacy and power of God’s Presence. If the sense of Divine Presence at this revival is genuine, then doctrine and ethics will sort out themselves later. Speaking of ethics, past revivals have been influential in changing American society. I am waiting to see if such change results from this revival.

The Second Great Awakening in the early 19^th century fueled the abolitionist movement and helped end slavery in America. It also empowered the temperance movement. This Asbury revival could possibly do something similar in our day by combatting racism and addictions. Only time will tell if this revival bears such fruit.

Undoubtedly people will try to coopt this revival for their own religious, political or social agendas. Personally my only agenda is that people recognize and embrace the Presence of God. I don’t care what spiritual tradition this Presence is expressed through. Different religions express Divine Presence in different ways. The Wesleyan-Holiness tradition expresses it through revivals, as evidenced in the history of revivals at this college. Other Christian traditions and non-Christian traditions express Presence differently.

God knows no religious barriers. Truth is not the possession of any one religion. I pray this revival might transcend religious tribalism. That would be truly miraculous! I hope this revival transforms American Christianity in a way that those in Kentucky cannot imagine. I hope it transforms America in a way I cannot imagine! However this Asbury revival plays out, I am just grateful that people are focusing on the Presence of God.

Jesus’ Vision for the Church

It seems like every other month I am reading about the demise of the Christian Church in the United States. The most recent article was in The Guardian, entitled Losing Their Religion: Why US Churches Are on the Decline.  They all say pretty much the same thing: the Christian Church is losing members rapidly, and the pandemic accelerated this trend.

Some Christian leaders are asking tough questions about what Christians can do to stanch the flow of members and church closures. My longtime friend, Dwight Moody, has been asking such questions regularly for the past couple of years. He has a podcast and YouTube channel called The Meetinghouse, subtitled Conversations on Religion and American Life.

He is very concerned about the influence of extremist forms of Christianity. He is searching for an authentic form of Christianity that will counteract this trend and revive the Church. In a recent email to me he phrased it this way: “What version of Christian faith and practice will present to the modern world (or even to the Christian community) a coherent and compelling vision for human life?”

Jesus has such a vision for the Church. My recognition of this vision came after my departure from evangelicalism and subsequently going beyond progressive Christianity into a mystical spirituality rooted in the teachings of Jesus. It is the ancient and eternal gospel. It is a gospel of union with God.

Christianity is declining because it is old and sick. It is deathly ill. It has a terminal illness. The stench of death is evident in the Church’s never-ending scandals, noxious rhetoric, and the cancerous growth of Christian Nationalism. The death knell of the church rings in the anti-intellectual dogma and culture-war mentality of Pentecostals and Evangelicals.

That is why younger generations are abandoning the Church at an increasing rate. Americans – young and old - are spiritually hungry, but they are not finding spiritual nourishment in the church. When they step inside a church they find either tired traditionalism or mind-numbing fundamentalism, so they turn elsewhere. 

They look to other spiritual traditions or to nonreligious philosophies. They look to meditation, mindfulness, Buddhism, and yoga. They look to humanism or atheism. Meanwhile the Church conducts business as usual as if it were the twentieth century, doubling down on outmoded forms of evangelism or gimmicky outreach programs.

There is a way back from this bleak picture of Christian stagnation. There can be a resurrection of the Church, but only if it is willing to die to be reborn. What is needed is a fresh look at the spiritual core of Jesus’ message without the later centuries of tradition. A “red-letter” Christianity, a gospel based on the words – and spiritual experience - of Jesus rather than endless words and doctrines about Jesus.

This fresh approach to Christianity is centered on direct spiritual awareness of the Divine that is willing to offend traditional religious sensibilities, just like Jesus did. It is willing to pay the price, just like Jesus did.

Spiritual experience was the original attraction of the charismatic and Pentecostal movements. That is why they were successful. But that was before they sold their souls to emotionalism and anti-intellectualism. Likewise Evangelicalism was originally founded on a personal encounter with the living Christ. Now it has devolved into a dogmatic religion with a secondhand belief in an imaginary friend.

Christianity only has a future if it lives in the present - in the presence of God that Jesus called the Kingdom of God.  Jesus’ message was a call to the transformation of the human being through union with the Father. We see his vision for his Church voiced in his prayer offered on the night before he died. He prayed:

“that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. “

That “oneness” with God and each another is Jesus’ hope for the church. It is firsthand communion with God and Christ that manifests in tangible Christian unity. This can only happen when the Church proclaims an authentic message that originates from genuine spiritual awareness.

Then God will pour out the Spirit on “all people.” “Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.” That is Jesus’ vision for his Church.

The Girl in the Photo

In 1927 my maternal grandfather built a house in Danvers, Massachusetts, on the same street where I later grew up. In 2022 the present owners were doing repairs to the foundation of the house and found personal items hidden in one of the cinder blocks – a sort of time capsule. Thinking they might belong to my family, they turned the items over to my sister who now lives next door. Knowing I was the family genealogist, she mailed the items to me.

