North Boulevard Church of Christ Revival
9.12.14 Revised to add the proposed Charismatic Revival at Cane Ridge which David Young claims was a work of "a Holy Spirit" person he believes will guide beyond the "sacred pages" if you work REALLY HARD. One of the first efforts of David Young was to try to RESTORE or REPEAT the so-Called Cane Ridge Revival of about the year 1801. That was about the time the "Laughing Exercises" broke out around Nashville and the world. If you can manipulate people into abandoning themselves into something irrational you can claim that a SPIRIT is your guide and that is called psychological violence as is all outlawed acts of hypocrites in the words of Christ in Ezekiel 33: speakers for hire, singers and instruments. Paul warned that he did not corrupt the Word which means "selling learning at retail." That would make void the Word of God, Logos or Regulative Principle which MARKS those who do not speak that which as written as THERE IS NO LIGHT IN THEM. ISAIAH 8
These people believed that the Spirit OF Christ was another post-Jesus guiding certain people "beyond the sacred pages." If they force you to do the 40 day prayer assault upon God and the leaders concluded that their Purpose Driven Agenda is still their agenda they you are supposed to believe that a spirit person SPOKE to them in some way to confirm their agenda that they were right all along. The NAME of the Holy Spirit or Mind of God in a personified sense is named Jesus Christ the Righteous.
FORTY DAYS OF PRAYER
FORTY DAYS OF PRAYER but AFTER the 20/20 VISION had already been CAST. They would raise 6 million dollars with a pattern which would lead to 60,000 new congregations. They now have another FORTY DAYS OF PRAYER maybe because after millions of dollars and a boat load of false teaching they are about where they started. If you need to harass God for FORTY DAYS to get some kind of "message" or "movement" are you not TEMPTING GOD and denying that HE HAS a Purpose Driven Church to be a School (only) of the Word (only) which is the Regulative principle which all of the "scholars" joke about and reject. The LOGOS is called the Regulative Principle to any literate Greek at the time.
"McCartney envisioned a NATIONAL SHEPHERDING NETWORK to deepen Promise Keeper's clout in local communities. I see every guy leaving out of [Stand in the Gap] and coming under the authority of a local shepherd. "This marks something of a change in PK's public approach, since they previously had avoided the use of the term # "shepherding" due to its highly controversial association with cultlike practices by fringe churches in the charismatic movement. (Speaking on Pat Robertson's 700 Club a few days before the march)
Max Lucado's VISION led him to remove CHRIST from the public profession and to impose "musical worship" as that female rule over of the Lynn Anderson family.. Recorded history defines the Latin SPIRITUS as that of Apollo, Abaddon or Apollyon. He was known as the leader of the MUSES and the Muses were known as the LOCUSTS.
Max Lucado: God calls us to do the same. Over the last few months, I've SENSED our Master urging us to expand our dreams for San Antonio. He calls us to a fresh vision: a vision of a city-impacting church. As the details of this vision crystallized for me, I shared them with our elders. They prayed, pondered, and tested the ideas and, ultimately saw them as God's will for Oak Hills. The purpose of this presentation is to share several strategic decisions that will posture Oak Hills to make, with the Lord's guidance, a citywide impact. We call you to dedicate the next FORTY DAYS (August 31 to October 9) to prayer, asking God to give us all strength to obey his call. Like the Apostle Paul, we desire to say, "...I obeyed this vision from heaven..." (Acts 26:19 CEV)
The Vision was to remove CHRIST from their public profession and impose Instrumental Music. A baptist publishing house claims that the vision came from them.
Ephraim Syrus On Our Lord notes that Sinai was a test.
18. But when their heathenism from being inward became open, then Moses also from being hidden openly appeared; that he might openly punish those whose heathenism had revelled beneath the holy cloud which had overshadowed them.But God removed the Shepherd of the flock from it for FORTY DAYS, that the flock might show that its trust was fixed upon the calf.[instrumental idolatry of the Egyptian Trinity]
While God was feeding the flock with all delights, it chose for itself as its Shepherd the calf, which was not able even to eat. Moses who kept them in AWE was removed from them, that the idolatry might cry aloud in their mouths, which the restraint of Moses had kept down in their hearts. For they cried: Make us gods, to go before us
What They Did. 19. But when Moses came down, he saw their heathenism revelling in the wide plain with drums and cymbals. Speedily, he put their madness to shame by means of the Levites and drawn swords. So likewise here, our Lord concealed His knowledge for a little when the sinful woman approached Him, that the Pharisee might form into shape his thought, as his fathers had shaped the pernicious calf.
