Gary Scott Smith
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199738953
- eISBN:
- 9780199897346
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738953.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
Led by James McGready, Timothy Dwight, Asahel Nettleton, and Charles Finney, the Second Great Awakening (1800–40) had a significant impact on American society. Both prominent revivalists and ordinary ...
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Led by James McGready, Timothy Dwight, Asahel Nettleton, and Charles Finney, the Second Great Awakening (1800–40) had a significant impact on American society. Both prominent revivalists and ordinary pastors painted vivid pictures of heavenly life, especially stressing the saints’ relationship with God, celestial worship, and progress in knowledge, love, and power. Much more than did subsequent generations, they warned their readers and listeners of the suffering that awaited them in hell if they refused to repent of their sins and accept Jesus as their savior and Lord. During the revolutionary, early national, and antebellum periods, numerous deists, free thinkers, and Unitarians attacked conventional Christian understandings of God, the Bible, the means of salvation, and the nature of heaven. Meanwhile, Universalists repudiated the orthodox view that individuals had to receive Jesus as their redeemer to gain entry to heaven.Less
Led by James McGready, Timothy Dwight, Asahel Nettleton, and Charles Finney, the Second Great Awakening (1800–40) had a significant impact on American society. Both prominent revivalists and ordinary pastors painted vivid pictures of heavenly life, especially stressing the saints’ relationship with God, celestial worship, and progress in knowledge, love, and power. Much more than did subsequent generations, they warned their readers and listeners of the suffering that awaited them in hell if they refused to repent of their sins and accept Jesus as their savior and Lord. During the revolutionary, early national, and antebellum periods, numerous deists, free thinkers, and Unitarians attacked conventional Christian understandings of God, the Bible, the means of salvation, and the nature of heaven. Meanwhile, Universalists repudiated the orthodox view that individuals had to receive Jesus as their redeemer to gain entry to heaven.
Richard T. Hughes
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780252042065
- eISBN:
- 9780252050800
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042065.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
While America’s founders sought to create a nation of religious freedom, not a Christian nation, Christians in the early nineteenth century effectively Christianized the American Republic through the ...
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While America’s founders sought to create a nation of religious freedom, not a Christian nation, Christians in the early nineteenth century effectively Christianized the American Republic through the Second Great Awakening. Over the course of American history, many whites have accepted the claim that America is a Christian nation. Blacks from an early date, however, have argued that Christian America is a hollow concept, informed by assumptions of white supremacy. In the nineteenth century, David Walker ridiculed the notion of Christian America, while Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells claimed that the idea of Christian America was a cover for horrendous crimes against blacks. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, blacks as disparate as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and James Cone unmasked the myth of a Christian America. By the twenty-first century, the collapse of Christian dominance in the United States could be traced, at least in part, to the complicity of white American Christians in the myth of White Supremacy. Many white Christians responded by attempting to restore a lost golden age, ignoring their complicity in the myth of White Supremacy that had helped bring on America’s fourth time of trial.Less
While America’s founders sought to create a nation of religious freedom, not a Christian nation, Christians in the early nineteenth century effectively Christianized the American Republic through the Second Great Awakening. Over the course of American history, many whites have accepted the claim that America is a Christian nation. Blacks from an early date, however, have argued that Christian America is a hollow concept, informed by assumptions of white supremacy. In the nineteenth century, David Walker ridiculed the notion of Christian America, while Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells claimed that the idea of Christian America was a cover for horrendous crimes against blacks. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, blacks as disparate as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and James Cone unmasked the myth of a Christian America. By the twenty-first century, the collapse of Christian dominance in the United States could be traced, at least in part, to the complicity of white American Christians in the myth of White Supremacy. Many white Christians responded by attempting to restore a lost golden age, ignoring their complicity in the myth of White Supremacy that had helped bring on America’s fourth time of trial.
Dan P. McAdams
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195176933
- eISBN:
- 9780199786787
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195176933.003.0007
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
Drawing from empirical research on the psychology and sociology of religion and from historical analyses of American religious life, this chapter describes how religiosity among Americans is ...
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Drawing from empirical research on the psychology and sociology of religion and from historical analyses of American religious life, this chapter describes how religiosity among Americans is positively associated with physical health, psychological well-being, and generativity. Case studies of moral exemplars and empirical research on the life narrative and generativity, strongly suggest that highly generative American adults often draw upon religious traditions to articulate their redemptive stories of self. The chapter also considers how Americans have reacted to the narrative challenge of reconciling within their own redemptive life stories their devout religious sentiments on the one hand, and the drive for money and material gain on the other.Less
Drawing from empirical research on the psychology and sociology of religion and from historical analyses of American religious life, this chapter describes how religiosity among Americans is positively associated with physical health, psychological well-being, and generativity. Case studies of moral exemplars and empirical research on the life narrative and generativity, strongly suggest that highly generative American adults often draw upon religious traditions to articulate their redemptive stories of self. The chapter also considers how Americans have reacted to the narrative challenge of reconciling within their own redemptive life stories their devout religious sentiments on the one hand, and the drive for money and material gain on the other.
Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195098358
- eISBN:
- 9780199854134
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195098358.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
In the autumn of 1834, New York City was awash with rumors of a strange religious cult operating nearby, centered around a mysterious, self-styled prophet named Matthias. It was said that Matthias ...
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In the autumn of 1834, New York City was awash with rumors of a strange religious cult operating nearby, centered around a mysterious, self-styled prophet named Matthias. It was said that Matthias the Prophet was stealing money from one of his followers; then came reports of lascivious sexual relations, based on odd teachings of matched spirits, apostolic priesthoods, and the inferiority of women. At its climax, the rumors transformed into legal charges, as the Prophet was arrested for the murder of a once highly regarded Christian gentleman who had fallen under his sway. This book recaptures the strange tale, providing a window into the turbulent movements of the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening—movements which swept up great numbers of evangelical Americans and gave rise to new sects like the Mormons. Into this teeming environment walked a down-and-out carpenter named Robert Matthews, who announced himself as Matthias, prophet of the God of the Jews. His hypnotic spell drew in a cast of unforgettable characters: the meekly devout businessman Elijah Pierson, who once tried to raise his late wife from the dead; the young attractive Christian couple, Benjamin Folger and his wife Ann, who seduced the woman-hating Prophet; and the shrewd ex-slave Isabella Van Wagenen, regarded by some as “the most wicked of the wicked.” None was more colorful than the Prophet himself, a bearded, thundering tyrant who gathered his followers into an absolutist household, using their money to buy an elaborate, eccentric wardrobe, and reordering their marital relations. By the time the tensions within the kingdom exploded into a clash with the law, Matthias had become a national scandal.Less
In the autumn of 1834, New York City was awash with rumors of a strange religious cult operating nearby, centered around a mysterious, self-styled prophet named Matthias. It was said that Matthias the Prophet was stealing money from one of his followers; then came reports of lascivious sexual relations, based on odd teachings of matched spirits, apostolic priesthoods, and the inferiority of women. At its climax, the rumors transformed into legal charges, as the Prophet was arrested for the murder of a once highly regarded Christian gentleman who had fallen under his sway. This book recaptures the strange tale, providing a window into the turbulent movements of the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening—movements which swept up great numbers of evangelical Americans and gave rise to new sects like the Mormons. Into this teeming environment walked a down-and-out carpenter named Robert Matthews, who announced himself as Matthias, prophet of the God of the Jews. His hypnotic spell drew in a cast of unforgettable characters: the meekly devout businessman Elijah Pierson, who once tried to raise his late wife from the dead; the young attractive Christian couple, Benjamin Folger and his wife Ann, who seduced the woman-hating Prophet; and the shrewd ex-slave Isabella Van Wagenen, regarded by some as “the most wicked of the wicked.” None was more colorful than the Prophet himself, a bearded, thundering tyrant who gathered his followers into an absolutist household, using their money to buy an elaborate, eccentric wardrobe, and reordering their marital relations. By the time the tensions within the kingdom exploded into a clash with the law, Matthias had become a national scandal.
Jonathan D. Sassi
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195129892
- eISBN:
- 9780199834624
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019512989X.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century constituted a transitional period for orthodox Congregationalists, as they moved from their eighteenth‐century establishmentarianism toward a new, ...
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The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century constituted a transitional period for orthodox Congregationalists, as they moved from their eighteenth‐century establishmentarianism toward a new, evangelical social ideology. Despite what appeared to them as the baleful state of politics, standing‐order ministers maintained their commitment to engaging society through both their providential interpretations and pronouncements about a righteous social order. The experience of religious revivals during the Second Great Awakening and news of missionary advances fostered renewed optimism and a new conception of the church's impact on society. Congregational ministers of an evangelical bent now portrayed the church as the key institution that would spread godliness and counteract social disorder, and they created new missionary and moral reform societies to put this vision into effect, thereby creatively substituting for their earlier reliance on the religious establishment and civil magistracy. As a microcosm of changes taking place throughout southern New England, the chapter examines events in Worcester County, Massachusetts, where Congregational ministers such as the Rev. Joseph Goffe of the North Parish of Sutton led grassroots religious revivals and founded new local organizations for evangelization and public morality.Less
The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century constituted a transitional period for orthodox Congregationalists, as they moved from their eighteenth‐century establishmentarianism toward a new, evangelical social ideology. Despite what appeared to them as the baleful state of politics, standing‐order ministers maintained their commitment to engaging society through both their providential interpretations and pronouncements about a righteous social order. The experience of religious revivals during the Second Great Awakening and news of missionary advances fostered renewed optimism and a new conception of the church's impact on society. Congregational ministers of an evangelical bent now portrayed the church as the key institution that would spread godliness and counteract social disorder, and they created new missionary and moral reform societies to put this vision into effect, thereby creatively substituting for their earlier reliance on the religious establishment and civil magistracy. As a microcosm of changes taking place throughout southern New England, the chapter examines events in Worcester County, Massachusetts, where Congregational ministers such as the Rev. Joseph Goffe of the North Parish of Sutton led grassroots religious revivals and founded new local organizations for evangelization and public morality.
