Why is the great awakening important
The Second Great Awakening | America's Religious History | Thomas S. Kidd
in this session we're going to talk
Second Great Awakening
by 1800
for revival had become a defining
feature of American Protestantism and
even though the revolution itself
America saw outbursts of regional
revivals but then in the 1790s a new
series of revivals began that would more
heavenly Christianize American society
than ever before and these series of
rivals are often called the Second Great
Awakening
most of the major Protestant
denominations enjoyed successes in the
Second Great Awakening but none more so
than the Methodists the Methodists
Baptists other offshoots of American
Protestantism featured a new emphasis on
the ministry of itinerant preachers who
like George Whitfield before them toured
the country with enormous energy
preaching the gospel to most anyone who
would listen but unlike George Whitfield
these new ministers focused on a gospel
that had a strong emphasis on equality
and the spiritual democracy brought
about by the Holy Spirit
historian Nathan hatch has written that
the Second Great Awakening represented
the democratization of American
Christianity with the itinerants
preaching that in Christ everyone was
equal and that for too long
elite pastors and politicians had lorded
their authority over the common people
of America Christ brought not only a
spiritual democracy but also a new
political and cultural democracy in
which the most important Authority
anyone could have was the authority of
the Holy Spirit typical of the great
preachers driving the Second Great
Awakening was a man nicknamed crazy
Lorenzo Dow a Methodist itinerant of an
incredible energy that I suppose no one
has ever surpassed Dow was a wilder but
equally compelling version of George
Whitfield a Dow had long hair worn
similar to women's style at the time
worn and disheveled clothes a rugged
face a harsh voice and he was a
captivating preacher Dow kept up a
legendary preaching and travel
scheduled in 1804 Dowell spoke at at
least 500 meetings and perhaps as many
as 800 and that's in one year in 1805 he
traveled approximately 10,000 miles
traveling mostly on horseback he
preached all across America from New
England to Alabama and all across the
frontier western lands of the time and
many observers said that he was simply
the best preacher they had ever heard
speak Dow was perhaps the most symbolic
man of the Second Great Awakening a
prophetic figure who styled himself like
John the Baptist but also
self-consciously a radical Jeffersonian
and a believer in the self-governing
democracy of the common people Dow would
have probably hated the elitist ideas of
Alexander Hamilton the first secretary
of the Treasury
even as he probably would have tried to
share the gospel with Alexander Hamilton
perhaps the greatest meeting of the
whole Second Great Awakening was at Kane
ridge Kentucky the mass meeting and
communion service there gathered about
10,000 people over the course of a week
at a time when the largest town in the
state of Kentucky had only 2,000
residents those who attended witnessed
quote sinners falling and shrieks and
cries for mercy awakened in the mind
a lively apprehension of that scene when
the awful sound will be heard arise he
dead
and come to judgment that's how one
observer described Cambridge women
responded particularly strongly to
revival meetings like Cambridge perhaps
because they were often the most
strongly affected by the economic and
social disruptions found in the frontier
west and places at that time like
Kentucky women also found exciting new
roles in the churches of the West as
charitable and missionary organizations
sprang up at an amazing rate and were
staffed by the legions of women
responding to the revived
perhaps most interestingly the revival
swept through the south bringing a new
interest in Christianity which had known
mostly disinterest from both whites and
blacks in the south until at least the
1760s thousands of slaves converted
during the Second Great Awakening
finding the message of spiritual
equality and a promise of a better life
in heaven very appealing given their
extremely unequal and harsh living
conditions throughout the south and west
the revivals caught on because of the
appeal of the eternal message of the
Christian gospel that a person could
find forgiveness and spiritual peace
with God but it also took on a new
democratic tone offering equality and
empowerment to the often uneducated and
marginalized settlers in the West and
slaves as well it also brought the
promise of hope and stability
particularly to an Ohio River Valley
region which was constantly in flux from
migrations competition for the best
lands a threat of Indian fighting and
Indian attacks and the loneliness of the
pioneering white settlements on the
frontier perhaps the key figure in
continuing the Second Great Awakening
and spreading a new evangelical
mentality through the northern states
and their middle-class people was the
revivalist Charles Finney many
historians believe that Finney was so
influential and so representative of the
new American culture of middle-class
evangelicalism that he deserves a rank
as one of the four or five most
influential American figures of the
whole 19th century Charles Finney was a
former school teacher and lawyer in New
York and in 1821 he experienced a
dramatic conversion closed his law
practice and began preaching the gospel
most historians have argued that
Finney's message was perfect
the rapidly expanding northern states in
1820s and 30s
Fenny focused on the individual's free
will to choose salvation to choose the
right over the wrong to take
responsibility to make the best out of
one's lot in life Fenny viewed man is
sinful but capable of choosing the good
beginning with choosing salvation but
continuing with choosing to live a moral
sober and hardworking life he also used
a number of new measures that made him
different from previous revivalists he
would hold extended revivals sometimes
staying in one place for weeks or a
month if any controversy lee insisted
that revivals were not miraculous works
of God they were just the simple result
of God's blessing on human obedience
quote a revival is not a miracle he
wrote in the sense of something above
