New book I just finished

I just finished an interesting book last week from IVP (thanks, Nick!), Global Awakening. It wasn't at all what I thought it would be; I expected a recounting in narrative form of the major revivals in the 20th Century. Nope (despite the book blurb!). That's not what the book is about. Instead, it looks at a few of them with an eye to examining why they succeeded. The author used a sociological approach based on research on revivals. I don't have the book in front of me right now, so I can't enumerate them, but it is quite provocative and he defends his thesis well.

For the rest of this week, I will be pulling a few quotations from the book. Here's the first, about a revival in Uganda:

“Kefa explained the appeal of the revival in these same terms. He described a typical conversion with his revival friend Mondo. “Everytime I met Mondo he would greet me with the threefold challenge: Are you repenting? Are you walking in the Light? Are you being broken?” To Kefa the significance of these questions was all too clear “It was Mondo who taught me that walking in the light means a total sharing with my brother of my secrets...'When we share our secrets,' Mondo said, 'there is total identification with our brother. We have a reciprocal bond.'” Walking in the light meant brokenness, in Luganda, okmamyeka. “To be broken,” wrote Kefa, “is to have no pride, for where there is pride there is no confession and no forgiveness.” Walking in the light meant moving the double alienation that overshadowed most lives: distance from God and from one another. It broke down the barrier that prevented union, sonship and intimacy with God and one's fellow humanity. It meant the end of inner exile.— Global Awakening, page 97

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I like that, "the end of inner exile." The phrase rings true in my experience. But, it requires transparency, which is a scary thought...what if I'm not accepted anymore because of who I am? Better to keep the masks up and not let anybody too close. Praise God! The Holy Spirit won't let us take the option.
</idle musing>