After the Presidential Debate Debacle, Who Will We Choose Now?

After the Presidential Debate Debacle,
Who Will We Choose Now?

Doubling the call for reintroducing the nation to

JESUS CHRIST for ALL he is as Lord of all!

David Bryant

Hours after what some have called a presidential “debacle” rather than a “debate” last week, I was reminded once again of these sobering reflections from syndicated Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr., regarding the condition of our nation. Though he wrote them a couple years ago, his profound concern echoes recent warnings from a host of leaders on the national stage.
This is a drifting, angry America that needs to find its way again . . . There is a sickness afoot in our country, my friends, a putrefaction of the soul, a rottenness in the spirit. Consider our politics. Consider the way we talk about one another—and to one another . . . Something is wrong with us. And I don’t mind telling you that I fear for my country (emphasis added).
After the debate last week, you may also be seeing the situation in our nation and feeling embarrassed and confounded in much the same way. I know I am.
Think about it. During the debate, was there any hopeful vision for America’s future shared with viewers? In what way did those 90 minutes provide any substantive, positive solutions to what produces the sicknesses in our nation’s soul?
Instead, one candidate bragged and blathered with misinformation and a litany of lies—which wittingly made the debate mostly about himself, not the ingredients in his hopeful vision for America’s future. However, the other candidate dithered and dabbled in disjointed phrases, diminished retorts, and his own misinformation—which unwittingly also made the debate mostly about himself, not about the ingredients in his hopeful vision for America’s future.
Therefore, many Americans that night were left yearning to find a better way out of our menacing, moral morass—something more reassuring than what either leader seemed capable of providing.
Like you, I deeply care about the wholeness and strength of America. I, too, want it to be “great”—but in Kingdom terms—great in God’s eyes. That’s what will bring health and healing, leading us into abounding hope for us and through us for the nations.
Instead of just wanting America to be “great again”—instead of simply longing to restore our land to some kind of past glory—I want to join those who are longing for an America that becomes greater than it has ever been!
What if the glory we need to experience were of a totally different nature, from a different realm, involving a different leader?
Could that glory become a far greater destiny for America and her people? Let’s talk about it.
Putrefaction vs. Stupefaction
Go back and reread Pitts’s remarks. What really caught my attention was one word Pitts uses: putrefaction. He speaks of the putrefaction of our nation’s soul. Lots of evidence of that surfaced last week in the debate, even though most commentators rated it a D minus.
The big reason this quote stopped me, however, is because I often use a similar sounding word when talking about what our relationship to God’s Son should look like. The word I use is not “putrefaction” but “stupefaction”—as in experiencing “stupefaction with Christ.”
The two words sound very similar but are virtually the opposite of each other.
On one hand, there’s the repulsiveness, deadliness, and hopelessness of putrefaction—which is decay that happens ultimately to everything outside of Christ. On the other hand, awesomeness, exhilaration, and fertileness define the impact on anyone blessed with true stupefaction with Christ because this means they are alive in Christ.
That brings me back to the columnist’s insight: These two words actually complement each other. They do so by clarifying what’s at stake for America in this defining hour.
That’s because the only hope for reversing the putrefaction of our nation, so visible all around us on nearly every front—political, social, cultural, racial, ethical, moral, spiritual—is for God’s people across this land to experience Spirit-infused stupefaction with the spectacular supremacy of God’s Son, individually and, more importantly, together—and then move out to bless the nation accordingly, in obedience to him.
The hour for such stupefaction is upon us. In truth, America has no other hope. Let me explain.
It’s What Many Have Been Seeking All Along
Fortunately, millions of Christians have been praying for nothing less than “stupefaction with Christ” for over three decades now—even if they have never heard the exact term—in an unprecedented prayer movement rising from within every stream of the Church, seeking God’s face for a national spiritual revival.
For example, this included hundreds of thousands of millennials who gathered not long ago on the Mall in Washington, D.C., to focus specifically on worship and prayer that welcomed the Lord Jesus (in their words) to “reset America” back to himself in every way—in other words, to stupefy us with himself. They firmly believe he has the capacity to do just that at this critical juncture.
