The Coming American Revival | Chris Widener

Transcript:

Rebecca Weber: Hello, I’m Rebecca Weber. Thank you for tuning in. Our nation, it stands at a defining moment, a crossroads where the decisions and actions of individuals will determine the direction of our future. I believe now more than ever, we’re called to step forward, to really rekindle the values and the principles that have shaped our great country, and to contribute to a revival.

That touches not only our society, but the soul of our nation. Joining us now to discuss all of this and the critical opportunities and challenges that we face here in America is Chris Widener. Now, Chris Widener is an acclaimed author. He’s a senior. speaker, an entrepreneur. He has inspired millions through his work in personal development and leadership.

Chris is also the author of multiple best selling books, one that I absolutely love. We’re going to talk a bit about this book today, including The Art of Influence and Leadership Rules, his latest release, The Coming American Revival, The Igniting a Nation’s Future. Now, with over two decades of experience, Chris has been a trusted advisor to so many leaders, executives and organizations worldwide.

He is a friend of AMAC’s. Chris, thank you for being here with me today.

Chris Widener: Rebecca, thanks so much for having me. Great to see you again.

Rebecca Weber: It’s terrific. And you know, Chris, I’ve heard so many thought leaders, especially over the last 18 months, talking about the need. For an American revival. And this is why I absolutely love your book.

Uh, but you provide so many good concrete ways that people can address Contemporary challenges that are impacting their personal lives. So, I, I want to talk about this book because this book is about that. What inspired you to write The Coming American Revival, the biblical blueprint for igniting a nation’s soul?

Uh, and why at this particular time in America’s history? And then maybe share a little bit about the book and the principles that you outline.

Chris Widener: Well, I wish I could tell you that the book was my idea, but it wasn’t. I was writing. I was writing my 25th book and I write short fictional stories is how that’s kind of the little niche that I have.

Most of my books are that way. And I was writing a book called the capitalist about a billionaire who hosts a family reunion at his estate in Jackson hole and his sister’s radical left wing daughter shows up. And the whole book is a discussion between those two about capitalism. In the middle of writing that book, God said, I’m changing your plan.

You’re going to write a book on revival. And I’m like, okay, I was a pastor for 14 years from 1988 until 2002. I dusted off my pastor’s hat and I started looking and I realized there’s not been a significantly widespread read book in America on revival since the 1950s, when Leonard Ravenhill wrote a book called why revival Terry’s, and there’s not been a widespread revival in America, there’s been little blips.

And there’s a lot of little blips and bubbles. Coming now, particularly on college campuses, but there’s not been a widespread revival in America since the early seventies with the Jesus people and the Calvary chapel movement. And, and some of those, and then I started studying the history of revivals, first grade awakening, second grade awakening, third grade awakening.

Azusa street revival and the Jesus people revival. They come about every 70 years, 50 to 70 years. So I thought, okay, great. So I started researching revival and, you know, my own ideas on revival and, and those kinds of things and wrote the book very quickly. My publisher said, this is perfect. Let’s get it out by election day.

So we, we went a route where it’s only available online. You can’t even get in bookstores because we typically a book. It takes 18 months and you, you got to get into the flow of how they get distributed through bookstores, but we’re on all the major, you know, online things, but that’s the way it came about.

God said, it’s time for a book on revival. And so I wrote it.

Rebecca Weber: You know, Chris, it seems that each year more and more Americans are turning away from God. And I see this playing out in our schools, in our institutions, uh, both on the state and national government. You know, we’re seeing a sick new ideology.

It’s promoted everywhere. It’s teaching youngsters that, you know, They may have been born in the wrong body. Men are competing against women in women’s only sports. Abortion is actually celebrated. Uh, euthanasia and assisted suicide is on the rise. More and more children are raised in single parent homes.

How did we get here? Because I’ll tell you, back in 2020, I felt like everyone Everything was upside down, and I scratched my head and said, How did we as an American people get here?

Chris Widener: Yeah, it’s really interesting. In 1999, Robert Bork wrote a book called Slouching Towards Gomorrah, and, and, and he was basically talking about the last 30 something years, and now it’s even more amazing 20 something years after that to see how true he was and how right he was.

He basically said that the left decided to In the sixties that they, the, the communist party said, how are we ever going to get in? We need to take over one of the major parties. They took over the democratic party and they began to try to take over the institutions of America. And this is what Bork lays out so well in his book.