David W. Kling
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199756292
- eISBN:
- 9780199950379
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199756292.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
The Edwardsians were not only thinkers but doers; speculative theologians, but like their eponymous leader, revivalists. This was particularly evident among the third generation of Edwardsians, a ...
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The Edwardsians were not only thinkers but doers; speculative theologians, but like their eponymous leader, revivalists. This was particularly evident among the third generation of Edwardsians, a postrevolutionary cohort whose ministry extended from 1790 to the 1820s. Among the Edwardsian revivalists of the Second Great Awakening in New England, Edward Dorr Griffin and Asahel Nettleton excelled at the craft. Griffin, the “prince of preachers,” who held several pastorates and then presided over Williams College, wielded the sermonic rhetorical conventions of his day with “tenderness and tears” to lead sinners to Christ. As an itinerant revivalist who specialized in personal small group “conference meetings,” Nettleton far exceeded Griffin’s success. In the words of Francis Wayland, “I suppose no minister of his time was the means of so many conversions.” This chapter examines the theology and preaching of the New Divinity revivalists of the Second Great Awakening.Less
The Edwardsians were not only thinkers but doers; speculative theologians, but like their eponymous leader, revivalists. This was particularly evident among the third generation of Edwardsians, a postrevolutionary cohort whose ministry extended from 1790 to the 1820s. Among the Edwardsian revivalists of the Second Great Awakening in New England, Edward Dorr Griffin and Asahel Nettleton excelled at the craft. Griffin, the “prince of preachers,” who held several pastorates and then presided over Williams College, wielded the sermonic rhetorical conventions of his day with “tenderness and tears” to lead sinners to Christ. As an itinerant revivalist who specialized in personal small group “conference meetings,” Nettleton far exceeded Griffin’s success. In the words of Francis Wayland, “I suppose no minister of his time was the means of so many conversions.” This chapter examines the theology and preaching of the New Divinity revivalists of the Second Great Awakening.
Kim Tolley
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469624334
- eISBN:
- 9781469624358
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624334.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Susan Nye Hutchison (1790-1867) was one of many teachers to venture south across the Mason-Dixon Line in the Second Great Awakening. From 1815 to 1841, she kept journals about her career, family ...
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Susan Nye Hutchison (1790-1867) was one of many teachers to venture south across the Mason-Dixon Line in the Second Great Awakening. From 1815 to 1841, she kept journals about her career, family life, and encounters with slavery. Drawing on these journals and hundreds of other documents, this book explores the significance of education in transforming American society in the early national period. During this era, women often struggled to balance career ambitions with social conventions about female domesticity. Hutchison—who married, then separated from an abusive husband and eventually worked as a widow to support five children—faced daunting challenges. Nevertheless, her eventual position as head of a respected southern academy came as close to equity as any woman could achieve in any field. Her published writings focused on the importance of higher education for women and the need for northerners and southerners to remain united despite disagreements over slavery. She was the only woman in the South known to have published an essay opposing the division of the Presbyterian Church. By recounting Hutchison's experiences—from praying with slaves and free blacks in the streets of Raleigh and establishing independent schools in Georgia to defying North Carolina law by teaching slaves to read—this book reveals broad social and cultural shifts in southern society and opens an important window onto the world of women's work in southern education.Less
Susan Nye Hutchison (1790-1867) was one of many teachers to venture south across the Mason-Dixon Line in the Second Great Awakening. From 1815 to 1841, she kept journals about her career, family life, and encounters with slavery. Drawing on these journals and hundreds of other documents, this book explores the significance of education in transforming American society in the early national period. During this era, women often struggled to balance career ambitions with social conventions about female domesticity. Hutchison—who married, then separated from an abusive husband and eventually worked as a widow to support five children—faced daunting challenges. Nevertheless, her eventual position as head of a respected southern academy came as close to equity as any woman could achieve in any field. Her published writings focused on the importance of higher education for women and the need for northerners and southerners to remain united despite disagreements over slavery. She was the only woman in the South known to have published an essay opposing the division of the Presbyterian Church. By recounting Hutchison's experiences—from praying with slaves and free blacks in the streets of Raleigh and establishing independent schools in Georgia to defying North Carolina law by teaching slaves to read—this book reveals broad social and cultural shifts in southern society and opens an important window onto the world of women's work in southern education.
Jonathan D. Sassi
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195129892
- eISBN:
- 9780199834624
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019512989X.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This book analyzes the debate over the proper connection between religion and society that took place in southern New England during the fifty years after the American Revolution. It finds that a ...
