DOCSLIB.ORG

The Second Great Awakening and Antebellum Reform Four Factors

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Second Great Awakening and Antebellum Reform Four Factors The Second Great Awakening and Antebellum Reform Four factors (market revolution, religious revival, sentimentalism, and faith in progress) combined to produce the explosion of reform energies and projects in the Jacksonian Era (1820s- 1840s). The market revolution and the religious revivals of the Second Great Awakening combined to promote the idea of the individual as an economic and moral free agent primarily responsible for his or her own material and spiritual well-being. Even as American reformers attempted to make sense of the new individualistic, contractual relations that defined the market society, they embraced the Second Great Awakening’s emphasis on the individual’s central role in securing his or her own salvation. The growth of sentimentalism and the faith in progress combined to generate millennialism, the belief that reformers could usher in a period of social justice that would prepare the way for the second coming of Christ. Thus reform energies focused on preparing individuals to take control of the economic and spiritual lives (temperance and self-discipline) while at the same time trying to stamp out forms of social injustice (abolition and improving care for the outcast).1 The religious revivals of the Second Great Awakening emphasized the individual’s direct responsibility for his or her spiritual life and eventual salvation. An indication of the impact of these religious teachings can be glimpsed in Peter Cartwright’s account of his religious conversion. After a day of dissipation and carousing, Cartwright began “to reflect on the manner in which I had spent the day and evening. I felt guilty and condemned.” Cartwright recalled that “an awful impression rested on my mind that death had come and I was unprepared to die. I fell on my knees and began to ask God to have mercy on me.” With the help of his family and evangelical preaching, Cartwright resolved to transform his personal life and dedicate himself to the conversion of others.2 The message of the Second Great Awakening proved particularly explosive in areas experiencing the market revolution. Upper New York State along the Erie Canal, for example, became known as “the burnt over district” in reference to the wave of revivals that swept over the area. As revivals generated movements for both personal and social reform, temperance exemplified the intersection of religious and economic free agency. Temperance not only led to a more Christian life, but promised economic well-being as well. Temperance reformers thus rejoiced at the fine symbolism of grocers who poured their whiskey into the Erie Canal. Drunkeness, reformers warned, was the most “formidable enemy” to “the spirit of industry and economy,” threatening the “loss of property and credit.” Temperance, on the other hand, promoted “the spirit of industry and frugality, in relation to the individual and his family.”3 1 Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman and Jon Gjerde, eds., Major Problems in American History (Boston: D.C. Heath, 2002), the four factors examined on 260-261. 2 Selections from Cartwright’s Autobiography reproduced in Hoffman and Gjerde, Major Problems, 262-263. 3 Address of temperance reformer Thomas Grimke reproduced in Hoffman and Gjerde, Major Problems, 269-270; on the intersection of religious revival and market transformation, see Paul E. Johnson, “Religious Reform as a Form of Social Control,” in Hoffman and Gjerde, Major Problems, 275-285, especially 276. Temperance and other reform movements understood personal transformation as only the starting point for social transformation. The most famous revivalist of all, Charles Finney, told his converts that “if they were united all over the world, the Millennium might be brought about in three months.” Finney and other evangelicals believed that Christian reformers would establish a thousand-year reign of peace and justice on earth at the end of which Christ would return. Therefore, evangelical communities resolved “to make it the business of our life to do good” and “to glorify God and built up the Redeemer’s Kingdom in this fallen world....” The growth of sentimentalism and the belief in progress re-enforced these convictions, generating sympathy of the poor and outcaste and a determination to improve their lives. Thus Dorothea Dix petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to improve “the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast,” those “beings wretched in our prisons, and more wretched in our almshouses....”4 In market towns like Rochester, New York, economic leaders used religious revival and social reform to discipline their employees and transform working-class culture. In the wake of Theodore Weld’s impassioned call for absolute temperance, evangelized economic leaders not only campaigned against liquor sellers in the city but closed down major working-class amusements including a theater and a circus. Simultaneously economic leaders established new free churches for the poor, contributed monies to existing working-class churches, and invited the most respectable workers into their own churches. They also established a savings bank to encourage thrift among their employees and a Female Charitable Society that distributed alms to the “worthy” poor. Their efforts resulted in a dramatic increase in church membership among workers.5 Rochester’s workers joined middle-class churches in droves. Forty-two percent of new members in middle-class churches in the mid-1830s were journeymen craftsmen. This was not simply a matter of the more disciplined and self–respecting workers embracing middle-class