Asbury Revisited

On the surface, Wilmore, Kentucky (population 3,200), is still a sleepy little college town tucked in rolling farmland fifteen miles southwest of Lexington. Yet many of its people are said to have changed in the past year. As Dr. Clarence Hunter, professor of religion and philosophy at Asbury College, puts it: “We just feel the presence of God. We have since February third.”

February 3, 1970, was the day a spontaneous marathon of Christian witnessing broke out among the 1,000 or so students and faculty members of Asbury College during a regular morning chapel period. The revival ran non-stop in Hughes Auditorium for 185 hours, closing down classes for a week (see February 27 issue, page 36).

During the revival and on the weekends soon following, as many as 600 students and teachers fanned out in teams from the college and its neighbor, Asbury Seminary, to tell the Asbury story at other Christian campuses and churches across the nation.

Revival flared wherever the story was repeated, and new witnesses fanned out to tell of their experiences. By the time Asbury students returned from summer vacation, according to Arthur L. Lindsay, the college’s director of public relations, what had been fostered in Wilmore had leapfrogged around the world, touching every continent. There is no way to determine accurately how many lives have been transformed in the past year, the people at Wilmore agree.

“The greatest phenomenon of this revival is the way it spread,” the seminary’s president, Dr. Frank Stanger, says reflectively. “I do not understand from a human viewpoint how a group of students from Asbury College and Asbury Seminary could go somewhere and tell about the revival and have it start there.… When they told about it, something started.… We have undoubtedly seen a spiritual phenomenon.”

Around Wilmore these days, a visitor is likely to hear the phenomenon referred to as “Revival ’70,” rather than the “Asbury Revival.” Dr. Robert E. Coleman, professor of evangelism at the seminary, thinks “the Asbury phase of revival was just one little part of an awakening, a movement of God, that is sweeping the world.” He is the editor of One Divine Moment, a book about the Asbury happening and what followed (published recently by Fleming H. Revell).

Although the people of Wilmore have descended from the mountaintop, so to speak, there are still evidences of the fervor that was.

Even now, a few witness teams go out every weekend, and return to report on their activities at Sunday-evening “sharing” services. And many of the students meet regularly in small Bible-study and devotional groups.

Although Hughes Auditorium no longer is open around the clock—it was for weeks following the revival—students and faculty are still found there at odd hours, praying, meditating, and reading their Bibles. Cards listing prayer requests are always at the altar rail.

On the fourth day of the revival a year ago, Gary Montgomery, then 20, confessed that he had experimented with “drugs, sex, booze, gambling, everything.… With Christ, I’m going to try to stay on an even keel and try to get my friends to do the same.” He is doing just that, according to several Asbury students. Montgomery, formerly of Miami, Florida, has dropped out of the college to witness full-time to Wilmore-area drug-users.

A group of seminarians and town kids have opened the Bridge Coffeehouse as a ministry to youths. A corps of collegians whose eyes have been opened to both spiritual and social needs tutor school children. Many Asburians have committed their lives to various forms of Christian service.

The Reverend David Seamands, pastor of Wilmore United Methodist Church, says his church has experienced “the finest consistent attendance in my nine years here,” and the most generous giving, too. The church held a missions conference since the revival and hoped to raise $10,000 for missionary work. Over $17,500 was given on one Sunday morning.

The college and the seminary have also benefited financially. The college, in addition, gained three new Ph.D’s who were attracted by the revival, according to Academic Dean Custer Reynolds.

But the “fruit” of the revival most often mentioned is the “sense of community,” the atmosphere of mutual love and concern that now is said to pervade the schools and the town.

“The people come in my store and I can see more love radiated in them. They’re interested in talking about religion,” John Fitch, a lay preacher and local merchant, reports.

Indeed, the revival was credited with “saving” Asbury College by one resident (who preferred to remain anonymous). Prior to the revival, the college administration had been rife with tension and dissension, the observer said.

Perhaps that is why college president Dr. Dennis F. Kinlaw, speaking as an administrator, singled out as the most significant result of the revival “the cleaning out of the little things that kill your academic, spiritual, and administrative efficiency.”

Wayne Anthony, 21, a college senior from Columbus, Georgia, observed that the “antagonism, tension, friction, and rebellion” of last year have been replaced by a general feeling on campus “that we can do a lot more together than as individual parts.”

The revival did have some apparent negative aspects. There was deep depression, for instance, among persons who expected to have personal problems erased and were disappointed, according to pastor Seamands.

There also is a tendency among some Asburians to look back in yearning for the exultation of the past, rather than to look forward striving to grow in faith.

Spontaneous revival is not new to either the college or the seminary, both of which are independent schools in the Wesleyan tradition. And though Revival ’70 may have been spectacular in geographic influence, most students seem to agree with the assessment of Becky Ratcliff, a 20-year-old junior from Florida: “Asbury today is no utopia.”

Praying For Prisoners

Confident that “when a man’s ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him” (Prov. 16:7), Asbury Seminary is organizing an extensive prayer campaign for prisoners in Viet Nam.