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This book analyzes the debate over the proper connection between religion and society that took place in southern New England during the fifty years after the American Revolution. It finds that a Christian social ideology, descended from the region's Puritan origins, endured and evolved during the era of the early republic, in contrast to interpretations that emphasize the individualization and secularization of American public life during the period. In the last two decades of the eighteenth century, the Congregational clergy articulated a corporate ethic that emphasized the superintendence of divine Providence over communal affairs and the importance of social morality for the survival of the new nation, although Baptists and other religious minorities dissented and called for the disestablishment of Congregationalism. By the early nineteenth century, the first party competition between Federalists and Democratic‐Republicans politicized and transformed the debate over public Christianity. Congregationalists became disillusioned with their prophecies of America's millennial role and soured on their partnership with the Federalist magistracy, while dissenters joined Jeffersonians in agitating for disestablishment. At the same time, however, the Congregationalists found cause for optimism amid the revivals of the Second Great Awakening. The experience of Worcester County, Massachusetts was typical, where religious revivals and clerical networking at the grassroots fostered a new vision of the godly community. In the years after 1815 partisan acrimony declined, and the Congregationalists split into Unitarian and orthodox camps. As a result, an evangelical coalition of orthodox Congregationalists, Baptists, and others emerged that charted the way for renewed activism on the part of a Christian electorate and mobilized church. The transformed public Christianity of the 1820s and 1830s made a seminal contribution to the emergence of a variety of reform movements, such as temperance, Sabbatarianism, and antislavery.Less
This book analyzes the debate over the proper connection between religion and society that took place in southern New England during the fifty years after the American Revolution. It finds that a Christian social ideology, descended from the region's Puritan origins, endured and evolved during the era of the early republic, in contrast to interpretations that emphasize the individualization and secularization of American public life during the period. In the last two decades of the eighteenth century, the Congregational clergy articulated a corporate ethic that emphasized the superintendence of divine Providence over communal affairs and the importance of social morality for the survival of the new nation, although Baptists and other religious minorities dissented and called for the disestablishment of Congregationalism. By the early nineteenth century, the first party competition between Federalists and Democratic‐Republicans politicized and transformed the debate over public Christianity. Congregationalists became disillusioned with their prophecies of America's millennial role and soured on their partnership with the Federalist magistracy, while dissenters joined Jeffersonians in agitating for disestablishment. At the same time, however, the Congregationalists found cause for optimism amid the revivals of the Second Great Awakening. The experience of Worcester County, Massachusetts was typical, where religious revivals and clerical networking at the grassroots fostered a new vision of the godly community. In the years after 1815 partisan acrimony declined, and the Congregationalists split into Unitarian and orthodox camps. As a result, an evangelical coalition of orthodox Congregationalists, Baptists, and others emerged that charted the way for renewed activism on the part of a Christian electorate and mobilized church. The transformed public Christianity of the 1820s and 1830s made a seminal contribution to the emergence of a variety of reform movements, such as temperance, Sabbatarianism, and antislavery.
Kim Tolley
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469624334
- eISBN:
- 9781469624358
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624334.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The introduction explains the book's historical significance in the context of recent scholarship on women's history, education, and the Second Great Awakening. Susan Nye Hutchison's story ...
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The introduction explains the book's historical significance in the context of recent scholarship on women's history, education, and the Second Great Awakening. Susan Nye Hutchison's story illustrates some of the tensions and contradictions between published rhetoric and actual experience. She lived through a period of rhetorical backlash against women's work and activism, yet she succeeded in establishing and running more than one incorporated academy in the South. Her experience provides a case study of the way one woman accommodated to social mores in some respects but also resisted cultural constraints. The introduction also explains the nature of her journals, which provide an important grassroots perspective on the role of female teachers in the Second Great Awakening. Finally, the introduction presents an overview of the organization of the book.Less
The introduction explains the book's historical significance in the context of recent scholarship on women's history, education, and the Second Great Awakening. Susan Nye Hutchison's story illustrates some of the tensions and contradictions between published rhetoric and actual experience. She lived through a period of rhetorical backlash against women's work and activism, yet she succeeded in establishing and running more than one incorporated academy in the South. Her experience provides a case study of the way one woman accommodated to social mores in some respects but also resisted cultural constraints. The introduction also explains the nature of her journals, which provide an important grassroots perspective on the role of female teachers in the Second Great Awakening. Finally, the introduction presents an overview of the organization of the book.
Kruczek-Aaron Hadley
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813061085
- eISBN:
- 9780813051369
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813061085.001.0001
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology
This book questions how religion was lived in nineteenth-century America through a study that weaves together a range of sources, both archaeological and textual. The focus is evangelical ...
