A Reformed
Response to the Asbury University Revival
by Charlie J. Ray, M. Div.
2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV)
14 if My people who are called
by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from
their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and
heal their land.
Because of all the recent
publicity I have decided to write a brief response to the popular revival which
is currently in progress at Asbury University, formerly known as Asbury
College, Wilmore, Kentucky. But first a
little background information about myself and my history with Asbury
Theological Seminary. I was a master of
divinity student at Asbury from 1992 to 1995.
Before that I earned my bachelor of arts degree with major in
pre-seminary and a minor in systematic theology at Southeastern College of the
Assemblies of God, Lakeland, Florida in 1991.
Southeastern also changed its name to Southeastern University. It seems to be a trend to downplay denominational
affiliations but the basic theology of both Asbury and Southeastern remains, in the former case Wesleyan holiness movement and in the latter case classical Pentecostalism from
an Assemblies of God perspective.
Both Southeastern University and
Asbury Theological Seminary are in line with an Arminian doctrinal stance. In fact, most of the classical Pentecostal
denominations are an outgrowth from the theological roots of the Wesleyan
holiness movement and some subsequent influence from Reformed versions of the
holiness movement by way of the Keswick holiness movement and the Higher Life
holiness movement. The Anabaptist
influence is involved after certain holiness groups moved on from the Wesleyan
view of entire sanctification as a second definite “work” of grace to embrace
supernatural empowerment for witness as part of that second work of grace. Of course, some Pentecostal denominations add
the supernatural empowerment for service as a third work of grace instead of
combining it with the second work of grace in entire sanctification.
The Assemblies of God holds to
two definite works of grace, namely salvation being the first work of grace and
the baptism of the Holy Spirit as the second definite work of grace that would
include both entire sanctification and the empowerment for supernatural gifts
necessary for evangelism and world missions.
(Acts 1:8). The other major
Pentecostal denomination is the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee. The Church of God holds that there are three
definite works of grace: salvation, entire
sanctification, and the Baptism with the Holy Spirit.
The history behind revivals in
the United States is too long to go into here.
But suffice it to say that as far as I can tell only one of those
revivals had any significant Reformed theologians involved and even then only
two of the ministers were Calvinists, namely Jonathan Edwards and George
Whitefield. The First Great Awakening was
initiated when a Calvinist and Reformed Puritan pastor named Jonathan Edwards
read his sermon, Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God. The
Anglican ministers, John Wesley and George Whitefield, were also included in
the First Great Awakening. Although Wesley
and Whitefield were both Methodists, Wesley was a radical Arminian while
Whitefield was a moderate Calvinist who tried to get along with John and
Charles Wesley.
Moreover, the Wesley brothers
were self-avowed enemies of more consistent Calvinists like Augustus Toplady,
who translated the Italian theologian, Jerome Zanchius’s work, The
Doctrine of Absolute Predestination.
John Wesley hated Calvinism so much that he took one of Toplady’s tracts
and abridged it with all kinds of critical interpolations inserted and then
rewrote the end of the tract with a sentence that Wesley wrongly attributed to
Toplady. The tract was really a strawman
argument against Toplady’s Calvinist position.
Wesley then signed the tract as the Reverend Mr. A.T. Toplady’s response in a letter written to Mr.
Wesley points out two egregious emendations and interpolations.
As an instance
of your want of honour, veracity, and justice, I refer to the following
paragraph, 1. as published by me; and 2. as quoted by you.
1. " When all the transactions of
providence and grace are wound up in the last day, he (Christ) will then
properly sit as judge, and openly publish, and solemnly ratify, if I may so
say, His everlasting decrees, by receiving the elect, body and soul into glory:
and by passing sentence on the non-elect (not for having done what they
could not help, but) for willful ignorance on divine things and their obstinate
unbelief; for their omissions of moral duty, and for their repeated
iniquities and transgressions." Doctrine of Absolute Predestination.
2. "In the last day Christ will sit as
Judge and openly publish and solemnly ratify his everlasting decrees, be
receiving the elect into glory, and by passing sentence on the non-elect (not
for having done what they could not help, but) for their willful ignorance of
divine things and their obstinate unbelief; for their omissions or moral duty,
and for their repeated iniquities and transgressions which they could not
help." Wesley Abridgment, p. 9.
