Revival fires or holy humbug?
IN January 1908 Kilsyth was in the grip of what some today still claim was a genuine, life changing Christian revival. But as JOHN McILVEAN reports, others have always dismissed it as an embarrassing episode of mass hysteria and rampant emotionalism.
The town was actually famous for such revivals, and the 1908 experience was actually Kilsyth's third, the others occurring in 1742 and 1839.
Each of the revivals was well documented at the time, as well as the establishment's reaction to them. The 1908 one was particularly well documented, including in the pages of the Kilsyth Chronicle. Some in the town were sceptical and said so in letters to the paper, and some people today speak of collective mass hysteria and the temporary nature of many of the conversions, but there was no denying that many people at the time believed something remarkable was happening.
The 1742 revival occurred against a background of Jacobitism and just before the 1745 Rebellion by followers of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Indeed, the Kilsyth parish minister, the Reverend James Robe, was himself a staunch Jacobite. He had preached to his congregation for 30 years without any apparent success.
Then in 1732 the town was stricken by pleuritic fever which claimed 60 lives in six weeks. This was followed by devastating flooding which destroyed houses, livestock, and crops.
Famine struck and left the people on the brink of starvation. The 1742 revival occurred as part of a great revival all over central Scotland, when huge crowds turned out to hear preachers and there was a marked improvement in conduct. However, Robe was accused by some of emotionalism, and 'deceiving the people'.
By 1839, with recession in the handloom weaving industry and the industrial revolution gathering pace, church attendance in Kilsyth was again small and irregular. A young, charismatic minister, Reverend William Chalmers Burns, was to change that, and he preached to crowds of around 10,000. It was said that people broke forth in uncontrollable wailing and tears and groans intermingled with shouts of joy and praise. Some screamed and others fell to the ground "as if dead".
Burns ministered throughout Scotland, but there was opposition to his style of preaching within the church. He eventually went to China as a missionary.
THE 1908 revival was associated with the Westport Hall, now the Church of God.
The town at that time had among the worst housing stock in Britain and the established churches had great difficulty in integrating the mining community into church life. Local ministers had supported the setting up of the Westport Hall to 'meet the wants of the non-church goer'.
According to Kilsyth historian James Hutchison, who wrote a history of Kilsyth in 1986, the 1908 revival started when two leaders of Christian work in Scotland, Andrew Bell and Victor Wilson, both known and esteemed at the Westport Hall, attended a Faith Mission conference in Edinburgh and were 'baptised by the Holy Spirit'. They were invited to the Westport Hall to speak about their experiences. The Chronicle of February 7 of that year reported 'extraordinary scenes' in connection with the special services, at which the great majority were young people. All sects and creeds were represented, as well as 'the avowed infidel and thoughtless scoffer'. Many of the devout wondered if the long looked-for revival was at hand. There were reports of people "speaking in tongues", and in the weeks that followed, more than 200 people experienced this.
However, there were also sceptics, and one letter in the Chronicle was particularly scathing, especially about the speaking in tongues - said to be a gift of the Holy Spirit by which worshippers are able to speak in a language they have never learned as an aid to prayer. The letter writer claimed this was a misinterpretation of the Bible and amounted to "religious humbug".
However, according to Jim Hutchison, one practical effect of the revival was that people started to make good their outstanding debts, and Kilsyth became known as a centre of Pentecostalism, with groups springing up across Scotland, and even in Northern Ireland.
At the New Year Missionary Conference, 28 young people offered themselves for missionary service, as a consequence of which the Pentecostal Missionary Society was established with training centres in Scotland and London. The Church of God established a strong link with Sierra Leone through Kilsyth's own Matthew Sinclair, who worked in the West African country for many years with the support of the UP Mission.
A sceptic of our modern era describes the revivals on a website as occasions when the population of Kilsyth "appears to have temporarily lost touch with reality through a mysterious process of mass religious frenzy."
But another online commentator states: "Today in the town of Kilsyth and the surrounding areas there are many family names that appear in the revival accounts not only of the 20th century revival but also in the earlier ones too.
"Church buildings are still attended and beliefs often spread beyond the Lord's Day. But there is also much indifference and many reject God. Many of the Christians still ask: "Wilt Thou not revive us again; that Thy people may rejoice in Thee?"
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Wednesday 30 May 2012
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