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This book questions how religion was lived in nineteenth-century America through a study that weaves together a range of sources, both archaeological and textual. The focus is evangelical Protestantism, which witnessed a renewed popularity in the Second Great Awakening that brought hundreds of thousands to revivals in communities across America and contributed to the blossoming of numerous reform movements. Once converted, evangelicals aspired to live a life of Christian perfection, which included ideas about what believers should consume and surround themselves with inside the home. While written records are rich with descriptions of these new ideas, scholars know less about the ways believers actually lived them. The case study described in this volume contributes to the research domain by exploring how religion was lived at various sites excavated in Smithfield, New York, which earned a reputation as a reform utopia under the leadership of activist Gerrit Smith. An analysis of texts, artifacts, and landscapes suggests that living one's faith and encouraging others to do the same in antebellum America was a process defined by struggle as believers and nonbelievers negotiated their beliefs and webs of social relationships at the household and community levels. This dialectical study raises questions about why the struggles have been forgotten by many in the present. Further, it contributes to a prolonged conversation that historical archaeologists have been having about how they do their work—including how they approach the written and material record as well as how they conceptualize religion, reform, consumption, and cultural identity.Less
This book questions how religion was lived in nineteenth-century America through a study that weaves together a range of sources, both archaeological and textual. The focus is evangelical Protestantism, which witnessed a renewed popularity in the Second Great Awakening that brought hundreds of thousands to revivals in communities across America and contributed to the blossoming of numerous reform movements. Once converted, evangelicals aspired to live a life of Christian perfection, which included ideas about what believers should consume and surround themselves with inside the home. While written records are rich with descriptions of these new ideas, scholars know less about the ways believers actually lived them. The case study described in this volume contributes to the research domain by exploring how religion was lived at various sites excavated in Smithfield, New York, which earned a reputation as a reform utopia under the leadership of activist Gerrit Smith. An analysis of texts, artifacts, and landscapes suggests that living one's faith and encouraging others to do the same in antebellum America was a process defined by struggle as believers and nonbelievers negotiated their beliefs and webs of social relationships at the household and community levels. This dialectical study raises questions about why the struggles have been forgotten by many in the present. Further, it contributes to a prolonged conversation that historical archaeologists have been having about how they do their work—including how they approach the written and material record as well as how they conceptualize religion, reform, consumption, and cultural identity.
J. Rixey Ruffin
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195326512
- eISBN:
- 9780199870417
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326512.003.0012
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Ultimately, in politics as well as in religion, Bentley's projects came to little. For while he had led the Republicans to success, that very success then led them to abandon him. The party would ...
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Ultimately, in politics as well as in religion, Bentley's projects came to little. For while he had led the Republicans to success, that very success then led them to abandon him. The party would grow ever larger and more influential, but the tenor of the party changed too, away from the rationalist, libertarian egalitarianism that Bentley wanted it to have. Meanwhile, his efforts to convert Americans to Unitarian Christian naturalism came to even less. His church actually shrank and was the only congregation in Salem to do so, for it was the age of the Second Great Awakening, and Bentley could only stand by and watch as many more Americans moved toward an evangelical, experientialist version of Christianity rather toward his side. This chapter offers some explanations for these failures, in the limited appeal of his desires for a free America, compared to those of most Americans, and the failure of his Christian naturalism to meet the spiritual, communal, and emotional needs of those who looked to their Christianity to provide more than just a rationally consistent explanation of the world.Less
Ultimately, in politics as well as in religion, Bentley's projects came to little. For while he had led the Republicans to success, that very success then led them to abandon him. The party would grow ever larger and more influential, but the tenor of the party changed too, away from the rationalist, libertarian egalitarianism that Bentley wanted it to have. Meanwhile, his efforts to convert Americans to Unitarian Christian naturalism came to even less. His church actually shrank and was the only congregation in Salem to do so, for it was the age of the Second Great Awakening, and Bentley could only stand by and watch as many more Americans moved toward an evangelical, experientialist version of Christianity rather toward his side. This chapter offers some explanations for these failures, in the limited appeal of his desires for a free America, compared to those of most Americans, and the failure of his Christian naturalism to meet the spiritual, communal, and emotional needs of those who looked to their Christianity to provide more than just a rationally consistent explanation of the world.
Hadley Kruczek-Aaron
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813061085
- eISBN:
- 9780813051369
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813061085.003.0003
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology
Second Great Awakening preachers and commentators prompted believers to reconceptualize the meaning of their everyday lives, but researchers know little about how they actually altered their material ...
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Second Great Awakening preachers and commentators prompted believers to reconceptualize the meaning of their everyday lives, but researchers know little about how they actually altered their material worlds in order to affirm and reflect their faith. After reviewing the ways that historians have approached lived religion as it relates to the Second Great Awakening, this chapter explores how and why historical archaeologists are uniquely positioned to make significant contributions to this research domain. It reviews the ways that past archaeologists have already begun to do so and describes the areas that require further exploration. The value of a dialectical approach to this research (with its focus on lived experience, social relations, and the process of abstraction that takes place when interpreting material and textual sources) is explained.Less
Second Great Awakening preachers and commentators prompted believers to reconceptualize the meaning of their everyday lives, but researchers know little about how they actually altered their material worlds in order to affirm and reflect their faith. After reviewing the ways that historians have approached lived religion as it relates to the Second Great Awakening, this chapter explores how and why historical archaeologists are uniquely positioned to make significant contributions to this research domain. It reviews the ways that past archaeologists have already begun to do so and describes the areas that require further exploration. The value of a dialectical approach to this research (with its focus on lived experience, social relations, and the process of abstraction that takes place when interpreting material and textual sources) is explained.