[Italics in paragraph 2 indicate Wesley’s interpolation].
Whether my view
of the doctrine itself be, in fact, right or wrong is no part of the present
enquiry: the question is, have your quoted me fairly? Blush, Mr. Wesley, if you
are capable of blushing. For once publicly acknowledge yourself to have acted
criminally: "unless", to use your own words on another occasion,
"shame and you have shook hands and parted." Your concluding paragraph, which you have the
effrontery to palm on the world as mine, runs thus:
"The sum of
all this: one in twenty (suppose) of mankind are elected; nineteen in twenty
are reprobated. The elect shall be saved, do what they will; the reprobate
shall be damned, do what they can. Reader, believe this, or be damned. Witness
my hand, A T."
In almost any
other case, a similar forgery would transmit the criminal to Virginia or
Maryland, if not to Tyburn. If such an opponent can be deemed an honest man,
where shall we find a knave? - What would you think of me, were I infamous
enough to abridge any treatise of yours, sprinkle it with interpolations, and
conclude it thus:
“Reader, buy
this book, or be damned. Witness my hand, John Wesley?"
And is it thus
you contend for victory? Are these the weapons of your warfare? Is this bearing
down those who differ from you with meekness? Do you call this binding with
cords of love? Away, for shame, with such disingenuous artifices. At least,
endeavor to conceal that narrow sectarian spirit, which betrays itself more or
less in almost every thing you write. Renounce the low serpentine cunning,
which puts you on falsifying what you find yourself unable to refute.
The point being made is that the
vitriolic relationship between the Wesleyan Arminians and classical Calvinists
continues to this day. When I was a
seminary student the claim was often made that Wesley was a genius at
preserving the results of the revivals held in open fields because Wesley
created classes where new converts could study the Bible and Wesley’s 52
Standard Sermons where his theology was formally outlined in the form of
sermons, while Whitefield was not so organized and had less lasting effects
from his outdoor preaching.
Be that as it may, the vitriol of
the Wesley’s towards Toplady also continues to this day in the way that the Wesleyan
holiness and Pentecostal holiness preachers and theologians respond to the more
logical and propositional approach of classical and traditional Calvinists. The
same can be observed from the Free Will Baptists and the Southern Baptists who
have forgotten that the Southern Baptist Convention was once a solidly
Calvinist denomination.
Unfortunately, much of the First
Great Awakening was characterized by emotionalism and what Wesley called
enthusiasm. Even Wesley recognized that
this sort of response would be short lived.
In fact, Wesley wrote an entire sermon criticizing the enthusiasts,
namely the Anabaptists of his day.
18. A second
sort of enthusiasm is that of those who imagine they have such gifts from God
as they have not. Thus some have imagined themselves to be endued with a power
of working miracles, of healing the sick by a word or a touch, of restoring
sight to the blind: yea, even of raising the dead -- a notorious instance of
which is still fresh un our own history. Others have undertaken to prophesy, to
foretell things to come, and that with the utmost certainty and exactness. But
a little time usually convinces these enthusiasts. When plain facts run counter
to their predictions, experience performs what reason could not, and sinks them
down into their senses.
Sermon 37, The
Nature of Enthusiasm. Acts 26:24.
Wesley’s sermon also goes through
a series of false conversions, which also could be applicable to the current
revival at Asbury University. But this
kind of enthusiasm was not unique. The
same kind of emotionalism resulted from Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, Sinners in
the Hands of an Angry God, because the sermon struck fear into those who were
unsure of their salvation. The
difference is that the Puritans never claimed to have recovered the
supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit while the Anabaptists of Wesley’s day
were making those kinds of claims. As
you can see from the above and from the whole sermon, Wesley would not have
approved of the Asbury revival, especially if he saw some of the exorcisms that
have been reported.
I cannot speak for the entire
revival because I have not watched any significant amount of the live feed of
the events occurring there. However, I
did see enough of at least one evening that lasted several hours to discern
that the entire evening was devoted to singing the charismatic praise songs and
that there was a numerous amount of shouting and hand waving and clapping. I did not observe any preaching when I fast
forwarded through the hours long service.
The Jon Harris video did show a brief session where a young minister
preached from a basic text and that is about as much as I could observe.
