The churches that seem to be the strongest often have many members who have worked through earlier deceptions about their conversion to arrive at a solid assurance with God. The probing was occasioned by learning that spiritual life in the individual produces noticeable change. The exploration into whether or not they actually have spiritual life altered everything.

In the early 1700s, between 75 and 80 percent of American people attended church meetings regularly. Yet huge numbers among them were unconverted. It was among these people that Awakening doctrines had their greatest effects. In other words, wherever people gathered, within or outside the colonial church buildings, the principle leaders were addressing church members who needed Christ.
What truth, among the many emphasized, had the greatest influence on unconverted church members in The Great Awakening? And who are the unconverted church members in our context who may also need this truth?
The Great Awakening’s Emphasis on Regeneration
When George Whitefield was asked why he so often preached, “Ye must be born again,” he replied, “Because ye must be born again!”
Regeneration, or the new birth, was the prevalent issue of the Great Awakening of the 1740s. As Joseph Tracey said:
This doctrine of the “new birth,” as an ascertainable change, was not generally prevalent in any communion when the revival commenced; it was urged as of fundamental importance, by the leading promoters of the revival; it took strong hold of those whom the revival affected; it naturally led to such questions as the revival brought up and caused to be discussed; its perversions naturally grew into, or associated with, such errors as the revival promoted; it was adapted to provoke such opposition, and in such quarters, as the revival provoked; and its caricatures would furnish such pictures of the revival, as oppressors drew. This was evidently the right key; for it fitted all the wards of the complicated lock.[1]
This doctrine has repeatedly been at the heart of awakenings.
By “regeneration,” we mean the giving of life to dead souls as a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. Berkhof says it is “that act of God by which the principle of the new life is implanted in man, and the governing disposition of the soul is made holy…and the first holy exercise of this new disposition is secured.”[2] The Lord lived and died for his own, and as King, gifts our dead souls with new life resulting in sight, belief, repentance, and holiness.
J.C. Ryle said in so many words that the awakening preachers of that time believed in an indivisible union between authentic faith and holiness. He writes, “They never allowed for a moment that any church membership or religious profession was the least proof of a man being a Christian if he lived an ungodly life.”[3]
The attention to this truth, fed by their earlier Puritan theology, brought great conviction and massive numbers of conversions when preached and taught with the unction of the Spirit in times of revival. Where it did not bring conviction, it brought anger. Whitefield, who himself was written against in over 240 tracts of various types,[4] said that when you heard middle colonies’ preacher Gilbert Tennent (and his brothers) you were either converted or enraged. According to Gillies’ quoting of Prince in Historical Collections of Accounts of Revival, Tennent is said to have preached in this way:
Such were the convictions wrought in many hundreds in this town by Mr. Tennent’s searching ministry; and such was the case of those many scores of several other congregations as well as mine, who came to me and others for direction under them. And indeed, by all their converse I found, it was not so much the terror as the searching nature of his ministry that was the principal means of their conviction. It was not merely, nor so much, his laying open the terrors of the law and wrath of God, or damnation of hell (for this they could pretty well bear, as long as they hoped these belonged not to them, or they could easily avoid them), as his laying open their many vain and secret shifts and refuges, counterfeit resemblance’s of grace, delusive and damning hopes, their utter impotence, and impending danger of destruction; whereby they found all their hopes and refuges of lies to fail them, and themselves exposed to eternal ruin, unable to help themselves, and in a lost condition. This searching preaching was both the suitable and principal means of their conviction.[5]
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Dawkins’ conundrum, of course, is that all the nice culturally Christian things he enjoys have been brought to him courtesy of “bad” Christians—those dreaded orthodox types who actually took the Bible seriously when it said, for instance, that man is made in the image of God. Dawkins likes the idea of human rights, but he has also decried “speciesism,” which leads him to conclude some humans (like the unborn or the mentally disabled) have fewer rights than others. But why stop there? Why assume Richard Dawkins has any rights?