Robert C. Fuller
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195109795
- eISBN:
- 9780199853281
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195109795.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter discusses what is often referred to as “the Second Great Awakening,” in which popular opinion was galvanized around the belief that moral resolve alone is sufficient to bring about ...
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This chapter discusses what is often referred to as “the Second Great Awakening,” in which popular opinion was galvanized around the belief that moral resolve alone is sufficient to bring about salvation and the regeneration of society. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants confidently set about the task of constructing an empire that they believed would in and of itself inaugurate the millennium. This view, known as post-millennialism, touts the power of concerted human effort to perfect the earth in expectation of—and prior to—Christ's final return. Those in the consensus culture knew full well what agencies of the Antichrist still stood in their way: non-Protestants, immigrants, intemperance, the city, and—at least to Northerners—the institution of slavery. Yet new religious voices were championing the pre-millennial form of apocalyptic thought, in which Christ was expected to return to earth in order to defeat the Antichrist personally. The Mormons and Millerites (later to emerge as the Seventh-Day Adventists) appeared on the American religious scene as forerunners of the revival of pre-millennial and apocalyptic understandings of the Antichrist tradition.Less
This chapter discusses what is often referred to as “the Second Great Awakening,” in which popular opinion was galvanized around the belief that moral resolve alone is sufficient to bring about salvation and the regeneration of society. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants confidently set about the task of constructing an empire that they believed would in and of itself inaugurate the millennium. This view, known as post-millennialism, touts the power of concerted human effort to perfect the earth in expectation of—and prior to—Christ's final return. Those in the consensus culture knew full well what agencies of the Antichrist still stood in their way: non-Protestants, immigrants, intemperance, the city, and—at least to Northerners—the institution of slavery. Yet new religious voices were championing the pre-millennial form of apocalyptic thought, in which Christ was expected to return to earth in order to defeat the Antichrist personally. The Mormons and Millerites (later to emerge as the Seventh-Day Adventists) appeared on the American religious scene as forerunners of the revival of pre-millennial and apocalyptic understandings of the Antichrist tradition.
Ann Lee Bressler
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195129861
- eISBN:
- 9780199834013
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195129865.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
A major part of Universalism’s appeal through the first half of the nineteenth century was its proponents’ reputation for contentiousness. The movement had always attracted more than its share of ...
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A major part of Universalism’s appeal through the first half of the nineteenth century was its proponents’ reputation for contentiousness. The movement had always attracted more than its share of self-taught religious critics, and this was never more the case than during the Second Great Awakening, when the opportunities for denouncing irrationality and superstition seemed endless. However, as the revivals subsided, the targets for popular rationalism became less obvious, and Universalist energies were forced to seek new outlets. Without their traditional enemies, many Universalists began to waver in their sense of direction, and the denomination became subject to powerful centrifugal tendencies. Among the major new preoccupations of Universalists in this period were the popular “spiritual sciences” of phrenology, mesmerism, and spiritualism, and the heirs of John Murray and Hosea Ballou proved remarkably receptive to these and related teachings, which flowered in the period from the 1830s to the 1870s.Less
A major part of Universalism’s appeal through the first half of the nineteenth century was its proponents’ reputation for contentiousness. The movement had always attracted more than its share of self-taught religious critics, and this was never more the case than during the Second Great Awakening, when the opportunities for denouncing irrationality and superstition seemed endless. However, as the revivals subsided, the targets for popular rationalism became less obvious, and Universalist energies were forced to seek new outlets. Without their traditional enemies, many Universalists began to waver in their sense of direction, and the denomination became subject to powerful centrifugal tendencies. Among the major new preoccupations of Universalists in this period were the popular “spiritual sciences” of phrenology, mesmerism, and spiritualism, and the heirs of John Murray and Hosea Ballou proved remarkably receptive to these and related teachings, which flowered in the period from the 1830s to the 1870s.
Robert T. Handy
- Published in print:
- 1976
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198269106
- eISBN:
- 9780191683572
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198269106.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
In the years from 1800 to 1860, the population of North America increased from about 5 million to more than 31 million. The natural increase was supplemented by immigration, chiefly from the British ...