the powers of nature there is nothing in
religion beyond the ordinary powers of
nature it consists entirely in the right
exercise of the powers of nature it is
just that and nothing else when mankind
becomes religious they are not enabled
to put forth as Gershon switch they were
unable before to put forth they only
exert powers which they had before in a
different way
and used them for the glory of God
Penny's brand of evangelical religion
represented a subtle step toward a human
centered kind of faith especially as
compared to the start towering Calvinism
of Jonathan Edwards Fetty pioneered the
use of the so called anxious bench on
which people seeking assurance of
salvation could sit up front for special
prayers in ministry in the revival
meetings Finney traveled throughout the
Northeast during the 1820s and 30s
holding famous revivals in places like
Rochester
New York Boston in Philadelphia the
rising middle class culture of these
regions slowly took on a distinctively
evangelical tone holding up at least in
principle and often in reality the
ideals of personal godliness and
self-improvement
there can be no doubt that Christianity
had never flourished in a freer
environment or at least legally free as
it found in pre-civil war America this
had at least two main results first was
the growth of the major Protestant
denominations Baptists Methodists and
Presbyterians into true giants that
dominated American culture but the
second was the rise of all manner of
unusual religious leaders groups and
movements that transcended the usual
boundaries of Orthodox theology or
gender and race lines that usually
applied in traditional Christianity
we've already seen one example of this
in a previous lesson in the sectarian
leader Jemima Wilkinson who called
herself the public Universal friend a
similar sectarian movement that began to
develop early in the Revolutionary
period was the shakers the shakers
developed as an offshoot of the English
Quakers and their main leader the
shakers main leader was mother and Lee
who moved with her family to America
from England in 1774 Lee was a visionary
and she claimed to have had all manner
of trances and visions and she became
convinced that Christ's second coming
would be in the form of a woman and that
she in fact was that woman Lee and the
shakers developed a form of Christian
socialism that also forsook all sexual
intercourse as sin including in marriage
and that would become a real problem for
sustaining the growth of this movement
but from the 1780s to the 1840s shakers
were very active
in evangelizing the radical fringe of
other Protestant revivals especially the
Baptist's though motherly died in 1784
the movement continued to grow and
especially thrived on the radicalism of
the Second Great Awakening notably
picking off three leading converts who
had formerly led the Cambridge revival
in Kentucky the shakers continued their
celibacy and featured fervent communal
worship include including group dancing
and occasionally some speaking in
tongues or that mysterious divine
language of of tongues that scene often
than the book of Acts but there can be
no doubt that the group's main source of
radicalism was its claim that Christ's
second coming had come in a woman
another of the radical movements was the
Millerites led by william miller who
grew up in vermont miller ISM grew out
of intense expectation of the second
coming of Christ
Miller had once been a liberal deist but
was converted to a radical Calvinist
Baptist on his farm he would study the
Bible late at night and became
interested in the end times speculating
on the meaning of apocalyptic passages
from the Book of Daniel in 1818 Miller
came to the conclusion that the Bible
predicted that the end would come in
1843 with 25 years left
he became an itinerant preacher in New
England in New York spreading the word
that the end was imminent in 1839 Miller
secured the help of a Boston publicist
and before 1843 Miller had likely
influenced hundreds of thousands of
Americans who cast more than a few
glances upward during their deal daily
business in 1843 but the year came and
went Jesus didn't return and it proved
to be a huge disappointment and to some
an embarrassment
but Miller did manage to found the
Adventist Church despite these
problematic beginnings through more
intense Bible study the Adventists came
to the conclusion that observing Sunday
as the Sabbath day was a Roman Catholic
corruption and so they began the
distinctive habit of returning to a
Saturday Sabbath in the Jewish tradition
Miller was followed by Ellen White as
the most significant leader of the group
now called the seventh-day Adventists
she claimed prophetic authority over the
church and white made a number of
converts to a strict dietary regimen
including vegetarianism one of whites
converts in Battle Creek Michigan was
dr. John Kellogg whose vegetarian zeal
led him to create a new commercial
industry for cereals many of the new
religious movements in the antebellum
period had utopian or humanitarian
ideals many Christian groups have had
this ideal of course but something new
seemed to be going on in these years as
a number of radical separatist groups
tried to achieve an almost heavenly
state on earth sometimes with some
pretty weird manifestations one group of
evangelical radicals who tried this was
the Oneida community of John Humphrey
Noyes Noyes was converted in a revival
in 1831 and he went to Yale Divinity
School but he did not get along well
there and he began developing views
concerning the potential for radical
holiness and perfection and believers in
fact he came to believe that the message
of the gospel was total deliverance from
sin and that true Christian community
could only be practiced in radical
socialism he began a commune in Oneida
New York where he instituted radical
community communal life as well as
stranger practices including what he
called
complex marriage or multiple marriage
and sexual partners
despite its controversial practices the
commune thrived and eventually began to
manufacture what became a famous brand
of flatware eventually neues abandoned
his position on complex marriage because
the monogamous marriage was simply too
strong a cultural institution for the
United community to sustain its devotion
to multiple spouses the most famous of
