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When a Christian Revival Goes Viral [Thomas Lyons, The Atlantic]

By William McClain
In [The Atlantic]
February 23, 2023
145 views
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  • On February 8th, a group of about 20 students at Asbury University in Kentucky began to worship and pray for one another after a chapel service – This was the initial spark for what has become known as the Asbury Revival, a spiritual movement spreading to other universities and across the nation.
  • The event has gone viral online and continues to draw crowds to Wilmore, KY – People have been describing a “sweet presence,” “deep peace,” and the “quiet, heavy presence of God” when they enter these spaces.
  • At the heart of the event is worship – Singing, praying, scripture reading, and testimonies form the core of the experience. Participants have described a sense of transcendence, love for God and for others, and a slipping away of time.
  • The Asbury Revival has been called a “revival,” “outpouring,” “renewal,” and “awakening” – While these terms all describe a spiritual movement, they are nuanced based on the scope and impact of the event.
  • It has been described as “radically humble” – There is no flashy light system, screens, or celebrity worship leaders, and the event has been guarded by the leaders on the ground against those seeking to co-opt it.
  • The Asbury Revival gives hope for the future of American Christianity – It is a subversive event that has chosen hiddenness, simplicity, and selfless hospitality in a world of 24/7 access.

Published February 23, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Thomas Lyons’s original post When a Christian Revival Goes Viral

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Why Students in Kentucky Have Been Praying for 250 Hours [Olivia Reingold, The Free Press]

By William McClain
In [The Free Press]
February 20, 2023
139 views
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  • For the last four years at her Christian college, Gracie Turner had been keeping a secret: she had lost her faith. She had been blaming God for the struggles she was facing, including cancer ravaging her great-grandmother, family falling apart, and anxiety, depression and a back injury.
  • Last Sunday, something changed: Gracie spontaneously blurted an idea to her roommate to go to chapel. When she opened the doors, the same chapel that had never spoken to her before was suddenly alive with more than a thousand people weeping, swaying and singing with their eyes closed. Gracie felt at peace and protected.
  • This sparked a movement: tens of thousands poured into that Kentucky chapel to experience what Gracie felt, coming from states like South Carolina and Oklahoma, Canada and Singapore. The pews were packed with people who shared a single conviction: God was visiting a two-stoplight town in Kentucky.
  • The revival started with a sermon from Zach Meerkreebs, a volunteer soccer coach: He spoke about experiencing radically poor love, even from the church, and invited people to experience God’s perfect love. His message moved people to stay and pray, and then spread via social media.
  • This is not the first time Wilmore has combusted with prayer: Asbury University’s website lists eight prior revivals, with the largest cresting in 1970. Revivals were at their height in eighteenth-century America, and more recently, college campuses have been the center of revivals.
  • This revival is happening at a time when Gen Z is the most likely generation yet to say they don’t believe in God: They are also the least religiously affiliated and the least likely to attend church, and their rates of depression and anxiety are soaring. This revival provides hope and freedom to a generation that is feeling heavy and desolate.

Published February 19, 2023
Visit The Free Press to read Olivia Reingold’s original post Why Students in Kentucky Have Been Praying for 250 Hours

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Embracing God to Own the Libs [Shadi Hamid, The Free Press]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Free Press]
February 8, 2023
100 views
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• Andrew Tate was the most googled person in the US in 2022, and had a massive following online, especially among young men and the far-right.
• He was arrested in Romania on sex-trafficking charges, but had previously converted to Islam.
• Muslim reaction to his conversion was split, reflecting the growing divide between “woke” and “anti-woke” Muslims.
• Tate’s conversion is an example of a growing phenomenon called “political conversions”, where people are drawn to a religion for its political associations rather than its spiritual beliefs.
• This is especially true of evangelical Christians, who are increasingly drawn to the GOP, and of Muslims, who are drawn to Islam for its resistance to progressive norms.
• Religion is never just about religion, and the decoupling of politics and faith is an invention of the modern West.
• The all-consuming political divide in America today is less about politics than culture, and religion shapes our habits, norms, and attitudes.

Published February 8, 2023
Visit Popular Information to read Judd Legum’s original post This book is considered pornography in Ron DeSantis’ Florida

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American Christianity Is Due for a Revival [Timothy Keller, The Atlantic]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Atlantic]
February 5, 2023
147 views
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• In the late 1980s, the author noticed many churches in New York City being repurposed or torn down due to dwindling membership and cultural attitudes toward Christianity.
• The Pew Research Center projected that the percentage of Christians in the U.S. could plunge to less than half the population by 2070.
• Sociologists such as Émile Durkheim and Jonathan Haidt have argued that religion contributes to society in ways that cannot be readily supplied by other sources.
• Robert Bellah showed that American individualism is headed toward social fragmentation, economic inequality, and family breakdown without the counterbalance of religion.
• Churches provide community and support to people in their congregations and serve neighbors who do not attend church.
• The Church can experience a revival if it learns how to speak compellingly to non-Christian people, unites justice and righteousness, and embraces the global and multiethnic character of Christianity.
• The Church in the U.S. can grow again if it strikes a dynamic balance between innovation and conservation.
• Modern secularism holds that people are only physical entities without souls, but most people feel that life is greater than what can be accounted for by naturalistic explanations.
• Christianity offers grace and covenant, which is based on unconditional love and sacrificial service.
• The Church must escape from political captivity, engage in extraordinary prayer, and distinguish the gospel from moralism.
• Eric Liddell, the former Olympic star and missionary to China, was an example of how the gospel of sheer grace through Christ can produce love.

