Thread by @TaylorMatthewD

This is such an important analytical question abt the #AsburyRevival /#asburyrevival2023: Why are both left-leaning & right-wing Evangelicals eager to endorse it? I’ve been puzzling over it & have a few thoughts (@BradleyOnishi & @StraightWhiteJC can speak for themselves). 1/

https://twitter.com/presbyhippy/status/1627156386260852736

Truthfully, I was invited to write a 1000-word OpEd on the #AsburyRevival that I mothballed on Friday, bc I realized I don’t have a “take” yet on it. Or, rather, I have endless *takes* but no thesis. The events at AsburyU the past 2 wks have been an Evangelical Rorschach test. 2/

When I was still Evangelical, I inhabited left-leaning Evang spaces (InterVarsity & Fuller Seminary google.com/books/edition/…) & also many right-wing env’ts. We have to remember that left-leaning Evangs are still Evangelicals, & *revival* has a mesmerizing quality for Evangs. 3/

Amer Evangelical history is often narrated–by Evangelicals–as a history of revivals: 1st Great Awakening (1700s), 2nd Great Awakening (Methodists & Baptists 1800s), Azusa Street (Pentecostals 1900s), Jesus Movt, Toronto, Brownsville, etc. (Indep. Charismatics 1970s to today). 4/

“Revival” carries connotations not only of reinvigorated piety but of galvanization around political causes through Holy Spirit energy. So naturally left-leaning & right-leaning Evangelicals want to see in the #AsburyRevival a divine validation of their own agenda items. 5/

Bc Asbury U has “its roots in the Amer Methodist and holiness tradition,” asbury.edu/about/spiritua… & Methodist/Holiness institutions (partic. the UMC) are undergoing a slow-moving divorce around LGBTQ ordination & same-sex marriage, the #AsburyRevival can be read in diff ways. 6/

Left-leaning Evangelicals can see in the repentance & simplicity of the #AsburyRevival a rebuke to the politicization of Evangelicalism in favor of earnest piety & personal contrition (downplaying the culture wars for authentic spirituality). 7/

But, as I noted last week, leaders in the radicalized right-wing #NewApostolicReformation have also eagerly endorsed the #AsburyRevival & seemingly hoped to coopt its vitality for their projects of Seven Mountains domination

https://twitter.com/TaylorMatthewD/status/1625374233617375233

8/

My Charismatic Revival Fury series icjs.org/charismatic-re… notes how enmeshed paradigms of revival (“revival & reformation”) have become in the #NAR circles w/ their spiritual warfare politics (#January6th), dominion theology, & visions of top-down societal transformation. 9/

The presence/fascination of #NAR-aligned leaders around the #AsburyRevival - leaders like Jim Garlow, Rick Curry, Lance Wallnau, Dutch Sheets, Sean Feucht - has certainly set many ppls’ teeth on edge. But I’ve also heard 1st-hand countervailing reports. 10/

I’ve seen multiple reports of Asbury U faculty maintaining a pretty strong hand of guidance over the #AsburyRevival & aiming to keep it squarely within the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition of restrained, reverential, low-slung revivals & to avoid culture-war political cooptation. 11/

.@TheRemnantRadio guys (reliably Charismatic, but mostly anti-#NAR) report seeing people trying to bring shofars (a Charismatic-Pentecostal appropriation of Judaism that’s become part of the iconic #January6th symbolism

https://twitter.com/TaylorMatthewD/status/1622083573858672641

) into the #AsburyRevival, 12/

And, according to their observation, the shofar-bearers are getting stopped at the door w/ polite requests to maintain the prayerful/reverential (read: Wesleyan-Holiness) env't. This seems to indicate the faculty/regulators of the #AsburyRevival are very cued into the optics. 13/

.@TheRemnantRadio also report that celebrity preacher-provocateurs like Greg Locke & Todd Bentley are not being allowed on stage but are just getting pointedly seated in the pews like everyone else. Again, seeming cognizance of the possibility of revival-hijacking… 14/

Now you have Tucker Carlson & other very right-wing figures diving into the Asbury fray. Also, importantly, the revival’s spreading to other univs & college campuses. foxnews.com/us/asbury-revi… Will the same carefully curated reverential env’t be maintained at these outposts? 15/

I ended Charismatic Revival Fury with a heartfelt query: Is a truly broad-spectrum Christian revival possible in our polarized/ partisanized culture or has #NAR-style revival become THE paradigm? We are witnessing in Asbury a testing of that very question. 15/15