Oh, Max! I thought you knew me well enough. It's me. Miss Old-school, keep-the-definitions-the-same woman. Revival. When there is a great awakening of God in a large area. The one I came out of was The Jesus Movement of the late 60's-early 70's. The one before that was The Azusa Street Revival and The Scottish Revival. My favorite was the one in New England started through a man named Jonathan Edwards.
Why? What were you thinking?
Why? What were you thinking?
Ok.
But what does THAT mean?
How large EXACTLY is a "large area"?
Does this mean a whole continent, or a nation, or a state, or a county, or a town, or a neighborhood, or a single church, or a single family, or a single person?
How large an area?
What are we even talking about?
How are we choosing to define this?
Do we all view it differently?
Are we all thinking about different sizes, and different types of breadth, and different types of reach, when we use the word revival?
If so, then we're all talking about different things.
What EXACTLY does "a great awakening of God" mean?
What does this look like?
How do we measure it, so we know it when we see it?
How do we define it?
What exactly does it look like?
What exactly dos it NOT look like?
Is EVERY EVENT AT A CHURCH A REVIVAL? If not, then how do we know when something is NOT a revival... what definitions do we use to determine what events are NOT revivals?
How is it initiated?
How is it spread?
Does it spread?
What are it's results... both at the personal level, and at a larger level?
How exactly do we recognize it, so we know it when we see it?
Doctrine
This all ends up in matters of BIBLICAL DOCTRINE, in defining what is, and is not, a revival.
If people disagree on matters of doctrine,
then they're going to disagree about what they call a "revival".
Conclusion
A. How we define "revival" all boils down to our views on BIBLICAL DOCTRINE in order to define what precisely a revival is, and is not. And just like any doctrinal issues on CC, we're going to have MANY DIFFERENT OPINIONS.
B. This is my point, and my only point.
I don't want to argue about this stuff.
I'm just pointing out that this all boils down to doctrinal issues... issues which people on CC NEVER AGREE ON.
That's all.