At Mount Sinai without Redemption because the people refused to listen to the Covenant in Exodus 31 which outlawed vocal or instrumental rejoicing.
In Jerusalem just before and just after the "proof text for instrumental music" which was cleaned out of the Temple operated by the Assyrians.
Jonah 3:4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said,
There is nothing in the first outpouring of KNOWLEDGE from the Prophets or Apostles which authorized anything by command and example but PREACHING the WORD by READING the Word for comfort and knowledge. The LOGOS is antithetical to Hermes, Mercury or Kairos and is opposite of Rhetoric, personal comments, singing, playing instruments or acting, dancing, shouting, hugging or kissing.
Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Matt. 4:2 And when he had fasted FORTY DAYS and forty nights,
he was afterward an hungred.
Mark 1:13 And he was there in the wilderness FORTY DAYS tempted of Satan;
and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
Luke 4:2 Being FORTY DAYS tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing:
and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
1John 2:27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you,THE DISCIPLING, SHEPHERDING AND AWAKENING EFFORT IS TO CREATE A SECTARIAN OF THE ELITE
and ye need not that ANY MAN teach you:
but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things,
and is truth, and is no lie,
and even as it hath taught you,
ye shall abide in him.
When people want to impose more giving and more programs and an INCLUSIVE mantra they do NOT mean to include those who do not engage in the Mind-Altering or Cult-Like REprogramming.
While people lie about the sectaranizing of Churches of Christ over some things not connected with being a SCHOOL OF THE WORD, it is a fact that there are still about 146 Baptists Denominations which do not fellowship one another."It encouraged people to devote their practical, daily exertions to loving God and serving their neighbors.
A new desire to see the churches purified of all but the elect
was an ecclesiastical reflection of this more intense piety.Led by Edwards, many Congregational and Presbyterian churches repudiated the Half-Way Covenant. The fellowship of the faithful on earth, so this reasoning ran, should reflect the purity of God's grace as closely as possible.
"In fact, the Great Awakening did nearly as much to promote controversy (sectarianism) as it did to stimulate revival. In the middle colonies, Presbyterians divided over the revival and its effects....
Its immediate impact was to divide the Puritan churches into four more or less distinct groups. Historian C. C. Goen has painstakingly identified 321 separations of one kind or another by these New Lights.... The Baptists were the greatest benificiaries of the Great Awakening."Eerdmans' Handbook to Christianity in America, p. 115-115)
"it is misleading to refer to these New Light churches as predecessoors of the later Christian-Disciples movement, for in so many ways, beginning with the explosive conversions and the physical exercises and the spiritual gifts,
the first New Light churches were closer to later Pentecostals than to contemporary Disciples or the Churches of Christ." (Conkin, Caneridge, p. 132)
MUSICAL RELIGIOUS OBSERVATIONS (to which the kingdom does not come) BEGAN WHILE (SOME) WERE STILL IN THE TREES.
The prophet or priests used musical devices to convince the simpleton that, like the old empty wineskin of the witch of Endor was the voice of a god granting their wish. Music was always to BOND the tribe to the Alpha Male or increasingly. Alpha Female.
Paul warned about the MAD Women of Corinth that the assembly commanded to be a Word of God only assembly would look like any pagan "worship center" which performed musical rituals to enable the fleecing of the males who used their services and used up all of their food money before they could get out of town." Because Jesus said that the kingdom does not come with observation including Religious Observations then and now the world saw it as a produce of females or effeminate males. Spiritual Formation, Centering Prayers or Ignatian Retreats or extended periods of purpose driven prayer was the claim that a spirit "people" would speak to them and affirm their driven purpose. To mark for identification such institutions Jesus paid it all and Paul denied that giving your money even to the destitute was a COMMAND."... the primary effect of music is to give the listener a feeling of security, for it symbolizes the place where he was born, his earliest childhood satisfaction, and his work; any or all of these personality shaping experiences.
