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[Above: Doug Johnson Adaptations, Central Intelligence Agency, The World, 1981—National Archives at College Park / Public domain, Wikimedia]

This issue of Christian History covers a wide range of spiritual awakenings that occurred all around the world in the 1900s. And there were many more revivals we didn’t have room for. 

Moving west to east, we begin with the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, California (p. 18). Events in Topeka, Kansas, and Houston, Texas, helped prepare for Azusa, and we could also point to Van Nuys, California, and Duquesne University near Pittsburgh as key US sites in the Charismatic movement of the 1960s. The Brownsville Revival in Pensacola, Florida, was part of a Third Wave, along with Canada’s Toronto

Blessing (p. 48). 

In South America we find Colombia’s spiritual transformation documented by George Otis Jr. (p. 53). Despite political and social upheaval, Argentina has witnessed the working of the Spirit (p. 34), and its neighbor Chile experienced an awakening in 1909 (p. 37).

The 1904 revival in Wales had en­or­mous influence on many other spiritual movements around the world (p. 23). The region of East Africa (including Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Congo, Tanzania, and South Sudan) went through decades of spiritual transformation midcentury (p. 38).

In the East, John Sung preached revival effectively in

China (p. 41); Korean believers met in Pyongyang in 1909, confessing and unifying (p. 44); and Christians in Indonesia saw the Lord do amazing things in the 1960s (p. 45). 

Seeing it mapped out like this, and acknowledging God’s work in many other countries, reminds us of the biblical promise that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). CH 

By Randy Petersen

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