The Second Great Awakening American Religion Charles Grandison
- Slides: 8
The Second Great Awakening
American Religion Charles Grandison Finney The sooner American’s convert to Christianity, the sooner Christ will return – millenarianism Cane Ridge KY Kentucky’s largest city had 1, 795 people but 25, 000+ attended this revival. Dozens of ministers from all denominations. Begins being called the Second Great Awakening 1800 Church membership=about 5% 1860= 75%
Why the transformation? It’s a reaction to disestablishment These ministers had a new set of values Everyone had the power to choose between heaven and hell. Society as a whole made this choice.
Is it a transformation? Founding Fathers: “we forgot” Treaty of Tripoli – Article 11. The Founding Fathers were “deists” – God or some creative force made the universe and then stepped back – God does not interfere in day to day life of man.
New American Religion Impact: WE as a nation, have moral standards and obligations. A missionary zeal, to make the world over in our image. It is at once a radical AND conservative philosophy.
Significance of the 2 nd Great Awakening Prior to this, sin was abstract. After it is concrete Alcohol Dueling Slavery (but only to the most radical). The Second Great Awakening is behind EVERY significant reform movement for the next 100 years.
Revivals Socially selective South – a religion of the dispossessed. Slaves and poor whites make up the bulk of attendees. North – appealed to an emerging urban middle class.
Greatest Impact Panic of 1857 Convinced the North that they were the moral force in the world; convinced the South they were the moral force. It set the psychic preconditions for the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln used revivalistic rhetoric to rally the North to the cause of fighting a Civil War.
