Evangelicalism Essay

While new religious ideas fanned out and denominations proliferated, social activism, in response, also began to escalate. The Second Great Awakening stirred the initiation of

The Second Great Awakening revolved around the new concept of national reform through religious and moral changes. These changes and transitions occurred for the benefit of the country, by withdrawing the negative aspects of society such as alcohol overuse, low quality education and prisons, and most notably slavery. Religious leaders encouraged salvation and worshipping the Christian God to be best solution for successfully reforming and improving the nation’s predicaments. Religious ideas had a remarkable role constructing reform movements in the first half of the nineteenth century in behalf of religion offering the most moral and logical path towards a better society. People of the United States were in necessity of reforms, applying the religious ideas opened up new resolutions for all classes, races, and groups of people.

After 1815, a women’s status in society was shaped both by the “market revolution” and the “Second Great Awakening”. The “market revolution” was a drastic change in the nation's economy through transportation, education, legal reforms. Examples of these reforms would include the creation of canals, roads, railroads, and the technology needed to commute between places, an increase in teacher wages, school terms, and curriculum, and the spreading awareness of massive movements such as the temperance, abolitionist, and prison reform movement. The “Second Great Awakening” was a revival of religious spirit that attracted social minorities, such as women, African-Americans,and native Americans, that produced many new sects of Protestantism, such

Evangelicalism came out of various movements that came in the Protestant church the second Great Awakening” of the 1820s-1840s, resulted in the “Christianization” of young America and the dominance of evangelicalism over the American religious climate ”.The Second Great Awakening marked a fundamental transition in American religious life. Many early American religious groups in the CALVINIST tradition had emphasized the deep depravity of human beings and believed they could only be saved through the grace of God. The new evangelical movement, however, placed greater emphasis on humans' ability to change their situation for the better. By stressing that individuals could assert their "FREE WILL" in choosing to be saved and by suggesting that

The major changes in American religion that occurred in the early nineteenth century were the Second Great Awakening. The Second Great Awakening was a Christian Revival movement during the early nineteenth century. The movement began around 1800, it had begun to gain momentum from the 1820. With the Second Great Awakening; new religions were established, there were different academic curriculums, a change from the trinity to just one deity and they would touch on American culture and reform.

A restructuring of religious doctrine, beliefs, and social practices during the 17th and 18th centuries in England, and in North America, infused with Calvinistic religious doctrine initiated the beginning of The Great Awakening. Following this further, according to Christine Leigh Heyrman, The First Great Awakening: Divining America,” a New Age of faith rose to counter the currents of the Age of Enlightenment. Ultimately reaffirming the view that being truly religious meant trusting the heart rather than the head, prizing feeling more than thinking, and relying on biblical revelation rather than human reason. After a while, several religious revivals sprung forth appeasing the colonists in America desire for a deep and significant personal relationship with God. Thus, this dogma spread to other denominations throughout the colonies in America (Heyrman).” As a result, The Great Awakening spread throughout the middle colonies in America by notable revivalist preachers instituting moderate Calvinistic doctrinal theology especially for the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists, and opened the door to unprecedented world societal changes.

Just as groups had formed against the consumption of alcohol, isolated religious groups began to form against everyone but themselves. Called “Utopian Communities”, religious groups were created that challenged society and it’s religions, which is very similar to the Evangelical movement. There were hundreds of these communities, with one of the most popular being the “Shakers”.9 The Shakers believed in the complete equality of male and females, but at the price of being completely celibate. The only way there could be new members was if there were converts or children who would come into a Shaker village. Most of these utopian communities shared an idea of millennialism, which talks about Jesus returning and a new era of the world beginning. The social impact of this is blatantly clear; many more religious groups were being created, rather than a few sects of religion.

The 19th century America gave way to the social and moral reform that created the Second Great Awakening, focusing on various beliefs such as temperance, reformation of religious views on slavery and women’s inequality. Many of this reformist wanted to save America from its “sins”, from slavery to inequality. Though it was called the Second Great Awakening, it was very different from the First Great Awakening. The First Great Awakening focus on the person’s individuality, while the Second Great Awakening focused on the community/country as a whole.