And, uh, they decided we want to take over Hollywood. We want to take over music, movies. We want to take over education. We want to take overtake government. We want to, we want to take over all these kinds of things so that we can groom people to believe what we believe. And, and where that comes is 70 years ago, 80 years ago, certainly 200 years ago, a hundred years ago, everybody came from the same worldview.

The problem in America today is we have two opposing worldviews. Everybody used to belong to the Judeo Christian capitalistic worldview, even if they weren’t a Jewish person or a Christian, Thomas Jefferson was a deist, but he certainly held the Judeo Christian worldview of capitalism and, and, and all those kinds of things.

Now, with the rise of what the left chose to do by overtaking institutions and grooming people to believe they created a competitive worldview, which is the Marxist. Um, atheistic, uh, socialist, um, anti God worldview. And unfortunately they’ve, they’ve encroached so far that we are basically evenly split now.

And why we have so much division, we have two competitive worldviews that believe the opposite kinds of things. And each of the worldviews believes that they have a moral imperative. So a hundred years ago, you’d have two people from the same worldview, and they would argue about how to get things done, but they didn’t view the other person as evil.

Now, these competitive worldviews are so opposite of each other. And they, they view themselves as having this moral imperative that they don’t just say, I’m right. And you’re wrong. They say, I’m good. And you’re evil. And that’s why we’re, we’re never going to have unity in this country until we see a revival of Christianity and we see people switch from that anti God, God is dead, Marxist, uh, secular humanist worldview to a traditional Judeo Christian biblical worldview.

Rebecca Weber: Now, for a believer like me, that makes a heck of a lot of sense. I see the value and the importance and the absolute necessity, uh, to, to really dig into faith, what that means, your spirituality, and listening to God’s voice in your life. I’m a Christian woman, uh, for those people who are not believers, I think it’s, it’s, um, they reject it as being a crutch, Uh, a make believe fantasy, oh, if it makes you feel better, you can think that way, but you’re crazy.

Um, can you share, I think, how our founders faith in God actually helped inspire what was written in our founding documents? Because I’m looking for ways to To share with our listeners and our members how they can speak to their children, their grandchildren on the importance of, of, of faith and using the example of why we have a free America today because of our founders faith in faith.

Chris Widener: Yeah, I’ll start by saying this. I don’t know if you saw this, Rebecca, probably two months ago, Richard Dawkins, the famed atheist, they asked him, do you believe in Christianity? He said, no, of course, I don’t believe in Christianity. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in any of that. But I like the Christian worldview.

I like the christian way of living. I like and I think that’s a great place to start with people Right is that christianity works like I always tell people what do you not like about love your neighbor? Do not steal do not murder be patient with one another love one another bear with one another forgive one another the christian the the Christianity works.

And so this is what our founders knew. Our founders knew that if they laid out the values from the Bible, that it works. So if I’m talking to somebody who’s not necessarily Christian, of course, you always talk about the uniqueness of Christ because that’s really the pivotal decision making point for turning to faith is was Jesus real?

Was he raised from the dead? But I like to start by talking about values. So let’s take example, I’ll use kind of an extreme one. You know, let’s talk about pedophilia. Okay. The, the, the biblical worldview says pedophilia is wrong. The secular humanist Marxist worldview says they’re minor attracted persons.

You know, is it really that bad? And so you can talk about values, the values, right? I don’t believe that we should be, um, you know, doing genital mutilation. Do you believe in genital mutilation? Oh, of course. Genital mutilation? No, of course not. That’s the biblical worldview. The secular humanist humanist worldview is well, she’s seven and she says she’s a boy.

Let’s just do our thing, right? So I like to start with the values and that’s what our that’s what our founding fathers got, right? And that’s why you had some people who were uh christians and a kind of a broad perspective of christians You had some congregationalists and you had some, you know Some other different congregationalists were the primary ones at that point puritans those things Um, but then you had some deists and you had some atheists You But they believed in the, the values that came from the Bible, the biblical values of how we’re to treat one another.

Um, I think it’s called Blackstone’s Black, Blackstone’s, uh, book on law, which was took, took so much out of the Bible. Most of our laws were based on, on that old book and it came straight from the Bible.

Rebecca Weber: It is, it is just a great reminder. And, uh, I think that, that the greatest threat to Marxism, socialism, and, and atheism is the Christian Judeo values that our, our country was, was founded on because it, uh, it requires an individual commitment.

