Remnant

Our God is the one who revives, who restores, and who resurrects - He brings us from death into life, and will breathe on us so that we may draw near to Him. In Isaiah 57, we can read:
15 For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

The book of Acts speaks of times of refreshing coming from the Lord; members of the early Church were referred to as those who turned the world "upside down."  So, we have to consider: are we satisfied with the status quo in our spiritual practice, or do we want to experience a fresh touch of the Holy Spirit?  We have to be careful not to decry the state of culture today without realizing that we, empowered by the Spirit of God, can actually participate in addressing it - including our willingness to be used of God to model His character, so that hearts can be changed, starting with our own.

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The time of the early Church was a time when many turned to Jesus, but there was conflict that abounded, too.  But, the book of Acts illustrates for us that the world as they know it was being
turned "upside down." That phrase is actually used in Acts 17:
5 But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.
6 But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, "These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.
7 Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king--Jesus."

Certainly these who opposed the early Christians did not completely understand what was transpiring.  This passage illustrates a countercultural season, and the early believers were recognized for turning the world "upside down."

In 1971, the cover of Time magazine called attention to "The Jesus Revolution." The following year, 80,000 young adults came to Dallas for Explo 72, during which Billy Graham spoke - Newsweek quickly dubbed the gathering the "Christian Woodstock."

Those are some facts included in the opening of an article on the Christian Examiner website, which states about this spiritual explosion in the early '70's:

The more popular term is "Jesus Movement," a revival involving youth and young people in the 1960s and 70s that was so significant it caught the attention of mainstream media, which apparently was shocked that a large number of young adults were challenging the sex-and-drugs culture of the day.

The article actually centered on a movie about what was going on in Birmingham during roughly the same time period; a series of events that were depicted in part in the movie, Woodlawn, when God moved in the life of a football team in the middle of a turbulent time of racial strife.  Jon and Andy Erwin, the directors, wanted to capture the spirit of the time and perhaps spark a spiritual awakening in a culture struggling with many of the same issues.  The piece states:

Director Jon Erwin said the Jesus Movement was partially the result of desperation, when young people failed to find fulfillment in temporary pleasures. He senses America is at that moment again, and he hopes the film can help spark another spiritual awakening.

Jon points out: "To see us wrestle as a culture and as a nation with some of the same things we wrestled with then [in the 1970s] and to be able to tell this story – that the Gospel and the love of Christ can and did overcome hatred and racism – that's a pretty powerful thing and a pretty universal truth. And it's exciting to see it be so relevant. History does indeed repeat itself."

You can trace the roots of the "Jesus Movement" to a series of events that occurred a few years before - in 1967, the so-called "Summer of Love."  A Religion News Service article opens with these words:

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the “Summer of Love.”Popular culture remembers the tens of thousands of joyous young hippies that descended upon San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district to celebrate personal expression, drug experimentation and easy sexuality.

But, there was a counter-movement that began to arise: as the article points out:

As many became disillusioned with life in Haight-Ashbury, a new set of hippie “Jesus freak” evangelists appeared in the Bay Area, urging people to follow Jesus Christ and forsake drugs and promiscuous sex. Key to this new presence on the streets was Ted Wise, a drug-using sailmaker, who in late 1965 was “saved” after one of his numerous LSD trips.

Along with his wife Elizabeth and several other hip couples, Wise began attending a local Baptist church.

Despite differences of expressions of faith, the Wises and the established church family learned to coexist.  And Wise wanted to do ministry to the thousands who were streaming into San Francisco. He urged pastor John MacDonald to help, and together they established a Christian coffeehouse called, "The Living Room."  Others, such as former Meeting House guest Kent Philpott and friend David Hoyt opened a shelter called, "The Soul Inn."  By 1971, when the Time article hit, the new Jesus Movement had spread - characterized by a rejection of the sinful elements of hippie culture, the presence of coffeehouses and communal living, outdoor baptisms, and a love of modern music that eventually morphed into what was called "contemporary Christian music."

In a sense, there is a principle at work; certainly it took place in the late 60's and early 70's; you can also see it in countries where there is persecution or challenges for the Church.  Last week, I talked with Joe Savage about God at work in Ukraine, a country at war, where hundreds of thousands hit the streets of Kiev for a Day of Thanksgiving, a gathering with its roots in evangelical Christianity.  I think there might be a spiritual correlation to Newton's Third Law of Physics - to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  The pushback to moral decay is spiritual awakening.  You could also say that the search for meaning through the absence of God can be used to produce the presence of God.

That, of course, is not glorifying sin, but the realization and acknowledgement of our sinfulness will produce conviction, which produces sorrow that leads to repentance.  The spiritual emptiness, or put more accurately, the absence of God, produced a realization that the hippie culture, the drug culture, was not yielding satisfaction - so the "opposite reaction" became a new movement of people who were sold out to Christ, yet expressing their love for Him in ways that were fresh and unique.

Now, we fast forward to today.  Cultural decay should ideally force us to consider answers that will produce a spiritual harvest.  It is the Biblical reaction to insufficiencies in human understanding and action.  But, the Church also has to confront spiritual malaise - the consumer mentality that has crept in has produced, in some cases, a passive stance, rather than a motivation to be active in pursing Christ and being good ambassadors.

There are pockets of revival, and many of them not on U.S. soil, but we, as the American Church, can be challenged to move beyond a Christianity that is content with the status quo and respond to the culture with radical, abundant love for Jesus. We have to do more than just decry the state of our nation, we can be challenged to shape our nation.   The Jesus Movement people, I think, understood that status quo was no longer acceptable, and they began to turn the world upside down.