Great Awakening
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Lollards (England)
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Revivalism Restoration movement |
The Great Awakenings refer to several periods of dramatic religious revival in Anglo-American religious history. They have also been described as periodic revolutions in U.S. religious thought. The term is used in some respects to refer to American religious revivalism that continued in spirit of the Protestant Reformation, as well as to identify general religious trends within distinctly U.S. religious culture.
There are four generally accepted Great Awakenings in U.S. history:
- The First Great Awakening (1730s - 1740s)
- The Second Great Awakening (1800s - 1830s)
- The Third Great Awakening (1880s - 1900s)
- The Fourth Great Awakening or Consciousness Revolution (1960s - 1970s)
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[edit] Patterns defining a Great Awakening
Great Awakenings have been marked by the rise of a multitude of new denominations, sects, or even entirely new religions. In addition, completely new belief systems and existing belief systems gained new popularity. Since, by its nature, religion is traditional and hard to change, many new beliefs attempt to circumvent tradition by appealing to even more ancient (and sometimes fabricated, or at least distorted) tradition, dismissing current beliefs as either innovations or having lost or corrupted some elements over time.
[edit] American Great Awakenings
Although Great Awakenings influence and are influenced by religious thought from throughout the world, the cycle of Great Awakenings appears unique to the USA. This could be because the USA is home to many different denominations and sects, while remaining largely Protestant, which is known for its relative freedom in terms of expression of belief as opposed to Catholicism. The lack of a single dominant faith or state-sanctioned religion means new ideas can be spread without having to slowly reform existing institutions from within, or allowing pressures to build up until the existing institutions are violently overthrown. On the other hand, the established sects have enough prestige and inertia that the pressure for new ideas builds into a regular cycle of bloodless revolution.
[edit] Influence on political life
Since religion has often been used to support political platforms, the Great Awakenings have exerted significant influence on the politics of the USA. Joseph Tracy, the minister and historian who gave this religious phenomenon its name in his influential (and still, to many, definitive) 1842 book The Great Awakening, saw the First Great Awakening as a precursor to the War of Independence. For another example, the abolition movement, part of the wider Second Great Awakening, eventually contributed to the crisis over slavery, which led to the American Civil War. The Third Great Awakening would go on to be a major influence in guiding the USA through the Great Depression and World War II. In fact the New Deal was originated from that same era. The Consciousness Revolution of the 1960's and 1970's is regarded as a major influence in the current Culture Wars era in the USA from the 1980's and 1990's as middle aged ex-hippie Boomers debate "Moral Values" while taking pluarity in the U.S. government and politics starting with the inauguration of Bill Clinton as the first Boomer President of the USA.
[edit] Further reading
- Alan Heimert; Religion and the American Mind: From the Great Awakening to the Revolution; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966
- Robert William Fogel; The Fourth Great Awakening & the Future of Egalitarianism; 2000, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226256626
- Alan Heimert and Perry Miller ed.; The Great Awakening: Documents Illustrating the Crisis and Its Consequences; New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967
- Frank Lambert; Pedlar in Divinity: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994
- William G. McLoughlin's Revivals, Awakenings and Reform: An Essay on Religion and Social Change in America, 1607-1977 (1978)
- Joseph Tracy, The Great Awakening: A History of the Revival of Religion in the Time of Edwards and Whitefield, 1997, Banner of Truth, ISBN 0851517129. This is a reprint of the original work published in 1842.
- Harry Stout; The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism;Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans, 1991