As soon as the familiar sound pattern is established, he is prepared to laugh, to weep, to dance, to fight, to worship, etc...
Apparently the character and the variety of the music matters less than its conformity to tradition, which produces a sensation of security. The work of composers in the folk world is, so far as I have observed, limited by this stylistic security-bringing framework." (Goldschmidt, Walter, Exploring the Ways of Mankind, p. 609, Holt, Rinehart and Winston)
"The development both of religion and of the arts can be traced back in a continuous line to the hunting era. The group ritual of the primeval tribesmen were the origin not only of all religious ceremonial, but also of the drama and of poetry and music, while magic gave birth to the visual arts." (Parkes, Henry Bamford, On Gods and Men, p. 30).
"Awed by the mysteries of his own spirit no less than by those of nature, primitive man was likely to attribute to divine influence
any abnormal emotional state, whether above or below the usual level. Medicine men customarily went into states of trance in which they were believed to be in communication with the gods,
and many tribes supposed lunatics and sexual deviants to be divinely possessed.
mantikē, sc. tekhnē). (mantikê, sc. technê). The name given by the Greeks to the gift or art of divination. The belief of the ancients that it was possible to find out what was hidden or what was going to happen sprang from the idea that the gods, when implored by prayer, or even when unimplored, graciously communicated revelations to men by means of direct inspiration or through signs requiring interpretation.The power of more or less clearly seeing in waking hours things concealed from ordinary vision was believed by the Greeks to be a special gift of Apollo. It is from him that Homer makes Calchas receive his revelations, although no mention is made of his being in the ecstatic state usually connected with this kind of soothsaying [Miriam and the Levites].
At the oracles this state was usually produced by external influences (see Oracula);
women were held to be particularly susceptible to them.
Paul commanded that the women be silent because "there is ONE GOD and one Mediator between man and God, the MAN Jesus Christ."
Besides oracles and persons reputed to be inspired, use [p. 1003] was made of various collections of older oracular sayings [song books] and pretended predictions of prophets and prophetesses of former times, such as the Branchidae of Miletus, the Iamidae of Olympia, the Eumolpidae of Athens, and the Sibyls. Such collections were not only in the possession of States and priesthoods, but also in that of private individuals, called chrêsmologoi, who drew on their store when paid to do so by those who believed in them, and often also explained the dark sayings. Like the prophets by immediate inspiration, those also were called seers who interpreted according to certain rules the divine signs which formed the subject of the artificial variety of the art of divination.
Oracula. The most revered oracles were those of the first class, where the divinity, almost invariably the god Apollo [Abaddon, Apollyon], orally revealed his will through the lips of inspired prophets or prophetesses. The condition of frenzy was produced, for the most part, by physical influences:APOLLO IS ABADDON OR APOLLYON THE "SPIRIT" OF THE MUSICAL WORSHIP GROUPS
Here he was purified and brought back by the same road, accompanied by a chorus of maidens singing songs of joy. The oracle proper was a cleft in the ground in the innermost sanctuary, from which arose cold vapours, which had the power of inducing ecstasy.
Apollōn , ho, Apollo: gen. ōnos (also ō An.Ox.3.222): acc.A.“Apollō” IG1.9, al., A.Supp.214, S.OC1091, Tr.209 (lyr.) (mostly in adjurations, nēton Apollō, etc.), “Apollōna” Pl.Lg.624a, freq. later, Agatharch.7, etc.: voc. “Apollon” Alc.1, A.Th.159(lyr.), Cratin.186, etc.; “Apollōn” A.Ch.559; cf. Apellōn, Aploun. II. Pythag. name of a number,
THE TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH FATHERS AND RECORDEDHISORYActs 17:23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
-[1.1.4] The Athenians have also another harbor, at Munychia, with a temple of Artemis of Munychia, and yet another at Phalerum, as I have already stated, and near it is a sanctuary of Demeter. Here there is also a temple of Athena Sciras, and one of Zeus some distance away, and altars of the gods named Unknown
Mousagetēs 1 doric for Mousēgetēs leader of the Muses, Lat. Musagetes, of Apollo, Plat1 Mous-a_getēs, ou, ho
melpō , Il.1.474, celebrate with song and dance, melpontes hekaergon Il.l.c.; Phoibon [Apollo] sing to the lyre or harp, “meta de sphin emelpeto theios aoidos, phormizōn” [Apollo's Lyre]Melpomenos, epith. of Dionysus at Athens,
After the world was purified by water--
"men turned again to impiety; and on this account a law was given by God to instruct them in the manner of living. But in the process of time, the worship of God and righteousness were corrupted by the unbelieving and the wicked, as we shall show more fully by and by.
