To listen to some Christians today you'd think the West had arrived at the final state of spiritual and moral development. Or degeneration, given the present state of things.

I find it difficult to understand the fatalism and defeatism of a good many of my fellow believers. Most church leaders I've known over the years have adopted a kind of "good as it gets" mindset about the state of the faith in their congregations. That, coupled with a "what's the use" mentality about moral, cultural, and social change, creates a genus of church leadership which clings to perpetuating the status quo indefinitely into the future as the highest calling of the Church.

We do well to remember that revolutions come and go. And revivals come with surprising suddenness, vigor, and staying power - when, that is, they come. Is it possible that even now, in some backwater district of the evangelical world, the pieces are coming together that will ignite the world into the next Great Awakening?

Most, I suspect, would say that's not likely. But they don't really have to say it, because their status quo leadership style identifies them as true doubters where the work of revival is concerned.

But such a posture is historically ignorant, lacking in vision, and, if I may be so bold, throttled with unbelief. Revivals and awakenings come suddenly, and with great power. But they build for a long time, just as all change does. As Kenneth Minogue observed, writing in the June 2010, New Criterion, "we should never forget that moral change never ceases, and it takes place below, and often deeply below, the surface of a culture."

The same is true of spiritual change, which is a precursor to moral change. Spiritual change never ceases; in continues apace, even today. And it may be about time for real revival to come rolling 'round again.

Perhaps you are one of those, working deeply below the surface of our superficial and highly commercial contemporary Christianity, seeking something more abiding, more uplifting, more powerful, and more real? Perhaps you, in your own circle, are beginning to move the gears that can change the course of history?

If not, should you be?

T. M. Moore