Chapter 16 - The Wind Blows Where It Wishes
Series: Our Fathers Saw His Mighty Works
That God did indeed send revival to the U.S. during the
ten or so years post World War II is quite clear. Dr. J. Edwin Orr, being one of the chief
revival historians of all time and having lived during that era himself,
referred to it in retrospect as “The Awakening of 1948 Onward,” citing not only
the national evidences of revival mentioned earlier in this book but also
subsequent movements around the world in such places as Scotland, Cuba,
Argentina, Chile, Brazil, South Africa, East and West Africa, Japan, Korea,
Vietnam, Southern India, Northeastern India, Madagascar, Indonesia, New
Zealand, and Australia.1
Though the deepest part of the mid-century revival in the U.S. ceased
prematurely and was largely forgotten in the wake of its more superficial
successor (as discussed in Chapter 15), yet it is obvious that God’s Spirit
stirred widely and that a large portion of the revival was truly His work. Writing in 1960, Rev. Andrew W. Blackwood,
Sr., offered a balanced perspective on both aspects of the mid-century
movement.2
“During the past decade or so we in the States have
witnessed a widespread (if not deepseated) ‘return to religion.’ We have welcomed the increase of attendance
at church, the sale of Bibles by the million, and the growth of giving . . .
But often we wonder about the character of the ‘religion’ to which throngs of
men have ‘returned,’ and about the degree to which they have responded to New
Testament ideals about holy living and fervent prayer.”
Yet “we thank [God] for every token of city-wide
revival under the leadership of Billy Graham, and elsewhere in more than a few
local churches, each of them under the leadership of a pastor sent from God.”
In more recent years,
historian Garth Rosell has written about the national aspects of the
mid-century revival in a book entitled The Surprising Work of God.3 The Lutheran Evangelistic Movement, whose
story has now been captured in detail for the first time, was just one
relatively small and hitherto fairly unknown element of that work of God. Undoubtedly there are countless similar
stories of His mid-century work which remain to be researched and told.
That God sent a revival to the U.S. at mid-century is
beyond doubt though there have sometimes been criticisms of it in the years
since. General criticisms of the revival
as a whole, if based largely upon an analysis of the movement’s later and
shallower aspects, do not apply to its earlier and deeper aspects which were
clearly the work of God, as was the LEM.
Though it is true that, for some, the sudden increase of interest in
Christianity at mid-century was due mainly to the pull of the popular culture,
nothing but the hand of God could have drawn great numbers of people to gather
at LEM Bible Conferences for eight consecutive, five-to-seven-hour days of
heavy Bible teaching and preaching.
Though it may further be true that the great gains in attendance at
mid-century Christian assemblies were partially due to the returning soldiers’
longing to get back into a sense of community, it must be noted that the LEM
began in 1937, nearly five years before U.S. involvement in the war, and was
welcoming overflow crowds to its conferences before the war was over. And though it cannot be denied that the fear
of godless Communism bore a certain influence upon the revival of Christianity
in post-war America, Communism seems not to have been the slightest factor within
the LEM whose magazine Evangelize rarely mentioned it until 1951, a full
two years after the heart of the revival had begun.4
That the mid-century movement was a substantial revival
cannot be denied in spite of the fact that it never reached the fevered pitch
or effectiveness of its Great Awakening predecessors in the United States. Yet, if it is to be compared to those
previous movements, the fact must be pointed out that even the most sweeping
revivals have never made true Christianity the overwhelmingly dominant force
across this country. During the
tremendous First Great Awakening, a New England population of 300,000 saw
30,000 new converts (ten percent) between 1740 and 1742.5 During the widespread Evangelical Awakening
which began in the late 1850‘s, a national population of under 30 million
yielded one million new converts and another million revived church members
(about seven percent total).6
How many were converted during the mid-20th Century revival? It is impossible to accurately estimate, but
some idea may be obtained by the statement documented in Chapter 13 that
100,000 were converted in 1949 even before “1950: The Year of Revival” had
taken place. Indications are that
conversions in 1950 alone may have been at least double or triple that
amount. But even if numbers of conversions
at crusades or smaller church-sponsored evangelistic meetings could be
compiled, who could possibly estimate how many were converted more autonomously
while, for example, listening to a radio preacher or simply reading a Bible, as
was the case with my father in 1955 (see Appendix 1)? Undoubtedly there were many thousands of
unreported cases such as my wife’s paternal grandmother who came to a deep
personal faith in God around 1946 while considering His natural creation around
her on the farm, His miraculous formation of her first baby inside her womb,
and the evangelistic preaching she was hearing at her new home church. Who could possibly say how many hundreds of
thousands were converted between 1945 and 1955?