"Moreover, perverse and erratic religions were introduced, to which the greater part of men gave themselves up, by occasion of holidays and solemnities, instituting drinking and banquets, following pipes, and flutes, and harps, and diverse kinds of musical instruments, and indulging themselves in all kinds of drunkenness and luxury. Hence every kind of error took rise; hence they invented groves and altars, fillets and victims, and after drunkenness they were agitated as if with mad emotions. By this means power was given to the demons to enter into minds of this sort, so that they seemed to lead insane dances and to rave like Bacchanalians; hence were invented the gnashing of teeth, and bellowing from the depth of their bowels; hence a terrible countenance and a fierce aspect in men, so that he whom drunkenness had subverted and a demon had instigated, was believed by the erring to be filled with the Deity." (Recognitions of Clement, Book IV, Chapt XIII, Ante Nicene Fathers, Vol 8, p. 137)
It seems clear that the small revival which produced great excitement attracted the masses with no better entertainment than a religious revival. We have experienced it in our own lives. Many creatures great and small were attracted like moths to a flame and many got burned. The spirit of celebration and entertainment produced the great crowds and the preachers who had become men of note literally sold their bodies to create the charismatic breakdown which, if personality driven, is sexual.
"Oh men without understanding! Judge ye rightly of what is said. For if it were necessary to give one's self to some pleasure for the refreshment of the body, whether were it better to do so among the rivers and woods and groves,
where there are entertainments and convivialities and shady places,
or where there is the maddness of demons, and cuttings of hands,
and emasculations, and fury and mania, and dishevelling of hair,and shoutings and enthusiasms and howlings, and all those thing which are done with hyprocrisy for the counfounding of the unthinking, when you offer your prescribed prayers, and thanksgivings even to those who are deader than the dead?" (The Clemetine Homilies, Homily XI, Chapt XIV, Ante Nicene Fathers, Vol 8, p. 287).
Earlier, In Salem, dominant males such as Parrish needed a supernatural show to prove his superiority over the other local preachers. As a result, "witches" were murdered.
In Boston, Anne Hutchinson, formulated a new set of 81 "laws" which denied the value of the Bible, demanded a witness of the Spirit to prove conversion, one "assured" could not be lost for any reason, and "the whole letter of the Scripture is a covenant of works." See Trial of Anne Hutchinson
Increase Mather listed the signs of demon possession (or epilepsy) and listed speaking in tongues, speaking without use of the mouth (Stone was impressed with this), and "bodily exercises." "Witches" were hanged and pressed to death for causing the "exercises" and Robert Calef blamed the clergy for "laying aside the Sword" of God and repeating what happened when Samson, the blind, was forced to participate in worship much like what was happening in Salem. Deodat Lawson describe the Salem "exercises" in some of the same terms as caneridge.
Hodge said--
"We have seen that enthusiasm and fanaticism, in their wildest shapes, have attended them--that jealousy, envy, hatred, evil surmisings, bitter revilings, heart-burnings, unholy schism and strifes, have followed close in their train--that spiritual pride, censoriousness, a Pharisaic disposition, and a spirit that trusts too much in suggestions, impulses, and consequently, that underrates the word of God, is always associated with them." (Stone Biography, p. 384).
Kenneth Latourette notes that:
"Divisions in the churches accompanied and followed the Great Awakening. The more ardent preachers of the revival had sharp words for those ministers whom they deemed unconverted. Whitefield occasionally spoke caustically of those who did not follow him. Others were even more vehement. On the other side were many, both clergy and laity, who were alienated by the emotional excesses, were angered by the denunciations of the more ardent itinerant preachers... 'New lights' 'Old lights' in Presbyterian and Congregational churches often separated into distinct units." (Latourette, p. 960).
