Last February, students at Asbury University in Kentucky stayed in Hughes Auditorium after their weekly chapel service for an extended time of worship. 

The university President sent out word to the campus community via email: “There’s worship happening in Hughes. You’re welcome to join.” The gathering lasted over two weeks, drawing over 50,000 participants from around the world to what became known as the “Asbury Revival.” 

I graduated from an evangelical Christian college. I remember numerous worship services where what we perceived to be the Holy Spirit was exceptionally thick and moving among us. 

We would linger for hours in the emotion of prayer, singing and preaching, never wanting it to end and wondering why it had to. 

Christian revivalism isn’t unique to the United States, but like barbecue and blue jeans, we have placed our unique spin on it and claimed it as our own. From the Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries to the Billy Graham crusades during the last half of the 20th century, revivals have become a part of our national mythology. 

Movements that become known as “revivals” often occur during times of social awakening or upheaval. And even though most revival participants say they are “just going wherever the Spirit leads,” there is usually an unstated set of desired results to these meetings. They include returning to a nostalgic view of the past and strengthening conservative, evangelical churches. 

It is no wonder, then, that conservative pastors hover in and around university campuses, waiting for “the spirit to move.” Faced with the ever-impending doom associated with a loss of cultural influence, leaders of Christian institutions, consciously or unconsciously, see impressionable young people as their deliverance. 

To their credit, this didn’t appear to be the case with the Asbury Revival. University officials reportedly rebuffed attempts from right-wing soldiers of the culture wars, including Tucker Carlson, who wanted to capitalize on what was going on. 

However, what did appear to be the case at Asbury was an attempt to reignite previous revivals, such as one that occurred there in 1970. That revival took place against the backdrop of the seismic events of the late 1960s associated with the war in Vietnam and the fight to establish civil rights legislation. 

Commenting on the 1970 Asbuary Revival, Billy Graham once wrote, “It came at a time when radical students were striving desperately to upset the educational equilibrium of our nation with burning, destroying property, rock throwing, and other forms of violence.” 

He was referring to demonstrations against the continued refusal of our country to make good on its promise of equality for all and a war that would claim the lives of 1.3 million, including over a quarter-million young U.S. servicemen. 

Graham’s comments were telling. For him, the ravages of war or the subjugation of entire groups of people weren’t what precipitated a need for revival. Instead, it was the uprising against those injustices that we needed the Holy Spirit to deliver us from. 

In 1945, another seismic shift was happening across the nation. Men were returning from war and enrolling in college. 

The prior years saw women occupying roles that had previously been unavailable to them. War efforts necessitated the conservation of all kinds of materials, including fabric. This led to clothes becoming tighter and more functional, which could be seen in the prevalence of women’s two-piece bathing suits. 

It was a new world. Some saw it as an awakening. Others, an upheaval. 

In the spring of that year, students at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, gathered for 90 days to pray for revival. That movement, along with others at colleges around the country, led to the creation of historic missionary-sending organizations. 

A direct line can be drawn from the 1945 gatherings to the Passion movement, which has its roots in Waco. “Passion” has attracted tens of thousands of students to its conferences since 1997. Every year, it promises the young people gathered that their generation will be the one to usher in revival. 

Christian leaders in Waco, where I live, often harken back to the events at Baylor in 1945 and pray for it to occur again. Every few years, something resembling “revival” will break out. 

But the changing realities of being a college student, including more robust academic and social calendars, prevent it from reaching the vitality of those earlier meetings. 

Still, it won’t stop the evangelical gatekeepers from trying, especially in these times of awakening and upheaval. 

Next week, Baylor will be the national host of the Collegiate Day of Prayer, an annual event with roots in the Second Great Awakening. Church leaders across Waco have been praying for the event for months. With Asbury not far in the rear-view mirror, I suspect they are hoping for 1945-level results. 

When speaking about revival movements, white evangelicals often say they should be “judged by their fruit.” They mean that if it leads to conversions, baptisms and a form of Christian discipleship they approve of, then it is a true work of the Spirit. 

But what would happen if the Spirit had other plans that didn’t align with their vision? 

What if revival fires are burning among those young people on college campuses calling for an end to a foreign policy of retributive violence? Would they notice? 

What would happen if the Spirit of God prompted students to demand their pastors speak out against hate, but also against the social and governmental structures perpetuating racism, even in the absence of hate? Would they squirm in their seats?

What if the gay theater kid, lesbian songwriter or shy trans student stood up in one of these meetings and prophesied against their exclusion from full participation in the life of churches? Would the scales fall from these pastors’ eyes just before they repent? 

If choruses of “Break Every Chain” led students to march to the border to demand the removal of razor wire, would their leaders shout, “No, that’s not what it means!” Or would they distract the border patrol officers while the students cut through it themselves?  

In these last days, the sons and daughters of God are prophesying, and the old men are dreaming dreams (Joel 2; Acts 2.) Those prophecies and dreams are dismantling all the oppressive structures of the world, and we are crying, “Fill this place, Holy Spirit.” 

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