nothing is written

Forgive the jargon here, but this one’s for the flock.

Every once in a while the word revival makes an appearance among the faithful. Like some astronomical phenomenon that slices the skies its warning signs are often quickly followed by a sparky display of light and power. Pretty soon it seems like every believer who’s in the know will be transfixed by its power; head, eyes and heart straining to catch whatever stardust falls from its trail.

It’s happening right now. In Florida, so they say. I don’t know any more than the basics of the equation – (guy with tats + divine healings) x media exposure = great excitement – but I’ve heard a couple of stories.

I picked up the first one third hand last week. It concerned a woman whose husband has been impacted by the recent events in Florida. She returned home one evening to find blood in her front room, trailing to the bedroom. There she found her crimson-stained husband, doubled over in what I can only assume was a unique combination of post-adrenaline woosiness, drastically-crashing blood pressure and pure, unchecked agony.

She asked what on earth had happened.

‘The Lord told me to self-circumcise.’

The second story is this. I was talking to a friend about it all. He was cynical – I mean, really cynical. He went after the guy in tats – questioning the authenticity of the claims being made – as well as the integrity (and intellect) of those flying out to get a slice of the action. He made sense at times, but mostly his blanket declarations that it was wholly corrupted just sounded like the mirror image of those voices who claim that everything the guy with tats says right now is touched by the divine.

I love the smell of dualisms in the morning.

It’s hard to hold opposing truths in the same mind. It’s hard to see good and band, corrupted and innocent, utterly stupid and profoundly wise in the same place. But I suspect that what’s going down in Florida right now is a mixture of both.

In fact, I’d go further. I don’t think we need to obsess so much about whether it is or is not branded by the divine – or, at least, we don’t need to look at the numbers or the tv exposure or the level or mainstream interest or even the quality of healings in order to make up our minds. I think that God deals in a different currency to all that. He doesn’t just put on a show or try to make occasional headlines. He deals in partnership with those that follow him, and it’s the impact on those people – and the impact they then have on the world around them – that really counts.

It’s probably bad form to quote yourself, but here’s a bit I wrote once before:

‘I heard that Jackie Pullinger brought up the subject [of the ‘revival’ in Toronto back in the 90s] among a number of Christians over a series of visits a few years back. She told them the story from her perspective, of how over in Hong Kong, amidst the drugs and the gangs and the death, they had all heard of the phenomenon that was taking place.

“Rich Christians were jumping on airplanes to visit the place where the laughter was,” she said. “We thought to ourselves, It will only be a matter of time before they board airplanes to visit the places where the crying is. We waited. But you didn’t come.”’

Click here and you can see a sample chapter I wrote about another ‘revival’ I once experienced. Unlike the current one this was smaller, but no less powerful. And it made a dramatic impact on the lives of those living near it. The only trouble was the fact that it took pace among a poor, unimpressive community. Who’d want to hear a story like that?