Theology Today - Vol 31, No. 4 - January 1975 - EDITORIAL - The Post-War Religious Revival: Where Is It Going?

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The Post-War Religious Revival: Where Is It Going?
By Kenneth A. Briggs

In his poem "I am Waiting," written in the '50's, Lawrence Ferlinghetti longed for a "rebirth of wonder." It was an understandable longing among those who found that decade dull and prosaic, ruled by efficiency and technology, when being awe-struck was reduced to astonishment over the latest scientific breakthrough, mysticism and spirituality having been left to the dwindling ranks of visionaries and misfits.

Ferlinghetti and his alienated fellow travelers did not have long to wait. Before another ten years had passed, the scene was swarming with "believers," adopting the language of ancient sects, pouring over the "I Ching" and "Book of the Dead," donning safron robes, preaching doom on street corners and exulting in otherworldliness. At the head of the procession were a stunning variety of gurus, shamans and evangelists, whose fortunes rose and fell almost overnight.

Suddenly "spiritual dullsville" was hopping. Walls in the East Village of New York were sporting not only political and erotic epithets (and posters for rock concerts) but the faces of a whole cast of "masters" from the Orient competing for an audience at upcoming lectures. Students for a Democratic Society, drug users, and apathetic drifters often dropped what they were doing or not doing and scurried off to join radical sects such as the "Children of God." The nation was said to be in the throes of a revival whose scope and impact was difficult to forsee. The revival itself caught most by surprise, emerging at times like an unannounced circus parade in a sleepy country town.

Moreover, its compass was much broader than surface appearances indicated. The genuine drift toward inwardness had made a deep incursion whether or not it was ostensibly "religious." After years of agonizing domestic strife, there had been a basic mood shift, now well documented, that involved a search for meaning and stability. This pilgrimage to the soul had begun during a period of nagging sense of doubt about our national and, by implication, personal directions, and while some accepted religion's answers as the way out, others sought something similar in such settings as transcendental meditation, sensitivity groups, encounter sessions, and back-to-nature

Until recently, Kenneth A. Briggs was a religion writer for Newsday and is now Religion Editor of The New York Times. A native of Massachusetts, he holds the A.B. degree from Bowdoin College and the B.D. from Yale Divinity School.

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communal life. Often these venturers described their experiences in categories that were by traditional standards implicitly spiritual.

By most accounts, the revival has peaked and is already in rapid decline, at least in most measurable respects. The exuberance and energy that exploded in its first stages appears to have tapered off. The dozens of new spiritual colonies founded during its height have, for the most part, either stabilized or lost ground. Efforts to mobilize the masses, such as the attempt to galvanize young people around the evangelical standard at "Explo '72" in Dallas, 1972, sponsored by Campus Crusade, are far less in evidence. To be sure, vitality still exists among many of the new converts, but the scale and ambition of their hopes have generally been scaled down.

Even as the drive weakens, however, there remains the question of what the overall sense of spiritual revival has done to the American consciousness. As a trend, it touched nearly everyone through the media, which found it provocative and a welcome relief from issues of war and peace. As a mission, it reached thousands who were discovering religion after being raised in a dominantly secular environment. As a portent, it was seized by the religious establishment, liberal and conservative alike, as a clue to a changing spiritual climate. There are some who dismiss the whole affair as a passing fancy or a retreat into dismal simplemindedness, but I do not agree. It had those liabilities to be sure, but its overtones point to a potent force that in some degree alters the way we now look at ourselves as a nation and as individuals.

In the first place, "religion" per se was not the prime cause of the revival, but a response to it. The spirit certainly broods and engenders movements of its own, whether or not religious groups take them to their bosom. What happened in the late '60's was a fascinating convergence of psychological, political, and spiritual inclinations that erupted without benefit of clergy. That is not to demean the role of organized religion but to say that the phenomenon itself far exceeded the best made plans of priests and gurus. Something was in the air.

Regardless how it began, it took many pathways and therein lies much of its ongoing strength and impact. Compared to the First and Second Great Awakenings in American history (a comparison some would shudder to make), the latest upsurge displayed an astonishing variety of forms and functions, in many instances totally unrelated to each other except as they acted as part of a larger framework. A brief review of its main features may, therefore, be instructive.

Initially, the spotlight was on the "Jesus freaks," young people who took on a life-style characterized by a consuming zeal for evangelism. Magnetic personalities such as Arthur Blessitt gained a reputation for

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a gutsy and sincere approach (Blessitt was labeled the "Minister of Sunset Strip" for his work in strip joints and bars), and succeeded in conveying the views of the gospel without the trappings of the established church. The free-wheeling Jesus movement, then, crashed through the cynicism and indifference of a generation that had been moving steadily away from the church and engaged it in religious dialogue.

