Global Awakening Summary

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Mark Shaw is an American author who presently serves as the director of World Christianity Program at the African International University in Nairobi, Kenya as well teaching there and writing. His book Global Awakening: How 20th-Century Revivals a Christian Revolution, provides evangelical Christians with an insight into revivals in the twentieth century.
The purpose of this review is to show that Mark Shaw’s book supports the theory that although Christianity was still expected to die out due to secularism, evangelical revivals did help to explain and describe the explosion of during the 20th century, especially in the non-Western or more specifically the Global South world. Shaw also attempts to show that Christianity has made …show more content…

Shaw begins his argument with overviews of revivals in Korea and Africa which are displays of his knowledge and competence of the subject (p. 52, 64). Shaw then continues his overview describing a revival that took place in 1930 in India and then Uganda. These two revivals help support Shaw’s argument about growth in conservative churches by providing support that “conservative churches tend to grow over time because they offer more and can therefore demand more of their members” (p. 110). Moving on, Shaw then reviews the revivals in America that highlighted the crusades by Billy Graham. Shaw’s stories of Graham’s revivals showed how the evangelist’s crusades provided the foundation for the 20th century American Christianity. Shaw took this opportunity to issue a challenge to the American people to remain humble and to foster a healthy attitude about their own Christianity as well as the global church. Shaw also explored how the Lausanne Movement that Billy Graham initiated in 1974 influenced American evangelism. (www.lausanne.org). From there Shaw went on to explore the revivals in Brazil and especially how Protestantism and Catholicism clashed. In Brazil there had to be a time that concentrated on unity, because of the spiritual landscape founded by Catholicism which was predominate and still has a strong …show more content…

While Shaw does support his thesis in the book, if he would have provided a more few more chapters that were devoted to the many other 20th century revivals that took place, they would have provided even more strength to his thesis. The book while it is interesting and provides plenty for Christian’s to think on is not an easy book to read. It provides a wealth of information that is detailed and requires a great deal of thought in order to be properly digested. This book would be helpful to pastors and professors because it would be inspirational as well as provide useful

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