Brownsville Revival
Encyclopedia
The Brownsville Revival was a widely-reported religious phenomenon that began within the Pentecostal movement on Father's Day
June 18, 1995 at Brownsville Assembly of God
in Pensacola, Florida
. Characteristics of the Brownsville Revival movement, as with other Christian
religious revivals
, included acts of repentance
by parishioners and a call to holiness
, said to be inspired by the manifestation of the Holy Spirit
. Some of the occurrences in this revival fit the description of moments of religious ecstasy
. More than four million people are reported to have attended the meetings from its beginnings in 1995 to around 2000.
, John Kilpatrick, began directing his congregation to pray for revival. Supporters of the revival would also cite prophecies by Dr. David Yonggi Cho
, pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church
, as evidence that the revival was inspired by God
. According to Cho, God told him he was "going to send revival to the seaside city of Pensacola, and it will spread like a fire until all of America has been consumed by it."
On the Sunday the revival began, evangelist
Steve Hill was the guest speaker, having been invited by Kilpatrick. A video of the Father's Day service shows that the Father's Day service went rather badly for Hill. However, he and Kilpatrick spread stories of "a mighty wind" that blew through the church. This account rapidly spread across the Pentecostal community, but gained little attention in the mainstream media until the Associated Press
wrote about it in March 1997. In truth, Kilpatrick had been talking "revival" for several months and had gotten word that Hill wanted to lead a big revival. As word spread of what was happening at Brownsville, Hill canceled all plans to go to Russia, and preached several revival services each week for the next five years.
It was claimed that hundreds of those who attended services that day were moved to renew their faith
during Hill's sermon. In time, the church opened its doors for Wednesday-through-Saturday evening revival services to accommodate the thousands of people who arrived and waited in the church parking lot before dawn for a chance to enter the packed sanctuary.
By 1997, it was common to have lengthy and rapturous periods of singing and dancing and altars packed with hundreds of writhing or dead-still bodies from a variety of ages, races and socioeconomic conditions. As the revival progressed the testimonies of people receiving salvation
were joined by claims of supernatural healings
. In Steve Hill's words, "We're seeing miraculous healings, cancerous tumors disappear and drug addicts immediately delivered." However, the church told local news reporters that it did not keep records of the healings. In 1997, leaders of the revival such as Hill, Kilpatrick, and Lindell Cooley (Brownsville's worship director), traveled to cities such as Anaheim, California
; Dallas, Texas
; St. Louis, Missouri
; Lake Charles, LA; Toledo, Ohio
; and Birmingham, Alabama
naming it "Awake America".
The primary part of the revival ended in 2000 when Hill moved on to pursue other works. In 2003, Hill founded a church in the Dallas area where he now serves as senior pastor. Cooley left in October of 2003. Kilpatrick resigned as senior pastor in 2003 to form an evangelistic association of his own. Until 2006, the church continued to hold special Friday-night services that were a continuation of the event.
. The Pensacola News Journal
ran a series of investigative articles which focused on the donations raised during the meetings and where those funds went, as well as the claims of miraculous healings at the services and the spontaneity of the revival's beginnings. For example, the News Journal revealed that a videotape of the Father's Day service that sparked the revival showed the service went rather badly for Hill.
The News Journal had initially written favorable reports about the revival from the time it started but began a four-month investigation after former members told reporters that all was not as it appeared at the church. The series won George Polk
awards from such groups as National Headliner, Scripps-Howard Foundation, and Society of Professional Journalists
. Brownsville Assembly of God answered the paper's allegations by publishing a two-page spread in the News Journal entitled, "The Facts of The Brownsville Revival".
Hank Hanegraaff, author of the book Counterfeit Revival
, criticized the revival for "serious distortions of biblical Christianity" in the meetings, comparing the physical manifestations to pagan practices.
Father's Day
Father's Day is a celebration honoring fathers and celebrating fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society. Many countries celebrate it on the third Sunday of June but it is also celebrated widely on other days...
June 18, 1995 at Brownsville Assembly of God
General Council of the Assemblies of God of the United States
The General Council of the Assemblies of God in the United States of America or Assemblies of God USA is a Pentecostal Christian denomination in the United States founded in 1914 during a meeting of Pentecostal ministers at Hot Springs, Arkansas. With a constituency of over 3 million, it was...
in Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...
. Characteristics of the Brownsville Revival movement, as with other Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
religious revivals
Revival meeting
A revival meeting is a series of Christian religious services held in order to inspire active members of a church body, to raise funds and to gain new converts...
, included acts of repentance
Repentance
Repentance is a change of thought to correct a wrong and gain forgiveness from a person who is wronged. In religious contexts it usually refers to confession to God, ceasing sin against God, and resolving to live according to religious law...
by parishioners and a call to holiness
Sacred
Holiness, or sanctity, is in general the state of being holy or sacred...
, said to be inspired by the manifestation of the Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
. Some of the occurrences in this revival fit the description of moments of religious ecstasy
Religious ecstasy
Religious ecstasy is an altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness which is frequently accompanied by visions and emotional/intuitive euphoria...
. More than four million people are reported to have attended the meetings from its beginnings in 1995 to around 2000.
Description
One writer offered this description of the revival in 1998:History
In 1993, two years before the revival began, Brownsville's pastorPastor
The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....