Such a revolution is what I’ve been talking and writing about for twenty years—what I call a “Christ Awakening” movement, which I define like this:
When God’s Spirit uses God’s Word
to reintroduce God’s people to God’s Son
for ALL he is in his spectacular supremacy.
For many of us, that reintroduction will almost feel like reconversion because, in a sense, this fresh encounter will seem as if we are “meeting him again for the first time” (to borrow from the subtitle of my most recent book, Christ Is NOW!).
Without question, stupefaction with Christ happening among Christians—a full-on Christ Awakening—offers the one solitary remedy for the putrefaction of soul threatening the very future of our nation.
Let me explain why I believe this is so, what we should look for, and what difference it will make.
Being Stupefied as a Way of Life
Here are some synonyms for stupefied found in a thesaurus:
  • astonished; bewildered; astounded
  • flabbergasted; stunned; speechless
  • awe-inspired; totally shocked
Look at John’s experience in Revelation 1, face-to-face with Jesus in his ascended glory. At that moment, this faithful, sacrificial, fruitful disciple became so stupefied that he dropped to the ground like a dead man, flat on his face before the Jesus he knew and loved.
This kind of dramatic transaction is a frequent theme (and response) throughout the Scriptures.
Again and again, we see that this happens to believers any time the living God manifests himself to them more fully, in fresh and often unexpected ways. Recorded in Scripture are straightforward revelations of his presence—of his person and power and primacy—and how the saints react. For example:
  • When the Israelites recoiled, motionless, as Jehovah’s “Shekinah fire” filled Solomon’s newly dedicated temple (2 Chronicles 7)
  • When Isaiah surrendered himself unconditionally to the King of Glory as he saw him exalted like never before (Isaiah 6)
  • When on the first Easter two disciples had their hearts set on fire as the victorious Jesus ministered to them in his resurrection fullness (Luke 24)
  • When the early Church was so energized as the Spirit was poured out on them from Jesus, who was now enthroned, that they boldly turned their city upside down proclaiming the gospel (Acts 2-8)
  • When Paul was transformed from a persecutor into a preacher as a result of a single instant when the reigning Redeemer engulfed him in saving splendor on a Palestinian highway (Acts 9)
  • When a prayer meeting of Church leaders in Antioch was seized by Heaven and reconstituted in one day into a missionary sending base that changed the course of history (Acts 13)
All such stories can rightly be termed Christ Awakenings—foreshadowed in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. Directly or indirectly, all of them speak of seasons of stupefaction with the glory, power, and presence of the second person of the Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ. Such moments and even extended seasons are repeated throughout the history of the Church. New England Puritans, for instance, called their encounters with such divine episodes “the manifest presence of Christ.”
Here’s another example: In 1830, Dr. Ebenezer Porter, the president of one of the great seminaries of New England, was invited back as president emeritus to present a series of lectures on spiritual awakenings. He described what he had personally observed having ministered during a time historians call the “Second Great Awakening” in America.
Here’s one paragraph from this firsthand observer describing how and why a genuine, widespread Christ Awakening offers great hope for an entire nation after it impacts God’s people within that nation and then works through them to bring healing and salvation to the whole land. He said:
When the Redeemer comes in the triumphs of his grace to visit his churches, then his true followers are seen waking from their apathy [Note: Even true followers sometimes must be awakened!] and going forth to welcome the King of Zion with an energy and an earnestness and ardor of affection greatly surpassing their first love.
In other words, when Christ manifests himself to his followers in his spectacular supremacy, they rise and embrace him like never before, so overcome with him that they are ready to move outward with him in the advances of the Kingdom for their generation.
To say it another way: When Christians become freshly stupefied with Christ, it provides the world the ultimate antidote to being putrefied in soul.
Dr. J. Edwin Orr, one of my mentors years ago—who held three earned doctorates in the study of Christ Awakenings (one from UCLA in Los Angeles, one from Oxford University in England, and one from Serampore University in Calcutta)—authored several scholarly books on the subject. Professor Orr unquestionably understood what a Christ Awakening is all about and the unparalleled promises it holds for the people of America. In fact, he summarized his years of research into one paragraph, writing that a Christ Awakening is:
