Informative - Comparisons Of The First And Second Great Awakenings

With the development of a civilized society in America during the 1700s and 1800s, the role religion
played in an everyday person's life was becoming more and more diminished. To combat this, a series of
religious revivals were set in motion: The Great Awakenings. These were a series of large, sweeping
religious, social, and political changes that sought to use the basis of religion to revive faith in a neglected
belief, bring about numerous social reforms, and use political factions to great effect upon society's
mentality. Although most view the First Great Awakening as the first' and greatest' religious, social,
and political influence to American society, the second Great Awakening can be considered far more
influential in its religious, social, and political aspects of influence.
Even though the First and Second Great Awakenings focused its attention on other matters of life later
on, religion was the theme upon which they were built. The First Great Awakening started among the
American colonial Protestants during the early 1700s, mainly due to the weakening of the strict Puritan
tradition of religious doctrine, and in part, the religious decline caused by negative publicity from the
Salem witch trials and the Enlightenment (www.wikipedia.org). The movement to correct these problems
began with Jonathan Edwards, a strictly Puritan, orthodox theologian from Massachusetts who dedicated
his time to bringing the people back to the strict Calvinist roots, and to reawaken the fear of God'
(www.wikipedia.org). He was a powerful speaker, and preached to his large followings that it was to
simply come to church was not enough to be saved, but they must also acknowledge their grievances in
the heart, and feel God's love for them (Danzer, 38). He set off the wave of religious revival, as preachers
traveled all across the colonies, attracted thousands of people to revival meetings of spiritual rebirth, gave
impassioned sermons, and encouraged people to rededicate themselves to God (Danzer, 38). Although
after the First Great Awakening America's religious zeal faded, its influence in religion was the beginning
step (www.wikipedia.org). The Second Great Awakening's religious cycle took a bigger step in trying to
turn the religious tide. Starting in New York during the early 1800s, the movement spread north, south,
and west before ending during the 1840s (Klepp, 2). The Second Great Awakening's religious portion
came about through the replacement of the predestination doctrine with the belief that anyone, whether
they be sinners or not, can achieve salvation through the internal and external struggle against sin. The
revival meetings of the First Great Awakening proved to be a success, and using that idea, the preachers
of the Second Great Awakening used grand-scale camp meetings and intensified levels of revival to great
effect, attracting hundreds of thousands of followers, both indoors and outdoors (Fogel, 2) to sing, dance,
and participate in worship (Klepp, 2). The Second Great Awakening shows more progress being made
than the efforts of the First Great Awakening, for the First merely starts it, the Second continues it.
As religion was being revitalized, the morals and themes it entailed were being applied to the social
aspects of life, adding another item to the to-do' list of the Great Awakenings. As the First Great
Awakening gained momentum, it began to use other areas of life to supplement the religious revival: how
society is run and/or what needs to be improved. Let us remember the First Great Awakening's goal: to
convert people to back to a specific religion. To maximize the religious revival effort, a higher importance
was placed on education to train more ministers for the rapidly developing, gospel-preaching churches
(Danzer, 38). This new importance in education triggered the belief in equality of opportunity, which was
"the principle that accepted the inequality of income and other circumstances of life as natural, but held
that persons of low social rank could raise themselves up by industry, perseverance, talent and
righteous behavior to the top of the economic and social order" (Fogel, 2). This stressed the
importance of the individual, and combined with the de-emphasis of church authority, helped to create the
social atmosphere that led to a particularly famous event in American history: the American Revolution
(Danzer, 38). When the Second Great Awakening came into effect, the social effects were much greater.
From the 1840s to the 1880s, there was tremendous rise of interest in reforming America to make it fit for
the Second Coming of Christ,' a popular religious idea at the time (Fogel, 2). The Second Great
Awakening "merged democratic idealism with evangelical Christianity, arguing that America was in need
of moral regeneration by dedicated Christians" (Klepp, 2). Social reforms, powered by dedicated men and
women, included such reforms as educational improvements, the temperance movement which
successfully prohibited alcoholic drinks in 13 states, the abolitionist movement which aided in the
formation of the Republican Party, the anti-slavery movements, anti-corruption movements, women's
suffrage movements, etc (Fogel, 2). With these movements also came a strong, continued sense of the
belief in equality of opportunity. The Second Great Awakening proves to be the greater influence here,
through both the quantity and quality of its social effects.
As social change depends upon the opinionated agreement of a group of people, inevitably there were
political disagreements about how the religious revival movement should be handled, along with the
social reforms that accompany it. As a result, the different groups of opinion, more specifically the
different religious groups that were present, formed into separate, politically-oriented church
denominations, each subtly different in its message of religion. As the revivals of the First Great
Awakening spread, it brought together many colonists, including Native Americans and African Americans
into actual Christian church factions for the first time, challenging the authority of the establish churches
(Danzer, 38). Some went so far as to even abandon their old church establishments for the newer,
independent denominations (Danzer, 38.) A few examples of these new dominations include the Baptists,
the Methodists, the Mormons, and the Seventh Day Adventists (www.wikipedia.org). In Jonathan
Edward's case, those who followed his message and were attracted to it called themselves the "New
Lights," and those who did not were called the "Old Lights" (www.wikipedia.org). The numerous
universities and places of scholarly thought that they set up are examples of the dispute that these
factions had. Of these particular two, we know of Columbia University, then called Kings College, and
Princeton University (www.wikipedia.org). With the coming of the Second Great Awakening, we see that
religious revivals and church denominations have become methods of gaining power. The new
denominations of Christianity, most prominently the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodists, used the camp
meetings in more ways than one. The very first camp meeting occurred at Gasper River Church in
Kentucky, July 1800, and this is where the idea sparked that religious meetings can be used as a form of
organized revival, as a major mode of church expansion (www.wikipedia.org). This allowed for
opinionated takeovers in politics. Take, for example, the issue of slavery with the United States. The
abolitionist movement had sparked concern among the higher factions. With religion dominating most of
the minds of the government, and with those religious factions split, the entire country split as well,
leaving the South congregations supporting slavery and the Northern congregations opposing it (Klepp,
2). We can see that the Second Great Awakening left a bigger impact in American society. Although the
First Great Awakening utilizes the use of religious factions, the Second Great Awakening uses it to a
greater effect, bringing about political change to the extent where the entire country was split over a
single issue.
So in effect, after both Awakenings had run their course, we see that the Second Great Awakening held a
larger influence over American society. In terms of religious aspects, the Second Great Awakening had
continued further along the path of religious revival than the First Great Awakening had done, bringing it
to a whole new level. In terms of social aspects, the First Great Awakening may have brought about the
idea of belief in equality of opportunity through education, but the Second Great Awakening took that idea
and dedicated its resources to trying to make America a better place through widespread social reform. In
terms of political aspects, the First Great Awakening had begun to understand the concept of using
church denomination factions to try to control the methods, religion, and social reforms the people would
be converted to, whereas the Second Great Awakening not only built upon that idea, but used camp
meetings as an organized revival method, using it to wield political influence over social reforms and the
religion at the time. It is safe to assume that the Second Great Awakening was the larger influence.

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