There is Hope on the Road to Gehenna
Photo by Tim Umphreys on Unsplash
A few years ago, a friend shared a story about a worship convention that she encountered in Texas centred among its vast oil fields—a convention of around 10,000 Christians.
Driving through these oil fields, past this Texas-size worship convention, there was a traveller with her who marvelled about the magnificence of so many people worshipping in one place.
This juxtaposition of worship among the center of ecological destruction is thought-provoking and reminds me of one of my favourite Martin Short movies, Pure Luck (1991) where Martin Short's character, Eugene Proctor, regularly finds himself in hilariously unfortunate situations due to his propensity to bad luck.
In by far the best scene of the movie, Eugene is flying on an airplane with Raymond the detective he has been assigned to work with. Eugene is allergic to bees, and he’s just been stung but he doesn’t realize it. We, the viewers know because his body is starting to have an allergic reaction and it's growing three times its size. Buttons are flying off his shirt and his face growing rounder. Yet Eugene, so caught up and immersed in the nature around him, is completely unaware that his life hanging in the balance, until of course, the swelling begins to affect his breathing...
Much like Eugene who was so engrossed in nature that he failed to recognize his impending struggle for air, I see the Church similarly, just a lot less funny, captivated by a form of worship that is grounded in doctrine, which unless re-examined in light of recent scholarship, will lead our world, and all of us, down a suffocating path towards Gehenna.
Gehenna is the Greek term for hell, which was (and still is) an actual place outside of Jerusalem, used metaphorically to describe a place of destruction.
Over the course of 2023 so far, the world witnessed its worst 21st-century wildfire season, largely driven by human reliance on fossil fuels, inadequate land management, and mining activities. In Canada alone, wildfires consumed 15.3 million hectares, nearly ten times more than in 2022, equivalent to the combined area of several European countries. This unleashed 290 million tonnes of carbon, akin to the annual emissions of over 285 coal-fired power plants.
Greece. Maui. Spain. Kansas. It’s happening everywhere at an alarmingly increased rate.
During this same year, North American evangelicals were captivated by a church in the heart of the USA who were lost for days in an ecstasy of worship. The word “Revival" was on the lips of the hopeful.
Is this the revival we’ve been praying for?
While I value meaningful contemporary worship, over my decades of attending services, I've seen it have two effects on the Church: soul-nourishment leading to repentance and positive action, or, as Karl Marx hit it, an opium of the masses, providing temporary comfort that leads to apathy.
Comfort and apathy can easily shroud our capacity to see the connection between our aspirations for revival and a world in the throes of devastation.
Part of the problem is that there is a lot of confusion as to what revival means.
Some people view revival as a movement of the Holy Spirit that will bring people to faith in Jesus. The church feels powerless in relation to national or international crises, but they long for the time when the church possessed the power to turn the world around to how they think it should look. They believe if a wave of new believers come to faith, they will have an impact in those places of power and authority.
However, this notion of revival is deeply flawed. As Brian McLaren points out, it’s true that Christianity has brought a legacy of schools, hospitals, orphanages and other institutions intended to improve our quality of life. Yet its desire for power and its possession of orthodoxy has also promoted the Doctrine of Discovery and European Christian colonialism which unleased a wave of catastrophes that continue to shape our global situations today. Over hundreds of years the Orthodox Church, both Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox, have reaped obscene profits from their domination. Sadly, our planet is no longer able to sustain the world that has been built on the back of this Christian legacy.
Therefore, we must look to the definition of revival that is deeply rooted in the Old Testament, and it's from this context that we must derive its true meaning.
Here, revival is about awakening and renewal within Israel (therefore, the Church) when people recognize their sins and return to their covenant with Yahweh.
It's a process of recovering from spiritual apathy or lethargy and developing obedience to Yahweh’s values. Ultimately, it is a movement of repentance and return that saves them from the consequences of their sins.
Revival was their salvation.
Old Testament salvation does not refer to the salvation of the soul, individuals or nations, but liberation from the consequences of sin in the here and now as it impacts the land-- such as persecution, slavery, famine, drought, or other forms of distress.
Revival is about the salvation of the whole world, and the land, and a restoration of Creation.
How does this concept relate to the New Testament? Revival leads to the realization of the Kingdom of God that Jesus taught and preached.
Jesus taught Salvation of the whole world (liberation from destruction), the land, and a restoration of Creation.
Evangelicals often diminish the good news of the kingdom to the expulsion of evil spirits and miracles that mainly focus on individual healing, rather than the community, the land, and much less the whole of creation. This focus is deeply disconnected from our Old Testament roots and therefore ought to be re-examined.
Worship which primarily focuses on individual healing and needs, is strikingly similar to the sin that displeased Yahweh at Babel.
It’s to this I will turn to next month
______
“We should not seek to experience revival without anticipating true reformation. Hence the term revival is not adequately used in our time unless it's marked as reformation and guided by the word. It is not wrong to seek revival if that implies awakening of true faith along with revivification of our experience with God which stems out of (is not disconnected from) sound doctrine. It means the majority of long-lasting changes would not occur only by having warm, intense, or even dramatic experiences with God. Some large organizations and churches need to harmonize their vision of the Gospel and the Bible
- Jim Elliff-
________
References
Land Matters Podcast: Summer of Smoke and Swelter: https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/articles/2023-08-land-matters-podcast-the-science-behind-climate-induced-wildfires
McLaren, Brian, Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed and the Disillusioned
Budiselic, Ervin, The Old Testament Concept of Revival within the New Testament: https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/184365 * While I don’t align with everything in this article, I found it helpful.