As far as I can tell the revival
is just what I would characterize as a recycling of the saints with little to
no outreach to unchurched people who have never believed the Gospel. Of course, with Arminians this is nothing
new. At least Wesley was able to
establish classes for new believers to help preserve the results of his field
preaching and his circuit rider preachers.
From all appearances the Asbury revival seems to be characterized by the
enthusiasts, though I do not doubt that there are some genuine testimonies of
those who have repented of serious and egregious sins as one young lady
testified that she had rejected homosexual or lesbian sins. But the question is whether or not there is
any serious preaching against sin?
Another question is why are Christians from all over the country and the
world coming to Asbury to witness the revival?
Why is there no real outreach to unbelievers?
These kinds of things have been
going on for almost 200 years. One
example from history would be the Cane Ridge,
Kentucky revival of 1801. The meetings
were inter-denominational and part of the Second Great Awakening. The meetings were sponsored by the
Presbyterians but there were Methodists and Baptists in participation as
well. At the end of the meeting there
was an interdenominational communion service.
The Cane Ridge revival downplayed doctrinal differences and emphasized
unity and the emotional responses of the crowds. Although the results of the meetings were
initially positive, I am critical of the revival because it gave rise to
several heretical movements including the Disciples of Christ and the Church of
Christ. The Disciples of Christ focuses
mostly on the communion of believers apart from any doctrinal commitments
whatsoever. That denomination today is
almost totally liberal in theology and practice with no Evangelical doctrinal
standards whatsoever. The Church of
Christ rejects the Old Testament books of the Bible and the CoC is sectarian in
that they also reject any fellowship with
other Christian denominations. The CoC is heretical on the issue of Pelagianism because it rejects original sin, total depravity and justification by faith alone.
Another result of the Cane Ridge
revival was the participation of Charles
Finney, who was later ordained as a Presbyterian but who had little to no
theological training or knowledge due to his legal background. Finney also rejected the doctrine of original
sin and total depravity, both of which are integral to the Westminster
Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms. In short, Finney was for all practical
purposes a Pelagian heretic. It was
Finney who is considered one of the precursors to the later Wesleyan holiness
movement and subsequently the Pentecostal revival that began at the Azusa
Street Mission in Los Angeles on April 9th, 1906 where a black
holiness pastor named William J. Seymour presided.
The problem of deprecating the
more logical approach of classical Calvinism continues today. Recently a sermon by Dr. Derek Thomas of
First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina took aim at the cerebral
and intellectual aspect of Presbyterianism.
But I would ask why criticize what is the greatest strength of
Calvinism, namely its strict adherence to logic, rationalism, and reason as the
key to understanding and applying the propositional statements in the Holy Scriptures? Proper and correct thinking is basic to
understanding the Scriptures, especially the logical principle of
contradiction. If Christianity is just
about emotional responses to persuasive preaching, we are in very deep
trouble. Persuasion that is not based on
a solid and rational exegesis of Scripture may move the audience emotionally—which
can be purely manipulative—but does it contradict the plain and clear teaching
of Scripture? Perspecuity of Scripture
matters when one is dealing with important doctrinal issues; it must be
remembered that the whole Bible can be summarized into a systematic arrangement of the propositions
within the Scriptures, because God does not breathe out contradictions,
antinomies, lies, or errors.
The Asbury revival is not
biblical because it was basically just a 24 hour a day praise and worship service
among the Arminians and the Charismatics and Pentecostals. It produced no real revival of conversions in
the nation at large. Basically, sugar coating
apostasy does nothing but hide the truth.
For there to be a real revival, the thinking of the public must be
affected towards a more biblical and Christian worldview, especially in the
realm of morality and ethics. As it
stands now, our legal and political system is dominated by postmodernism and
relativism such that murdering unborn babies, who are the image of God, means
nothing to them. The LGBTQIA+ ideology
is now promoting the mutilation of children to produce future objects of
perversion for the homosexuals, cross dressing drag queens, and surgically
altered homosexuals who wish to masquerade as the opposite biological sex. This is a demonstration that the doctrine of
the so-called “reformed” doctrine of common grace and the postmillennialism of
the theonomists is a losing theology that leads to compromise and apostasy, not
only of nations, but of reformed denominations. If there is to be a revival that is true to
Scripture, then the reformed denominations need to repent and return to their
classical foundations. If the current
trajectory continues, there will be only a small remnant of true visible
churches left.
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