morality. Indeed, the most self-respecting and well-educated workers in the city were often radicals who avoid church and instead read avidly, debated aggressively, and conducted strikes for the ten-hour day. Sometimes family ties and the egalitarian content of much of revivalist preaching pulled workers into middle-class congregations. But more than anything else, the coercive power of employers and lenders brought workers into the middle-class orbit. Tee- totaling, church-going craftsmen found it much easier to secure employer and credit than did those who resisted middle-class strictures.6 The thrust of the revivalism and reform also took more egalitarian forms. The emphasis on individual free agency, moral and economic, cast a critical light on institutions and practices that denied individual freedom. The denial of individual opportunity for improvement was central to David Walker’s criticism of slavery. Slavery, the free black man wrote in 1829, had “kept us ignorant of Him and His Divine worship.” African-Americans of “talents and learning” had not been given “a chance to develop, in consequence of oppression.” Walker added that “our 4 Johnson, “Religious Reform,” Finney quoted on 276; Rochester’s evangelical Brick Church quoted on 276-277; Dorothea Dix’s petition reproduced in Hoffman and Gjerde, Major Problems, 273. 5 Johnson, “Religious Reform,” 278-282. 6 Johnson, “Religious Reform,” 280-285. oppression ought not to hinder us from acquiring all we can.” White abolitionists also made the denial of spiritual freedom central to their indictment of slavery.7 The women’s rights movement also appropriated the idea of moral and economic free agency in crafting their demands. Women also seized upon the enthusiasm for social reform in expanding their sphere of action. “Surrendering to calm and deep convictions of duty my habitual views of what is womanly and becoming,” Dix entered the public and political realm to petition the Massachusetts legislature. She beseeched the legislators to, for once, “put away the cold, calculating spirit of selfishness and self-seeking,” the “armor of local strife and political opposition,” the “earthly and perishable,” and attend to “works of righteousness and just judgment.” Thus women like Dix insisted on applying traditionally female qualities of care and compassion to the world at large.8 As Dix’s petition suggests, reformers could also take issue with market values and market principles even as they acquired energy from the market revolution. Thus Ralph Waldo Emerson’s praise of “Man the Reformer” included criticism of the “practical impediments that stand in the way of virtuous young men.” The “ways of trade,” Emerson charged, “are grown selfish to the borders of theft” and “vitiated by derelictions and abuses at which all connive....” Selfish market egoism, Emerson added, forced the individual into “the harness of routine and obsequiousness” and left us all to “eat and drink and wear perjury and fraud in a hundred commodities....” Responding to such charges, Emerson’s associates established an experiment in communal living at Brook Farm. The Brook Farm group, as Elizabeth Peabody explained, believed that in “order to live a religious and moral life worthy of the name” they must “come out in some degree from the world” to form a new community and new economy “to exclude competition and the ordinary rules of trade.” They proposed to share physical and intellectual labor, to reward all at the same rate of pay, and to insure that “means will be given to all for intellectual improvement and for social intercourse, calculated to refine and expand.” They hoped to provide “not only all the necessaries, but all the elegances desirable for bodily and for spiritual health: books, apparatus, collections for science, works of art, means of beautiful amusement.” Making such things “common to all,” they hoped to dampen “the passion for individual accumulation” so that “whenever the sordid passion appears,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Origins of Millerite Separatism
    The Origins of Millerite Separatism By Andrew Taylor (BA in History, Aurora University and MA in History, University of Rhode Island) CHAPTER 1 HISTORIANS AND MILLERITE SEPARATISM ===================================== Early in 1841, Truman Hendryx moved to Bradford, Pennsylvania, where he quickly grew alienated from his local church. Upon settling down in his new home, Hendryx attended several services in his new community’s Baptist church. After only a handful of visits, though, he became convinced that the church did not believe in what he referred to as “Bible religion.” Its “impiety” led him to lament, “I sometimes almost feel to use the language [of] the Prophecy ‘Lord, they have killed thy prophets and digged [sic] down thine [sic] altars and I only am left alone and they seek my life.”’1 His opposition to the church left him isolated in his community, but his fear of “degeneracy in the churches and ministers” was greater than his loneliness. Self-righteously believing that his beliefs were the “Bible truth,” he resolved to remain apart from the Baptist church rather than attend and be corrupted by its “sinful” influence.2 The “sinful” church from which Hendryx separated himself was characteristic of mainstream antebellum evangelicalism. The tumultuous first decades of the nineteenth century had transformed the theological and institutional foundations of mainstream American Protestantism. During the colonial era, American Protestantism had been dominated by the Congregational, Presbyterian, and Anglican churches, which, for the most part, had remained committed to the theology of John Calvin. In Calvinism, God was envisioned as all-powerful, having predetermined both the course of history and the eternal destiny of all humans.
