The Rise of Evangelicalism

This one has been sitting on my bookshelf for about 4 years now, but I finally read it. Way back in early 2004 my IVPress rep came through and The Rise of Evangelicalism caught my eye in their catalog. I asked for a review copy, and its a good thing he never checked to make sure I put up a review!

In the book, Noll reviews the various factors that led to the rise of evangelicalism in the 1700's. He doesn't limit himself to the physical factors, although there are many, but he also includes the spiritual factors. The thing that caught my attention was the condition and position of the laity in the church. There was a dissatisfaction with established religion (sound familiar) and a growing group of lay people who would meet in informal settings to read and study both devotional books and the Bible, and pray together. Noll sees these as the seedbeds that triggered the evangelical revival in conjunction with the newly established "quick" communication between continents. The reports of revival in New England would be broadcast across the British isles via pamphlets, which would trigger revivals in the British isles, which would then be written up and sent to the various other British terrritories, including New England. These pamphlets would engender more revivals, etc.

So, what can we learn from this (very simplistic) summary? It seems that revival engenders revival; that communication of what God is doing in your life, when shared, causes others to want more of God. This, in turn, causes them to share, and the cycle goes on. Now, this raises the question of how that can happen in a normal church setting where a group of semi-professional singers "leads" the singing until such a time as a paid professional speaker gives an inspiring message and then dismisses everyone. Maybe before or after the "service"—if you can get anyone to stick around...