What Revival Looks Like

By Cal Thomas
September 03, 2010

In calling for a spiritual revival in America at his Lincoln Memorial rally Aug. 28, talk show host Glenn Beck reached back into history and touched on a familiar theme.

What would a genuine revival look like and how did those that have transformed America several times in the past get started? Earlier revivals were not created from the mobilization of large crowds. They occurred when people did something infrequently observed in modern times: humbled themselves.

Depending on how you count them there have been at least three “great awakenings” in American history. All of them — along with revivals in other countries — had one thing in common. They all began with what the late revival historian J. Edwin Orr called “a concert of prayer.” the rest

What passes for American Christianity today is increasingly counterfeit. It appears more focused on a transient earthly kingdom, rather than a heavenly eternal kingdom. That is idolatry and violates the First Commandment: “Thou shall have no other gods before me.”