Revivals are Meaningless (or why I think so)

Tonight I visited my old Orlando church and had the pleasure of hearing the teaching pastor Trent Sheppard speak. It was a great service on the revivals of the past and prayers for revivals of the future. I always enjoy these quick history lessons into Christianity and I too used to pray for a Christian revival. I no longer do. For too long I have taken part in prayers that Christianity could experience revival like those of the past, that Christianity will once again take center stage within the daily lives of America.

I no longer think that a single religion is big enough to provide all hope this world needs. I look around and I see world full of people focused on capitalism and communism; a capitalism and communism that has over-simplified and commercialized every religion. I see a world where Christianity has become nothing more than a style of music and a once a week hour long activity, a world where Buddhism is nothing more than a fashionable golden statue and a few breathing exercises you can do on your commute, a world where Islam is defined by suicide bombers and sexist clothing, where Hinduism is a clothing style and a healthy diet, where religious groups are defined by the hospitals they own, the clothes they wear, or the architecture of the buildings they meet in. In a world of that sort more religion is not the answer.

The world has seen many revivals and yet today we still live in a world filled with poverty, war, and injustice so another revival is not where our hope should lie. I believe that the only hope, the only answer left, is not another religious revival but a revolution in the very consciences of mankind. Until we evolve beyond the need to bicker over capitalism and communism, the need to fight others so we can have more, the need to alter nature for are own pleasures there cannot be any flicker of a global uniting hope.

Revivals and religions have brought about many good actions and organizations and yet the world is still filled with evil and pain. Until a revolution in the very way we think; a global revolution of the daily actions of human beings, a rise in the number of followers of a religion is meaningless. I now pray that the conscience of every human being evolves beyond the injustice and wars we experience today. A hope for a future where religions no longer condemn those who believe differently and instead find the common global understandings that are at the very essence of life itself.

I hold out hope for a future where governmental styles are meaningless because everyone has given away their possessions to those who were in need and every need of every person is met. That is not a world of a single religion or governmental style; this is a world without poverty, pain and injustice, this is a world with hope. That is now my daily prayer. Let my every action help this world be realized.