Category: Second Great Awakening

The Great Awakening was a religious revival that impacted the English colonies in America during the 1730s and 1740s. The Great Awakening gave colonial Americans the ability to forcefully challenge religious authority, effectively preparing them for political revolutions to come. [a]Characterized by religious fervor and passionate affirmation of faith, The Great Awakening changed the concept and structure of religion, giving colonists the experience to fight for what they believed in and make their voices heard against any power[b]. To many colonists, The Great Awakening was a crucial moment in history regarding the way they thought as individuals and thought as a colony.

To help colonists prepare for political revolutions, was the backlash given to supporters and Whitefield about his public passionate sermons. For example in 1763 an engraving was published in London expressing Whitefield’s sinful behavior as the work of the devil. Whitefield only preaches for the fame and riches he receives from it ( visual document 3). Being bashed was a part of Whitefield’s life in order to show colonists to continue to fight for what they believed in. In 1744 the president of Harvard made a statement saying that Whitefield is responsible for the entire destruction of the order of christ, which our fathers have taken such care to settle (document 2). Though not everyone agreed with Whitefield’s sermons, citizens continued to support their beliefs and show people that their opinions matter, no matter who opposes them.

Another way The Great Awakening helped prepare colonial Americans for religious authority, is how driven they were. In order to make history the colonist really had to believe in what they were doing and be passionate. For example on July 7, 1743, after being attacked for the revival for doctrinal errors and emotional excess, a group of New England pastors disagreed and met in Boston. These pastors told citizens that they have a new manner that has freed them from the sense of danger. This new manner gave them an overwhelming feeling of happiness and a sweet taste of redeeming love like they never had before (document 1). This is the attitude that helped prepare them for future religious authority by teaching them confidence in themselves and making them believe that they are important, these citizens no longer just sat around they forcefully made their voices heard.

Finally, the communication skills these colonists had during The Great Awakening are what united them and gave them the preparation they needed for future challenging religious authority. To unify them revivalist preachers would travel from place to place giving sermons. These sermons would leave people dissatisfied with their own pastors, making church leaders scared (document 2). The preachers traveling made religious leaders scared because they knew their colonists wanted a closer relationship with God and revivalists were giving that to them in only one passionate sermon. Without the message of the revivalist being spread the voice of each individual would have been as strong or confident. Communication was vital by enabling a strong force of passionate colonists to be a force to be reckoned with when going up against.

In conclusion, The Great Awakening was able to teach colonial Americans to forcefully challenge religious freedom, effectively preparing them for political revolutions to come. They were able to gain confidence in themselves and their opinions. It also made them learn to unite in order to become a stronger force. Lastly, it taught them how to best communicate with each to believe in the same thing and gain others in the process. For the first time, a group of colonists was ready to be heard and share their thoughts in a passionate and st

The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant revival movement that held back to 1790 and moved faster by 1800. It was after 1820 when membership rapidly escalated amongst Methodist and Baptism congregations led by their respective preachers. By 1870, the Second Great Awakening started to deteriorate. Millions of new members were enrolled, and new dominions formed. The Second Great Awakening, which spread religion via revivals and emotional preaching, led to the rise of various reform movements. The movement has been defined as a reaction against rational Christianity, skepticism, and deism, even though it is not fully understood why those forces became irresistible enough at the time to spark revivals. The Second great awakening expressed Arminian theology, in which each individual could be saved by conversion, recoveries, and repentance. Improvements were religious meetings led by an evangelist that featured emotional preaching.

American Christianity, as we have witnessed, was shaped by the Second Great Awakening, which, in response, impact on the politics and culture of the rising nation. It is easy to say that Christianity was one of the pillars of American culture on the eve of the Civil War. During the period of Founding Father, this was not evident: not to suggest that the split-up of the church and state those august figures had established was in jeopardy. But the great revival had formed a set Christian code in the country, which shifted the country in significant and lasting ways. The Second Great Awakening engendered moral enthusiasm, which led to the arising of the temperance campaign. The crusade reduced alcohol consumption dramatically and then concluded in the severe and unproductive alcohol prohibition in the early 20th century.

