The Second Great Awakening
The history of the United States is coupled by many revolutions and reforms making the country we have today. There is mention of various groups and individuals campaigning for change in various states but little is said of the revolutions made by various religious institutions in the changing of the American society and the way things are viewed. The Protestants in the United States of America between the 1790s and the early 1900s. There were several protests by the Protestants and they were known as the great awakenings.
The Second Great Awakening was a revival by the Protestants which took place in the early 19th century in various states in the United States. The movement is known to begin in the 1790, started by a group of Protestants and gained momentum through the years and in 1820 a significant increase in membership was observed among the Methodist and the Baptist congregations by the preachers who were involved in leading the movements. By the 1840s, the second awakening was at its peak talking about the increased skeptics, rationalism and deism in the society and by the leaders as well.
As a result of these movement, millions of new members were acquired all through the country leading to increase in the number of members in churches and also leading to the increase in the denominations. There was belief going round that the awakening paved way for the beginning of a new millennial age. The second great awakening was mainly against the evils of the society at the period. The society was considered to have gone against all the principles laid down by Jesus Christ in the New Testament hence making the country to lack behind in the blessings of the Lord. The ministers of the churches took the responsibility of making things right by preaching against these evils to pave way for the second coming of Jesus Christ.
There various revivals all over the country, both peaceful and chaotic as the ministers took to the street with their followers. Many crusades were held in various states and to be specific New York was the central of it all. It was referred to the Burned Over District as there many revivals in every street and each and every day in the state. The term was coined by Charles Finney who was a religious leader active in the area and organized most of the revivals in the area, not sparing any evil soul but preaching the word of the God to all irrespective of race and gender.
Missionaries were sent by the churches which were well established to go help the various churches in the up countries to spark the revivals in the specific areas as well. To be specific, the American Frontier was known to send various missionaries with evangelistic skills to the people in the up countries in the various Baptist and Methodist churches to help them spark revivals in the neighbor hoods. The revivals were mainly frontier through the use of camp meetings in the dense populated areas in the up countries. The missionaries were used to recruit new believers into their religion who were equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to enable them shun the increased evil in the society and to try convert more into Christianity and stop the increased evils in the society preparing for the second coming of Christ.
This awakening could be seen to have a caused a change in denomination numbers with the Methodist and Baptist taking charge with increased number of followers as their actions were more vigorous in the various parts of the country. There was noted to be a decline in other denominations such as Anglicans, Presbyterians and the Congregationalist. The new denominations that grew from the actions of the second great awakening all-round the various states of the United States include the Seventh Day Adventist, evangelical Christian church in Canada, the Christian churches and the churches of Christ among others. The converts in the second great awakening were mostly females with a noted figure of at least three female converts for every two male followers. The youth were also noted to be converted in large numbers as opposed to the older men hence increasing the converts in the society greatly over the fifty year period through which the revivals were taking place.
The have been many speculations about the great awakenings of the protestants with most of the critics terming this events as ways through which churches target to increase their membership so as to increase revenues into their churches. Ti was noted that there was increased membership as it tripled in the said churches. But to the Christians, there main of being followers of Jesus Christ is to enable them to convert as many as possible to enable them to be in a position to bring many followers to Christ as command in the Bible. As they believe in the second coming of Christ, their main mission is to ensure that when Christ returns, as many as possible would have been saved and Christ will take them with them. This movement also led to the reduced of social evils as many were considered to be saved hence there was wide critic of the ongoing evils.