It requires us to look. at our own life, uh, not as a collective whole, but how we operate as individuals. And of course, Marxism wants to eliminate, uh, you know, the individual, uh, reduce the individual, uh, and empower, uh, you know, groups, uh, that really are competing. Uh, so I think it is, it is such a good point that you’re making here.

Um, I, I guess how, if you could expand a little bit, because you argue that. Returning to God’s foundational truths can transform the nation. So what are the practical implications, implications of this return in the areas of, say, education, governance, family life? What might we. See, uh, as a result of a national revival.

Chris Widener: Yeah. And in the book, I talk about personal revival, church revival, national revival. And then I have chapters on a bunch of different, you know, what would look, what would revival look like in the media? What would revival look like in schools? What would revival look like in your family? So let’s talk about that.

You gotta, and here’s the interesting about the word revival. It literally means to come to life again. So it’s not talking about conversion, but it’s talking about those in the church. And frankly. I believe that the reason we’re where we are now is because the church has become weak. We don’t preach the gospel.

We don’t preach the power of the gospel. Um, and, and therefore, you know, we look just like the world does most of the time, and it’s not compelling to the world around us. So. It’s about christians coming alive again and living out their faith. So let’s say you got it We’ll talk about marriage. How does revival help a marriage?

Well, you got a guy and he’s he’s a christian Yeah, I gave my life to the lord, uh at a retreat when I was in high school and he goes to church You know a couple times a month and he doesn’t tithe but he gives five percent and you know He’s just but he’s a christian guy, right goes to church as much as he can He tries not to cuss all those kinds of things, but he doesn’t have a vibrant faith So he doesn’t treat his wife very well Now he gets hit with revival.

He has a deep relationship with God. He starts studying the scriptures and it says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. Now he says, well, my faith is really important to me now. And one of the things God tells me to do is to Is to love my wife as, as Christ loved the church. How did Christ love the church?

He died for us. We’re willing to give up our life, both literally and figuratively for our wives. That’s how you revelation revolutionize a marriage. Bible also says in, in, in Ephesians that we fathers, uh, should not exasperate their children. Well, there’s just a lot of children and parents that fight a lot with all of a sudden the husband gets revived and he has a deep, meaningful relationship with Christ.

He begins to treat his children a different way with less harshness and that relationship grows. Let’s talk about the media. If there’s revival in the media, uh, all of a sudden they say, well, we can’t put that on TV. That’s, that’s, that’s terrible. I can’t be involved with a project like that. How do we revive business?

Well, all of a sudden the, the business people get saved and, or they get revived and they start studying the scriptures and they’re empowered by the Holy spirit. And all of a sudden they say, I have to be completely honest in my business dealings. I can’t, I can’t shade the truth anymore. I have to, so. We can set laws against things, but laws are never going to change personal behavior.

Revival will change personal behavior. A deep personal relationship with God will change personal behavior. So now you got personal behavior, which converts into a church filled with people who’ve been revived. Now the church experiences revival. Now you have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of churches experiencing revival and the nation Experiences revival and that’s really it all starts in the individual heart being revived which culminates in church and national revival

Rebecca Weber: Very good I wanted to ask you what biblical teachings you might want to share with our listeners or passages that you really think are Relevant to guiding both us as individuals and the nation as a whole Through its current challenges because I know for me You Um, the book, the Bible is, is everything and um, so, so we, we are not, many of us don’t read enough of what’s in the Bible.

Can you share some stories?

Chris Widener: Sure. I’ll share one passage. This was back during COVID when everybody was believing all the malarkey. Well, not everyone. There were some of us just going, this makes no sense whatsoever. Why do my, why does my really smart friend believe this? And I remember reaching out to a friend of mine and I said, how do these people believe this?

And he said, Thessalonians chapter two. Now I’d been a pastor for 14 years, but I still had to open my Bible and reread it. And in second Thessalonians chapter two, it is, I believe, um, probably the, the one chapter in the book that really just, I mean, there’s others, Daniel now in revelation, as we’re experiencing all the craziness.

But the, the, the chapter talks about the rise of lawlessness. The rise of the man of lawlessness and it ends by talking about the delusion that will come over people. And my friend said, Chris, it’s a delusion. And I just went, that’s the only thing that makes sense. So we, we have a whole half of our country is under a complete and total delusion.

