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Second Great Awakening
The Great Second Awakening
The Great Second Awakening was the second big religious awakening and revival era for Christians in America. It was greatly welcomed by all sects of Christianity. It was attended by all, Presbyterian, Baptists and Methodists alike with equal eagerness and zeal. It was inaugurated at Cane Ridge Kentucky in 1806. There were a number of prominent personalities of the era, one of them being Charles Finney. He was a lawyer in New York, who wanted to "argue people into the kingdom of heaven." He imitated the "anxious bench." A number of religious revivals sprang up who also became political figures. They were heavily criticized for infusing into people a form of religion that was anti-intellectualism and heavenly rested on emotions. They helped in growth of traditional churches and encouraged then old dated tradition of attending church. As a result, the number of people attending church grew from 10- 12 in 1810 to 50 by the year 1860. Another type of church came into light in this era was the African Methodist Episcopal church (or AME Church founded by a slave Richard Allen in 1810. It provided relief and comfort to slaves and thus was accepted largely by slaves.
Another figure of these times was, Mother Ann Lee, was claimed to be the reincarnation of Christ. She founded the Shakers which was successful in Europe, but extremely popular in America. John Humphrey Noyes, who founded the Oneida Community strongly, rejected the celibacy of Mother Lee who claimed to live a celibate lifestyle. He introduced the idea of "complex marriages" in which, unlike the traditional marriages, everyone was married to everyone. Another church known as Mormon Church was established whose founder Joseph Smith claimed to guide by an angel Moronic.
Then there was another group of people -the Millenarians who believed that in return of Christ by the year 1843. The prominent outcome or feature of this era was the spread of anti-Catholic emotions among Christians.
Indeed, the Eastern awakening caused groups and societies to spring up that were characterized by their desire to do missionary work in the United States ("Second Great"). In the Appalachian region, however, the antecedent of the Second Great Awakening was the first and other revivals that had occurred since then. The tone taken in this region was the same evangelistic, camp meeting gospel preached at such events in the past,
One of the founding concepts for the country was ignored completely by the tens of thousands of preachers sweeping the country. This reneging of a fundamental right to practice religion as an individual saw fit, resulted in increased control without representation for the average citizen. Only a few decades earlier, Americans had fought and died for the principle centering on someone having control over the country, without the country having
great awakening was a religious revival that swept across America in the 1730s to 1740s that saw the restructuring of the society in general within America. For the very first time, this religious revival managed to bring the Native Americans and the blacks into the organized churches as opposed to the prior diverse ways of their worship to their various gods. It also brought the new colonialists into the
Using Tennents' strategy, the clergymen of Presbyterian, Puritan and Baptist churches were conducting revivals in their regions by the 1740s. Preachers such as Jonathan Edwards stirred up flamboyant and terrifying images of the absolute corruption of the human nature in their emotionally charged sermons. These preachers also described the terrors awaiting the unrepentant in hell in their powerful sermons. Some of the converts from the early revivals in the northern
John Wesley, who in May 1738 had his history-changing experience of having his "heart strangely warmed," was much impressed by Edwards' Faithful Narrative, which he read in October of that same year and which provided one of the models for the revivals he hoped to promote. A few years later, when his own Methodist movement was soaring, he published his own abridgement of Edwards' work, making it standard reading
This third wave has built up from more diverse and exotic sources than the first two, from therapeutic movements as well as overtly religious movements, from hippies and students of "psi phenomena" and Flying Saucerites as well as charismatic Christians. But other than that, what will historians say about it?" (p. 17) Wolfe was certain historians could not possibly find anything positive to say about this trend. He cited some