The Second Great Awakening swept across the United States, lasting from the 1790s to the 1870s. Between the 1820s and 1840s, the Christian revival was at its peak. The revivalism quickly went to reform, however. The northern part of the Great Awakening, inspired a great movement to social reform. Many converts of the Second Great Awakening were quite determined to win as many people as they could to Christ.

The Great Awakening was an intensely religious movement that spread rapidly throughout the colonies in the mid 1700s. This explosive and fiery movement eventually led to the Separation of Church and State in America. By undermining the prestige and honor of the older clergy members and the mouthpiece of royalty, the Great Awakening gave authority for members of society to challenge their authority. The Great Awakening made people question their religions beliefs, leading to the creation of multiple different denominations, creating competition between churches and eventual separation. In addition, the Great Awakening led to the founding of new lights centers, which sparked revolutionary movements. The Great Awakening served as the first

Before the nineteenth century, Christianity dominated the lives of its followers. But in the first half of the nineteenth century, there was an enormous divide that broke that previous stronghold - the Second Great Awakening - where new religious denominations came about. Following these new ideals were both reform movements that took to heart the newfound beliefs of said religious sects and a revival of antiquated religions, such as Christianity. The religious ideals of the Second Great Awakening influenced the emergence of religious reform movements that emphasized how its followers should take their religion and adapt it to their lives, social reform movements that addressed the unfair conditions numerous American citizens were forced to

In the early nineteenth century time period there was a major reform in the United States. The Antebellum Reform is the period before the civil war and after the war of 1812. Preachers and believers saw society and the environment of the country capable of improving conditions. They saw that the society was able to perfect and strive to be more like God. The Second Great Awakening played a large role in the development of the reformist impulse. The Awakening pressured the concept of personal responsibility of a person to the sins of neighbors. Seeking perfection and living righteousness, also redeeming sinners was widely spread. The reform was encountered with a network of church affiliated reform organizations. The reform impulse was not only major in the United States, but Europeans also had reform efforts. There were different types of reform movements during the nineteenth century in the United States. Overtime groups and were separated. There were many women who worked in the reform movement. However, women had a great impact in

The Great Awakening started with a series of revivals in the 1730s, which took a unique and more emotional approach to the Bible (Foner 157). These dramatically changed the face of religion in the colonies, even leading to the growth of several new Christian denominations, such as the Baptists and the Methodists (Foner 159). This importantly was done after a time period where the religion of the colonies was increasingly favoring Anglicanism, with most colonial churches in 1700 being “either Congregational… or Anglican” (Foner 114). The Great Awakening’s renewed religious diversity was thus an important step away from the increasingly overbearing English influence, and therefore a step toward American cultural divergence. Additionally, the Great Awakening decreased the value Americans attributed to “established elites” (160); it was more important how the individual interpreted the Bible as opposed to how established churches did. This change of thinking applied beyond religion; it meant that Americans no longer looked to the largest “established elite”, the British monarchy, for cultural advice and influence, instead increasing their confidence to look inward and develop their own divergent

After the Civil War and during the Progressive Era there were the group of reformers that changed the landscape the United States. These reformers were mainly comprised of men and women from the large northern cities and rural religious communities of Wisconsin (Schultz, 2013). The industrial age created enormous amounts of wealth, but people were living in the worst conditions and working longer hours than ever before. The Social Gospel movement sought to improve the working conditions, restrict the child labor laws and fight for social justice (Fales, 2013). This methodology was directly against what the Industrialist believed. Which was a Darwinist attitude of the “survival of the fittest.”

The Second Great Awakening was a religious revival in the United States, taking place in the late eighteenth century. In the 1700's many people were no longer going to church,spiking religious revivals that emphasized the importance of following God. New religious groups were created, such as the mormons who were not pleased with the preexisting faiths. These revivals also immensly helped Baptists and Methodists, who had the most people converting to their religions. As a result, church attendence grew in the nineth century. The picture shows the Cane Ridge revival in 1801.