Some Christians may be injudiciously cheering the fact that people are being revived from apathy or atheism into a religion that leads them to hell all the same. For that reason, I encourage Christians to exercise wisdom when it comes to identifying evidence of God’s work and wisdom when it comes to celebrating it.

We are hearing encouraging reports of a kind of quiet revival that is spreading throughout the West. There appears to be a small but noticeable interest in the Christian faith by groups that, until recently, had eschewed it. Some had knowingly rejected Christianity in favor of atheism or secularism while others had simply never heard its claims. Regardless, many churches are reporting the sudden presence of young people who are considering faith for the first time in their lives—the very young people who, until recently, were firmly within the camp of the “nones” (those who have no formal religious affiliation).

I have no reason to doubt this is true and, in fact, my own church has all kinds of members who, by rights, should have no interest in the Christian faith. Yet if there is one aspect of this quiet revival that concerns me, it is that many people are conflating an influx into Protestant churches and an influx into Catholic churches, as if both are a positive development. This concerns me because the Catholic Church proclaims a gospel that is not only different from a Protestant church but formally opposed to it. It’s possible that Satan may be staging a quiet revival of his own and in his typical devilish fashion, he is not only calling evil good but convincing others of it as well.

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