Tent revival

A tent revival is a gathering of Christian worshipers into a large makeshift tent erected specifically for revival meetings, healing crusades and church rallies.

It is a development of the old camp meetings in which religious people gathered to hear a preacher. Tent revivals are still active today in many modern countries (for example, in the American South) but are very popular in Africa, where some churches have permanent tents erected. In the United States tent revivals ranged from small local based tents holding perhaps a hundred to large organizations operating throughout the Continental equipped with a fleet of trucks and tents capable of holding thousands of people.

Historically, in the United States most tent revivals were held by Pentecostal or Holiness Christians who were not only evangelical but believed in speaking in tongues (glossolalia), healing, and in some cases even the resurrection of the dead. As radio and television began to play an increasingly important part in American culture some preachers such as Oral Roberts, a very successful tent revivalist, made the transition to radio and television. Such pioneers were the early televangelist.

References

Can Somebody Shout Amen! Inside the Tents and Tabernacles of American Revivalists, by Patsy Sims, published by St. Martin's Press, 1988.

Cultural representations

• Elmer Gantry, a novel by Sinclair Lewis
• Resurrection, a film with Ellen Burstyn and Sam Shepard