Whispers of my Ancestors: Having an Internal Revival

The bitterness fades away as "revivals" make their way into the news, and I look toward the past for new transfigurations of my spirituality.

Image by Trey Ratcliff via Flickr

Revival is happening! All the news sites and all the conservative media outlets are thrilled. Perhaps if we ignore everything we heard and read during the Trump years and during the pandemic, we could be inclined to believe that American evangelicalism is suddenly a force for good now. I ask only one question: is massive, cultural repentance part of the catholic (small c) church here? Are immigrants and people of color seen as equals to the white leaders in charge? Is everyone welcome as they are? Can LGBTQ people attend safely? Can they be accepted as full members or pastors in these denominations without being forced to give up their love lives or their God-given identities? Hell, can women even get ordained?

Or is this yet more of that pretend Christian “love” we all know so well — the Christian love that pours out poison covered in honey and centers one’s own unique, individual worship experience rather than the collective call to community? When everybody’s done praying, will Christianity be any less harmful or painful in America?

At my most optimistic, I know that Asbury isn’t “as bad” as say, Lee University, my alma mater, where the best professors are leaving and LGBTQ kids face horrifying, denomination-sanctioned bigotry while the people in charge pretend to love Jesus. But at my worst, I think that it doesn’t matter: with each Christian “revival” in America’s history, the country never got any better for the most oppressed, ever. Billy Graham refused to walk with Martin Luther King, Jr. Jonathan Edwards defended slavery in his sermons and enslaved people himself. All the charismatic movements in the early 20th century, despite starting as an integrated event informed by Black spiritualism practices at the Asuza Street Revival, eventually become subject to extreme segregation and racism within their ranks.

I don’t trust anything that comes out of American evangelicalism by default. If my polyamorous family isn’t safe around these people or if they look at me and think I’m hellbound, I have no desire to be part of their religious traditions anymore.

But yet, here’s the secret: I, too, crave a revival.

And you may think, in my anger toward the capitalist, fascist monstrosity that is the American Christianity experience of the 21st century, that I must have hated my ancestral faith. But the truth is, I didn’t hate it. The people were fake, they valued money over people, they have atrocious beliefs about other human beings, and the theology is fear-based and does nothing to promote a better society for anybody. Sure, these are things I realized as I got older.

But I was, and to some extent still am, enchanted with Pentecostalism.

As a former Pentecostal, I’m not new to revivals. When I was a child, my church had a nine-week revival led by a fire-and-brimstone pastor who was later found to have sexually harassed another male leader. At Lee University, run by the Church of God, they had “convocation” weeks where we attended church services each night in the spirit of a revival session.

Sometimes I resented going, but more times than not, I was entranced. The music felt like God moving inside you. The worship was an out-of-body experience. I loved to hear people speaking in tongues — and translating — as much as I loved to watch people get prayed over and, sometimes, pass out on the floor in response. I loved watching people dance up and down the aisles or sob uncontrollably near the altar. Maybe these are the same reasons why others like Burning Man or hallucinogenic drugs. It felt so incredibly real. It was like watching God in action, like an immediate transformation of spirit and self.

But it never lasted. Revivals end. Burners go home and back to their white-collar jobs. The drugs wear off and people feel worse than they did before.

People’s prayers went unanswered. The community didn’t change except to become more known for its hateful beliefs. People flaunted their increasing wealth while poverty and misery increased in our small town. I wanted a revival that lasted. I wanted one that meant something. Like this, for instance. (Thanks to Lindsey for sending this to me, if you’re reading this.)

It’s not a mistake that I’m sending this out on Transfiguration Sunday. My unordained husband just preached a message on this at our church. Transfiguration is how God changes people. In a way, it’s the liturgical version of a revival. Quieter, more reflective, but with an encouragement to actually fucking change. Which isn’t easy. It’s a lot easier to hear people sing beautiful songs and preach charismatic passionate words and feel really good about it, and go home and continue supporting policies that are killing trans people or leading to more economic injustice all over the world.

And despite this post, I rarely feel bitterness toward individual people any longer. Of the relatives who still talk to me and accept my family as we are, I love them and feel a deep sense of loyalty and duty to them. I wish them no ill. I want good things for them. I delight in their wins and feel pain in their losses. I don’t even really have the desire to argue with them anymore, which was certainly not true for me during the Trump years when the sting of hatefulness was all around me and when my rage toward others was nearly uncontrolled. I really think when you connect with people on a level beyond that, it matters. I notice the people who continue to connect with me no matter what they believe or think about it, and it makes a big difference in the sense of camaraderie I feel for others.

I’m currently in a state of seeking. I do want a revival, for myself, personally. For all my thoughts on why the church should serve the collective, I do crave something more individual. Seek, and ye shall find. But when? My job is extremely stressful, and I don’t know what it is exactly I want to do for myself, my career, or my purpose in this life. I am tormented and in search of the answers. And while I now know all of the scientific explanations behind Pentecostal experiences (did you know similar things happen in Hinduism and Buddhism, and that even atheists can induce glossolalia in themselves?) it doesn’t mean that I don’t wish I could have that feeling.

But if I was just after a good feeling, I could listen to all those praise and worship songs from millionaires and megachurches and read those very positive, totally out-of-context Bible verses like they’re supposed to be about me, personally, getting rich or successful. I could do hallucinogenic drugs. I could even (God forbid, no offense) become a Burner or something. I could go into a random church, or even Asbury (which is within driving distance) and put my face down on the ground before the altar while strangers surround me and love me deeply, but only in the moment.

It’s not enough, though. It’s not enough and I know it. It doesn’t matter if I feel good if things aren’t changing, just like it’s not enough to give money to poor people while still being complicit in a system that makes them poor in the first place. The money to that poor person (or people) might matter to a person right then and there (and we should still do it — don’t get me wrong) but if we aren’t addressing the root causes, all we get is that good feeling of altruism while enabling the suffering in the first place.

All the anti-vaxxer fascist conservative figureheads say Christianity is going to have a great awakening. I think the deconstruction movement is the real great awakening, but I also know that deconstructing isn’t enough either. In some sense, it’s almost like a revival. It’s great that you throw off the chains of your former biased and hateful beliefs, but it can’t just stop there. At the end of the day, making fun of conservative Christians forever isn’t going to make society or Christianity better any more than an evangelical revival is. We have to step off of that and move into the next phase: revival. Transfiguration. Change. Healing.

Even if you ultimately stepped away from Christianity, find a purpose. Find a community. Find a way to actively make the world a better place. Don’t let it stop at just the deconversion/deconstruction.

I want a transfiguration of myself. I want answers to questions: who am I, who do I want to be, and what should I do? I want a life’s purpose to care for myself, my family, and others around me. I don’t have any answers yet. I am always taking advice and suggestions. Where can my career go — where can my life go from here?

Maybe that quiet, internal revival is just what I need.