, John Kilpatrick, began directing his congregation to pray for revival. Supporters of the revival would also cite prophecies by Dr. David Yonggi Cho
David Yonggi Cho
David Yonggi Cho is a Korean Christian minister. He is Senior Pastor and founder of the Yoido Full Gospel Church , the world's largest congregation with a membership of 1,000,000...
, pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church
Yoido Full Gospel Church
Yoido Full Gospel Church is a Pentecostal church on Yeouido in Seoul, South Korea. With about 1,000,000 members , it is the largest Pentecostal Christian congregation in South Korea, and the world...
, as evidence that the revival was inspired by God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. According to Cho, God told him he was "going to send revival to the seaside city of Pensacola, and it will spread like a fire until all of America has been consumed by it."
On the Sunday the revival began, evangelist
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
Steve Hill was the guest speaker, having been invited by Kilpatrick. A video of the Father's Day service shows that the Father's Day service went rather badly for Hill. However, he and Kilpatrick spread stories of "a mighty wind" that blew through the church. This account rapidly spread across the Pentecostal community, but gained little attention in the mainstream media until the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
wrote about it in March 1997. In truth, Kilpatrick had been talking "revival" for several months and had gotten word that Hill wanted to lead a big revival. As word spread of what was happening at Brownsville, Hill canceled all plans to go to Russia, and preached several revival services each week for the next five years.
It was claimed that hundreds of those who attended services that day were moved to renew their faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
during Hill's sermon. In time, the church opened its doors for Wednesday-through-Saturday evening revival services to accommodate the thousands of people who arrived and waited in the church parking lot before dawn for a chance to enter the packed sanctuary.
By 1997, it was common to have lengthy and rapturous periods of singing and dancing and altars packed with hundreds of writhing or dead-still bodies from a variety of ages, races and socioeconomic conditions. As the revival progressed the testimonies of people receiving salvation
Salvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...
were joined by claims of supernatural healings
Faith healing
Faith healing is healing through spiritual means. The healing of a person is brought about by religious faith through prayer and/or rituals that, according to adherents, stimulate a divine presence and power toward correcting disease and disability. Belief in divine intervention in illness or...
. In Steve Hill's words, "We're seeing miraculous healings, cancerous tumors disappear and drug addicts immediately delivered." However, the church told local news reporters that it did not keep records of the healings. In 1997, leaders of the revival such as Hill, Kilpatrick, and Lindell Cooley (Brownsville's worship director), traveled to cities such as Anaheim, California
Anaheim, California
Anaheim is a city in Orange County, California. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was about 365,463, making it the most populated city in Orange County, the 10th most-populated city in California, and ranked 54th in the United States...
; Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
; St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
; Lake Charles, LA; Toledo, Ohio
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...
; and Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
naming it "Awake America".
The primary part of the revival ended in 2000 when Hill moved on to pursue other works. In 2003, Hill founded a church in the Dallas area where he now serves as senior pastor. Cooley left in October of 2003. Kilpatrick resigned as senior pastor in 2003 to form an evangelistic association of his own. Until 2006, the church continued to hold special Friday-night services that were a continuation of the event.
Aftermath
During the revival, nearly 200,000 people claimed they gave their lives to Jesus, and by fall 2000 more than 1,000 people who experienced the revival were taking classes at the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry. Thousands of pastors visited Brownsville and returned to their home congregations, leading to an outbreak of mini-revivals that helped the Assemblies of God recover from what some saw as a denominational decline.Criticism
The meetings were criticized by some Christians and by the local news mediaNews media
The news media are those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public.These include print media , broadcast news , and more recently the Internet .-Etymology:A medium is a carrier of something...
. The Pensacola News Journal
Pensacola News Journal
The Pensacola News Journal is a daily morning newspaper serving Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in Florida. It is Northwest Florida's most widely-read daily....
ran a series of investigative articles which focused on the donations raised during the meetings and where those funds went, as well as the claims of miraculous healings at the services and the spontaneity of the revival's beginnings. For example, the News Journal revealed that a videotape of the Father's Day service that sparked the revival showed the service went rather badly for Hill.
The News Journal had initially written favorable reports about the revival from the time it started but began a four-month investigation after former members told reporters that all was not as it appeared at the church. The series won George Polk
George Polk
George Polk was an American journalist for CBS who disappeared in Greece and was found dead a few days later on Sunday May 16, 1948, shot at point-blank range in the back of the head, and with hands and feet tied. Polk was covering the civil war in Greece between the right wing government and...
awards from such groups as National Headliner, Scripps-Howard Foundation, and Society of Professional Journalists
Society of Professional Journalists
The Society of Professional Journalists , formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, is one of the oldest organizations representing journalists in the United States. It was established in April 1909 at DePauw University, and its charter was designed by William Meharry Glenn. The ten founding members of...
. Brownsville Assembly of God answered the paper's allegations by publishing a two-page spread in the News Journal entitled, "The Facts of The Brownsville Revival".
Hank Hanegraaff, author of the book Counterfeit Revival
Counterfeit Revival
Counterfeit Revival is a book by Hank Hanegraaff critical of many aspects of the modern charismatic and Third Wave movements in Evangelical Christianity.-Overview:...
, criticized the revival for "serious distortions of biblical Christianity" in the meetings, comparing the physical manifestations to pagan practices.