Revival in America

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The Associated Press

CANE RIVER, N.C. | For six weeks, thousands of people have been coming to a river baptism in this tiny town near Asheville in search of healing and God in a world in a state of unrest and war, organizers say.

The Cane River Tent Revival started July 31 and was supposed to end two weeks later, but people - sometimes 4,000 a night - kept coming. They waded with purpose into the rain-chilled waters, meeting with the pastors who submerged and lifted them.

"I've had opportunities in the past to be involved in area-wide meetings," said the Rev. Ralph Sexton Jr. "But this exceeds all expectations."

On Sunday, Diana O'Shields of Burnsville chewed her nails while trying to contain her emotions. Dressed in a black pantsuit and pearl earrings, she wiped tears from her eyes and waved at loved ones along the riverbank.

She and her husband of 21 years, Jim, held hands, closed their eyes and mouths and briefly disappeared under the water.

"It's our baptism and wedding at the same time," she said, her dress soaked and her face salted with tears. "We weren't married in a church, so this is our marriage ceremony, too."

Dee-Dee Carver said she has been dealing with a rebellious son and her own shortcomings, and came to strengthen her Christian faith.

"I've been coming every night I can," the 51-year-old Madison County woman said. "I come here and feel that sweet, sweet spirit. I think it's God's way of saying, 'I still love you.'"

Sexton credits the large crowds to God and troubled times.

"In our communities, there seems to be a hunger to return to basic moral and faith values," he said. "We have an unsettled world. Every continent has a madman and every country is asking for peace and safety and we're finding none. ...

"This is my first cornfield revival and I hope it won't be my last."

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By Jody Brown
September 14, 2006

(AgapePress) - Does Christianity pose a threat in America? Apparently it depends on who you ask: President Bush ... or Rosie O'Donnell.

President Bush says he senses a religious revival that could be America's Third Great Awakening. In an interview with Associated Press, National Review editor Rich Lowry says the president shared that view with him and other conservative journalists at a White House meeting on Tuesday.

The nation's First and Second Great Awakenings -- generally considered to have occurred before the American Revolution (1730s-1770s) and the Civil War (early 1800s) -- resulted in widespread conversions, a revival of Christian fervor, and social reforms. Now here at the beginning of the 21st century, according to Lowry, the president said the frequency with which people tell him they are praying for him makes him think "there's a Third Awakening with a cultural change" taking place.

"It feels to him as though there is an up-tick in religiosity out there that possibly might qualify as the Third Awakening," Lowry shares with AP, "but he left it to the journalists in the room to investigate this further and see whether there's any merit in the idea -- but it's clearly something he's been thinking about."

The president, says Lowry, "wasn't making a big deal of this" but pointed out the number people on rope lines who tell him that they are praying for him. Bush shared that he did not have people along the rope line requesting things like a "new bridge, or how about some more highway money." But instead, "They're coming to say, 'I'm coming to tell you, Mr. President, I'm praying for you.' It's pretty remarkable," Bush said.

Adds Lowry: "He jokingly said maybe it's just the only people praying for me in America are the ones who come to my event and shake my hand at a rope line."

Still, the journalist says Bush rejected "moral relativism" and insisted that cultures can and do change. "He got into this idea of the Awakening by analogizing from the Middle East to our own culture," he says, "and he was pointing out [that] our own culture has changed." And while such change might take time, it sometimes can happen quite quickly, he adds. "[President Bush] pointed out ... how the culture from the 50s to the 60s changed quite rapidly," Lowry notes.

Slap at Christianity
Now, contrast that with comments on Tuesday by comedienne Rosie O'Donnell during ABC's The View, when fellow co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck -- one day after the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S. -- referred to the threat posed by radical Islam. To which O'Donnell responded:

"Just one second -- radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state."

O'Donnell's unprovoked slap at Christianity, which was met with applause by the studio audience, came on the heels of her opinion that on September 11, 2001, the United States was not attacked by a nation; yet "as a result of the attack and the killing of nearly 3,000 innocent people, we invaded two countries and killed innocent people in their countries."

Hasselbeck and the two other co-hosts -- Barbara Walters and Joy Behar -- appeared shocked by O'Donnell's comments labeling Christianity as a threat.

Tony Perkins, president of the