As part of its “Prisoners Prayer Partner Program,” the seminary’s Department of Prayer and Spiritual Life is distributing printed cards throughout the country urging intercession and calling for more publicity “to soften the Communists’ attitude.”

“I think North Viet Nam is defeating itself in world opinion, because these men are helpless,” said Dr. Thomas A. Carruth, a professor of practical theology. Carruth feels that release of the men “would gain North Viet Nam a measure of good will.”

The scriptural basis for the program, he says, is the passage in Acts in which Peter is miraculously released from prison while his fellow believers prayed. Carruth said Asbury conducted a similar program in behalf of Gary Powers, who was imprisoned in the Soviet Union after he bailed out of his spy plane and whose sentence was unexpectedly commuted.

Carruth says provision is being made for prayer appeals not only for military personnel but also for missionaries and other civilians now being held captive. Three American Protestant missionaries were led away by the Viet Cong in May of 1962 and have not been heard from since. Two others were taken during the Tet offensive in 1968.

The first thing the prayer program asks the public to do is to intercede “for a just and lasting peace for all of Viet Nam.” The program seeks to get prayer requests for peace and for release of prisoners into local church bulletins, on theater screens, on radio and television, and in the printed media. Individuals are urged to prod their friends to pray.

The Christian and Missionary Alliance, under whom four of the five captive missionaries served, is urging people not only to pray but also to write letters to the government of North Viet Nam and to the Peace Commission in Paris. The Alliance Witness said the Red Cross and other agencies believe that a barrage of such letters would bring pressure upon the Vietnamese government.

One Western source that has had extraordinary entree with the Communist Vietnamese contends that letters should be addressed not to North Vietnamese leaders but to the officials of the National Liberation Front or the so-called “Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Viet Nam.”Probably the most accessible person is the foreign minister, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Binh, 49 Avenue Cambacerez, 91 Vierreres Le Buiason, Paris, France. This source indicates that individual (not chain) letters have a potential for impact, as do student and religious delegations that might go to Paris.

Super Witness

Miami Herald sports writers estimated that 40,000 persons in the Miami area heard “name” sports stars witness for Christ during a “Weekend of Champions” sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes last month. Nearly one hundred athletes shared in the four-day campaign leading up to the Super Bowl professional football playoff game. They spoke to church, banquet, and public high-school audiences and at a rally that attracted 7,500. Some included demonstrations of their skills.

Bob Vogel, 242-pound tackle on the championship Baltimore Colts team, explained the FCA’s strategy: “It’s a masculine approach to Christianity. You’re not beating guys over the head with a Bible and saying, ‘Brother, are you saved?’ It’s just personal sharing of a life-style. It confronts young men with the challenge and excitement of following Christ.” Vogel himself had been led to Christ by FCAers Raymond Berry and Don Shinnick, former Colts.

A number of Colts show up for Friday-night Bible-study sessions and special Sunday services on road trips.

The Colts may have won the game, but singer Anita Bryant came up with the Super Bowl’s “finest individual performance,” wrote national sports columnist Red Smith. Miss Bryant, an evangelical, sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” during halftime. (Meanwhile, one of Miss Bryant’s latest gospel recordings, “Bring Back the Springtime,” was performing well in ratings on secular radio music shows, according to a spokesman.)

Earlier, Christianity was much in evidence at the nationally televised New Year’s parades and bowl games, and even at a meeting of radicals.

The Rose Parade in Pasadena “was like a revival meeting,” said evangelist Billy Graham, this year’s grand marshal. The Rose Queen herself and several in her court were outspoken Christians (see January 15 issue, page 29). A thousand Campus Crusade for Christ workers reported that 400 spectators prayed to receive Christ. Hundreds of church youths and young street Christians shared their faith with countless others. They handed out tracts and more than 150,000 copies of the Hollywood Free Paper, a Christian underground-type newspaper. Publisher Duane Pederson says he is still receiving letters “from people all over the country” who said they accepted Christ at the parade. Noted street-evangelist Arthur Blessitt preached at several crowded street corners along the parade route.

Former Miss America Vonda Kay Van Dyke rode a float in the Orange Parade and sang about new life in Christ. The Sound Generation, an ensemble from John Brown University, sang gospel songs aboard a float in the Cotton Parade in Dallas. Also in Dallas, a thousand Campus Crusade collegians circulated among the holiday crowds and held a park rally. At their hotel, at least fifty, including some Notre Dame students, reportedly received Christ.

In all, nearly 7,000 Crusade staffers and training conferees shared their faith in and around Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Chicago, as well as Dallas and Pasadena. Six hundred met in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Crusade’s 2,200 conferees in Chicago reported a thousand decisions, mostly at O’Hare Airport and other transportation terminals. Some witnessed to radicals at a Students for a Democratic Society convention but without apparent success. However, at California’s Mammoth Lakes resort, an evangelism ski team that included Crusade’s New Folk singers prayed with fifty who wanted Christ to take control of their lives.

While a record 12,000 students were meeting in Urbana for a missions convention (see January 29 issue, page 29) and thousands were making Christ known elsewhere in the nation, nearly 2,500 Midwest high-schoolers gathered in Washington, D. C., for Youth for Christ seminars on evangelism and the Christian life.

