History of the Church II: Week 14

The Destiny of a Nation  To better understand the modern day America church, we have to look at how Christianity developed in our history.  In 1835 when Lyman Beecher preached a sermon from Isaiah 66:8 he called it A Plea for the West.  Beecher believed firmly that a vast new country was going to be developed from the wilderness.  Christians needed to shape the culture by preaching the gospel, distributing Bibles, planting churches, building schools and reforming morals.

The Destiny of a Nation  The drive to the west was the major theme of American history until the closing of the frontier in  After the Revolutionary War so many people moved west that by 1821 half of all people in the country lived west of the Appalachian Mountains.  Christianity was at an all-time low during this time period with less than 10% of the population attending church.  Frontier life was hard, rough, immoral and shocking to Europeans who traveled there.

The Destiny of a Nation  Two factors that helped Christianity tame the west: volunteer societies and revivals.  As Carey used the societies for missionary work in India, Americans had their missionary field in the west.  These societies helped in three ways: exert influence on public opinion, provide support for missionaries in the west and spread reform ideals in the youthful nation.  All kinds of societies were formed to help evangelize the west.

The Destiny of a Nation  The revival which started the Second Great Awakening was in Cane Ridge, Kentucky in  Rev. Barton Warren Stone had wanted to get a large gathering together but never expected what happened on that August day.  Col. Robert Patterson, in a letter to a friend, said the meetings started on a rainy Friday with about 10,000 people.  The preaching went on the first time non-stop from Friday until the following Wednesday.  People were confessing, fainting, the preaching was loud and souls saved.

The Destiny of a Nation  The meeting lasted for two full weeks although some locals remained for two months.  The Cane Ridge Revival was an example of the types of meetings that occurred during the Second Great Awakening until about the 1840’s.  As with the First Great Awakening, different regions produced different types of experiences.  Out west, the revivals tended to be loud, boisterous, long and exhibit more of the “gifts” like speaking in tongues, visions and prophesies.  The pastors were less educated sometimes not educated at all.

The Destiny of a Nation  In the east, they were less rowdy and more focused on social issues like abolition of slavery and temperance.  An example of using revival to affect social change were preachers like Charles Finney.  Finney style of preaching almost always included some sort of commentary on slavery.  He wrote several books on the topic and one of the books influenced Beecher’s daughter Harriet to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

The Destiny of a Nation  As the Second Great Awakening faded, Christianity again found itself at a crossroads.  How could churches from the both the North and the South use the Bible to justify their cause?  During this time in America history more cults were formed than at any other time including the Mormons, Jehovah Witness and Unitarianism.  To top in all off, European ideas were flooding American universities.  Ideas like evolution, Marxism and Social Darwinism. How would the Church respond?