They consisted of a pair of eyeglasses wrapped in two pieces of cloth in a hard case, a small hand mirror, and a tiny (1¼ inch square) photo of a young girl with a dark ribbon in her hair. On the cloth was imprinted the name of an optician in Salem, Massachusetts. This is the city where my grandparents lived before they built this house in the neighboring town of Danvers.

The glasses were the type called pince-nez, a style of glasses popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  These glasses have a hole in one of the lenses, which at one time held a chain, cord, or ribbon connected to the wearer's clothing. From what I have read children sometimes wore this style of spectacles, although the girl in the photo did not have them on.

Anyway I have been pondering the items ever since I received them, although I have not been able to identify the girl in the photo or the owner of the other items. I don’t know much about fashions, but the girl’s dress looks like 1920’s attire to me. I don’t think it is a picture of my mother. I have seen photos of her as a child and this does not look like her.

It is possible that the photo is her sister Mary, who was born in 1917 and died of influenza as a teenager in 1934. That would make her age 10 when the house was built. The girl in the photograph looks younger than that, but perhaps the photo was taken earlier. It has been a long time since I have seen a picture of my aunt, but if I had to guess, I do not think it is her either.

So I am left to wonder who this girl in the photo is. Why were this photograph and these spectacles hidden away in the foundation of my grandfather’s house? Who put these items in cinder block? The little girl? My aunt? My mother? My grandparents? My great-grandparents who lived nearby? Is the photo of another girl entirely, perhaps the daughter of the man who laid this block in the foundation?

After having these items in my possession for weeks, I am no closer to knowing the answers to these questions. Yet this photo has been a gift to me nonetheless. It has helped me travel back in time. The personality of this little girl shines through the photo. One can easily imagine what she may have been thinking and feeling as her picture was taken.

Even more striking is the consciousness that comes through the photo. I look into those eyes and recognize the one looking out at me. I do not know her name, but I recognize what is behind the eyes. She is life. Although she is long dead, she is alive. The consciousness I see in her eyes is the same consciousness I see in every child and adult. I recognize this consciousness in myself.

We are the same. We share the same divine life. Genesis says that God breathed God's divine breath (the Hebrew word can also be translated “spirit”) into the primordial human. It is called the “breath of life.” It is the same breath in my lungs. It is the same spirit in me. It is the Life of God. Jesus knew this life. He is this Life. 

When debating with some Sadducees, who did not believe in life after death, Jesus quotes the words of God to Moses at the burning bush: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." He then said to the Sadducees, “You are badly mistaken! God is not the God of the dead but of the living!” 

Some people believe there is nothing beyond human earthly existence, that our participation in God's eternal life is just a myth. Look into the eyes of this little girl, and she will convince you otherwise.

Epiphany Gifts

Epiphany is coming up on January 6. It celebrates the coming of the Magi to Bethlehem, where the Wise Men worshiped the Christ child and gave him gifts. This is where Christians got the idea of giving gifts at Christmas.

This week I read a very insightful post about Epiphany by Jim Burklo on his blog “Musings,” which is one of the few blogs that I read regularly. It is entitled Epiphany in a Box. In it he describes an intriguing variation on holiday gift-giving. He writes:

Years ago, my dear wife, Roberta Maran, came up with an idea at Christmas that enchanted me.  “In addition to other presents, let’s give people Christmas boxes that have nothing inside of them – except messages that are deep and pithy!”

Last Sunday they introduced that practice to their church in Simi Valley, California, where he serves as pastor. He explains:

So I put slips of paper into little Christmas-ey boxes and put them on the altar.  We sat in a circle, and I passed them out to the congregants to present to the person next to them and then open and discuss with each what they found on their slips of paper.  Lively conversations ensued.

Here is a partial list of the messages in the boxes:

• A day’s supply of laughter
• A sigh of relief
• An opinion you need to release
• A bright idea
• An argument extinguisher: in a relationship emergency, put this box over your face and breathe deeply
• A beginner’s mind
• A creative spirit
• A new beginning
• Nothing you can’t live without
• Nothing that matters
• The silence between notes that makes music beautiful
• The sound of Jesus meditating for 40 days in the wilderness
• The sound of Buddha meditating at the Bodhi Tree
• What is left when you strip away all your illusions about who you are
• A scoop of wind from the top of a mountain

There were many more, but you get the point. We are so used to giving material gifts at Christmas that it is good to remember that the best gifts are immaterial. Indeed the greatest gifts are ones that are already ours, given to us by God. We simply need to open them.