The eastern cults also shared the platform. University religion departments had helped open the riches of eastern religious traditions, but political forces did the most. For many who adopted Zen, the writings of ancient seers and the teachings of present-day gurus, the appeal was precisely in their non-western cast in a time when western values were being roundly chastised because of the Vietnam war, among other things.

Significantly, eastern thought focused heavily on order and harmony, qualities in growing demand by Americans in the midst of escalating violence and social disintegration.

While the Jesus people and eastern groups attracted mostly younger adherents, another force, the charismatic renewal, was making strong inroads among middle-class adults, often those already affiliated with a church. Pentecostalism had been largely obscure to most Christians, existing as an exotic, extremist alternative to mainline Protestantism. With all the revival juices flowing, however, it moved beyond the fringes and began to be taken seriously by those not previously considered prime candidates-members of staid denominations, notably Roman Catholic and Episcopal.

The same attributes which many had seized upon to denigrate pentecostalism became winning traits. Among them were a free, emotional style of worship that filled a need to break out of dry formalism; a lack of a doctrinal test that allowed its coexistence with almost all Christian denominations (I am aware of the tests sometimes applied among pentecostals, namely, baptism of the Spirit and speaking in tongues); and the sense of the Spirit's immediacy that balanced the concept of God as transcendent and remote. A large proportion of the new breed of pentecostals were not sect types; that is, they were expansive and ecumenical rather than closed and inward. For example, in parish after parish, pentecostal constituencies have appeared, often dangerously close to becoming a curch-within-a-eburch, but nevertheless establishing a foothold for an interpretation of the faith that could continue to exert considerable influence on the parent bodies.

While most of the action was taking place either outside the walls of the church (as with the free-floating evangelicals) or as a substream within a denomination (Catholic and Episcopal pentecostals, for instance), there were several Christian bodies which endeavored to become part of the revival. For the most part this enthusiasm came from evangelicals, especially those oriented toward youth, who saw a

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golden opportunity to harness the free-floating spiritual energies of their own gain. Campus Crusade quickly got into the thick of it, as did Youth for Christ and an assortment of smaller organizations. On a broader level, Key '73 was at least in some measure an effort to extend the momentum of the times by attempting a coalition missionizing enterprise under the banner "Calling the Continent to Christ." In less conspicuous ways, many separate churches were pursuing similar agendas, sensing the occasion to crank up the evangelistic machinery for a new drive.

III

Non-evangelicals (to avoid labeling anyone a liberal or moderate in these troubled days, it may be best to refer to non-evangelicals much as Catholics used to simply designate non-Catholics and dispensed with further distinctions) reacted too, but in a less direct, more back-handed manner, as one might expect. The response came across as an admission that perhaps spiritual matters had been neglected and that a strong base in faith certainly was necessary for authentic servanthood. Some gallantly attempted to tie social concerns and faith together under the new spiritual dispensation. I remember a Methodist bishop addressing the denomination's General Conference in 1972 on the subject, appropriately enough, of conversion. It was still a valid experience, he assured his listeners, but should not be constricted to merely the regeneration of a person's soul. It must also, he said, mean the conversion of attitudes and behavior in such areas as economics and race.

Another aspect of the overall picture was the area referred to loosely as "mind expansion." In response to a pervasive desire to locate and "know" the self (and in the process to discover its meaning), there arose a potpourri of techniques including drugs, a variety of novel psychotherapies, meditation discipline such as Yoga, sensitivity and encounter groups, as well as a seemingly endless stream of "self-improvement" methods from psycho-cybernetics to aerobics. The "answers" often shared much in common with conventional religious practice-demanding confession, giving the self to higher goals, accepting degrees of asceticism. But, perhaps more importantly, the underlying problems and questions that drove the recipients toward these techniques could be taken as profoundly religious. I do not want to become a reductionist in this matter, as there are phenomena which simply do not submit to such a consistent (and, perhaps convenient) analysis, but such a cluster of similarities can be drawn as at least a fairly accurate generalization.

No survey of the revival would be complete without mention of the remarkable upsurge of interest in the psychic and the occult. Included are a plethora of unusual activities from the shadowy worlds of the

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black mass and Satan worship to the fatalistic concerns of astrology, tarot, and ouija. While many entered into these esoteric realms with nothing more than a healthy curiosity, and stayed on as an escapist diversion, the sheer power of strange rituals and omens to attract wide fascination was testimony again to the craving for experiences beyond the sphere of everyday life.

