Revival? Revolution? Or what?

"I saw on a news clip that Bible sales are up," a woman said to me this week. "Does that mean we are in a revival?"

The news reports this woman noticed are consistent with what Bob Smietana at Religion News Service cited from a new Pew Research Centre study: A growing number of Americans—almost a third—now believe religion’s influence is rising in America.

Last week, my friend David French noted in his New York Times column that he senses a changing spiritual temperature, but argued that it might not be revival we are feeling. French sees something more like a revolution—a movement that combines the language of faith with what political scientist William Galston calls the "dark passions" of anger, resentment, and revenge.