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Location:
6425 Jefferson Rd. For
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In
the early 1990s, three article were
published that I think will help you
understand why. The
first of these was in 1991 in a journal
called The Public Interest. The
article was written by Roger Starr, a
professor at City College in New York.
Roger Starr is a liberal, Jewish
Democrat. Remember that. It's important
to the story. Starr
concluded that there was only one other
period in world history that matches
the day in which we live. It was 18th
century England. There was the problem
of addiction -- they had just
discovered gin. Families were
decomposing. There were problems of
pollution and crime and violence and
rioting -- problems very much like our
own. When
he discovered this, Roger Starr felt he
had to study what saved England, or
what brought them out of this mess. And
would you believe? This liberal,
Jewish, Democrat argues that the only
thing that saved England was someone
that he had not really heard much about
-- someone by the name of John Wesley
who started a movement called
Methodism. "Now,
I don't even know any Methodists," says
Starr. "I don't know anything about a
them. But this Wesley started a
movement that literally saved England.
It was movement that had profound
social, economic, and political
consequences and transformed and indeed
saved that nation. And maybe what we
need to do, he says, "is to study those
Methodists to find out how they did it,
and to duplicate what they did back in
the 18th century." About
a month later, George Will wrote an
column for The Washington Post.
George Will is a conservative Roman
Catholic Republican. Remember that.
It's important to the story. Will
wrote, "I never thought I'd agree with
anything Roger Starr has ever written.
But you know, this liberal has actually
got a point. It is that in the 18th
century you have the German and French
revolutions, and other revolutions
around the world; but you don't have an
English Revolution. But they did, you
see. It was called the Methodist
revolution. Because these Methodist
turned their world upside down. Maybe
what we need to do is to take Roger
Starr seriously and look at what was
the secret of those
Methodists." Then
he added, "I know this is going to
sound strange for me, saying that we
need some more Methodists to save this
world; and I hate to end the column
this way, but does anybody out there
have a better idea?" About
one month later, Fred Barnes, editor of
The New Republic writes an
article. Fred Barnes is an evangelical
Episcopalian moderate. Remember that.
It's important to the story. He
writes, "Can you believe this? We have
George Will and Roger Starr agreeing on
something. I can't believe it! But the
more you think about it, they are
exactly right. "But
they forgot one thing. What they forgot
was that basically the Methodist
Movement was at heart, a spiritual
awakening. Yes, it had tremendous
economic, social, and political
consequences, but it began as a
spiritual revival -- a spiritual
awakening. And unless we get in this
nation a spiritual awakening and a
spiritual revival that will create
these kinds of economic and political
implications...in our day, it won't
work. "It's
got to begin as a movement of the
Spirit or else it doesn't go anywhere.
But we've got to begin. We've got to
have a new generation of Methodists who
will do for this day what they did in
the 18th century."
Gateway
Church gathers
for worship
Sundays
at 10:30 a.m.
(Hwy. 129) in Athens,
Georgia.
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TOWARD
REVIVAL
From
Gateway
Today
The
e-magazine of
Gateway Church
FALL
2004
'It's
got to begin as a
movement of the
Spirit'
NOTE:
Speaking at Gateway on September 26,
2004, evangelist Tom Atkins related
the following story, orginally told
by Maxie Dunnam.
We
need to be crying out out God for true,
lasting, widespread revival.
The
second article
The
third