Here are some gifts I invite you to open this Epiphany. The story of the Magi mentions only three gifts, so I will limit myself to that number as well. Choose any one of them as your Epiphany gift:

• A glimpse into who you were before the creation of the universe
• The feel of the silence that underlies all thoughts and emotions
• A taste of the peace that is your true nature 

At first glance these epiphanies may sound cryptic, but I assure you they are very real. They are more real than any store-bought present you received on Christmas day. In fact in your heart of hearts you already know the Reality that these words describe. 

Just take time to meditate upon one of them and see for yourself. I promise that if you open just one of these treasures, you will desire no other gifts … ever. 

Watching Christmas Movies

It is December, and that means it is time to watch Christmas movies. This year my wife and I sampled a couple of new releases. First we watched Spirited, starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. It is a musical remake of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. We were hoping Ferrell had created a worthy successor to the holiday classic Elf, which my son’s family watches every year religiously. Spirited is no Elf, but it is well-done. There’s lots of singing, great choreography, and a clever twist on the familiar tale.

The second holiday film we saw was The Noel Diary. We chose it because the lead actor, Justin Hartley, starred in This is Us, which is one of our favorite television dramas. The Noel Diary is a typical heartwarming rom-com (romantic comedy) where boy meets girl, with a little parent-child reconciliation thrown in for good measure. We enjoyed it.

Shortly after watching those movies I read an article by the Religion News Service entitled Everyone Gets Their Love Story, subtitled How Christmas Rom-Coms Have Taken over the Season. It chronicles how Christmas movies have changed over the years. There are now more faces of color and even some LGBTQ romances. Times have changed. It is all an attempt to cash in on the $700 billion Christmas industry, which the article calls “the Christmas Industrial Complex.”

Anyway it got me thinking about how holiday movies nowadays are so different from the ones I grew up watching - films like It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34^th Street, White Christmas, and A Christmas Carol. It also got me thinking about how all these Christmas films – new and old – have so little to do with the themes of the Christmas accounts found in the gospels.

Holiday movies are “feel good” flicks. They are often about romantic love, designed to pull on our heartstrings, and invariably have happy endings. How different from the Bible narratives. The biblical Christmas stories have no romance. Mary and Joseph are in an arranged marriage, which got off to a rocky start due to suspicion of adultery.  There is no mention of any love between the two lead actors in the nativity drama. There is no post-Christmas sequel to tell us how the holy couple eventually fell in love and lived happily ever after in Nazareth.

Most importantly there is no happy ending. The Christmas story in the Gospel of Matthew ends with mass murder, traditionally called “The Slaughter of the Innocents.”  King Herod decides to eliminate a possible rival for his throne by murdering all the children in Bethlehem age two and younger. As the camera fades on the exiting Wise Men, we hear the sound of young mothers weeping in grief.

True, God warns Joseph about the murder plot, and the holy family escapes safely to Egypt. But God does not intervene to save the other little children of Bethlehem or warn their parents. That is troubling to anyone raised on the Sunday School song “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.”

The holy family lived as refugees in a foreign land for several years. One can only imagine how difficult those years were. Then Joseph died at some point after Jesus’ twelfth birthday, leaving Mary as a single mom raising a houseful of kids on her own. She did not remarry a rich, handsome stranger and grow old together, like Ruth in the Old Testament story. No Hallmark ending for Mary of Nazareth.

The biblical Christmas stories are so different from the plots of Christmas films that it makes me wonder how rom-coms came to dominate holiday flicks and why Christians are okay with that. Indeed nostalgic Christians seem to be the target audience for many of these “family-friendly” films. The most likely explanation is that Christians - like everyone else – tend to only see God at work in happy endings.

Yet by insisting on storybook endings we are missing the most powerful truth of Christmas: God is present in the unhappy times as well. God’s presence includes the good and the bad. God is the light shining in the darkness of real life, which includes grief, sorrow and hardship.

That is why the gospel writer Matthew reminds us: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel” which means, “God with us.” God is with us no matter what. To that Christmas ending, I say, “Amen.”

The Calm of Advent

I know the “holiday season” is supposed to be a busy time. All the decorating and shopping and cooking and concerts and parties normally make people hurried and harried. Yet it doesn’t feel hectic to me. It feels calm. It feels like I am in the eye of a storm. Society twists in circles while I enjoy peace at the center.

Perhaps it is because we started off the holidays with a quieter than normal Thanksgiving. Due to COVID my wife and I were alone on Thanksgiving Day for the first time in our lives. The virus symptoms had passed, but we still could have been contagious. For that reason we played it safe and stayed home to protect our family. Even though we wish we could have been with family, it turned out to be one of the most restful Thanksgivings we have ever had.

Thanksgiving Day set the tone for first Sunday of Advent a few days later. On that Sunday morning we attended a beautiful “Hanging of the Greens” at our church. Nothing centers the soul like singing contemplative hymns such as “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

Then there is the cold weather. There has not been much snow, but the rain and strong winds have kept us inside more than normal. So we fired up our woodstove for the first time this season and have enjoyed the mesmerizing flames viewed through the glass front of our Jøtul. It felt like we were in our very own Christmas card.