They’ll believe anything. They they’re told they’ll watch a video and say, yeah, that didn’t happen. You know, I always use the one where Joe Biden talks about bribing the Ukrainians for a billion dollars, unless they

He admitted it. He admitted bribing another country with the U. S. Taxpayer money in order to fire the prosecutor who was looking into his son and people under a delusion. They just go. Oh, well, that’s no big deal. But the primary passage that I encourage people to look at in the book is a very familiar one to many people who are listening today.

It’s second Chronicles chapter seven, verse 14. And it’s what God told Solomon right after the dedication of the temple. And he said, And, and, and I want to draw a couple of conclusions here. He says, if my people who are called by my name, we’ll do four things. Number one, humble themselves. Number two, pray.

Number three, seek my face and number four, turn from their wicked ways. Then will I heal their land here from heaven and heal their land. So. I wanted to first say there’s, it’s an if then, if my people will do these things, then I will hear from heaven and heal their land and forgive their sins. Jump forward to Revelation chapter three.

There’s another passage cause that’s Old Testament, New Testament, very similar if then scenario. He says, uh, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone would open the door, then I will come in. And eat with him and he with me, it’s conditional. God always wants revival. God always wants his people to have a great deep relationship with him, but there’s an if and a then, because God cannot participate in sin, which is why you go back to that second Chronicles 7, 14, and he says, humble yourself, pray.

Seek my face, turn from your wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and heal your land. And so, when I look at what’s happening in America, I think this falls at the foot of the church. Somewhere along the line, we did not pass our faith along to our children. In fact, my theory is, is that when the greatest generation came out of World War II, we saw the greatest economic boom in, in, uh, American history, maybe even world history.

And I believe that a lot of Christians moved to the suburbs. They got into these big suburban churches and they kind of just took life easy. And the reason I say that is, is their children. Were in their early 20s to 30s during the 60s when the radical anti god movement happened That generation did not pass along their faith to their they basically became materialistic Christians still Christians But materialistic Christians and then it has gotten progressively worse every generation It seems like there’s fewer and fewer people going to church.

So the key to all of this is Christians humble yourself Pray, seek God’s face, and then lastly, turn from your wicked ways. If you take out Sunday morning and Wednesday night, and you look at the average Christian and the average non Christian, their lives look exactly the same. They watch the same TV, they go to the same movies, they drink the same amount of alcohol, they, you know, nothing wrong with watching TV, nothing wrong with going to the movie, nothing wrong with drinking, you know, a glass of wine or, you know, whatever, not going against those.

But we look just like the world. And we can’t look just like the world. In fact, we’re supposed to be set apart and sanctified and live differently so that people will see us and praise our father in heaven. So I really just, that’s why I think it’s so important for revival. The church needs to look differently.

We need to have a deeper, intimate relationship with Christ that other people look at us and say,

Rebecca Weber: Terrific message. I, I just, I really love it, you know, and for, for all of our listeners, for our Christian listeners as well, you know, we’re all sinners. Uh, every, there is no such thing as the perfect Christian. Uh, God loves all of us. God made all, but God does hate sin. So, uh, it’s never, there’s never a time in your life you’ve never done the perfect thing.

Too much bad to, to recognize, to dig deep and to listen to the, to the voice of God, because God is with us. Uh, I love that you’re reminding us 2nd Chronicles 7, 14, such an important verse, really inspires me and reminds me of the love that God has for us. And so quickly he can forgive. And, uh, in doing so, when we turn to God, suddenly our purpose is laid out and we live a purpose driven life.

So you’ve laid out so many good points here. Um, what, what would you like your, your readers to take away from the book? And then maybe we, you can just remind people listening, what small, actionable steps can they take in their daily lives? To contribute to that vision.

Chris Widener: Yeah. I, you know, I would say the first and foremost thing is don’t think about global revival, don’t think about national revival, don’t think about your, even your own church revival, go to God yourself.

And I would say something as simple as just started out with God. I’m tired of living the way I live. I want to live for you. I want to be a devoted Christian and I’m going to open myself to anything and everything you have for me. I want to give you lordship over my life. Teach me, show me, because the Holy Spirit, that’s the beautiful thing, right?

Rebecca, is that the Holy Spirit lives with us. When we become Christians, the Holy Spirit lives in us. When we We have to give him reign over our life. We have to give him the ability to convict us of our sins and those kinds of things. And so I would suggest, um, you know, go, maybe go to your pastor and say, you know what, I really want to be, uh, I want to have everything the Lord wants me to have.