Such figures would not even take into account those who were revived
while already Christians.
That the mid-century movement was truly a revival cannot
be negated for its supposed lack of effect on the country’s morals. As was shown in Chapter 15, crime was
actually held in check and divorce cut in half during the ten or twelve years
post World War II. Why was national
morality not more noticeably affected than that? There are at least two key reasons which ought
not to be overlooked. First of all, as
the LEM experienced in its ministry, many of those who received Jesus as Savior
during the 1940’s and 1950’s were already outwardly moral people, some of them
even regular church attendees. It was by
and large not the thieves, alcoholics, and delinquents who were converted but
the upstanding respectable citizens. For
example, a retired pastor has told me how, during special evangelistic meetings
at the Midwest church of his youth in 1954, his morally impeccable parents went
forward to receive Jesus as Savior because they realized that hitherto they had
been relying on their good works for salvation instead of on a relationship
with Christ. Their teenage son was so
struck by their going forward that he too received Jesus. His younger sister who was also saved during
that revival, as were about 40 total in a church of well under 100, has related
to me that in most respects their parents’ outward lifestyles hardly changed
because their conduct had already been quite exemplary. A second reason why morality was not more
noticeably affected by the mid-century revival was that nearly all converts
belonged to a wartime generation which was rapidly enlarged by a profusion of
new offspring too young to be directly affected by the revival. A war’s-end national population of around 140
million7 was joined by a boom of about 84 million babies over the
next twenty years.8 Sad to
say, the Christianity of the mid-century converts was very often not taken up
by their children. As the next
generation came of age, its irreligion began manifesting itself in a
counterculture defined by such things as rebellion, drugs, riots, and free
love. Years after the mid-century
revival, a conversation was overheard between the LEM’s Paul Lindell and Rev.
Maynard Force in which one commented to the other that it seems God limits most
spiritual movements to one generation and reaches out to the next generation
with a new movement.9
Considering the mid-century revival and the subsequent youth movement
twenty years later (see Appendix 3), that was certainly true for both the
nation and the LEM.
How then in summary shall we describe the mid-century
revival? At our July 2007 interview,
Orloue Gisselquist answered that question for me with a slight rewording of
John 3:8 in the old King James Version: “The Spirit bloweth where it
listeth.” In the NKJV, “The wind blows
where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes
from and where it goes. So is everyone
who is born of the Spirit.” As one who
had lived through and been actively involved in the revival of the 1940‘s and
1950‘s, Orloue stated that his overall perspective was simply that God’s Spirit
had chosen to move during that time period.
Mysterious as that might sound, it is perhaps the best explanation for a
movement which in all of its aspects points to no other source than to God who
worked mightily. And those of us from a
younger generation who hear the recounting of those mighty works are stirred,
not to try to reenact the methods of the past, but to put our hope in the same
God who moved in the past, believing that He is able to do and desires to do as
mighty of a work today in our own hearts, our churches, and our country.
Who
can say what great things God still has in store for us in America? Many times as I’ve driven past the old
Mission Farms property where so many thousands of Christians gathered years ago
under the banner of the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement, I’ve been reminded of
the words of a previous revival historian: “Who knows but that prayers then
offered in faith remain yet to be answered?”10 Yes, who knows what God may do? So with that hope in mind, let us join in the
revival prayer that so many of our spiritual ancestors have prayed and which,
though it will certainly be answered completely when this world ends, may
continue to be fulfilled to lesser degrees as long as this world endures: “Even
so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20b NKJV)
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