The Shantung Revival

News Photo from Shantung, showing starving children during the 1928-1930 Northwest China famine precipitated by drought, general crop failure in the Wei River Valley, military conflict between war lords and Marshall Chiang Kai-Shek (the "Rape of Nanking" was in 1927), and the forced conversion of cultivable land to Opium poppy production.

Girl children were sold into concubinage and boys abandoned. The middle boy has cleft lip and palate.

More than 6 million Chinese became refugees and possibly 3 million died of starvation.

American missionaries in Manchuria and Northwest China were transferred to the port city of Chefoo for possible evacuation.

In 1929, the Chinese-Foreign Famine Relief Committee distributed $382,000 (> $5,000,000 today) to fund relief work from Gansu to Jiangsu.

Then revival began with a prayer meeting and the simple question “Have you been born again?”

Chapters 1 & 2 of Mary Crawford’s “The Shantung Revival”, written in 1933

http://www.revival-library.org/index.php/catalogues-menu/20th-century/the-shantung-revival

The greatest revival in the history of Southern Baptists in North China is now being experienced in many Chinese churches of our North China Mission. This has come as a result of EARNEST PRAYER, FAITH IN GOD, BIBLE TEACHING, and MUCH PREACHING on sin and kindred subjects. Numbers of Christians and churches are being revived; restitution of money is being made; tithes of the Lord held back are being brought forward; sins confessed to God and to those who have been wronged; sick are being healed; devils cast out; men and women, boys and girls are preaching with a power hitherto not known; hundreds are crying for mercy and are being saved. The devil is also at work, but there is great blessing and rejoicing in many places. Missionaries and Christians are marvelling at the wonderful works of God.

During a quiet series of meetings held in Tsinan, the capital of Shantung, people were led to examine their hearts, for the searching message of the leader was: “Are you saved; have you been born again?” This simple question, asked publicly and privately throughout North China and Manchuria, has put many to thinking. Church members apparently unsaved — and leaders among them — confessed their sins, and were marvellously saved.

Joy following the forgiveness of sins, love for Christ and concern for the lost took possession of the saved, and has spread like fire there and elsewhere in that region.

John Abernathy, written about 1965

https://www.reynoldsarchives.com/shantung_revival.htm

A deep hunger for God and power to witness more effec­tively to the lost multitudes around, came to the missionaries first and then to the Chinese Chris­tians. Our eyes were opened to our spiritual poverty, the lack of power in our own lives and the coldness of the churches. God poured upon the leaders and the churches the spirit of grace and supplication. There was a thirst after God such as we have never known before.

From September, 1930 to June, 1932 twenty-four missionaries received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Others had similar experiences as revival continued through the years.

PLEASE READ Dr. Charles L. Culpepper’s supplement to Crawford’s account, written in 1968

https://www.gospeltruth.net/shantung.htm

Dr. Culpepper’s recorded narrative

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=d-bHMpryoZo&feature=emb_logo

During those days we missionaries observed many supernatural things, but the change in the lives of sinful men remained for us the greatest miracle of all.

The proof of the reality of the revival was seen in transformed lives, as persons were being saved continually through the spontaneous testimony of those who received salvation from Christ's atoning death on the cross.

In the midst of riots, protests, and all the dissatisfaction produced by our complex society, my heart often returns to Shantung. My soul is renewed as I recapture the aura of spiritual ecstasy which epitomized that era in my life. Then the reflective glow fades away, and I find myself in the midst of a land, my land, which needs a second touch for its impotent churches hobbled with their lack of spiritual power.

Unless a great spiritual awakening overtakes our churches, there is little hope for our nation. Such a renewal need not take the exact form of the Shantung Revival. But all the revivals recorded in Holy Writ followed a general pattern:

First there was a degeneration of spiritual power among God's people.

Then came the realization of desperate need.

Deep conviction of sin and agonizing prayer always followed.

A final action required turning away from all wickedness and worldliness.

That's the way it happened in Shantung when God kept His covenant with His people (2 Chronicles 7:14).

He is waiting for us to let Him do it again in America.