Noah Lykins’s Reviews > Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal > Status Update

Today the observer walking around the American Zion and considering her ramparts sees an extensive fortress originally built by evangelicals, whose descendants are either camping outside or huddled in a few central hiding places, while nontheological mechanics control most of the buildings and battlements.

During much of the twentieth century, ecumenists have soft-pedaled the doctrinal purity of the church in order to attain its unity. But the body's tolerance can be increased only so far before we run the risk of fatal infection, which can lead to disintegration just as rapidly as the reiection syndrome.

… if the self-consciously orthodox can abandon their usual posture of intellectual self-righteousness and strike a more humble stance, admitting that doctrine is an implement of spirituality but not its ultimate goal… lead to the unity and purity of the coming church.

“the apologetic value of being able to retreat like a cuttlefish into a cloud of philosophical subtlety when one's facts are menaced may appear less desirable than the relative clarity of a demythologized faith or a secular religion which has placed a moratorium on God-talk.”

The preacher who was content to rehearse and admire doctrines without applying them to the life and world of the congregation in such a way that believers sensed the guiding control of the Holy Spirit and heard the voice of God addressing them in concrete situations, was ot for the Puritans a physician of souls, but an aesthetician or tool-salesman, displaying the instruments of healing but refusing to employ them.

“…social groupings have their own patterns of characteristic flesh which are extremely resistant to detection and change. These patterns are so universal within a local culture that they are as undetectable as the air we breathe and just as powerful in their effects. They are also socially reinforced, and often defended and legitimated by local mores, mythology, politics and even religious rationales.“

and “the effect of corporate flesh upon revival is, first, to spread the carnal admixtures in its development very rapidly from one locale to another and, second, to limit and condition the thrust of the awakening by concealing and preserving large areas of sin which are culturally normative in a given region.”

“A theology of conversion like Charles Finney's, which conceives of revival as galvanizing the emotions of an audience in order to move their wills toward obedience, will necessarily lead to manipulation: multiple repetitions of hymns during lengthy invitations, hard-sell salesmanship aimed at immediate decisions and the rest of the trappings of much post-Finneyan evangelism.”

“…modern Evangelicalism is in danger of becoming a tame lecture circuit, a kind of sanctified show business.”

The vitality of true revival preaching has always come from its keenness in penetrating defense mechanisms, uncovering hidden sin and leading people Christians and unbelievers alike—to repentance.