RIGHT OF CENTER: IS GOD MOVING IN SOCIETY?

An interesting phenomenon seems to quietly be flourishing in America and other parts of the world. It is something that has the potential to affect every battlefront in the culture war and to influence public policy more than any law or political reform.

Only a relatively small group of people has tapped into what is happening, but their ranks are growing steadily.

This phenomenon is difficult to describe in a manner that is easily understood. Some call it a religious awakening; others a revival or renewal. Put simply, it is the God of Abraham intervening in the existential world. In this nation, where most people profess Christianity, you might think such an experience would be eagerly embraced.

But this is a new thing. Witnesses have described it as an outpouring of God's Spirit on His people. I'm not sure I know what that means, and the terminology alone is enough to make most Christians wary. It conjures up mental images of women with Jiffy Pop hairdos and men in bad suits rolling in church aisles and frothing at the mouth as if having some type of spiritual seizure. "That's not God," most will say. "It's only fruitless emotionalism."

Maybe so. But there is an historical basis for emotionalism accompanying God's radical intervention in the world. Most recently in this country there was just such a revival in the late 1940s. While many in the church were put off by what they deemed was senseless emotionalism, tens of thousands of people had their lives radically altered and were able to affect society for a generation.

Many think something similar is on the verge of happening today. Some respond with "Who cares?" or worse, "That's nice." They will tell you religion is something deeply personal and private.

But this has nothing to do with religion. It isn't a new theology. It isn't some great evangelist drawing thousands of people into Christianity. It's common folks taking part in something that far transcends their meager talents.

When God sent our Lord into this world, He confounded not the lost, but the religious community. Many people think the Spirit of God in this day will work similarly.

For years I wrestled with philosophical and theological questions, unable to believe that Reason would create an unreasonable world. I'm as uncomfortable with emotionalism as the next person, but maybe not for the same reasons. Typically, silly people act silly and emotional people get emotional, and I've never been attracted to silly and emotional people.

But when God makes thinking, reasonable people silly, it's confounding. I've decided it is something like nuclear fusion. Imagine a process able to wreak great destruction or reap almost unfettered power. What happens when you walk into the reactor core at a nuclear power plant? It's like something from a bad horror flick. You don't expose yourself to that much power without some type of reaction. Why would it be any different if you're exposed to the creative power of the omnipotent God of the universe? So I have room in my world view for such experiences. I'm just thankful He's a benevolent God as well.

Many Christians, though, will feel threatened by a spiritual awakening in this country. They needn't. Consider the alternative that we have lived with the for past generation: An ineffectual church that either is so far removed from society it is a pietistic ostrich, or a church that too closely resembles our decayed, festering, dungheap of a society. In American society today we are reaping the fruits from the seeds sown in moral relativism and humanistic liberalism that not only "denies the power thereof," but also denies God.

So instead of humbling ourselves before God, we forever seek political and social solutions to what really are spiritual problems. Perhaps after all these years of praying for a new president, or Congress or Supreme Court to revive a nation on the downhill slide, God has chosen to answer our prayers by doling out new hearts instead.

Jay Eastlick is news editor of the Southeast Missourian.