Published February 5, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Timothy Keller’s original post American Christianity Is Due for a Revival

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Hamline University And Cancel Culture [Ken White, The Popehat Report]

By Spencer Chen
In Ken White [The Popehat Report]
January 5, 2023
108 views
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• Hamline University’s decision to not renew the contract of an art history lecturer who showed an image of the Prophet Muhammad in class is an example of “cancel culture” – a response that is disproportionate to the speech in question.
• Hamline’s communications about the incident, which downplayed free expression and academic freedom, were also an example of “cancel culture”.
• Hamline’s student newspaper, the Oracle, engaged in “cancel culture” by deleting a statement from the chair of the Department of Religion defending the lecturer.
• Actionable items to address this type of “cancel culture” include: not firing, disciplining, or non-renewing teachers based on violating sectarian religious rules unless the teachers and students know up front they’re under those rules; not condemning pedagogically appropriate and on-point teaching to soothe sectarian demands; and not issuing vague, ambiguous, and unworkable speech “standards”.
• Student newspapers at non-sectarian schools should not delete defenses of speech because some people think it’s offensive to disagree about whether the speech is offensive.
• The Hamline students’ response to a lecturer showing a picture of the Prophet Muhammad was disproportionate and censorial, and can be fairly called “cancel culture”.
• Demanding that the lecturer be fired, not renewed, or disciplined is wildly disproportionate and should not be condoned.
• Saying “as a Muslim I find visual depictions of the Prophet offensive and blasphemous” is not cancel culture.
• Throwing around the word “Islamophobia” is censorial, entitled, and ignorant, but not wildly disproportionate.
• The criticism of the lecturer is indecent, as the lecturer showed sensitivity and explained the pedagogical context.
• This incident is a huge culture war victory for the anti-progressive Right.

Published January 5, 2023. Visit The Popehat Report to read Ken White’s original post.

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I Was Taught ‘God Hates Christmas.’ Now, I Love It. [Megan Phelps-Roper, The Free Press]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Free Press]
December 25, 2022
105 views
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  • Megan Phelps-Roper grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church, where Christmas was seen as a pagan farce and public celebrations were an opportunity to set themselves apart from others.
  • She was taught to hate Christmas, but now, as an adult, she has come to appreciate the beauty of the holiday.
  • She has found a way to bridge her past and present without burning it all down, by recognizing the beauty of Christmas traditions and the joy of coming together with family and friends.
  • She has also come to understand that we can choose the meaning we assign to our experiences, and that they need not be tethered forever to the evils of an unchanging past.

Click HERE for original. Published December 25, 2022

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Was Santa Actually a Mushroom-Tripping Reindeer Herder? [Leighton Woodhouse, The Free Press]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Free Press]
December 24, 2022
151 views
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  • The traditional explanation of Santa Claus is an ancient fable about Christian virtue which spread across medieval Europe and then, upon landing in the United States, was promptly commercialized.
  • The revisionist version is a tale of pre-Christian, indigenous pagan spirituality that was somehow smuggled into our modern Christian/consumerist holiday.
  • The traditional explanation is the story of Saint Nicholas, a Greek bishop who was persecuted for his faith by the Romans and gave away his inheritance to the poor.
  • The revisionist version starts with the Amanita muscaria, a psychoactive mushroom that gives humans the sensation of flying.
  • The indigenous people of Lapland used to consume the drug safely by drinking the reindeers’ urine and shamans would dress in its likeness, in a red and white costume, and visit prominent Sámi households to pass along the insights that they achieved through their hallucinogenic trips.
  • It’s possible that, like Easter, our Christmas traditions are a blend of Christian and pagan themes.
  • Maybe the mushroom is even more connected to the birth of Jesus than to Santa Claus.

Click HERE for original. Published December 24, 2022

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Who Cares Where the Holidays Come From, If the God They Celebrate is Dead? [Freddie deBoer]

By Spencer Chen
In Freddie deBoer
December 5, 2022
142 views
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  • Atheists have shifted from being disrespectful towards believers to being overly respectful, engaging in a ritual of debunking the idea that Christmas is a reappropriation of pagan or Roman holidays.
  • This disdain for arguments about the pagan roots of Christian religious practice is a prototypical example of the current turn in atheism.
  • This shift has caused atheists to neglect the essential tasks of atheism, such as arguing for the non-existence of a supernatural deity and attempting to limit the destructive power of religion.
  • This shift has been caused by the New Atheists becoming politically right-coded, and atheists now scrambling to disavow them.
  • Ultimately, this is a classic example of an essential question: which is worse, insult or condescension?

Click HERE for original. Published December 5, 2022

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