The Forerunner of Things to Come?
By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008
This special issue of The Boston Awakening has been produced as a gift to the students of Boston, Massachusetts. The publishers are the Boston Awakening team – a group of Christian students, community members and ministers – who have come together with the purpose of promoting a spiritual awakening among college students in the city of Boston.
The year 2006 marks the 370th anniversary of the first Christian college in North America, Harvard. Ever since 1636, the colleges and universities of Boston have set the standard for excellence in education that has been copied the world over. Yet most students don’t know that virtually all of Boston’s historic colleges and universities were founded as Christian institutions. Perhaps many believe that we are too sophisticated in the 21st century to celebrate or even acknowledge these roots.
However, there are some winds of change blowing across this almost 400-year-old city. One of these changes is a reawakening of Christianity. In 2006, there are a higher percentage of evangelical Christians studying in schools in the Boston area than at any other time since the Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries. In this special issue, we hope to answer some questions we have been asked:
Just what is a Spiritual Awakening?
Is it true that Christians once dominated the campus?
Are Awakenings going on in the nations of the world?
What trends indicate that this could happen again?
Some would argue that modern America has become too multi-cultural for a unified religious view. But an examination of current spiritual trends indicates the opposite. According to Jeff Bass, the executive director of the Emmanuel Gospel Center, documentation over the past 30 years shows that “most church growth is in minority communities. Ethnic cultures, especially Asian, Brazilian and Haitian, have started 90 percent of all new churches.” Further, American and international students who have been reared in an atmosphere of Christian culture account for a large part of this growth.
When we examine history, we find the same trend during the time of the Great Awakenings. Students came from other places to study at a New England college. These students encountered something they did not expect when they first began to inquire into spiritual experience.
As Charles Coffin, historian and native Bostonian, wrote in the preface to his history of New England, Old Times in the Colonies: “I have spoken of the meaning of history. Surely it has a meaning, what else are we living for? Whichever way we turn in the material world we find things needful for our use and we think of them as God’s forethoughts, and as designed for our welfare. If there is design in the material world, there must be some meaning to history, some ultimate end to be accomplished.”
History shows us that these spiritual awakenings are inevitable. The question is not if there will be another Great Awakening, but when. In time, there will be many more Christian media projects produced by students for students in Boston. When a movement of the magnitude of the 18th century Great Awakening occurs again in Boston, the students themselves will produce media that will carry the good news to the ends of the earth something that was not possible in any of the prior Great Awakenings.
Could it be time for another Great Awakening in Boston, starting with the 300,000 students on 45 college campuses? As you look into the idea of “meaning,” “purpose,” and “destiny,” our hope is that you will be open to the idea that perhaps God has called you to the city of Boston “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).
- The Boston Awakening team
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Reversing Roe: The Norma McCorvey Story (DVD)
In 1969, a pregnant 21 year old Norma McCorvey felt abortion was her only answer. He case was used to challenge the Texas abortion law and she eventually became the Jane Roe of the 1973 US Supreme Court decision, Roe v Wade. She never had an abortion, but instead became an icon in the national abortion debate. For 22 years, Norma McCorvey’s life was a battlefield. She worked inside abortion clinics. She promoted legalized abortion. But she was tormented by what she saw and felt. In the summer of 1995, her life changed forever.
Through the friendship of a pro-life leader and a special invitation from a 7-year old child, Jane Roe finally died so Norma Leah McCorvey could live. This is her story.
Running Time: 28 minutes
Watch a clip from Reversing Roe.
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The Beast of Revelation: Identified (DVD)
Who is the dreaded beast of Revelation?
Now at last, a plausible candidate for this personification of evil incarnate has been identified (or re-identified). Ken Gentry’s insightful analysis of scripture and history is likely to revolutionize your understanding of the book of Revelation — and even more importantly — amplify and energize your entire Christian worldview!
Historical footage and other graphics are used to illustrate the lecture Dr. Gentry presented at the 1999 Ligonier Conference in Orlando, Florida. It is followed by a one-hour question and answer session addressing the key concerns and objections typically raised in response to his position. This presentation also features an introduction that touches on not only the confusion and controversy surrounding this issue — but just why it may well be one of the most significant issues facing the Church today.
Ideal for group meetings, personal Bible study — for anyone who wants to understand the historical context of John’s famous letter “… to the seven churches which are in Asia.” (Revelation 1:4)
Running Time: 145 minutes
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Dr. Francis Schaeffer - A Christian Manifesto (DVD)
That Swiss Hermit Strikes Again!
Dr. Schaeffer, who was one of the most influential Christian thinkers in the twentieth century, shows that secular humanism has displaced the Judeo-Christian consensus that once defined our nation’s moral boundaries. Law, education, and medicine have all been reshaped for the worse as a consequence. America’s dominant worldview changed, Schaeffer charges, when Christians weren’t looking.
Schaeffer lists two reasons for evangelical indifference: a false concept of spirituality and fear. He calls on believers to stand against the tyranny and moral chaos that come when humanism reigns-and warns that believers may, at some point, be forced to make the hard choice between obeying God or Caesar. A Christian Manifesto is a thought-provoking and bracing Christian analysis of American culture and the obligation Christians have to engage the culture with the claims of Christ.
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The Real Jesus: A Defense of the Historicity and Divinity of Christ (DVD)
Who is the Real Jesus?
Ever since the dawn of modern rationalism, skeptics have sought to use textual criticism, archeology and historical reconstructions to uncover the “historical Jesus” — a wise teacher who said many wonderful things, but fulfilled no prophecies, performed no miracles and certainly did not rise from the dead in triumph over sin.
Over the past 100 years, however, startling discoveries in biblical archeology and scholarship have all but vanquished the faulty assumptions of these doubting modernists. Regrettably, these discoveries have often been ignored by the skeptics as well as by the popular media. As a result, the liberal view still holds sway in universities and impacts the culture and even much of the church.
The Real Jesus explodes the myths of these critics and the movies, books and television programs that have popularized their views. Presented in ten parts — perfect for individual, family and classroom study — viewers will be challenged to go deeper in their knowledge of Christ in order to be able to defend their faith and present the truth to a skeptical modern world – that the Jesus of the Gospels is the Jesus of history — “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). He is the real Jesus.
Speakers include: George Grant, Ted Baehr, Stephen Mansfield, Raymond Ortlund, Phil Kayser, David Lutzweiler, Jay Grimstead, J.P. Holding, and Eric Holmberg.
Ten parts, over two hours of instruction!
Running Time: 130 minutes
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The Four Keys to the Millennium (Book)
Foundations in Biblical Eschatology
By Jay Rogers, Larry Waugh, Rodney Stortz, Joseph Meiring. High quality paperback, 167 pages.
All Christians believe that their great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will one day return. Although we cannot know the exact time of His return, what exactly did Jesus mean when he spoke of the signs of His coming (Mat. 24)? How are we to interpret the prophecies in Isaiah regarding the time when “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:19)? Should we expect a time of great tribulation and apostasy or revival and reformation before the Lord returns? Is the devil bound now, and are the saints reigning with Christ? Did you know that there are four hermeneutical approaches to the book of Daniel and Revelation?
These and many more questions are dealt with by four authors as they present the four views on the millennium. Each view is then critiqued by the other three authors.
$9.95 — ORDER NOW!
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