"While there were examples of church groups which increased in numbers and strength as a result of the appearance of glossolalia, more usually friction and divisive factions developed. In extreme examples, up to one-third of the congregation stopped going to church and/or dropped their formal membership." (John P. Kildahl , p. 66 The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues, Harper and Row).
Cane ridge Churches of Christ were never part of what was called witchcraft in earlier ages.
"The Baptists had a peculiar appeal to the masses. Their preachers, usually with very slight education, knew their audiences and how to address them in language (with a musical cadence) which would hold their attention and bring conviction. They tended to be highly emotional." (Kenneth, Latourette, p. 1037).
"For the desire of the teacher for power, combining with the desire of the taught for certainty, must tend always to efforts at making the sign, which is to secure both, still more awful and convincing, by still greater and more awful attestations. A fresh miracle must be provided to silence each fresh heresy, a new prodigy to confirm each new dogma." (j. Hastings, The Greater Texts of the Bible, 1 Cor., p. 7).
"The camp meeting was well introduced by the beginning of the next century. Excitement was intense. This was largely the result of impassioned preaching, earnest exhortation, loud prayers, and energetic singing. Bodily exercises, as dropping, jerking, and barking, often manifested themselves, but since they too often brought disrepute upon religion, they were frequently condemned by the better educated of all denominations." (Jenning, Walter W., Origin and Early History of the Disciples of Christ, p. 28, Standard).
From Small Cells to Large Groups
At caneridge: "They were commonly collected in small circles of ten or twelve, close adjoining another circle, and all engaged in singing... hymns; and then a minister steps upon a stump or log and begins an exhortation or sermon..."
"On Sabbath night, I saw above 100 persons at once on the ground crying for mercy of all ages from 8 to 60 years... The whole number brought to the ground under convictions about one thousand, not less."
"When a person is struck down he is carried by others out of the congregation, when some minister converses with and prays with him, afterwards a few gather around and sing a Hymn suitable to his case." (Jenning, Walter W., Origin and Early History of the Disciples of Christ, p. 29, Standard).
"The new, self-consciously wrought revivals took several forms. They first emerged at the turn of the eighteenth century with the invention of the camp meeting in western Virginia and North Carolina and on the Kentucky and Ohio frontier by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists. At these meetings, the most famous (or notorious) of which took place at caneridge, Kentucky in 1801, hundreds and sometimes thousands of people would gather from miles around in a wilderness encampment for four days to a week. There they engaged in an unrelenting series of intense spiritual exercises, punctuated with cries of religious,
all designed to promote religious fervor and conversions.
These exercises ranged from the singing of hymns addressed to each of the spiritual stages that marked the journey to conversion, public confessions and renunciations of sin and personal witness to the workings of the spirit, collective prayer, all of which were surrounded by sermons delivered by clergymen especially noted for their powerful "plain-speaking" preaching.
The second, major variant of the new revivalism consisted of the "protracted meetings" most often associated with the "new measures" revivalism of Finney but which by the late l820s had become the characteristic form of most northern and western revivalism. "Protracted meetings," ordinarily conducted once a year at a time when they would be less disruptive of ordinary life, usually lasted two to three weeks, during which time there would be preaching two or three times each day, addressed especially to the anxious penitents who would gather on an "anxious bench" at the front of the church to be prayed for by the congregation, and prayer and counseling visits by newly converted Christians to the concerned and anxious. Once a person had gone through the experience of conversion and rebirth, he or she would join the ranks of visitors and exhorters, themselves becoming evangelists for the still unconverted around them. Click Here
"As the revival interest grew, and as the meeting became larger and longer, unexpected and bizarre manifestations, called 'exercises,' began to occur. They were considered visible manifestations of the direct action of the Holy Spirit... The commonest were the 'falling exercise' and the 'jerks.' The names are sufficiently explanatory. The barking exercise sometimes accompanied the jerks, and the dancing exercise grew out of them. There was also the running exercise. It was reported that those who came to scoff were not immune to these seizures. However, it was only the devout who ever experienced the laughing exercise." (Winfred E. Garrison and Alfred T. DeGroot, The Disciples of Christ, St. Louis: The Bethany Press, 1948, p. 99).
