Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 01:2 (Spring 1992)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

The Event of the Century. J. Edwin Orr, ed. Richard, Owen Roberts International Awakening Press: Wheaton, IL (1989), 383 pages, cloth, $27.50

We are in debt to Richard Owen Roberts for his compilation and editing of this useful volume. Though some of the material appeared in other publications of Orr, for the most part it represents the first appearance of a body of work by Orr that had lain dormant until Roberts insisted that it come into the light. The binding is excellent, burgundy cloth with a gold stamped spine. The paper is sturdy; the print is easily read. Notes, however, are at the end of the book instead of the bottom of the pages, making it a little inconvenient to locate the many references to primary sources in Orr’s text. In addition to the notes at the end, Roberts includes two appendices, an excellent bibliography (including works on revival, church and association minutes, newspapers, unpublished theses and papers), and a helpful index.

The exclusive focus of this work is the prayer revival of 1857–58. After a preface explaining the vocabulary of revival, three chapters give immediate historical background. Chapters four through twenty-four then chronicle the revival from Canada to the Deep South (including a chapter on Jamaica) in the colleges, among the slaves, and perpetuated into the armies of both the Union and the Confederacy. Orr then discusses the relationship of the press to the revival, the particular elements of society that opposed it, and its characteristics and results. He includes masses of statistics and dizzying journeys into a variety of cities and villages all over the United States. Anecdotes and quotations pass by as numerously and as quickly as carrying cars on a freight train. Some passages and sections are riveting in interest, and others are forgettable.

Several factors weaken this work and seem to be consistently true of Orr’s treatment of revivals. One is the lack of anything but the minimum of theological analysis. His favorite theological designation is “evangelical,” but he also uses the terms Wesleyan, Calvinist, and Arminian. Though these should communicate something to the reader, there are times when a theological examination of a prominent individual or the preaching characteristic of a particular “stirring” would be helpful. Indicative of this uncritical, and at times latitudinarian, approach is his remark that Sprague’s work on revival “stressed the sovereignty of God” while Finney’s stressed “the responsibility of man,” and both emphasized the “agency of the Spirit” (xv). Certainly the differences between Sprague and Finney come to more than just emphasis. Sprague’s Lectures were compiled partly to counter...

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