The second Great Awakening By: Marie Lopez

An Era of Religious Renewal During the early 1800’s a powerful religious movement was going about in the backcountry of Tennessee, southern Ohio and Kentucky, this was know as The Second Great Awakening. Like the first great awakening a century early this was a movement affected Protestant Christians. This called the attention to the majority because these teachings put emphasis on the democracy aspect of it. Anyone rich or poor could win salvation. By using this approach church dominations and congregations made themselves approachable. By the late 1700s, many Americans no longer regularly attended church services. This occurred for several reasons. Therefore, this era of religious revival was an important part of society in the early 19 th century.

This evangelical movement emphasized on these three ideas: o The Christian Bible, known as the Scripture, is the final authority. o Salvation can be achieved only through a personal belief in Jesus Christ. o People demonstrate true faith by leading a transformed life and by performing good deeds. This is sometimes called “witnessing for Christ”

Revivals One notorious feature that the Second Great awakening had was the actual rival whereas people were “revived” or brought back to Jesus, back to being faith to him. This would take place in large gatherings. Revivals were also called camp meetings because they often took place outdoors for days in temporary shelters such as tents. Adherents and interested parties would spend several days hearing the word of God from various religious leaders. While these services were very emotional, they did not become hysterical gatherings as many earlier revivals had become. These camp meetings sole purpose was to enrich and inspire people to put their life in religion’s hands.

Affects on Society You could say that the Second great awakening was a turning point for society because religion did allow women to assume a greater responsibility by helping to choose their ministers and in few cases actually became preachers and leaders. This helped women defeat their loneliness and become associated with their “sisters”. Another direct affect The Second Great awakening had on society was that new denominations were created during this era. Some of these included Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians, Mormons, and Millienialists. These are all Christian subgroups. Another part of society that was affected was the African Americans. Like white folk they found themselves looking for enlightenment through religion. Most African Americans turned to Methodism and other Protestant denominations. Since this required mixing white and black folks this lead to African Americans to create their own congregations. The revivals encouraged people to return to God. Americans should dedicate their lives to God and to living in a Godly manner. As a result, church attendance increased during the first half of the nineteenth century. A desire to reform America also arose among the people. Attempts to limit alcohol consumption and to abolish slavery came directly out of the Second Great Awakening and its message.

Example of Methodists preachers