Numerous similar efforts at uplifting the morals, egalitarianism, and sense of community of the Americans were highly inspired by the Second Great Awakening. The Abolition Movement, The ultimate goal of the abolition movement, was solely to end slavery in the United States. The movement began as a religious and moral movement pinpointed on a universal belief that all are equal before God. New antislavery sentiment was not confined to a single church, but rather, it was common among Presbyterians, Mennonites, Baptists, Amish, Quakers, among other Protestant denominations.

Abolitionist sentiment arose in the 18th century from its religious roots leading to the establishment of antislavery civilizations in the early 19th century, whose main objective was to increase awareness about moral evils surrounding slavery. Abolitionism eventually became a controversial political subject that saw the division of much of the country, even though it had initially started as a movement with religious underpinnings. Critics and supporters became violent as they often engaged in heated debates which even led to deadly skirmishes. The movement fueled animosity and divisiveness which led to the rise of Civil War, and eventually the end of American slavery. Abolitionism was not a new concept in America. The inception of the Atlantic slave trade made critics voice their disqualification of the system which had begun in the 16th century. The American Colonization Society was formed in 1816 in effort to end slavery and made a proposal to return slaves back to their motherland, Africa. By so doing, a huge number of African Americans had returned to Africa by 1860. Anti-slave movement was further provoked in the North by the 1820 Missouri Compromise. At the end of slavery, abolitionists shifted focus to women’s issues whose lessons paved the way for successful women leaders in the women’s suffrage movement.

Cane Ridge: America’s Pentecost is a documentation of the largest and most famous camp meetings of the Second Great Awakening. It took place during August 1801 at Cane Ridge, Kentucky and was led by Barton Stone. Over 20,000 people attended these religious services that were organized by Presbyterian ministers and Methodist preachers. There had never previously been such large religious meetings, which caused preaching to be difficult.

The preachers at these religious meetings stood on large logs and tree stumps, in order to be heard and seen while telling their stories and conveying their messages. The meetings were also large communion services that went hand-in-hand with the traditions of Presbyterian. These services also included church exercises. Never before had so many people in one area of America been involved in physical exercises which included falling, jerking, barking, running, laughing, dancing and singing. The exercise that Conkin describes as “the jerks” could happen to anyone. These jerks were usually characterized a person’s head or body that began to shake violently. Barton Stone described the jerks as feeling the glory of God—regardless if the people experiencing the jerks were believers or skeptics. When these jerks occurred the individuals experiencing the jerks believed that they had been converted from sin by the power of God. These religious meetings led to a lot of publicity at a national level, which in turn, triggered controversy within the church in America.

Paul Conkin, the author of Cane Ridge: America’s Pentecost presents the thesis that Cane Ridge is “the most important religious gathering in all of American history.” This statement is supported, as thousands of people in America were converted to follow Christ during the Cane Ridge Revival. At the time of the Cane Ridge Revival in 1801, Barton Stone was a Presbyterian minister. However, by 1804 Stone left Presbyterianism to be part of the body of Christ proving that this was a substantial movement towards the following of Christ. Conkin uses detailed descriptions of the events at Cane Ridge—such as diaries, autobiographies and pictures of the meetinghouse and its surrounding area. This allows the reader to get a glimpse of what it must have been like to be present at Cane Ridge in 1801. This book fits into the Stone-Campbell Movement as it describes how Christianity was restored through unity and the return to the principals of the early churches. This was restored through two groups. The first group, led by Stone, began in 1801 during the great revival at the Cane Ridge and the second group began in Western Pennsylvania and Virginia and was led by Thomas Campbell and his son, Alexander. The second group called themselves “Disciples of Christ,” reflecting their emphasis on submitting to and following Christ. Both of these groups had the same beliefs. These beliefs were that Jesus is the Christ and Son of God, Christians should have communion each Sunday, and the baptism of adult believers by immersion in water is necessary for salvation.

Through the depictions within Conkin’s Cane Ridge: America’s Pentecost, along with the movements led by Thomas and Alexander Campbell, it is shown how impactful the movement towards the following of Christ was during the Second Great Awakening. Conkin’s work depicts the evolution and restoration of the Christian religion. It can be argued that without these movements, Christianity wouldn’t be what it is today.