One hundred students from Seventh-day Adventist colleges gave up their holidays to witness for Christ on New York City streets. Columbia Union College (Maryland) student officer Dan Eppler said the students were surprised at the “openness of the people,” and that some received Christ. Revival is under way at several SDA campuses, he added, and is spreading into the churches: “The kids are getting caught up in Jesus Christ.”

ADON TAFT AND EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

Religion In Transit

Enrollment in Lutheran schools of higher education in the United States and Canada totaled 88,744 students at the beginning of last fall’s term.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, last month held unconstitutional compulsory education laws as they relate to Amish children beyond eighth grade. Three fathers of the Old Order Amish refused to send their fifteen-year-old children to New Glarus High School; fines levied against them have been lifted.

For the third consecutive year, the National Association of Christian Schools reported increases of 15 per cent in both its number of schools and pupil enrollment: 62,000 students attend 345 elementary and secondary schools in forty states and thirty-five countries.

The independent (it lacks the denominational seal of approval) Presbyterian, U. S. Executive Commission on Overseas Evangelism is planning for the first time to send missionaries abroad.

The Voice of Prophecy’s Evangelistic Association (Seventh-day Adventist) plans to conduct nineteen North American crusades this year, according to broadcast director-speaker Harold M. S. Richards, Jr.

A major addition (more than $1 million) has been announced for the Assemblies of God headquarters and printing plant complex in Springfield, Missouri. Some twelve tons of literature are now produced by the plant daily—double the output of ten years ago. The proposed four-story building will provide 77,000 square feet of floor space.

A loan fund, believed to be the first of its type in the nation, to assist coeds in obtaining legal abortions in New York State has been established at the University of Maine, according to the president of the school’s Student Senate.

Personalia

The Reverend Benjamin W. Johnson of Washington, D. C., was named superintendent of urban ministries for the American Sunday-school Union.

Chaplain (Major General) Francis L. Sampson, chief of U. S. Army chaplains, received the Hall of Heroes Gold Medal from the Chapel of the Four Chaplains this month. The Catholic priest was honored at a Philadelphia banquet commemorating the death of four heroic chaplains.

Cameroon president Ahmadou Ahidjo commuted Roman Catholic bishop Albert Ndongmo’s death sentence to life imprisonment last month. Countercharges in the bizarre trial, in which Ndongmo was accused of plotting government upheaval, said investigative methods in the case “bordered on sorcery” and called evidence insufficient.

Dr. Larry Ward, journalist and overseas director of World Vision International, last month left that post to become president of Food for the Hungry, a new organization specializing in the war against famine in the developing countries.

A library has been dedicated in the Israeli village of Kababir in memory of Bron Baker, 22, son of veteran Southern Baptist missionaries Dwight L. and Emma Baker of Haifa. Young Baker, whose father is a correspondent for CHRISTIANITY TODAY, was killed in an auto accident in Missouri in late 1969.

Herman Holmes, 24, Midwest regional director of the Black Economic Development Conference (BEDC), was convicted of mail theft (embezzling $1,148 worth of first-class letters) in a Chicago court case. Holmes has demanded “reparations” from many church groups, including the 1970 United Presbyterian General Assembly.

Two priests, a Catholic and an Anglican, a German Lutheran pastor, and the Anglican dean of Johannesburg all ran into passport troubles in South Africa last month for their anti-apartheid views. Dean Gonville A. Ffrench-Beytagh was detained by security police incommunicado in Pretoria in a government crackdown; he was the highest-ranked clergyman to be so affected.

Joseph Warren Hutchens, 61, was elected bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut last month, succeeding the late Bishop John H. Esquirol.

Heyoung Whang, 33, the world’s first Korean Mennonite clergyman, is now serving the oldest Mennonite congregation in the the United States, the solidly German-background Germantown, Pennsylvania, Mennonite Church.

World Scene

The Lutheran World Federation asked its member churches last month to declare pulpit and altar fellowship among the LWF’s 50 million members.

Some 50,000 evangelistic leaflets have been distributed by the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in the universities of Argentina, resulting in more than 200 requests for IFES correspondence courses.

Vatican Radio, said to be one of the staidest broadcasting facilities in the world, has gone pop; the station will air extracts from the popular rock opera, “Jesus Christ Superstar” on a new world-wide popular music show designed to become a weekly event and featuring a famous Italian female disc jockey.

Israeli archaeologists recently unearthed a cornerstone of the top of a tower in a wall surrounding the second temple, and a skeleton of a man crucified about 2,000 years ago. The unrelated finds were considered important because the ten-ton stone was the first discovered remnant of the temple wall bearing a Hebrew inscription, and because the pierced heel bones of the skeleton are the first material evidence of a crucifixion in biblical times.

Deaths

RALPH M. RIGGS, 75, former general superintendent of the Assemblies of God from 1953 to 1959; in Santa Cruz, California.

DAN WEST, 77, founder of the Heifer Project and the first layman ever elected moderator of the Church of the Brethren; in Goshen, Indiana.

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