The little gems that can be found in a Doctoral dissertation can be fun. This is from “ THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ASBURY REVIVAL OF 1970 FOR SOME
ASPECTS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIVES OF THE PARTICIPANTS by
Phillip Bruce Collier,
May 1995”. You can read the whole dissertation here: https://core.ac.uk/reader/155802060
Here is the quote I’d love for you to consider, found on page 65:
Closing Remarks
The interest in the marriage of psychology and evangelical theology in the 1970 ‘s, and also of evangelical theology and politics in the 1980 ‘s, has given birth to a more activistic evangelicalism. For all that has been accomplished through such activism, sin and moral decline are still rampant.
Truth has been used as a mighty weapon, but truth alone has failed to change hearts. A fresh examination of the Asbury Revival of 1970 reminds us that truth without prayer places too much dependence on humans for social transformation.
In this post-modern era, when truth is not highly regarded or is relativized, and when there is a new openness to the spiritual world, perhaps an experience of the manifest presence of God is the only way of convincing our society of the truth that will finally transform. May that transformation begin in the local church, with the individual .