4.10 Study Notes on the Second Great Awakening
Overview of the Second Great Awakening and Comparison with the First Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening was a massive religious revival that occurred in the United States during the first half of the century, specifically spanning roughly years from approximately to .
It was heavily influenced by broader societal shifts, including the Market Revolution and the expansion of voting rights, which fundamentally altered the American economy, society, and political landscape.
Similarities between the First and Second Great Awakenings:
Both were mass religious movements that spread across a vast portion of American territory.
Both provided Americans with a shared experience and a common religious vocabulary, which helped unite individuals from different regions.
Both movements led to the creation of new Christian denominations and spurred significant growth within existing ones.
Differences between the First and Second Great Awakenings:
First Great Awakening: Preachers were overwhelmingly Calvinist. They emphasized individual sin and the necessity of individual conversion.
Theological stance: Human beings were viewed as being born in sin and inherently wretched. According to figures like Jonathan Edwards, hearts were considered "evil and black all the way to the bottom."
Moral agency: Without a powerful religious conversion through Christ, humans were seen as incapable of making any truly good or right choices.
Social impact: The movement had very little to say about societal improvement. If only a specific group (the "elect") were destined for heaven, there was less motivation to reform the broader society.
Second Great Awakening: Preachers shifted focus toward the innate goodness of human beings and their individual capacity to choose to live holy lives.
Social impact: This movement was deeply focused on societal reformation as a direct outflow of religious conversion.
Goal: Preachers taught that through specific efforts of social reform, Christians could bring the perfection of the "kingdom of God" to earth.
Outcome: This belief spurred the creation of numerous voluntary organizations and groups dedicated to ridding the land of communal sins and improving society.
Causes of the Second Great Awakening
I. Expansion of Democracy:
During this era, there was a shift toward universal white male suffrage, moving away from an elite group of property-owning white men.
This democratic impulse influenced theology:
The First Great Awakening's Calvinism relied on the doctrine of predestination, which held that God decided before the world's creation who would be saved (the "elect") and who would be damned. This was viewed by some as elitist.
The Second Great Awakening abandoned predestination in favor of the idea that salvation was open to everyone. This was a "democratic notion" where every person had the possibility to achieve salvation through faith and Christian morality.
Diversity and Inclusion in Revivals:
In rural and frontier areas, revivals took the form of "camp meetings"—all-day field gatherings featuring emotionally charged sermons, singing, and prayer.
Unlike the formally educated luminaries of the first awakening (like George Whitefield or Jonathan Edwards), many second-awakening preachers had no formal education.
Camp meetings were unusually diverse, including white and black participants (both enslaved and free) and women.
In some instances, black and female preachers held the stage and gained followings of their own.
II. Rise of Individualistic Beliefs:
There was a growing belief in the triumph of the individual as the most basic unit of society.
This was closely linked to the Transcendentalist movement, which emphasized that individuals should find their own way in the world rather than submitting to the established rules and mores of wider society.
Preachers utilized this language of individualism to call for personalized religious conversions, which they then directed toward the goal of social reformation.
III. Reaction Against Rationalism:
During the era of independence and the founding of the government, Enlightenment-inspired rationalism had sidelined traditional religious beliefs.
The Influence of Deism: Many founders held Deist beliefs, viewing God as a "cosmic clockmaker" who created the world, set it in motion with the laws of physics, and then ceased to intervene. Deists rejected biblical miracles.
Rationalist Critiques: Thomas Paine, in The Age of Reason, argued that churches were instruments of control and conformity that stifled human liberty.
The Second Great Awakening was a direct rejection of this "dry intellectualism" and rationalism in favor of intense emotionalism, influenced by the Romanticism of the period.
Key Figures and Geographical Impact
Methodists and Circuit Riders:
The Methodist denomination grew rapidly due to the use of "circuit riders"—preachers who traveled throughout specific regions to seek converts.
Peter Cartwright: A famous frontier Methodist preacher who traveled a circuit ranging from Tennessee to Illinois. He spent decades on horseback, traveling an estimated to spread Christian conversion. Cartwright, having no formal education, exemplified the democratization of faith.
Charles Grandison Finney:
Finney was a central figure in reviving urban populations, focusing his efforts on cities like Rochester and New York City.
He utilized soaring oratory, plain language, metaphors, and highly charged emotional appeals that common people could easily understand.
He explicitly called on Christians to reform society, specifically targeting "drunkenness and slavery," as a means of ushering in the kingdom of God.
The Burned-over District:
This term refers to Western New York, an area where the emotionalism and "hellfire and brimstone" messages of preachers like Finney were so frequent and effective that it was joked there was no one left to convert—the metaphorical "fuel" for the fire of revival had been used up.
This region became a central hub for the widespread social reform movements that would follow in the subsequent decades.