The Stoneites were in sympathy with the Shouting Methodists.
Elsewhere in Kentucky--
"Hundreds fell to the ground senseless, the most elegantly dressed women in Kentucky lying in the mud alongside rugged trappers. Some were seized with the 'jerks,' their heads and limbs snapping back and forth and their bodies grotesquely distorted. Those who caught the 'barks' would crawl on all fours, growling and snapping like the camp dogs, fighting over garbage heaped behind tents... One preacher wrote to another: 'thousands of tongues with the sound of hallelujah seemed to run through infinite space; while hundreds of people lay prostrate on the ground crying for mercy. Oh! My dear brother, had you been there to have seen the convulsed limbs, the apparently lifeless bodies, you have been constrained to cry out as I was obliged to do, the gods are among the people." (Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1945), p. 14).
Barton W. Stone--Praised only the Initial Unity at Cane Ridge
"He speaks of... falling, rolling, jerking, barking, growling, snapping the teeth, foaming, rushing out on all-fours, roaming round, personating dogs--shouting, screaming, shrieking, groaning, singing, clapping of hands, praying, preaching, jumping, dancing, &c...." (However, this was a false accusation against STONE and Rogers wrote)--
"And that as a matter of course, if Mr. Stone's peculiar views gave rise to such fearful extravagancies, his reformation is little worth." (Stone Biography, p. 402)
"That there were many eccentricities, and much fanaticism in this excitement, was acknowledge by its warmest advocates; indeed it would have been a wonder, if such things had not appeared, in the circumstances of that time. Yet the good effects were that... 'it silenced contention and promoted unity for a while; and these blessed effects (unity--not exercises) would have continued--but, but, but." (Biography, p. 42).
"At first, they were pleased to see the Methodists and Baptists so cordially uniting with us in worship, no doubt, hoping that they would become Presbyterians.
But as soon as they saw these sects drawing away disciples after them, they raised the alarm..."
"The gauntlet was now thrown, and a fire was now kindled that threatened ruin to the great excitement (unity not exercises); it revived the dying spirit of partyism, and gave life and strength to the trembling infidels and lifeless professors. The sects were roused. The Methodists and Baptists, who had so long lived in peace and harmony with the Presbyterians, and with one another, now girded on their armor, and marched into the deathly field of controversy and war.
These were times of distress.
"The spirit of partyism soon expelled the spirit of love and union--peace fled before discord and strife, and religion was stifled and banished in the unhallowed struggles for pre-eminence. Who shall be the greatest, seemed to be the spirit of the contest--the salvation of a ruined world was no longer the burden... peace was drowned by the din of war." (Stone Autobiography, 45-46)
"We have seen this state of things continue but a short time, and then disappear for years. We have seen many of these converts soon dwindle, sicken and die, and become more hardened against the fear of God, than they were before--many of them becoming infidels, by thinking that all professors of religion are like themselves deluded by strong passion and imagination."... All must acknowledge that some good results from such revivals; but all must acknowledge that great evil also rose out of them. Those, who were under strong affections, believed they were born of God, and who made a public confession of faith, and fell from it, are of all people in the most pitiable situation, seldom do they ever after embrace religion--these by their example, discourage others, and fill their minds with prejudices against religion." (Stone, Barton Warren, The Christian Messenger, Vol. VII, No. 7, July, 1833, pages 210-212--See Randall p. 390, for the complete letter).
"I admit that some enthusiasm and even fanaticism did prevail. But as respects that, brother Stone was clear. He was faithful, zealous, and spiritual; yet sober and temperate, holding fast the faithful word. Some talked of extraordinary views and spiritual illuminations. I mentioned that matter to Stone--
"He replied--'I cannot rely on any teaching from God, otherwise than through his word.'" (Biography, p. 122).
"... need we wonder at the exhibition of this spirit in the wildest forms of fanaticism among the more ignorant on camp-meeting occasions and others, where such spirit is encouraged and sought after?"
"In view then of the fanatical, bitter, and censorious spirit which associates itself with these bodily agitations, and is highly promotive of them, the writer is decidedly opposed to them." (Rogers, Stone Biography, p. 383).