    [Show full text]
  • Barber Final Dissertation
    The Gospel Horse in the Valley: Evangelical Slavery and Freedom in the Chattahoochee Valley, 1821-1877 by Stephen Presley Barber A dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Auburn University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Auburn, Alabama May 9, 2011 Keywords: Slavery, Religion, Baptists, Methodists, Georgia Copyright 2011 by Stephen Presley Barber Approved by Charles A. Israel, Chair, Associate Professor of History Kenneth W. Noe, Draughon Professor of History Anthony G. Carey, Associate Professor of History Abstract This dissertation examines the introduction of evangelical religion into the Chattahoochee Valley of Georgia during the frontier era, the formation and characteristics of biracial churches during the antebellum period, and the post-bellum racial separation and organization of independent black churches. It will document the attitudes, ideas, and actions of evangelicals as they formed, organized, and maintained biracial churches in the Chattahoochee Valley. In these churches, black and white evangelicals practiced “evangelical slavery,” defined as the manifestation of chattel slavery in the context of evangelical Christianity as practiced by slaveholders and slaves. This study also discloses the complexities of interactions of blacks and whites and their experiences as they grappled with the uncertainties and conflict brought about by emancipation. This dissertation is the first narrative of the religious history of the Chattahoochee Valley from the beginnings of white settlement to the end of Reconstruction. It is a subset of larger works on southern religion, but uniquely examines the continuity of southern evangelical religion between the time of the invasion of the Chattahoochee Valley by Methodist missionaries in 1821 and the practically complete institutional religious separation by 1877, thus augmenting and challenging previous interpretations of processes and chronology by revealing local patterns of behavior by black and white southern evangelicals.
    [Show full text]
  • Antebellum Revival and Reform C Onte Nt S
    Chapter Thirteen: Antebellum Revival And Reform C onte nt s 13.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 584 13.1.1 Learning Outcomes ................................................................................. 584 13.2 RELIGIOUS REFORMS IN THE ANTEBELLUM UNITED STATES ..........................586 13.2.1 The Second Great Awakening .......................................................................586 The Second Great Awakening in the South and in Appalachia ...................................588 The Second Great Awakening in the North ............................................................. 591 The Mormons ..................................................................................................592 The Unitarian Movement ................................................................................... 592 13.2.2 Before You Move On... ................................................................................ 593 Key Concepts .................................................................................................. 593 Test Yourself ................................................................................................... 593 13.3 CULTURAL MOVEMENTS: TRANSCENDENTALISM, UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES, AND THE CULT OF DOMESTICITY .......................................................................... 594 13.3.1 Transcendentalism ..................................................................................... 594 13.3.2Utopian Communities
    [Show full text]
  • The Rise of the Baptists in South Carolina: Origins, Revival, and Their Enduring Legacy
    Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History Volume 2 Issue 2 Article 6 November 2018 The Rise of the Baptists in South Carolina: Origins, Revival, and their Enduring Legacy Steven C. Pruitt Liberty University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/ljh Part of the History of Religion Commons, Social History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Pruitt, Steven C. (2018) "The Rise of the Baptists in South Carolina: Origins, Revival, and their Enduring Legacy," Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History: Vol. 2 : Iss. 2 , Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/ljh/vol2/iss2/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Crossing. It has been accepted for inclusion in Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History by an authorized editor of Scholars Crossing. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Rise of the Baptists in South Carolina: Origins, Revival, and their Enduring Legacy Abstract Baptists have played an important role in the development of the religious landscape in the United States since the First Great Awakening. This religious sect’s core of influence eventually migrated south around the turn of the nineteenth century. A battle over the soul of the South would be waged by the Baptists, along with the Methodists, and Presbyterians also moving into the area. This Protestant surge coincided with the decrease in influence of the Episcopal (Anglican) Church after ties with England were severed. In many ways, this battle for the future would occur in the newly settled backcountry of South Carolina.
