Thousands in New England Answer Evangelicals’ ‘Call’

It’s not every day that Boston subway riders exit the Government Center station and find crowds on their knees, pressing their faces into the asphalt, begging for God’s forgiveness.

But these are not ordinary times in Boston. And evangelicals see an opportunity for revival.

About 15,000 ignored warnings of a potential terrorist strike on Boston last week and packed City Hall Plaza with pleas for a Third Great Awakening to begin here.

The event, known as The Call New England, had been planned for months, but it took on an air of urgency after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and recent widespread calls for repentance.

“Now we’re in the crisis of a ‘Joel 2 moment,’ ” said organizer Lou Engle, a Los Angeles pastor, referring to the biblical prophet. In the second chapter of the book of Joel, Engle said, “the Earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble. . . . ‘Yet even now,’ says the Lord, ‘re .turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning.’ ”

Engle, 48, and co-founder Che Ahn launched The Call DC last year on the Mall in Washington and plan another Call event for June 22 in New York City.

From all six New England states, evangelicals flocked to a downtown spot better known for progressive political rallies and free folk concerts than for gnashing of teeth. But Joel’s call seemed to carry the day this time.

Janet Aldrich, 58, of Amesbury, Mass., for instance, poured olive oil on an American flag in a sign of anointing, then covered her face and prayed on her knees beside a handmade sign: “Pray for an Ezra Fast.”

With hopes of sparking a nationwide revival, organizers admitted that turnout would have been stronger at a Bible Belt location than in Boston. But they insisted on the Massachusetts capital because some of the nation’s earliest roots are here and because, they said, God always seems to start America’s revivals here.

“We remember how you raised up Jonathan Edwards, Lord!” cried one of many anonymous preachers who recalled the First and Second Great Awakenings. “We remember how you raised up George Whitefield and Charles Finney! You’ve done it here before, Lord! Do it here again!”

In the 1730s and 1740s, religious fervor soared in New England in response to dramatic sermons from itinerant British preacher Whitefield and others. Once again, from 1790 to 1810, the region exploded with Christian zeal--in what later became known as the Second Great Awakening.

Since then, New England has gained infamy among evangelicals as fallow, secular ground for spiritual harvest. But last weekend they prayed that God’s grace--coupled with a $750,000 investment in a 12-hour, multimedia event--would turn the region around.

“I feel the anointing of prayer! Let’s continue,” cried a preacher as pulsing music crescendoed. “It’s turning! The nation is turning! It’s turning in the heavens as we cry out on the Earth!”

For Joanne Gagne, 37, of West Haven, Conn., turning toward God had been a back-burner priority for a long time. But after the terrorist attacks, she resolved to make changes and confirmed that commitment in Boston.

“It’s a feeling that’s been coming to me all year, but it’s become more urgent since the [attacks],” Gagne said. “It’s been the national wake-up call for us to stop saying, ‘I’ve got to do it,’ and just do it.”

Gagne said she repented for lethargy in her prayer and Bible reading. She resolved in City Hall Plaza to start getting up at 5:30 a.m. instead of her usual 6:30 in order to read Scripture and pray.

Organizer Paul Taylor said the whole church would be repenting for “our lukewarmness, for not standing up for truth and for a lack of love” toward, for instance, AIDS patients and battered women.