The Second Great Awakening
American History to 1877
Religion and the New Nation
• Religion
essential to morals of republic
• Most
states keep tax-supported churches
• Virginia
Statute for Religious Freedom, 1786
Jefferson,
Madison, Baptists, and Presbyterians vs. Anglicans
Jefferson:
religion a private opinion; state should not impose opinions
Baptists:
America not a “Christian nation”; separation of church and state
• Disestablishment’s
slow progress elsewhere
Vermont
1807; Connecticut 1818; New Hampshire 1819; Massachusetts 1833
• Baptists
and the First Amendment
“Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof.”
1790s: Is religion dead?
• French
Revolution, 1793
• New
England ministers worry
Victory
of rationalism?
• Revivalism
quiet in the South
Migration
from Piedmont to the West
• Jefferson’s
victory in 1800: official atheism?
Revivalism returns
• Revivals
in Connecticut & at Yale, 1802
• Presbyterians
on the Kentucky frontier
• Cane
Ridge, 1801: “America’s Pentecost”
First
large camp-meeting
Perhaps
20,000 attend
The Camp-Meeting
• Presbyterian
communion scene
• Methodist
Camp Meeting Plan, 1809
• Methodist
Camp-Meeting, 1819
• Methodist
Camp Meeting, 1839
Camp Meetings
• Lorenzo
Dow and the “jerking exercise”
• Presbyterians
recoil from Cane Ridge
• Baptists
grow reluctant
Methodism
• John
Wesley (1703-1791)
• Francis
Asbury
First
bishop, 1785
• Success
of the circuit rider
• Methodist
meetings
Arminian
theology (anti-Calvinist)
Emotional
religion
Dreams
and visions
Miraculous
healings, speaking in tongues
Methodists & Revivals
• Embrace
camp-meetings
Peter
Cartwright
• Appeal
to women
• Appeal
to African Americans
Antislavery
principles
“Thoughts
upon Slavery,” 1744
African Americans &
Revival
• Attraction
of emotional spirituality
Roles
for women
• African
elements
Ring
shouts
Call
and response hymns
• African
Methodist Episcopal Church
Richard
Allen, 1816
• Baptist
churches in the South
Fire in the “Burnt-Over
District”
• Settlement
after 1815
Erie
Canal opens New York & Great Lakes
Godless
frontier?
• Charles
Grandison Finney
Presbyterian
minister
Rejects
Calvinism
“New
measures”
“Protracted
meeting”
Role
of women
Fervor sweeps the nation
• 1820s-1836:
High expectations
• America:
a new kind of nation
Freed
from constraints of history
• Confidence
that all would be solved
1800
years of error to be overcome
Millennialism
• New
expectations of Second Coming
Finney:
evangelize the world in 3 years
• William
Miller
Predicts
millennium 1843
Recalculated
for 1844
The
“Great Disappointment”
Hiram
Edson: cleansing of temple in heaven
• Seventh-Day
Adventists, 1860-63
Restorationism
• Denominationalism
• Dismay
at proliferation of churches
Goal
of Christian unity recedes
• Disciples
of Christ/Churches of Christ
Alexander
Campbell, 1808
“Where
the Scriptures speak, we speak;
where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent”
Simple
creed; radical ecclesiology
Popular
on frontier, along Ohio River
The Mormons
• Joseph
Smith, Palmyra, NY
Confusion
of denominations
Treasure
seeker
Angel
Moroni, Mt. Cumorah, golden plates
Translation
of Book of Mormon, 1830
• Restoration
of the true church
• Conversion
in Kirtland, Ohio
• Battle
in Far West, Missouri, 1839
The Mormon Zion
• Nauvoo,
Illinois
• Schism
& strange new doctrines
Revelations
Polygamy
• Arrested
for destroying presses
Killed
by mob, 1844
• Brigham
Young
Trek
to Utah, 1846-48
Democratization of religion
• Faith
in the “common man”
Priesthood
of all believers: right to decide for oneself
Sola
scriptura: pure Bible, pure doctrine
• Arminianism
replaces Calvinism
• Vernacular
preaching
• Mass-market
religious press
• American
popular religious music
• Ministers:
From office to profession
• Feminization
of Christianity
• Christianization
of the nation
Association
of nation with Protestantism