Second_Great_Awakening_1800's

toc

=Second Great Awakening= The Second Great Awakening of the mid-1800's was a major turning point for Christianity in the U.S. It led to the creation of many new sects of Christianity such as Mormonism and the Seventh-Day Adventists. It also increased the number of adherents for already existing sects including the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Evangelicals. It was such a major event in the history of Christianity because of the forces that caused it to begin, the different tactics used to convert people to a specific sect of Christianity, the major figures involved in the movement, and it's lasting effects on modern Christianity.



Urbanization

 * One reason that explains the sudden success of revivalism in the mid-19th century is that at the same time, there were also sudden economic changes occurring in the Northeast.
 * This change was part of the sudden growth of industries and cities and the growing population. More people had to move into big cities and leave their rural farm lives which made most of them feel isolated and confused.
 * I n this new world of urban confusion, more and more people turned to religion to help them.

===The Second Coming of Christ ===
 * Some of the Evangelists involved in the Revivalism and premillenialism, movements within the Second Great Awakening. Their motivation to spread Christianity was their belief that the Second Coming was near.
 * Many of them took up other social causes such as abolitionism to try and improve the state of the world for Jesus' return to Earth.
 * They wanted to increase their chance for salvation during the Second Coming

Calvinistic Theology

 * For some, the ideology behind this movement was rooted in Calvinistic beliefs that only a select few would gain entrance to heaven.
 * People wanted to increase their chances and purge themselves of sin because they feared that God would punish them if they did not.
 * The idea that religious reform was inspired by God and not by men began to change with the advent of the Revivalist movement.

Camp Meetings

 * One tactic that was used in the Appalachian Region by the revival was having camp meetings.
 * These camp meetings were religious services that lasted for several days with multiple preachers.
 * These meetings were a refugee for people who lived a lonely life on the frontier and the excitement of them often caused people to dance, shout, and sing.
 * The meetings also helped people turn to Christ and get past their sins and by the time people would be leaving these camp meetings they would be joining/creating small local churches, churches that quickly grew in numbers.



Emphasis on the Individual

 * The revival that occured during the Second Great Awakening had two effects on people.
 * First, the ideas and virtues of the growing middle class were popularized which caused more people had a strong work ethic.
 * Second, its emphasis on having people change their lives created a large variety of reform movements that wanted to get rid of injustice and suffering.

Evangelicalism

 * One part of Evangelicalism that made people want to join was that they believed humans had the potential to do good even if they were sinners. [[image:http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_w7d9WW2z1wA/SMGsngzJFpI/AAAAAAAAARc/uTVP7bJETlg/s400/evangelical.jpg width="255" height="279" align="right" link="@http://hisbarkingdog.blogspot.com/"]]
 * Evangelicals from this time believed that people could resist sinful actions and instead behave with good morals.
 * In the early 19th century, chruches and their members began experiencing "awakenings" which were concerns and realizations about religion.
 * More people began having faith in God and they expressed this faith in extreme ways so that God would help them.
 * These religous revivals were very much curent examples of divine intervetnion.

Charles Finney
 Finney was a very important figure in the Second Great Awakening movement who became known as //The Father of Modern Revivalism. He was a Presbyterian minister who preached from his church in New York City. He later became involved with the abolitionism movement and would often speak out against slavery in his sermons. //

Joseph Smith, Jr.[[image:http://that.is/thewrench/washdc/thursday/Joseph_Smith.jpg width="172" height="218" align="right" link="@http://that.is/thewrench/washdc/thursday/index.html"]]
Joseph Smith, Jr. was the founder and prophet of the Mormon Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. One day, Smith proclaimed that he had been given a book of golden plates that contained a religious account of ancient Native Americans written in Reformed Egyptian characters. He led his followers to Nauvoo, Illinois after they had been expelled from Ohio and Missouri. He was later arrested for treason against Illinois and he was killed in prison by a group of armed men.

Richard Allen
Richard Allen was a Methodist preacher who wanted to establish a religion free from white control. He founded the African Methodist Episcopal church in 1816, the first Christian denomination created specifically for African-Americans. Allen was born into slavery but his master freed him when a Methodist preacher came to his plantation to preach about abolitionism. The AME church still exists in America today.

Ellen White was an early founding member of the Sabbatarian Adventist movement, the precursor to the modern Seventh Day Adventist movement. White was considered a prophet by her supporters, but she never thought of herself as one though she did claim that she had received visions from God starting in 1844. She authored many books on her interpretation of the Bible.

Many of the effects of the Second Great Awakening are still around today. Some of the faiths that were founded during the 1800's as a result of the awakening, such as Mormonism are now major religions. Other Christian sects that saw major expansion expansion in terms of their number of adherents during this period have also survived into modern times. Examples of this are the Baptists and the Methodists. While times have changed, the same religions that were around during this period of religious revivalism continue to be the faiths held by many Americans today.

Effect on Other Reform Movements
The Second Great Awakening and the spread of religious revivalism that went along with it became the driving force behind many reform movements over the next hundred years. The adherents to these new or expanded faiths felt that it was their duty to improve the world around them. This caused many of them to become involved in social reforms such as abolitionism, suffrage, and temperence. Many were inspired by their belief that the Second Coming of Christ was about to begin and they planned to improve the state of the world in anticipation for Jesus' return to Earth.

Conclusion
In conclusion, The Second Great Awakening was a major turning point for Christianity in America. This was one of the first times that there had been an emphasis on humans trying to better their world without assistance from God. It caused many of the people involved in this movement to also embrace social causes, such as abolitionism, to help their fellow man. People began to accept the idea that they didn't have to wait for God to make changes to their world, and that they could do it themselves. Because of the rising middle class, people began to believe in equality among men. Many of the changes that occured during the Second Great Awakening were made possible only by other important events in American history. Many of the religious movements took hold along the frontier, in America's rapidly expanding territory. The changing social and economic climate of the United States was also a major factor in the Second Great Awakening. This movement was not a solitary event, it was connected to many other reform movements and to a changing America.