The Second Great Awakening and The Age of Reform Context: By 1790s, many educated Americans no longer professed

ed traditional Christian beliefs. Many were deists, who had been inspired by the Enlightenment. Deism asserted that God created the Universe, but left it on its own to run on according to the laws of cause and effect like a giant complex clock. God didnt intervene in his creation; he simply wound up the clock. No miracles after creation. Thomas Paines Age of Reason is the best example of this in America good expression of an American enlightenment. o Paine rejected religious institutions as corrupt. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. o Rejected revelation and miracles in favor of reason. o Criticizes the corruption of churches and seeking of political power. o Asserted that Churches were not divinely inspired. o Rejects all religious sects. They were human inventions to enslave the mind. o Paine further asserted that in the Bible were horrendous stories, such as God ordering the death of all men, women, and children even babies. Bible is a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy; for what can be greater blasphemy that to ascribe the wickedness of man to the orders of the almighty. Humans, in other words, project their own inadequacies onto God, and turn them into a virtue. Jefferson urged Paine not to publish it, though he agreed with it. Accounts tell of carriage-drives refusing to drive Paine for fear of being struct by lightening. Jefferson himself wrote the Jefferson Bible. This was basically the Bible with all the miracles edited out no virgin birth, no resurrection, for example. Jefferson did not publish it. In reaction to the secularism of the age, a religious revival spread westward in the first half of the 19th century. Other causes may be a reaction to the materialism of the age. As Americans entered into the Middle Class and became more comfortable, many wondered what else there was to life.

The Second Great Awakening. Started in different times depending on the region of the country.

Message: Rejection of the doctrine of human depravity and the resulting predestination of the Puritans.

Stressed free will and human action. You can accept Christ, have faith, and be saved. And this APPLIED TO ALL, implying that all were equal.

Regional Differences: In New England, the renewed interest in religion inspired a wave of social activism. In western New York, the spirit of revival encouraged the emergence of new denominations. In the Appalachian region of Kentucky and Tennessee, the revival strengthened the Methodists and the Baptists, and spawned a new form of religious expression the camp meeting.

New York: In the 1820s Charles Grandison Finney, a Presbyterian minister, experienced something of a religious epiphany and set out to preach the Gospel in western New York. His revivals were characterized by careful planning, powerful preaching, and many conversions. Instead of delivery sermons based on rational argument, Finney appealed to peoples emotions and fear of damnation and persuaded thousands to publicly declare their revived faith. All were free to be saved through faith and hard workideas that strongly appealed to a rising middle class. Western New York became known as the Burned-over district because of its frequent hell-fire sermons. (The area from Lake Ontario to the Adirondack mountains) The Awakening gathered strength in 1826, when he conducted a revival in Utica, New York. o Finney argued against the belief that a Calvinist God controlled the destiny of human beings. He told congregations throughout the northern United States that they were "moral free agents" who could obtain salvation through their own effortsbut, he admonished, they must hurry because time was short. o Finney and other preachers tried to be entertaining and to appeal to the average citizen. Finney preached in the Burned-Over District throughout the 1820s and the early 1830s, before moving to Ohio in 1835 to take a chair in theology at Oberlin College. He subsequently became president of Oberlin. And by spreading the belief that "heaven on earth" was possible, the revival movement inspired or contributed to many secular reform movements, including temperance, abolition, public education, philanthropic endeavors, and utopian socialism.

 South:

It especially appealed to women, many of whom were encouraged to become missionaries and lay preachers.

Many southerners were suspicious of Great Awakening preachers at first, since it preached spiritual equality. They were concerned that this message could imply social equality. But, Great Awakening preachers changed their message to accommodate southern interests, by stressing Biblical injunctions for slaves to obey their masters. Reward was in the afterlife, not in this life. Consequently, reform movements dont catch on in the south as they do in the north.

West: On the Western fronier (Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee), the Great Awakening predated the awakening in the Northeast and the south. It took the form of Camp meetingsdefined as a "religious service of several days' length, for a group that was obliged to take shelter on the spot because of the distance from home."

1. Pioneers in thinly populated areas looked to the camp meeting as a refuge from the lonely life on the frontier. 2. Many frontier settlers enjoyed and were inspired by the dancing, shouting and singing associated with these events. These social occasions filled in what was lacking, and often served to encourage settlers to build churches following the Camp Meetings. The first camp meeting took place in July 1800 at Gasper River Church in southwestern Kentucky. A much larger one was held at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in August 1801, where between 10,000 and 25,000 people attended, and Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist ministers participated. It was this event that stamped the organized revival as the major mode of church expansion for denominations such as the Methodists and Baptists. The great revival quickly spread throughout Kentucky, Tennessee and southern Ohio, with the Methodists and the Baptists its prime beneficiaries. Each denomination had assets that allowed it to thrive on the frontier. The Methodists had a very efficient organization that depended on ministersknown as circuit riderswho sought out people in remote frontier locations. The circuit riders came from among the common people, which helped them establish a rapport with the frontier families they hoped to convert.

Baptists:

The Baptists had no formal church organization. Their farmer-preachers were people who received "the call" from God, studied the Bible and founded a church, which then ordained them. Other candidates for the ministry emerged from these churches, and they helped the Baptist Church to establish a presence farther into the wilderness. Using such methods, the Baptists became dominant throughout the Border States and most of the South.

Social Activism: Social activism inspired by the revival gave rise to: 1. Abolition groups, who stressed that all were equal before god. 2. The Society for the Promotion of Temperance, who stressed soberness as the first step towards a moral life. 3. And numerous other attempts to reform other people believed to be societal outcasts, including prisoners, prostitutes, the handicapped and mentally ill. Impact: 1. The numerical strength of the Baptists and Methodists rose relative to that of the denominations dominant in the colonial period (the Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Quakers) 2. Led to efforts to apply Christian teachings to the resolution of social problems. If people can have a say in their afterlife, then why not this one. If your station in life was not predetermined, then you had the power to do something about it. To right the wrongs that were created by man, not by god. 3. Expanded public sphere for women. Responsible for moral education Republican motherhood. Translated into social role for them. Still doing womens work, but outside of the home. Temperance, pauperism, abolitionism.