The End of the Stone Restoration Movement in The South
"No Christian churches long survived in Tennessee, their cause was ruined in Kentucky and never has regained its former strength or prestige... Of the Southern Ohio Christians a majority of the preachers embraced Campbellism prior to 1837, and only about one thousand church members remained." (Jenning, Walter W., Origin and Early History of the Disciples of Christ, p. 197, Standard).
Alexander Campbell--and All Restoration Movement Churches
"The machinery of modern revivals is not divine, but human. It is certainly divisive. They are undoubtedly deceived who repose the slightest confidence in it. The spirit of the crusades is in it--the spirit of fanaticism is in it--the spirit of delusion is in it. The Spirit of God is not in it, else he was not in the Apostles; for he taught them no such schemes--no such means of catching men. This is a bait which was never put by Christ's fishermen on the evangelical hook." (Alexander Campbell, quoted by Randall, p. 373)
"But in the rage of sectarian proselytism, 'the Holy Ghost' is an admirable contrivance. Every qualm of conscience, every new motion of the heart, every strange feelings or thrill--all doubts, fears, despondencies, horrors, remorse, etc., are the work of this Holy Ghost. " (Millennial Harbinger 1831:212).
"Simply that it was a peculiar form of nervous disease, that was both epidemic and contagious... No new truths were communicated,--no old errors corrected--nor miraculous utterances given; but simply an excitement, despondent or hopeful, gloomy or joyful, clear or confused, according to the convictions of the mind at the time of the attack and influence of circumstances during its continuance." (Pendelton quoted by Randall, p. 373).
Looking backward through one's own head makes Cane Ridge into a holy place or a place of horror and lostness in the wilderness where Indians lurked, beverage sellers sold and prostitutes plied their trade certainly in later imitation. This led to the demise of such revivals.
"They (disorders) cannot come from God, for he is not the author of confusion. The apology made in Corinth for the disorders, which Paul condemned, was precisely the same as that urged in defense of these bodily agitations. We ought not to resist the spirit of God, said the Corinthians; and so said all those who encouraged these convulsions. Paul's answer is that no influence comes from God which destroys our self-control. 'The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.'
"The prophets of God were not like the raving Pythoness of heathen temples,
nor are the saints of God converted into whirling dervishes by an influence which is the author.There can be little doubt that Paul would have severely reprobated such scenes as frequently occurred during the revival of which we are speaking.
"He would have said to the people substantially what he said to the Corinthians. If any unbeliever or ignorant man come to your assemblies and hears one shouting in ecstasy, and another howling in anguish; if he sees some falling, some jumping, some lying in convulsions, others in trances, will he not say ye are mad?" (Hodge, History Presbyterian Church quoted in Barton W. Stones' Biography, p. 368, 369)
"A high form of mystical ecstasy flourished mainly at two periods, in the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, in both cases near the close of great intellectual and spiritual awakenings. In cruder forms it has had a continuous history among the lower and less cultured strata of the population. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Dancers of Chorizates created much excitement in Germany. These wild enthusiasts numbering thousands of the poor and ignorant of both sexes, danced madly in thee churches and streets for hours at a time, frequently until they fell exhausted. They saw fantastic visions, leaped high in the air to get out of the flood of blood in which they imagined themselves to be wading, and indulged in many other marvelous exercises, wholly oblivious of the throngs of amazed spectators. Gifts were showered upon them, attracting many rascally imitators and thus offering a breeding ground for shocking immoralities." (Clark, Elmer T., The Small Sects in America, p. 87, Abingdon)
"To some extent they were contrived, both by those who exhorted and by those who listened and responded. Certain techniques, which ministers conscientiously learned, helped push audiences toward an ecstatic frenzy. Certain hymns, certain tunes worked better than others. Certain repeated and familiar verbal images, those with great resonance for an audience, worked better than others. In many of the greatest revivals the spark was a type of confession--the telling of what had happened to oneself there or at an earlier revival. Some ministers learned the most evocative ways of telling their stories. Several sermonic devices--timing, phrasing, pauses, and above all the display of intense feeling--worked." (Conkin, Paul, Cane Ridge America's Pentecost, p. 106, U of Wis.)
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