    [Show full text]
  • Jarena Lee 1783–1849
    Life Story Jarena Lee 1783–1849 Forbidden to Speak age 20, Jarena moved to Philadelphia and searched for a church that suited her . She arena Lee’s parents were a free black felt out of place until she arrived at a black couple in Cape May, New Jersey . church and heard the preaching of Richard Like many poor people of all races, Allen . She was baptized in 1807 at age 24 . Jwhen their daughter was seven, they hired her out as a domestic servant to a Soon after, Jarena felt called to preach, and white family living sixty miles away . Jarena asked Reverend Allen for permission . He said taught herself to read and write, and she was that she could respond from the congregation, but only men could preach . Most Protestant churches had a similar policy based on the Bible: “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak ”. Later, when she published her spiritual autobiography, she reflected on this disappointing moment: “If the man may preach, because the Savior died for him, why not the woman? seeing he died for her also . Is he not a whole Savior, instead of a half one?” or the time being, Jarena put aside her F Hugh Bridport, Camp Meeting, ca . 1829 . Lithograph . New-York Historical Society Library, PR 68 . thoughts of preaching . In 1811, newly married, she moved with her husband to New Jersey . By 1817, her husband and four because it linked religion, moral reform, of their six children had died . She returned The Second Great Awakening and the lives of women just as the nation to Philadelphia and Reverend Allen, who Jarena Lee was part of a broad spiritual was contending with deep inequalities in had just founded the African Methodist movement that stretched from the 1790s American life .
    [Show full text]
  • Regular Baptists in Maine, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, 1780 to 1815
    The University of Maine DigitalCommons@UMaine Electronic Theses and Dissertations Fogler Library Spring 5-26-2020 Separating God's Two Kingdoms: Regular Baptists in Maine, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, 1780 to 1815 Ronald S. Baines University of Maine, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd Part of the Canadian History Commons, Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, Christianity Commons, History of Christianity Commons, History of Religion Commons, Political History Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Baines, Ronald S., "Separating God's Two Kingdoms: Regular Baptists in Maine, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, 1780 to 1815" (2020). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3183. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd/3183 This Open-Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SEPARATING GOD’S TWO KINGDOMS: REGULAR BAPTISTS IN MAINE, NOVA SCOTIA, AND NEW BRUNSWICK, 1780 TO 1815 By Ronald S. Baines B.S. Westfield State College, 1989 M.A. Reformed Theological Seminary, 2007 A DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in History) The Graduate School The University of Maine May 2020 Advisory Committee: Liam Riordan, Professor of History, Advisor Richard Judd, Professor of History, emeritus Michael Lang, Associate Professor of History James M. Renihan, Professor of Historical Theology, IRBS Theological Seminary Scott See, Professor of History, emeritus SEPARATING GOD’S TWO KINGDOMS: REGULAR BAPTISTS IN MAINE, NOVA SCOTIA, AND NEW BRUNSWICK, 1780 TO 1815 By Ronald S.
    [Show full text]
  • The Second Great Awakening: a Christian Nation?
    University of Chicago Law School Chicago Unbound Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship 2010 The Second Great Awakening: A Christian Nation? Geoffrey R. Stone Follow this and additional works at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/journal_articles Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Geoffrey R. Stone, "The Second Great Awakening: A Christian Nation?," 26 Georgia State University Law Review 1305 (2010). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Chicago Unbound. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of Chicago Unbound. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING: A CHRISTIAN NATION? Geoffrey R. Stone* on the occasion of the 45th Henry J. Miller Distinguished Lecture October 15, 2009 Georgia State University College of Law Last year, I delivered a lecture at U.C.L.A. entitled "The World of the Framers: A Christian Nation?"' The essential thesis of that lecture, which was published in the U.C.L.A. Law Review, was that our nation "was conceived 'not in an Age of Faith.. but in an Age of Reason.' 2 As members of a Revolutionary generation steeped in the Enlightenment, the Framers of the American Constitution "viewed 'issues of religion and politics through a prism' that was highly critical of what they saw as Christianity's historical excesses 3 and superstitions." Indeed, many of our founding fathers, including Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and George Washington, were full or partial deists, who questioned all religious beliefs they could not reconcile with reason.