. . . a movement of the Holy Spirit bringing about a revival of New Testament Christianity in the Church of Christ and in its related community. The outpouring of Christ upon his people by his Spirit affects the reviving of the Church, the awakening of the masses, and the movement of instructed peoples toward the Christian faith; the revived Church by many or few is moved to engage in evangelism, in teaching, and in social action (emphasis added).
As I said above, when the greatest hallmark of Christians and churches is stupefaction with Christ—which is the outpouring of Christ upon his people by his Spirit—it provides the world the ultimate antidote to reverse the moral and spiritual putrefaction and instead bring purification of a nation’s soul.
Stupefaction with Christ and the Future of America
Bottom line, for America in this presidential election hour, this issue is evident above all others—including those raised in the debate last week:
In a time of putrefaction of soul in our nation, we can’t settle for simply securing the nation’s ongoing survival. The only long-term, hopeful prospect that matters for us now is to undergo a spiritual and moral revival—a Christward evolution that must begin inside the Church.
A host of God’s people must wake up to God’s Son in response to his arrival so they experience revival—which takes place as Jesus “shows up” and “shines forth” among us through his Spirit in whole new ways to stupefy us with crisp, powerful, transforming revelations of his worthiness, his wonders, and his work and ways initiated already in every corner of the land. All of this is laid out clearly in Scripture (foretold in the Old Testament, fulfilled in the New Testament).
Christ Awakenings: The stupefaction of believers that comes about when the Father pulls back the curtains before his children so we can focus on and draw upon the fullness of his Son, seeing him and trusting him from much loftier perspectives—from the Throne of Heaven where he reigns.
Christ Awakenings: The stupefaction that overtakes us when God ushers believers into worship, fellowship, discipleship, and mission that are saturated with the person and wonders of Christ, involving us in preliminary but substantial foretastes of all that awaits us when he returns in visible victory.
Christ Awakenings: The stupefaction that ushers in practical ramifications for the world around us as Christians become so thoroughly and graciously reconquered and restored by Jesus that they can now be redeployed. They can begin to share the gospel and the love of Christ from sea to shining sea—as the saving power and redeeming reign of God’s Son infiltrates and transforms every community, bringing every issue into:
the truth based on the lordship of Jesus,
the fullness of the risen life of Jesus,
the promises found in the Kingdom of Jesus,
the reconciling work of the cross of Jesus,
the ministries of the Spirit on behalf of Jesus,
the miracles that reveal more of the glory of Jesus,
the majesty seen in the everlasting supremacy of Jesus,
the justice and righteousness secured by the authority of Jesus,
a nation and world more and more renewed by the power of Jesus.
Until . . . stupefaction with Christ among believers begins to sharply contrast with the putrefaction of soul in our nation—and then proceeds to replace it.
Until . . . by God’s grace, in his timing, stupefaction with Christ forms the prevailing experience of our nation as a whole because stupefaction with Christ has become the way of life for the Body of Christ.
Right now, that’s precisely what’s at stake for America when many are saying, like Leonard Pitts, that they fear for our country.
Right now, stupefaction with Jesus is the only answer for the peril we find ourselves in as a nation.
Believe it! Seek it! Foster it! Prepare for it!
Then, enter into it! Live it! Spread it!
Increase YOUR Confidence in Jesus: Start Here
But you may ask: Are there truly solid reasons to expect such a Christ Awakening any time soon? Can I dare to hope for it with assurance that I will not be disappointed?
Yes, and yes! Here are three suggestions:
(1) Explore why many of us today believe a Christ Awakening is not far off and why we have no hesitancy   in saying so. Dip into my free ebook, Christ Is NOW! Begin by reading just the ten short “Meditations.”
(2) Then, view our video What Is a Christ Awakening?

(3) Finally, experience a fresh encounter with the living Savior as you enjoy 21 brief videos—one each day for the next 21 days: A 21-Day Video Journey Into More of Christ.


About the Author

Over the past 50 years, David Bryant has been defined by many as a “messenger of hope” and a “Christ proclaimer” to the Church throughout the world. Formerly a minister-at-large with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, president of Concerts of Prayer International (COPI), and chairman of America’s National Prayer Committee, David now provides leadership to ChristNow.com and Proclaim Hope!, whose mission is to foster and serve Christ Awakening movements. Download his widely read ebooks at ChristNow.com. Enjoy hundreds of podcast episodes. Watch his weekly vlogs at David Bryant REPORTS. Meet with David through Zoom or in-person events through David Bryant LIVE!

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