Within the span of a few short years, then, a lot of unexpected things bad happened. The "spiritual" movement had begun small but fanned out and assumed many different guises. Though relatively few people became involved in the movement's by-products-the cults and sects-many more were drawn into the discussion in some way or other. They were approached by Hare Krishna young people or by exuberant evangelists for Christ. They saw religious spectaculars on television or read about them in print media. They encountered friends or family members who had been converted to a religion or philosophy, so the issues were engaged on a very personal level. The nation was certainly aware that something was in the works, though its exact shape and meaning was usually unclear.

It is not enough, of course, to gauge the importance of the revival by simply reviewing its breadth. There are other aspects, primarily its spin-offs and implications, that deserve attention.

First, the tenor and direction of these happenings suggest the extent to which there has arisen a genuine concern for spiritual as opposed to secular matters. Out of a profound sense of restiveness with the course of their lives, Americans were increasingly looking for something firmer to stand upon. Reason had been the cornerstone to the U.S. post-war empire, but the indication was that reason alone would not suffice. A fairly broad cross-section of the public was looking to extra-rational, mystical truths and revelations to supplement or reorder their existence. In becoming middle-aged "Jesus freaks" or abandoning Wall Street law firms for religious communes they were saying loudly and clearly (albeit untypically) that there were more possibilities in heaven and earth than they ever dreamed of.

Numerous commentators, among them Theodore Roszak (Where the Wasteland Ends), Peter Berger (Rumor of Angels), and Harvey Cox (Seduction of the Spirit), have written about the resurgence of a transcendent longing that is both open to spiritual insight and critical of science as a sufficient means of knowing the whole truth. That openness and suspicion toward rationality will be with us, I believe, for some time to come.

In that climate, it has become easier to talk about religion. While religious institutions are losing favor, religious issues themselves tend to be treated with more respect. Church-going may be seen as " quaint" in many quarters, while the question of Christ's divinity may be deemed wholly acceptable, even vital. Maybe that dichotomy has always existed, but it has stood out more sharply in recent years,

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signifying a shift back toward a re-examination of the origin and destiny issues.

The church has already felt the impact of the revival in several important ways.

For one thing, the Jesus "revolution" brought into the evangelical camp a different sort of convert who shared basically the same theology with his elders (though less concerned about defining matters such as biblical inerrancy) but who usually brought a set of ethics that had been deeply influenced by the social movements of the '60's. The evangelicals took integration pretty much for granted and held the same basic idealism as their countercultural peers. If it is safe to assume that many of them will move into more established evangelical churches, they could play a profound part in reshaping the social perspectives of their pew-mates.

There have also been unanticipated ecumenical turns. Pentecostals from Protestant and Catholic backgrounds have found common cause. Projects such as Key '73 and Explo '72 brought together those of a similar theological bent in a manner that blurred denominational lines. The Lausanne Conference on evangelism this past summer further testified to the earnest efforts of evangelists to work together, however warily and haltingly.

A degree of church "renewal" has been another by-product. The rising enthusiasm for simpler forms of Christian worship, informal structure, and soul-saving has led many otherwise drowsy Christians to reassess the substance of their faith. Conversion, prayer, Bible study, a personal God, and faith healing are being taken seriously by many who had discarded such matters as irrelevant. Likewise, some of the religious communes have served as models for achieving a viable style of Christian community and street "witnessing" has, among other causes, made evangelism a prime concern across the denominational sweep.

Theologically, the revival may have served as a catalyst for a further phase of the dialogue between liberals and conservatives, by making the faith something of a fad. Serious church people on both sides found themselves evaluating the phenomenon together and, in the process, discovered how much they had borrowed from each other during the turbulent '60's. Conservatives (here I speak of establishment evangelicals) were beginning to gain a social conscience, almost through osmosis, while liberals were recognizing a spiritual lapse in their social action. Both were alarmed at the prospect of a fresh generation of anti-intellectual fundamentalists carrying the banner of the Lord.

VII

The upshot, I believe, is that both sides have moved closer together, aware of the dangers inherent in discipleship that is either too soulless, simple-minded, or lacking social ethics.

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Many other dangers linger in the revival's wake. One is that the damage done to Christian/Jewish relations will not be soon healed. Another is that the brief period of excitement and its subsequent fadeout will either be seen as an escapist aberration which only caught on because of the world-weariness of the nation or that it will be interpreted as the start of the millennium. In the latter terms, the death of-God movement will probably continue to have greater visible impact than the religious revival.

The scope and variety of the revival made it unusual and significant. East met West in strange new ways, "belief" gained new respect, and science lost ground as sole arbiter of truth. Just as communications reduced the size of the planet and made it into a tighter community, the revival activated vital forces in America's life and blended them in potentially powerful ways that would leave them all changed.