Duke historian Grant Wacker tells us that in the winter of 1887, a group calling itself the Evangelical Alliance for the United States met in Washington, DC. It was an appropriate site for a noble assemblage of scholars, pastors, college presidents, and other leaders who were intent on recapturing the moral, spiritual, and political clout […]
"The system of New Measures lacks affinity whatever with the life of the Reformation, as embodied in the Augsburgh Confession and the Heidelbergh Catechism. It could not have found favor in the eyes of Zwingli or Calvin. Luther would have denounced it in the most unmerciful terms." (1) These are the words of John W. […]
The "altar call" is a decisionist technique designed to lead an individual to a new level of commitment to Jesus Christ. It employs an external activity to confirm an internal impulse. The typical altar call is an invitation by a preacher to believe in Jesus and to confirm that decision by "coming forward" to a […]
Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus. There is no salvation outside the Church. In the good old days of American religious warfare these were perhaps fighting words for many Protestants, as they smacked of the mysterious and repressive haughtiness of Catholic sacerdotalism. Today, claims of the Church's exclusivity seem quaint and inconceivable, not least among Roman Catholics […]
The decade of the nineties has witnessed a dramatic new interest in revivals. From reports out of Toronto during the early years of the decade, to college campus stirrings in 1995, and now from the excitement generated in Pensacola, Florida, growing numbers conclude we are presently in the throes of a mighty spiritual awakening. This […]
Was the Protestant Reformation a revival? If we define revivalism as a dramatic increase in new converts and an increased zeal on the part of believers to live godly lives, then the Reformation was at least an urban revival in the sense that it took root and changed church life in a number of Northern […]
I don't know how many operations I performed in my surgical career. I know that I performed 17,000 of one particular type, and 7,000 of another. I practiced surgery for thirty-nine years, so perhaps I performed 50,000 operations. I was successful, and patients were coming to me from all over the world. And one of […]
MR: Rev. Murray, your book Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858 is a marvelous account of the differences between the First Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening. How does "revival" differ from "revivalism"? IM: I use "revivalism" as something that can be manufactured, organized, worked up. I think it […]
