T.W. Hunt quoted on the Link between Music and Revival

One of my favorite internet hobbies is reading blogs. Paul Burleson is a retired pastor and the father of Wade Burleson (whose blog I read almost everyday at http://kerussocharis.blogspot.com). Bro. Burleson recently had this blog entry and it caught my attention because it was about T. W. Hunt (author of The Mind of Christ and a man I highly respect in the Southern Baptist Convention). Here is what he wrote (the following is his quote to the end):

“The reason I know T.W. and Laverne is because I was privileged to be their pastor for several years of his tenure as a Professor at SWBTS when they were members of and I was Pastor of the Southcliff Baptist Church in Ft. Worth. ...

The purpose of my dropping T.W.'s name today is to give a final small follow-up on the post addressing worship. … it has to do with a morning I sat with T.W. in a Dairy Queen in Ft. Worth. He and I were eating ice-cream and talking. Before long I was writing on a napkin. It usually wound up that way. Something he would be saying was always of the nature that I must not forget it. So....write it down I did.

T.W. said that he was a student of revival. He had, in fact, studied every known revival in history, beginning with the Old Testament events and right through Acts and into the Awakenings to the "Charismatic revival, as it was being called, of that day in which we were living and conversing.

T.W. said that every genuine move of God that he had studied had produced it's own music. The new music of those moves of God were new, not just in lyrics, but in meter, rhythm, notations, and a whole bunch of other stuff that didn't then and doesn't now mean much to me. But I kept listening.

He said that those involved in the revival usually wrote and produced this "new music". His example was Charles and John Wesley. He reminded me of the many songs written by the Wesleys during that Great Awakening of which they were such a major part. "The Church's One Foundation" was one of those.

T.W. said there were several odd things about the music being produced during each revival. For one thing, it was not only different, it was rejected by the religious establishment. Wesley sang his songs with the crowds on hillsides but was not permitted to do so in the churches. He was shunned.

Then, he said, after a while, the religious powers that were, gradually accepted the music by now being sung by the masses. Finally, that music was "the music" and was until another revival came along producing it's own music which was rejected as ungodly by those singing "The Church's One Foundation" and not permitted in the churches. So, again, the masses had to sing in isolation from the religious establishment. You see the pattern I'm sure.

That's why, according to T.W. Hunt, the Charismatic movement was, while not agreeing with it's theological excesses at all, a real movement of God, in his opinion. The music evidenced it.

I think time has shown the validity of that view of the history of revival. Look at the music we're singing now. I wonder where revival will happen next? I know it will have it's own music. I know some won't like it. For a while anyway.”