Letters to the Editor July 28

Posted 8/21/12

We need another revival

Billy Graham’s son, Franklin, will be in Albany on August 25 at 12 noon for a prayer service (Decisionamerica tour.com).

Our country has had several major revivals. …

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Letters to the Editor July 28

Posted

We need another revival

Billy Graham’s son, Franklin, will be in Albany on August 25 at 12 noon for a prayer service (Decisionamerica tour.com).

Our country has had several major revivals. The first Great Awakening was in 1740. “The writings of the French skeptics and the Enlightenment thinkers so pervaded the Colonies that churches struggled to remain open. Colleges became hotbeds of humanism, and Christian students, what few there were, practiced their faith secretly. But New Jersey Dutchman Theodore Frelinghuysen began preaching the simple Gospel, electrifying young adults in his area... this Great Awakening turned America from a collection of godless colonies into a God-fearing nation, setting the stage for independence and establishing the moral foundation for a new country conceived in liberty.” (Robert J. Morgan.)

About 25 years after the Revolutionary War, only one in 10 people regularly attended church services. Voltaire’s disciple in America, Thomas Paine, wrote, “Of all the systems of religion that were ever invented, there is nothing more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity.” But the second Great Awakening arose in 1790 and ran until the 1820s. where immense crowds gathered in repentance and prayer.

Just as America was sinking into another spiritual laziness, a third Great Awakening happened around Civil War time, called the Prayer Revival. The revival spread from city to city, and well over a million confessed Christ as savior, thus radically changing America for the better.

The most recent revival is known as the fifth Great Awakening, aka The Jesus Movement. It took place in the late 1960s to early ‘70s. Calvary Chapel played a big part in that and still broadcasts worldwide (99.7 FM locally) and through Hischannel via the Internet.

I was born back then, and the news had similar stories of unwanted wars, race riots and terrorists. But through it all, we as a nation had hope and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. In 2016 it seems bleak, hopeless to many. We need another revival.

John “JP” Pasquale

Livingston Manor, NY

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