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In the years from 1800 to 1860, the population of North America increased from about 5 million to more than 31 million. The natural increase was supplemented by immigration, chiefly from the British Isles, Germany, and Scandinavia. The great migration to the west that had begun soon after the Revolution increased markedly. In the context of the expansion in territory and population, there occurred many dramatic and tumultuous events of American religious history, which led to realignments in the nation's religious forces. The revivalism of the Second Great Awakening brought great changes into American Protestant life — under its influence some denominations burgeoned into giants, others were brought into promising existence, while still other churches divided under the strain. The new measures and the voluntary societies, missionary, educational and reform impulses, and the churches and slavery are specifically described. A significant realignment of Protestant strength had taken place; the patterns of revivalism and its concomitants left their mark in church and society. By 1860, many of the prestigious figures in national life were outspoken supporters of evangelical faith.Less
In the years from 1800 to 1860, the population of North America increased from about 5 million to more than 31 million. The natural increase was supplemented by immigration, chiefly from the British Isles, Germany, and Scandinavia. The great migration to the west that had begun soon after the Revolution increased markedly. In the context of the expansion in territory and population, there occurred many dramatic and tumultuous events of American religious history, which led to realignments in the nation's religious forces. The revivalism of the Second Great Awakening brought great changes into American Protestant life — under its influence some denominations burgeoned into giants, others were brought into promising existence, while still other churches divided under the strain. The new measures and the voluntary societies, missionary, educational and reform impulses, and the churches and slavery are specifically described. A significant realignment of Protestant strength had taken place; the patterns of revivalism and its concomitants left their mark in church and society. By 1860, many of the prestigious figures in national life were outspoken supporters of evangelical faith.
Kim Tolley
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469624334
- eISBN:
- 9781469624358
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624334.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Chapter 1 investigates the socioeconomic factors that drew Susan Nye to leave her parents' farm in rural New York and teach in the South. This chapter establishes her personal and ideological ...
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Chapter 1 investigates the socioeconomic factors that drew Susan Nye to leave her parents' farm in rural New York and teach in the South. This chapter establishes her personal and ideological connections with the Litchfield Female Academy in Connecticut and the revival movements of the Second Great Awakening (1790-1840). During this era, women’s opportunities for work and meaningful activity outside the home expanded. Her journal entries indicate that Susan Nye initially travelled south to teach in Raleigh Academy, not only for economic reasons, but also from a sense of mission. This chapter argues that new social networks established through churches and schools facilitated the migration of young single women across vast geographic distances.Less
Chapter 1 investigates the socioeconomic factors that drew Susan Nye to leave her parents' farm in rural New York and teach in the South. This chapter establishes her personal and ideological connections with the Litchfield Female Academy in Connecticut and the revival movements of the Second Great Awakening (1790-1840). During this era, women’s opportunities for work and meaningful activity outside the home expanded. Her journal entries indicate that Susan Nye initially travelled south to teach in Raleigh Academy, not only for economic reasons, but also from a sense of mission. This chapter argues that new social networks established through churches and schools facilitated the migration of young single women across vast geographic distances.
Kim Tolley
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469624334
- eISBN:
- 9781469624358
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624334.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The book's conclusion situates Susan Nye Hutchison's experience in larger context, exploring the educational legacies of the Second Great Awakening and identifying some of the opportunities and ...
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The book's conclusion situates Susan Nye Hutchison's experience in larger context, exploring the educational legacies of the Second Great Awakening and identifying some of the opportunities and constraints female educators encountered during her lifetime. Women educators like Hutchison played a significant role in shaping Americans’ views of faith, social responsibility, slavery and emancipation before the Civil War. The divisions in the major Protestant churches brought the Second Great Awakening to a close, but that era left a number of important legacies in American Society. The churches created meaningful social and community networks that functioned somewhat like kinship groups, creating bonds among people separated by enormous distances. This bonding and bridging mobilized people and financial capital across different localities for a wide range of reform projects, and that reform impulse—in a more secular guise—continued into the progressive era.Less
The book's conclusion situates Susan Nye Hutchison's experience in larger context, exploring the educational legacies of the Second Great Awakening and identifying some of the opportunities and constraints female educators encountered during her lifetime. Women educators like Hutchison played a significant role in shaping Americans’ views of faith, social responsibility, slavery and emancipation before the Civil War. The divisions in the major Protestant churches brought the Second Great Awakening to a close, but that era left a number of important legacies in American Society. The churches created meaningful social and community networks that functioned somewhat like kinship groups, creating bonds among people separated by enormous distances. This bonding and bridging mobilized people and financial capital across different localities for a wide range of reform projects, and that reform impulse—in a more secular guise—continued into the progressive era.
Ann Lee Bressler
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195129861
- eISBN:
- 9780199834013
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195129865.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
What gave Universalists identity as a group in the early decades of the nineteenth century was primarily their acceptance of a single controversial doctrine. Beyond this, Universalists were united ...