I want to be as deep of a Christian as I can possibly be. I want to be yielded to him. You know, can you help me and give your pat that’s your pastor’s job right is shepherding the flock I would make sure that i’m reading the bible every single day And for somebody who says boy, where do I start? Pick up a daily devotional, go to, go to Amazon or wherever, wherever your bookstore you want to use and type in a daily devotional and you’ll find one.

They have one for, um, you could do women’s daily devotion. You do men’s daily devotion. You do couples daily devotional. My wife and I start every single day. We get up, we, we grab our coffee. We sit down, Denise reads one chapter of the Bible and I read along on my phone. And then I read, um, A couple pages, two, three pages from a book.

We do marriage books. We do financial books right now. We’re going through Stormy, Stormy O’Mardian has a short little ebook called a seven day prayer warrior, um, challenge or something like that. We’re reading through that. We’re on day two now. Um, and then we pray together. Takes us 20 minutes. It’s all it takes us 20 minutes, but that’s how we start our day If you don’t know where to start pick up a daily devotional and just start digging through it Giving yourself because most of us starve ourselves spiritually a daily devotional will at least give you a little bit Of a of a meal every single day that you can start nourishing yourself spiritually Um, I would say get involved with a community of faith whether it’s your church or it’s a small group bible study Because as iron sharpens iron So one man sharpens another, uh, wounds from a friend can be trusted as another one of my Proverbs.

You need some people that can speak into your life. I have men in my life that, I mean, there’s some people will, will say, Chris, you really blew it. And you’re this, that, and the other thing. I don’t listen to them, but I have some friends in my life. If they say, buddy, you’re messing up. I go, okay. I need to listen to this because they’re my friend and they love me and they’re telling me that because they want me to be a better man and a better husband and a better father, a better Christian, those kinds of things.

So get into a community of faith where you can share your faith. And then I would suggest, uh, serving find some way to serve. Find some group of people you can serve. It might be the poor, it might be children. It might be the elderly might be at a food bank, whatever you can is, is we are called to serve as Christians that Jesus said, son, a man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as ransom for the world.

The many, and we are to be Christ like, which means we’re supposed to serve. Service will strip you of your selfishness, right? You know, service will allow you to be compassionate and start igniting some of those fruits of the Holy Spirit in Galatians, you know, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

So you got to start eating food. You got to, you know, your spiritual food, you got to do it daily. You got to love, you got to serve. And then I would end with this. Apply whatever you’re, you’re, you’re reading, you know, uh, if, if God tells you to do something, do it. Don’t say, huh, you know, our faith isn’t a cerebral thing.

Oh, that’s very fascinating that I should love my neighbor or that I should forgive someone. No, you should go forgive someone. If someone has harmed you, or you have a broken relationship and you read something about forgiving. Pick up the phone and call them and seek reconciliation. That’s where the rubber hits the road.

It’s not cerebral anymore, it’s real.

Rebecca Weber: It’s putting words into action. And one other thing people can do Get your hands on this book, The Coming American Revival. It’s a beautiful book, a terrific book. And I’m just honored to have you here with me today. You have helped so many individuals. And again, this revival, it does begin with each and every one of us because we each hold that power to inspire change.

In other words, uh, no matter how small your actions are, uh, being kind to a neighbor, for example, standing firm for what’s right, being kind to a neighbor. You know, really investing in, in the next generation by spending more and more time with the young people and your children and grandchildren, every single effort contributes to a greater whole, uh, and Chris, I, I just want to end with this, what you’re saying resonates so, so well with me and gets me very, uh, hopeful, uh, but to everyone out there listening.

I’m telling you, it’s like unlocking, when you know, when we know, Chris, when you and I know that a relationship with God has done nothing but heap blessing upon blessing on our lives, how do we keep that secret from, from everyone else? You know, I want to share this message. So every Christian who cares about renewing faith in America should read this book.

It’s a great reminder that we must find our hope in God, turn our hearts and our minds back to God. Chris Widener, thank you so much for being here.

Chris Widener: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Rebecca Weber: Always fun. Look forward to having you back with me again and to all of you out there listening. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Be sure to renew or join with AMAC at amac. us. That’s it for today, everyone. Have a blessed day.