all the radical groups to be birthed
during this period was the Mormons or
the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day
saints led by Joseph Smith Smith came
from a struggling farming family that
moved to upstate New York when he was a
boy Smith and his family seemed to have
been involved in some kinds of treasure
seeking or perhaps counterfeiting
schemes in his teens and Smith was once
charged with disorderly conduct for
these kinds of activities but in the
late 1820s he began to claim visitations
from an angel Moore and I who led him to
golden plates inscribed with what they
called reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics
as well as a seer stone to read them
Smith translated the plates over the
course of a few years in eighth and in
1830 he began selling the book as the
Book of Mormon this book offered an
account of God's people in North America
at the time of Christ and though it
borrowed much language from the King
James Bible it was really a remarkable
production especially from someone as
untutored as Smith Mormons say that this
means that Smith really was visited by
the angel while others have just argued
that Smith was an unusually bright and
perceptive perceptive observer of the
society around him and its religious
needs in any case Smith won many
converts to his revelation but many more
enemies
often threatened Smith and his followers
began moving west first to Ohio then to
Missouri and finally to now navoo
Illinois where Smith reached the height
of both power and controversy thousands
of Mormon converts migrated to Nauvoo
and Smith exercised near total control
there and quickly appeared as a threat
to the stability of the Illinois and
perhaps even national US government
Smith declared himself a candidate for
president of the u.s. in 1844 finally
after Smith arranged for the destruction
of an opposition press in Nauvoo he was
arrested and thrown in the Carthage
Illinois Jail where a mob then attacked
the jail and Lynch Smith from this point
Brigham Young became the leader of the
Mormons taking them eventually out to
Utah which is still the heartburn
heartbeat of world Mormonism today
during the 18th century
african-americans proved generally
resistant to conversion efforts by the
Anglican churches of the south many of
the slaves came from Muslim or Roman
Catholic backgrounds in Africa sometimes
mixed with local African religions but
many of those traditions were forgotten
or neglected and the scourging
experiences of the passage on the slave
ships and the early years of slavery in
North America many white slaveholders
proved reluctant to try and convert the
slaves because they feared that
Christianity might give them ideas about
liberty and the truth is they were often
right in the awakenings of the 1740s
through the 1760s some evangelicals had
successes in ministering to the black
population and George Whitfield made a
point to criticize the southern colonies
for their poor treatment of the slaves
but Whitfield was no abolitionist he
himself owned slaves and argued that
Christianity would make for better
slaves
but eventually the Baptist and Methodist
churches began to make great inroads
among free and slave african-americans
their message of an individual salvation
and free gift of grace from God
resonated with many african-americans
and it's greater emphasis on emotional
and musical expression as part of
Christian devotion catered to their
memories of African religious practices
many white evangelicals deliberately set
themselves up against elite Southern
society and in doing so they made
friends among African Americans some
early white evangelicals even in the
South toyed with the idea of
abolitionism and abolishing slavery and
later in the early 19th century almost
all northern abolitionists leaders were
evangelical Christians all in all the
number of church-going African Americans
rose sharply between the 1770s and the
1830s most of these Christian blacks
attended white light congregations
others however began to lead independent
black congregations even occasionally in
the south one example of this is David
George who grew up in slavery in
Virginia his master later moved to South
Carolina where George came under the
influence of an evangelical preacher who
converted him George taught himself to
read so that he could read the Bible and
he eventually became pastor of what
appears to be the first independent
black congregation in North America the
silver Bluff Church set up in 1773
George later moved on to Nova Scotia in
Canada where he endured threats and mob
violence because he dared to minister to
both whites and blacks and eventually
David George left North America to
minister in the West African colony of
Sierra Leone another key early leader in
African American church was Richard
Allen he was born like George into
slavery but he was
inverted at age 17 by Methodists in
Delaware Allen began immediately to
preach and to teach himself to read alan
went to Philadelphia where he caught a
vision for reaching the city's
african-american population with the
gospel he would preach as often as he
could sometimes as much as four or five
times a day he attended the white led
st. George's Methodist Church in
Philadelphia which he used for preaching
at times but he and his friends became
upset by the persistent bigotry of the
whites who once made a friend of Alan's
move out of a white section where he had
knelt to pray so Alan and a number of
his friends left the church and with
much difficulty started an all-black
Methodist Church the Bethel Church in
1793 frustrated over a continuing lack
of respect from white denominational
officials however Alan and his
colleagues decided to found a new
denomination in 1814 the African
Methodist Episcopal Church which went on
to become one of the leading
african-american denominations by the
1830s evangelical Christianity had
become the dominant religious movement
in America and Christianity had become
closely aligned with many facets of
dominant American culture and politics
one of the great tragedies of this
Christian growth however is that it
would offer no solution at least among
powerful white people to the
increasingly troubled question of
chattel slavery which would doom the
National denominations and eventually
jeopardize the nation itself