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What gave Universalists identity as a group in the early decades of the nineteenth century was primarily their acceptance of a single controversial doctrine. Beyond this, Universalists were united mostly by a sense of what they opposed: all that appeared unreasonable, superstitious, arbitrary, and oppressive in traditional and prevailing religious teachings. Precisely because its central teaching was so controversial, Universalism attracted members who were not afraid of disputation; indeed, their rationalist streak made many Universalists positively eager for debate about religious questions. During the ferment of the Second Great Awakening, this aspect of Universalist identity came to the fore; the period between 1820 and 1840, when Universalists were most openly and consistently engaged in battle with other religious groups (although they were less disturbed by Catholic expansion than by the course of American Protestantism), was also the period of the denomination’s most rapid growth and greatest overall vitality. However, when the intense controversy of that era began to ebb, Universalists showed growing confusion about the proper direction of their movement.Less
What gave Universalists identity as a group in the early decades of the nineteenth century was primarily their acceptance of a single controversial doctrine. Beyond this, Universalists were united mostly by a sense of what they opposed: all that appeared unreasonable, superstitious, arbitrary, and oppressive in traditional and prevailing religious teachings. Precisely because its central teaching was so controversial, Universalism attracted members who were not afraid of disputation; indeed, their rationalist streak made many Universalists positively eager for debate about religious questions. During the ferment of the Second Great Awakening, this aspect of Universalist identity came to the fore; the period between 1820 and 1840, when Universalists were most openly and consistently engaged in battle with other religious groups (although they were less disturbed by Catholic expansion than by the course of American Protestantism), was also the period of the denomination’s most rapid growth and greatest overall vitality. However, when the intense controversy of that era began to ebb, Universalists showed growing confusion about the proper direction of their movement.
David J. Stewart
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037349
- eISBN:
- 9780813041575
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037349.003.0006
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology
Prior to the late eighteenth century, only a few maritime memorials featured any form of religious symbolism or inscription. The frequency of memorials with religious themes began to increase around ...
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Prior to the late eighteenth century, only a few maritime memorials featured any form of religious symbolism or inscription. The frequency of memorials with religious themes began to increase around the turn of the 1800s and soared dramatically in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. The percentage remained substantial until the end of the Age of Sail. This chapter explores the nature of the nineteenth-century maritime religious boom and places it within its historical context. The boom was part of a larger religious movement that took place in both British and American society. The ideas and motifs found on maritime memorials were directly related to religious trends that took place in both nations beginning in the late eighteenth century. However, rather than mimicking prevalent religious sentiments and forms around them, maritime culture selected which elements of the religious revitalization movement to emphasize in their memorials, thereby exercising cultural agency. The group chose text and emblems that, because they employed maritime symbolism, held deep meaning for the group specifically. Like memorials for the missing, faith was another way by which maritime culture attempted to cope with the deadly nature of seafaring life.Less
Prior to the late eighteenth century, only a few maritime memorials featured any form of religious symbolism or inscription. The frequency of memorials with religious themes began to increase around the turn of the 1800s and soared dramatically in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. The percentage remained substantial until the end of the Age of Sail. This chapter explores the nature of the nineteenth-century maritime religious boom and places it within its historical context. The boom was part of a larger religious movement that took place in both British and American society. The ideas and motifs found on maritime memorials were directly related to religious trends that took place in both nations beginning in the late eighteenth century. However, rather than mimicking prevalent religious sentiments and forms around them, maritime culture selected which elements of the religious revitalization movement to emphasize in their memorials, thereby exercising cultural agency. The group chose text and emblems that, because they employed maritime symbolism, held deep meaning for the group specifically. Like memorials for the missing, faith was another way by which maritime culture attempted to cope with the deadly nature of seafaring life.
Kim Tolley
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469624334
- eISBN:
- 9781469624358
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624334.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Chapter 2 analyzes the influences that shaped education reform in Raleigh, from 1799—when the English émigré Joseph Gales arrived as printer of the Raleigh Register—to 1823, when Susan Nye left North ...
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Chapter 2 analyzes the influences that shaped education reform in Raleigh, from 1799—when the English émigré Joseph Gales arrived as printer of the Raleigh Register—to 1823, when Susan Nye left North Carolina to establish an independent female school in Georgia. During this period, new ideas about schooling spread across the Atlantic through networks of Enlightenment philosophers, religious groups and teaching orders, missionaries, politicians, social commentators, evangelical reformers, pamphlet writers, and teachers like Susan Nye. By analyzing Susan Nye’s academic responsibilities in Raleigh Academy, her influence on curriculum and instruction in the female department, her lay ministry in the community, and her social obligations, this chapter illuminates the work of evangelical teachers during the early decades of the Second Great Awakening.Less
Chapter 2 analyzes the influences that shaped education reform in Raleigh, from 1799—when the English émigré Joseph Gales arrived as printer of the Raleigh Register—to 1823, when Susan Nye left North Carolina to establish an independent female school in Georgia. During this period, new ideas about schooling spread across the Atlantic through networks of Enlightenment philosophers, religious groups and teaching orders, missionaries, politicians, social commentators, evangelical reformers, pamphlet writers, and teachers like Susan Nye. By analyzing Susan Nye’s academic responsibilities in Raleigh Academy, her influence on curriculum and instruction in the female department, her lay ministry in the community, and her social obligations, this chapter illuminates the work of evangelical teachers during the early decades of the Second Great Awakening.