    [Show full text]
  • FBCV WHAT WE BELIEVE 3Rd Edition 2020
    What We Believe ______________________________________ Doctrine and Faith Documents 3rd Edition First Baptist Church Vicksburg, Mississippi 2020 Table of Contents Explanation and Dedication...3 Sections: 1. The Journey of Being a Christian...4 2. A Baptist Catechism - Questions on Doctrine, Faith and Practice...10 3. The FBCV Articles of Faith (1839)...27 4. The SBC Baptist Faith and Message (2000)...28 5. A Statement of Traditional Southern Baptist Doctrine of Salvation...37 6. The Ordinances -- Baptism and The Lord's Supper...40 7. Why I Am a Baptist…45 8. Meaningful Church Membership and Membership Process...51 9. FBCV Financial Stewardship and Mission Cooperation Convictions…53 10. Terms For a Better Understanding of Southern Baptists...55 11. Terms For a Better Understanding of World-Wide and “New Age” Christianity...63 12. Timeline of First Baptist Church Vicksburg…81 13. Timeline of Great Baptist and Southern Baptist Convention Events... 82 14. General Eras and Epochs for Christian History...87 15. Creeds and Confession of Faith…89 The Nicene Creed, A.D. 325 The Creed of Athanasius (late Fourth Century and early Fifth Century) FBCV Adapted Christian Confession of Faith, A.D. 2017 Resources…93 What We Believe Doctrine and Faith Documents. 1st Edition - 2017 and 2nd Edition - 2018. September 28, 2020 2 What We Believe “Didache” (did-akh-aý) (In early Christianity the elements of instruction to followers of Jesus Christ; teaching; that which was taught) Apostolic Doctrine...beliefs Christian Faith...deeds Church Practice...ministries Explanation What We Believe is a book of doctrine, faith and practice. It serves to guide the believer of Jesus Christ and member of First Baptist Church Vicksburg (hereafter FBCV) or a member of any local church to know what the Bible teaches that we should believe.
    [Show full text]
  • Reviewing the First Great Awakening Reviewing the Second Great
    Reviewing the First Great Awakening This ferment or revival that emerged in the colonies occurred mainly between 1739 and 1742. It was part of a larger movement that swept Western Europe. Among Protestants on the Continent and in England the movement was known as Pietism or Evangelicalism; among Roman Catholics it was known as Quietism. Those who experienced the revival often described it as a conversion and expressed it by emotional manifestations such as weeping, fainting, and physical gyrations. In America as in Europe, the Great Awakening had multiple causes. From the theological point of view it was a reaction against the attempt in the Age of Reason to reduce Christian doctrine to rationalistic explanations. The Awakening moved in the direction of an Evangelical Calvinism. It also had roots in reactions against clergymen who neglected their pastoral duties and made the liturgy unduly formal. Leaders of the First Revival in America While there had been seasons of spiritual renewal before the time of the Awakening, the first signs are usually traced to the preaching of the Dutch Reformed immigrant Theodorus Frelinghuysen in the Raritan Valley of New Jersey. Frelinghuysen preached warnings against the Dutch merchants who took their religion for granted, using it primarily to preserve their traditions in an English environment. His reputation spread, and his fervor was emulated by Gilbert Tennent, who led the Presbyterian Awakening in the Middle Colonies. In New England, Jonathan Edwards became the most brilliant spokesman for the movement, while in the Southern colonies it was begun by laymen and then organized by the eloquent Presbyterian minister Samuel Davies.
