Revival and Empire
Revival will always be marked by the Church coming out of Empire. Let me repeat that: Revival will ALWAYS be marked by the Church coming out of Empire; because the heart of revival is the increase of Christ’s government and his shalom (in the words of Isaiah) and the heart of Empire is about the increase of its government at the expense of shalom.
When I say “empire” I’m talking about a worldview. Or, to use the words of Paul, empire is one of the principalities and powers which the people of God struggle against.
Eph. 6:10-12 “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” The NRSV says it’s a struggle against the “cosmic powers of this present darkness”. Paul is talking about empire. In fact, early Christians would have associated rulers and authorities in this passage with the Roman Empire. Empire is focused on conquest; it needs to sustain a subordinated population and it is built by breaking shalom. And Empire thrives on the concentration of wealth and power.
The economics of empire draws wealth into fewer and fewer hands. This is in opposition to the economics of Christ’s government which will push wealth out to the edges like a centrifuge. Today we see a “cosmic power of this present darkness” at work in our economy.
Between March 2020 and November 2021, the economics of Empire grew the wealth of ten individuals by $15,000 per second.[i] They were billionaires before the pandemic and they are trillionaires today. Over the same period 160 million more people were forced into poverty. The enemy against whom we struggle is not Elon Musk, or Mark Zuckerberg. It is a “cosmic power of this present darkness.” The enemy is a spirit of Empire, and it will be confronted and resisted by a revived people who reverse the polarity of its economic forces.
It’s not that the existence of poverty, or the existence of wealth is offensive. It’s their co-existence. It’s Lazarus begging at the gate of the rich man. It is a few people living in excess sharing the same planet with billions who cannot feed their families. And a sign of revival will be the church struggling against and confronting this force of evil.
In the first few chapters of Acts we see Jesus’ followers creating a different kind of economy. One where each person gave what they had and received what they needed. The shalom economics of the first believers revolutionized the welfare of widows (essentially unemployed single mothers), by putting the economic decision-making into the hands of a subordinated group (Acts 6).
A week ago Thursday I spoke to a student group about supply chain justice. I was talking about how some intentional Christian communities arranged themselves economically – some of them were Old Order Mennonites who live off the grid and some of them were Christians who share a common purse, each contributing what they earn and taking what they need.
“Sounds like Communism,” one of the students said.
I replied that when the communists described their system some of the Christians probably said “sounds like the early Church.” Only in the early church the sharing of all things in common was voluntary. It reminded me of Brazilian Catholic Archbishop, Helder Camara, who said, “When I feed the poor they call me a saint but when I ask why the poor are poor they call me a communist.”
The fact is that any Jesus centered revival will struggle against Empire because it will challenge the economic and social evils of empire. If Christian “revival” comfortably lives with the social and economic sensibilities of empire, then it’s not revival.
When the Welsh revival of 1904 took off, it was the economically and socially marginalized coal miners where the holy spirt first showed up. With the Azusa St. revival of the early 1900s, William Seymour and the Black community birthed a movement which put theological power in the hands of the oppressed. Within months, missionaries from this Black congregation were sent to Africa and they carried with them a call to be freed from a colonized mindset. Desmond Tutu said, “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.” The East African revival fed the independence movements in Africa that broke free of the empire of their colonizers.
In early 1970’s here in the US, a revival amongst mainly young people stirred one Campus Crusade staff worker named Jack Sparks to leave Crusade and start an organization he called the Christian World Liberation Front. This group started a magazine called Right On! which invited those in the counterculture movement to follow the Ultimate Revolutionary. The magazine preached against “the establishment” – which was the word they used for Empire, and it called for protests against the Vietnam War and for civil rights.
Time and again we see awakening in the Church rising up against the spirit of Empire, because the spirit of Empire is demonic. It is a cosmic power of this present darkness. And that spirit can actually reside inside the Church.
We are to be in the empire but not of the empire. We are to be those who reverse the polarity of Empire. And true revival will require us to exorcise the spirit of Empire from within us, our churches and our Christian organizations.
Rev. 18:3, speaking about Empire, says, “For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxury.” Basically, politicians and CEOs got in bed with Empire. But that’s not a place God wants to find the Church. “Come out!” Jesus says in Revelation when he confronts the Church inbeded in Empire.
The Jewish Christians were mostly under the thumb of Empire, it was relatively easier for them to resist that spirit. But when more and more Gentiles, who were part of the machinery of Empire, were brought into the Church, they brought with them that heart of Empire. In Revelation, Jesus was calling that demonic manifestation out of the Church.
Jesus sent his followers to free the world from the “cosmic powers of this present darkness” and into the kingdom of shalom. Revival is a surge in the increase of Christ’s government and his shalom (Is. 9:7). One way to read Matthew 28:19 might be, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make Jesus-students of all nations caught up in Empire, immerse them in the trinity and teach them to do all that stuff I talked about like loving your enemies and giving your wealth away.”
Whether it’s the Pyongyang revival of 1907 or the East African revival of the 1930s, we see in a revived church undertaking a holy confrontation with Empire – both within the Church and without.
So, if Empire is marked by wealth concentration, by creating and maintaining subordinated populations, by shattering shalom, then how do we see that at work within us, within our churches and within our ministries? The seeds of revival germinate through confession – not pointing the finger outward but in identifying our own captivity to the cosmic power of this present darkness. And because that power is a spirit, it is a Holy Spirit who can free us when we invite her to do so.
Where do you see this present darkness at work in you and in your church? Take a listen to this song from Josh Garrels which at first speaks from the perspective of being trapped in Empire, and then we hear a holy calling to come out.
“Zion & Babylon” Josh Garrels 2010 – YouTube
[i] Oxfam press release, January 17, 2022.