The story of Monod is in some ways inspiring – in other respects he is something of a disappointment. The men of Reveil are closer to our times and thus they lack the mystique that some further back in history are able to generate. That said, Monod's story is worth considering and reflecting on. But his context has to be understood and it always strikes me how there are both parallels and huge differences with the American and British context. Indeed in many ways it's a key moment where the three cultural and ecclesiastical sections sharply diverge – America and the Continent being the most extreme in terms of difference with Britain moving along its own track that today has brought it to the same place as the Continent. For Americans this should serve as a stark warning – perhaps a harbinger of what is to come.
But Europe has other lessons for the American Church that are not being learned. For all the parallels and close cultural history that exists between Britain and America, the lessons of European decline and imperial collapse post-1918 are probably the most pertinent. The US is at times striking a course that is eerily similar and potentially terrifying. American Christians would do well to revisit this chapter of history and learn its lessons. Instead we find a host of hirelings and ear-ticklers rewriting the history and effectively eliminating any of the safeguards within the Church that would keep it from slipping down the path to political evil and widespread destruction. As fascism rises to the fore within American politics it's already evident that the American Church will not resist it – but embrace it with great energy akin to what was seen in Germany ninety years ago.
The individuals of Reveil do not stand out, but at the same time their context is evocative and itself inspiring – one that cannot be wholly repeated and yet is ever with us in this contemporary context. The contrast between the Church situation in America, the British Isles, and the European Continent was so very different at that time and the differences remain. Each group is likely to look askance at the other, both envying and despising their cultural standing and yet for my part – as strange as it may seem to the contemporary Evangelical mindset, it is the example of Europe that (from a Christian perspective) offers the most hope, and America which then offered and continues to offer the greatest dangers in terms of spiritual subversion and compromise. In terms of actual legal or physical danger to the faithful, Europe remains first, with Britain second, and yet the American situation is likely to change in the coming years. Whether the Right-wing nationalist Christians win or lose it bodes ill for the faithful. Both the Right-wing groups and the rabid secularists will spell trouble for those wishing to live faithful lives in conformity with the New Testament. Personally I think it more likely that someone like me would face violence from fellow 'Christians' than 'Leftists' or even the arm of the state.
In the case of the compromised American Evangelicals who attempt to retain their standing with the world by moving the goalposts in a process of continual compromise, pseudo-reform, and redefinition – one wonders if in another generation they will become indistinguishable from today's Theological Liberals. In fact I don't really wonder, I'm pretty well convinced of it. Their half-pagan sacral dream of Christian America will be visible on the horizon even as it evaporates and becomes dust in the wind. God be praised.
The tendency toward non-conformity and Free Churches as seen in Reveil is inspiring but it didn't go far enough. The period is marked by different trends in the Anglo-American sphere. British Non-conformity was in the process of negotiating its re-entry into British Society and American Christianity was by this period wholly acculturated in a manner similar to the kind of Christian-Cultural synthesis seen in the European Middle Ages – a totally different context and legal framework to be sure, but the same substantial relationship. This would undergo a reckoning during the 1890's to 1945 period – a struggle which would produce Fundamentalism and a series of small Confessionally-oriented denominations. But with the rise of Neo-Evangelicalism in the late 1940's, the process of re-acculturation (and triangulation) was well underway and is now complete – Fundamentalism having been all but eradicated. And those who retain the label and style are no longer separatists in any meaningful sense. The Evangelical movement is undergoing a new crisis which again brings us back to the European parallels of the 1920's and 1930's.
Americans reflecting on the last two hundred years of Church history are likely to see the Continent in depressing terms and while encouraged by Reveil, they see it as paltry if not somewhat depressing as well. Its successes are not akin to the kind of stadium-level numerics seen with figures like Billy Graham. Whether the Graham and Lausanne Movement model represents actual success is another question.
For my part, Europe at this point in the early nineteenth century sparks not only great interest and endless reflection but hope. Finally after a three-hundred year detour generated by the flawed Magisterial Reformation, there was (for a moment) a hope of turning things back on to a Biblical track. This happened in part and yet failed in many respects.
Such Restorationism was also seen with the Plymouth Brethren but in terms of historical Christianity they were sidelined by their Dispensationalism, their schisms, and the general change in nonconformity's status in the United Kingdom – not to mention the new economics, industrial society, nationalism, and the wars.
In America, Restorationism was born not of adversity but of the kind of restless and innovative spirit of the frontier – a chance to start over anew in keeping with the American frontier ethos. And clearly it failed and proved unable to break with dominant forms of American ideology especially in the realm of epistemology, as all of these groups (with the exception of cults like the Mormons) were dominated by Scottish Common Sense Realism which is incompatible with a faithful reading of the New Testament.
One could argue the lack of a Restorationist spirit marked one of the long-term failures of a movement like Reveil as great efforts were made to stay within the confines of official 'respected' Christianity – as the Monod story testifies. As this proved impossible, the kind of determined and deliberate break that was needed was simply not there. It was very much a bourgeois movement which also marked one of its great failings.
For my part, I would like to know more with regard to how these breakaway factions would eventually succumb to Theological Liberalism as the few that remain clearly have. And as many will already know, this European story is further complicated by the rise of Neo-Orthodoxy in the 1920's.
The situation is ever more complicated and yet very much the same. In all three contexts, the Evangelical model seems to dominate – for the present. But it's not too hard to imagine a situation in a coming generation in which the Reveil scenario will once more seem pertinent – perhaps in all three settings.