    [Show full text]
  • CHURCH and STATE in the THOUGHT of ALEXANDER Campbell
    /CHURCH AND STATE IN THE THOUGHT OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELl/ by MARK STEPHEN JOY B. A., Central Christian College, 1976 M. A., Eastern New Mexico University, 1983 A MASTER'S THESIS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS Department of History KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 1985 Approved by: LD A11205 1,41354 JV HfS %, CONTENTS c . INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: CHURCH- STATE RELATIONS IN AMERICA TO THE EVE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 10 CHAPTER TWO: ALEXANDER CAMPBELL AND THE RESTORATION MOVEMENT 37 CHAPTER THREE: ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S VIEWS ON CHURCH- STATE ISSUES 69 CHAPTER FOUR: THE SOURCES OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THOUGHT ON CHURCH-STATE ISSUES Ill CONCLUSION 133 BIBLIOGRAPHY 140 INTRODUCTION The establishment of constitutional provisions prohibiting the establishment of religion, and guaranteeing the free exercise thereof, was one of the most significant developments in early American history. These first amendment provisions also imply a concept which was, in the eighteenth century, a uniquely American contribution to political theory: the separation of church and state. The incorporation of these principles into the Constitution was not an overnight accomplishment, nor did the passage of the First Amendment mean that the controversies over matters of religious liberty and the relationship of church and state were over. But these developments, coupled with the pluralism that has been a character- istic of American life from the very beginning of colonization, have contributed greatly to the creation of a distinctively American religious tradition. Many scholars have noted that two currents of thought were influential in bringing about the separation of church and state in America.
    [Show full text]
  • The Restoration Movement's Attitude Toward Slavery
    THE RESTORATION MOVEMENT'S ATTITUDE TOWARD SLAVERY A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School Morehead State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Warren Ray Kelley May, 1971+ - .. Accepted by the faculty of the School of Social Science , Morehead State University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts in History degree . ?JJ;..irectorof~ Thesis.6i~ " Master' s Committee: 1fh Uri <t/]~airman ~~ k'11~ 0 M J. v 2 . Jt/7'1- 7 (date{) The Restoration Movement's Attitude Toward Slavery I. The Background and Principles of the Restoration Movement. 1 II. Slavery and the Restoration Movement 7 III. Is Colonization the Answer?. 33 IV. Missions and Slavery. 43 V. Education and Slavery. 57 VI. Politics and the Restoration Movement. 63 VII. The Bible and Slavery. 82 VIII. Conclusion ,106 Bibliography ... .110 ii CHAPTER ONE THE BACKGROUND AND PRINCIPLE_S OF THE RESTORATION' MOVEMENT The ~e~toratio~ Movement is 'a term used' -'tc,' describe a religious movement of the early nineteenth century. This movement was concentrat~d in the. Ohio Valley from Pennsyl~ania to Kentucky and Illinois, with some congregations scattered throughout the rest of the United States. During the early development of this movement, the congregations used three names: Disciples of Christ, Christian ' 1 Church, and Churci). of Christ. These groups had little conflict over the various names, which were generally used interchangeably. The Background of the Restoration Movement Although the Restoration Movement can trace its history as far back as.the Reformation, it is sufficient for the purposes of this study to state that four groups emerged to make up the backbone 2 of the Restoration Movement.
    [Show full text]
  • Fire from Heaven
    Stewart Holloway First Baptist Church Pineville, LA Session 7: The Second Great Awakening #2 The Need for Revival in the Frontier • Enormous migration of population occurred from the eastern states into the great valleys to the west. • Noticeable Problems of the Frontier: o Lack of Religion o Demoralization o Drunkenness o Incapability of the churches o Ministerial Misconduct Origins of the Revival • Frontier setting • Larger religious context • Wave of revivalism among Scots-Irish Presbyterians in the early 18th century. • Social and economic setting of KY. • Hand of God Rise and Spread of the Revival • James McGready o Born ca. 1758-1763. o Thought himself to be sanctified from birth. o Question of Salvation and Conversion ▪ McGready happened to overhear a conversation between his friends. ▪ In 1786 he was finally converted. o McGready soon graduated and was licensed to preach. That fall, on his way back to NC, he stopped at Hampden-Sydney College. This visit, along with his conversion, ignited the revival fire and evangelistic zeal in his heart. o Upon returning to NC, he found religion at a low ebb. Spiritual apathy and formalism had crept over the majority of churches. In his own congregations, he began to preach against formalism, hypocrisy, and the sin of self-righteousness and emphasized the necessity of a new birth. o By the beginning of 1791 the McGready-led revival was spreading. The Beginning of the Camp Meeting Revivals • In August 1796, McGready became the pastor of three small congregations in Logan County, KY. • The reprobate spiritual condition of the region could not stop the preacher.
    [Show full text]