THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING

1
THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING

• 1800 1830s

2
Awakenings

• Periodic Waves of Religious Excitement
• Separated by long periods of Religious calm
• 1740s FIRST GREAT AWAKENING
• 1800-1830 SECOND GREAT AWAKENING
• Enthusiasm controversy religious experiment.

3
1. Maria Monk, Awful Disclosures (1836)

• Is the US a country only for Protestant
  Christians?
• Long tradition of ANTI-CATHOLICISM

4
2. William Ellery Channing, Unitarian
Christianity (1819)

• Are people free to re-invent Religion?
• UNITARIANISM
• Rejects Trinity (insists on Unitary God)
• Rejects Jesus divinity
• Rejects Centrality of Jesus Crucifixion
  Resurrection
• Modifies Fall/Redemption concept
• Insists on right of individual to mold his or her
  own religion

5
3. Francis Asbury, A Spiritual Letter (1790)

• Americas Great METHODIST leader
• DEMOCRACY (everyone )
• OPTIMISM ( be saved!)
• How FREE WILL , PERSONAL CHOICE

6
4. Charles Finney, What a Revival of Religion
Is (1835)

• REVIVAL becomes a central Protestant-Christian
  cult

7
5. Peter Cartwright, Autobiography (1856)

• One of the great Methodist revivalists

8
6. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Manifesto (1838)

• Religious experiment

9
7. Walt Whitman, Song of Myself (1867)

• Americas Great Poet
• More religious experiment!