The Brownsville Assembly of God's "revival" continued long enough to attract national attention. We were still charismatics when it was in full bloom and our pastor and all the leaders went there "to get some and bring it home to our church." I've read that the "revival" is still going on, but most of the leaders associated with it in the beginning are no longer there and part of it.

The so-called "Pensacola outpouring" became a way to legitimize crazy, aberrant behavior (much like "deliverance ministry" does) and to even encourage it as evidence of receptivity to the Spirit. When you "have permission" to howl and bark and dance and shimmy and let yourself completely go emotionally, people who want or need attention will get it; others will get caught up in emotionalism, etc.

The Assemblies of God (the denomination to which Brownsville Assembly belongs) sent a committee to examine the "revival" and report on it. That committee and the denomination "certified" the so-called Brownsville revival" as "a genuine work of the Spirit" and compared it with similar events in Toronto ("holy laughter," etc).

What is memorable in these "revivals" is not any aspect of the gospel, of grace, of God's sovereign majesty and justice, nor of what He accomplished for His people in Christ. These things are remembered for the "manifestations" or the music or the "anointing." But when you talk to those who have experienced these so-called "revivals," they don't describe their experience in terms of being confronted by holy God and brought to repentence and humility. They don't talk about a new burden for the lost or renewal of daily spiritual disciplines like Bible study and family worship.

The people remain unchanged spiritually, but they're having a memorable party. The emotional kick they're getting is little different from those the world gets at a particularly memorable concert, vacation, thrill ride, or drug high. "Revivals" like those in Toronto and Pensacola are not the result of some sovereign gift of God upon a people, but rather the legacy of revivalists like Charles Finney who used such emotionalism to "get results" in sleepy churches and backslidden believers.