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Religious Transformation and the Second Great Awakening in the U.S.

In 1839, J. Maze Burbank presented this drawing to the Royal Society in London, England, with the caption: "A camp meeting, or religious revival in America, from a sketch taken on the spot." 

By USHistory.org, adapted by Newsela staff

Religion did not much have a place in the American Revolution. The Founding Fathers clearly demonstrated their wish to separate religion from politics by establishing the separation of church and state in the first amendment to the Constitution.

Now separated from the control of political leaders, religious doctrine took place on its own. A series of religious revivals swept the United States from the 1790s and into the 1830s, transforming the religious landscape of the country. Known today as the Second Great Awakening, this spiritual resurgence fundamentally altered the character of American religious experience.

Mostly Christian nation undergoes change

The United States was almost entirely a Christian nation, but Christian followers split into various groups with different beliefs. At the start of the Revolution the largest Christian groups, or denominations, were Congregationalists, Anglicans and Quakers. Congregationalists were a Protestant denomination organized into congregations, which managed themselves independently.

Anglicans followed the Church of England rather than the Roman Catholic Church. Quakers emphasized each individual's direct connection with God through Jesus Christ, instead of having a group of priests or clergy between them and God. But by 1800, it was the Evangelical Methodists and Baptists who became the fastest-growing religions in the nation.

Getting to the heart of large crowds

The Second Great Awakening is best known for its large camp meetings, known as revivals. Large numbers of people celebrated the religion through an enthusiastic style of preaching and audience participation.

A young man who attended the famous 20,000-person revival at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1802, once talked about the spirit of these camp meetings: "The noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be agitated as if by a storm. I counted seven ministers, all preaching at one time, some on stumps, others on wagons ... Some of the people were singing, others praying, some crying for mercy. A peculiarly strange sensation came over me. My heart beat tumultuously, my knees trembled, my lips quivered, and I felt as though I must fall to the ground." 

This young man was so moved that he went on to become a Methodist minister. As this quotation suggests, evangelical ministers reached their audience at an emotional level, which allowed them to powerfully move large crowds.

Traveling preachers reached those on the prairies

At the heart of the Second Great Awakening was a desire to spread Christianity to others, a practice called evangelism. This desire was not all that different from Revolutionary ideals, which preached equality among all people. Evangelical churches generally favored ordinary people over elites. For instance, it was seen as more important to do good deeds in everyday life than to get the formal training to become a priest or minister, as you had to do in traditional Christian churches.

The immense success of the Second Great Awakening was also improved by churches' organizational techniques. America was a newly settled land and most evangelical churches relied on traveling preachers to reach large groups of people who did not have an established church community.

Spreading the universal message

The Second Great Awakening marked a fundamental change in American religious life. Before this time, many Christians followed a strict Calvinist tradition. Calvinist teachings preached that human beings were naturally corrupt and that only God could save them from a life of sin, or evil. 

The new evangelical movement, on the other hand, emphasized that humans had the ability to change their situation for the better. It stressed that individuals could assert their "free will" in choosing to be saved and suggested that all human beings could be "saved," not just a chosen few. In short, the Second Great Awakening embraced a more optimistic view of the human condition. The constant evangelism of these several decades helped to make the United States a much more deeply Christian nation than it had been before.

In keeping with its universal message, the Second Great Awakening also reached out to groups who were typically underrepresented. The movement included greater public roles for white women and a much higher African-American participation in Christianity than ever before.

Social changes follow the Industrial Revolution

In the 1790s, motivated by the dream of total equality, many Methodists and Baptists were strongly anti-slavery. However, this radicalism soon passed. In urban areas, the desire for social justice and equality existed but was constrained by the social changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution. The rise of production in factories meant that business owners were getting richer, growing ever distant from the poor or working class. 

However, the Second Great Awakening did encourage a religious commitment to social reform by the richer, elite and middle-class people in the city. The concept of religious goodness motivated attempts to help the lives of poor people. Religious reformers created a national network of religious institutions in the decade after 1815. Groups like the American Bible Society, American Sunday School Union, and the American Tract Society, were among the very first institutions to organize on a national scale.

These institutions formed what is often called the Benevolent Empire. Leaders of these organizations hoped to play down the great differences between American Protestant Christian groups in favor of promoting a general Christian vision. They believed that national greatness and individual morality went hand in hand.

The work of the Benevolent Empire had its greatest impact among business leaders and middle-class people who had benefited from the Industrial Revolution. These groups recognized the rewards of hard work and self-discipline, which they combined with a strong commitment to Christian beliefs.

"Burned Over District"

On the other hand, for lower-class workers, who did not enjoy new wealth from the Industrial Revolution, the new call for strict morals and beliefs often seemed intrusive. To many of these people, religion was a private matter, and they did not see religion as the answer to social problems. Many became opposed to the Benevolent Empire. 

Some of these opponents called for groups of working people to organize so they could secure higher wages. Many workers were Catholics from Ireland who entered the United States in large numbers starting in the 1830s. They held different views than the Protestant Christians now dominating America.

Religious clashes were not far off.

While Christianity in the United States had changed to become more welcoming, many new groups were competing with each other to gain new followers. 

An area around central New York was a fertile ground for the fierce Protestant spirituality, so intense it was referred to as the "Burned Over District." William Miller founded the Adventist sect based on the idea that he could pinpoint the exact day when the Messiah would return to Earth. 

The Presbyterian minister Charles Grandison Finney led a six-month campaign in Rochester in 1830, where he preached daily and developed important new techniques such as group prayer meetings within family homes. Finney also relied on women, including his wife Lydia, as key forces in drawing others to convert.