Lastly there is the spiritual dimension of the season. Advent is one of my favorite times of the year. My attention naturally returns to the Holy of Holies within my soul. In the Bible the Spirit of God was said to occupy the innermost chamber of Jerusalem’s temple. I see the temple as symbolic of the human heart. As Stephen told the Sanhedrin, God does not dwell in temples built by hands. God dwells within us.

Peace is within. Regardless of what is happening around the world, the country, or in our lives, peace always abides at the center of the soul. On Christmas night the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest! And on earth peace, goodwill to men.” The peaceable kingdom the herald angel proclaimed is not an external kingdom. There have been “wars and rumors of wars” continually during the 2000 years since Jesus’ birth.

Advent peace is inner peace. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” He promised, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.” He said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Peace dwells in the heart. To enjoy that peace, all we have to do is look within.

People search for peace of mind all their lives. They work for peace in the world. They yearn for peace in relationships. The peace that people seek is already here. People are simply looking in the wrong places. Peace will never be found outside of ourselves. It dwells at the center of the human heart. That is where the Prince of Peace makes his home.

Perhaps that is why I like the symbolism of the evergreen wreath so much. We have three wreaths on the outside of our home. I have often made my own wreaths during Advent. A retired forester friend conducts a wreath-making workshop every year, and I often attend. 

The wreath reminds me of the eye of a storm. In the center of the wreath is empty space. Like the space above the Ark of the Covenant, that empty space is where God abides. For that reason the Christ candle is lit in the center of the Advent wreath. Christ is the center. If we want peace, that is where we find it.

Always Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving Day my wife and I may not be dining at a heavily laden table surrounded by extended family as we had hoped. For first time in our lives it might be just the two of us for Thanksgiving dinner. We will have to wait and see.

The reason for the uncertainty is that we came down with COVID recently. Even though we are feeling better now, we want to make sure we are not contagious. We certainly do not want to give our loved ones an unwanted viral holiday gift! That is a gift you do not want to regift!

So we are waiting the recommended ten-day period, and we will take a COVID test the day before Thanksgiving to make sure we are safe. The whole ordeal has made us appreciate how much we are grateful for the presence of family during the holidays. Consequently I have been thinking a lot about Thanksgiving and what it means to give thanks.

One of the Bible’s most well-known passages on this topic was written by Apostle Paul. He says to the Thessalonians: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” Sermons on this text often follow the natural breakdown of the passage: rejoice, pray, give thanks.

The underlying theme is the word “always.” Paul says, “Rejoice always.” The word “always” is unexpected. We tend to rejoice only when good fortune comes our way. Then he tells us to “pray without ceasing.” In other words, pray always. We tend to pray only when we feel the need to do so. He says, “give thanks in all circumstances.” We all give thanks when blessings are flowing. The difference in Paul’s approach is that we are to do these three spiritual practices always.

He is not asking us to do the impossible, namely to wear a happy face all the time regardless of circumstances. He is not instructing us to shout “Praise God!” when tragedies befall us or those we love. He does not intend for us to be muttering prayers under our breath 24/7. He is not suggesting that we thank God when we witness injustice or see people in pain. In calling us to engage in these spiritual practices always, the apostle calls our attention to what is always present in the midst of the vicissitudes of life.

He is pointing us to the Divine Presence that is always here now. He is calling us to look beyond the fabric of time and space to what is eternal. He is pointing us to the Peace that dwells at the hub of the wheel of life. The wheel of life turns round and round. Sometimes it brings joy and sometimes sorrow. Sometimes pleasure and sometimes pain. Sometimes laughter and sometimes tears. “For everything there is a season,” Ecclesiastes reminds us. All emotions have their appropriate time and place.

Yet at the center of all seasons of life there is a place of deep peace, joy, and gratitude that is always present. It is a deep spring from which flows living water even in the middle of an emotional desert. It is the eternal eye at the center of the storms of life. This is where God dwells, even when there is suffering and death on the surface.

Knowing this ever-present peace is “the will of God in Christ Jesus,” according to the apostle. The indwelling Christ is present in sickness and health, wealth and poverty, sadness and happiness. “I will be with you always,” said Jesus. Christ is always. The only way to “give thanks in all circumstances” is to pay attention to what is present in all circumstances. It is a matter of where you are looking.

This Gift of Eternal Presence is eternal life. It is beyond time and space. It is knowing now – and always - the Reality of the Omnipresence of God. Jesus referred to this as the Kingdom of God. This is as present in the suffering of Good Friday as in the joy of Christmas Day. It is present on Thanksgiving Day and every day. In other words it is always Thanksgiving.