Breaking news: Area Englishman announces he enjoys eating but is still glad that all the farms and gardens are dying. Oh wait, actually it’s Richard Dawkins, explaining that he considers himself a “cultural Christian,” even though he’s glad that fewer and fewer Westerners consider themselves “believing Christians.” In the full interview, he expresses shock and dismay at the display of a Ramadan message at the terminus in London’s King’s Cross station. Christianity as a belief system may still be “all nonsense,” but if it’s between a Muslim culture and a Christian culture, Dawkins says he will vote “team Christian” every time.
This isn’t exactly a new sentiment for the former New Atheist rock star. Some of us remember the small tweetstorm he impishly ignited back in 2018, when he said he much preferred the lovely bells of Winchester Cathedral to the “aggressive-sounding” cry of “Allahu Akbar!” His love for the King James Bible is also well known—though he once urged his atheist friends to make sure “religion” isn’t allowed to “hijack” that great “cultural resource.” One wonders exactly what kind of “resource” Dawkins thinks the Bible is. A collection of aphorisms? Ten rules for life? The best fairy tales ever? 
Whatever it is, Dawkins thinks it’s sort of, well, nice, and he thinks Christianity is “a fundamentally decent religion” by comparison with Islam.
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Christians have good reasons to insist on addressing God as Father, especially in the liturgy, where the Christian story is reenacted. Father is not a culturally conditioned term but the proper name of God given by divine revelation. It is how God is primarily identified or named in relation to his Son. At stake is the Trinitarian identity, which inevitably affects the church’s identity. Playing the inclusive language game has a high theological cost that far outweighs any gains.

Do we need to remake God to keep the trans activists happy?
Here is a truth you can take to the bank: every stupid and idiotic idea, trend, fashion and ideology that the world is pushing will eventually find its way into the Christian church. Happens all the time. Take the issue of human sexuality: if easy divorce is pushed in the world, the churches will soon buy into it.
If homosexuality is pushed big time in the world, sure enough, plenty of churches will soon push it big time as well. If the radical trans agenda is being championed all over the West, then you know Western churches will hop on board as well. Instead of the church leading the world, it merely slavishly follows the world.
So it is no surprise that so many “churches” and so many “Christian leaders” are now fully into things like trans activism. And it is always the same old lame excuse: ‘Well, we have trans people in our congregations and we must support them and affirm them and celebrate them. We dare not call out their lifestyle – that would be unloving. Jesus accepts them just as they are, and so should we.’
Thus it was only a matter of time before major church bodies started saying we must be inclusive and accepting of such folks, and if need be, we must change our millennia-old theology to accommodate them. So we now must ask if God is a he or a she – or something else.
Of course this discussion has been around for a while. As feminism came to the fore in the West, the churches bent over backwards to accommodate, so they too asked about God and gender. But with the trans revolution sweeping the West and so much of the church, that debate has been reignited.
We are again having church enquiries about if the Christian God is inclusive enough, or if we need to change things to make people feel more comfortable. To be “compassionate” we need to push for gender-neutral language and the like. Many churches are now heading in this direction, including the Church of England. Consider one recent news item on this:
The Church of England is considering alternatives to referring to God as “he” after priests asked to be allowed to use gender-neutral terms instead. The Church said it would launch a new project on the matter in the spring to decide whether to propose changes or not. Any potential alterations, which would mark a departure from traditional Jewish and Christian teachings dating back millennia, would have to be approved by synod, the Church’s decision-making body.
The Rt Rev Dr Michael Ipgrave, Bishop of Lichfield and vice-chair of the liturgical commission responsible for the matter, said the Church had been “exploring the use of gendered language in relation to God for several years”. “After some dialogue between the two Commissions in this area, a new joint project on gendered language will begin this spring,” he said. “In common with other potential changes to authorised liturgical provision, changing the wording and number of authorised forms of absolution would require a full Synodical process for approval.”
The specifics of the project are as yet unclear. The bishop’s comments came in response to a question asked at synod by the Rev Joanna Stobart, vicar of Ilminster and Whitelackington in Somerset, about the progress on developing “more inclusive language” in services.
It is currently unclear what would replace the term Our Father in the Lord’s Prayer, the central Christian prayer which Jesus Christ is said to have instructed his followers to say together down the generations. Conservative critics have hit back at the possibility of changes, with the Rev Dr Ian Paul telling the Telegraph that they would represent an abandonment of the Church’s own doctrine. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/church-of-england-god-gender-neutral-b2277911.html
As mentioned, this idea of reassessing who God is in regards to the issue of gender has been around for a while, so I have dealt with it before. Eight years ago for example I wrote a piece on this very matter, with a female bishop – also from the CofE – raising the matter: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2015/10/29/god-and-gender/
What I said there in response to her remarks seems to be fully relevant to the current form of the debate, so instead of reinventing the wheel, I will simply post here part of what I wrote back in 2015. All that follows here is from that earlier piece:
The short answer is that God is not gendered, nor a sexual being. God is a spirit, as we are told by Jesus himself in John 4:24: “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” Divine beings are not male nor female. But, God is also a personal being. God is not a human being, but is nonetheless personal.
God is an individual being, with a self-consciousness, volition, a mind, the ability to feel, and the ability to enter into personal relationships with others. He is not just an object or a force. And in the Trinity we have three persons. The emphasis is on social relationships. God has relationships among himself, and we can have a personal relationship with God.
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