The Civil War Revival, 1861-1865. The bitter dispute over slavery thrust our nation into the deadliest war we’ve ever experienced. By the end, 620,000 Americans lay dead—one out of every 50 of the 31,000,000 people counted in the 1860 census. At the start of the Civil War in 1861, it seemed as though the soldiers for both sides had left their Christianity at home and gone morally berserk. By 1862, the tide turned, first among the Confederate forces. An estimated 300,000 soldiers were converted, evenly divided between the Southern and Northern Armies. 17,18
The Urban Revivals, 1875-1885. Young businessman Dwight L. Moody participated in the Great Revival of 1857 as it swept Chicago.19 Moody later conducted revivals throughout the British Isles where he spoke to more than 2,500,000 people. In 1875, Moody returned home and began revivals in America’s biggest cities. Hundreds of thousands were converted and millions were inspired by the greatest soul winner of his generation.20 At this time, the general worldview of Americans was shifting away from a Christian consensus. Darwinism and higher criticism were gaining traction, and Moody became the first evangelist to come under attack—accused of making religion the opiate of the masses.21
By the turn of the 20th century, the mood of the country was changing. Outside the church, it was the era of radio, movies and the “Jazz Age.” World War I led to a moral letdown and the Roaring Twenties. When that era came to an abrupt end on October 29, 1929, followed by the Great Depression, there was surprisingly little interest in spiritual revival.22 Inside the church, a half-century long battle raged between evangelicalism and theological liberalism, which had penetrated major denominations.23 The effect was that 20th-century revivals were more limited in scope, and lacked the broad impact on society of earlier awakenings.24
The Revivals of 1905-1906. Word of the Welsh Revival of 1904-1905 spread to Welsh-speaking settlers in Pennsylvania in late 1904 and revival broke out. By 1905, local revivals blazed in places like Brooklyn, Michigan, Denver, Schenectady, Nebraska, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Taylor University, Yale University, and Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky.25 Billy Sunday, who became a key figure about this time, preached to more than 100,000,000 people with an estimated 1,000,000 or more conversions.26
The Azusa Street Revival, 1906. In 1906, William J. Seymour, an African-American Holiness pastor blind in one eye, went to Los Angeles to candidate for a pastoral job. But after he preached, he was locked out of the second service! He began prayer meetings in a nearby home and the Spirit of God, which they called “the second blessing,” fell after many months of concerted prayer. Eventually, the interracial crowds became so large they acquired a dilapidated Methodist church at 312 Azusa Street where daily meetings continued for three years. The resulting Pentecostal Movement and the later Charismatic Movement, which both exploded worldwide in the 20th century, both trace their roots to this revival. [27,28,29]
