Lectures 78-79: The Second Great Awakening PDF

**Dec. 3, 2024** **Historical Theology 3: Reformed Baptist Seminary** **[Lecture 78-79:] The Second Great Awakening** We have finished with our study of the 18^th^ century awakenings in Great Britain and America Our last focus was on the Great Awakening in America I puzzled over which direction...

**Dec. 3, 2024** **Historical Theology 3: Reformed Baptist Seminary** **[Lecture 78-79:] The Second Great Awakening** We have finished with our study of the 18^th^ century awakenings in Great Britain and America Our last focus was on the Great Awakening in America I puzzled over which direction to take now Then, God willing, we'll go back across the Atlantic and consider some of the key events in Great Britain during that same period And try address some of the most important developments in the late 19^th^ and into the 20^th^ centuries [Comment] So we begin, first of all, with... I. **[A General Introduction to the Second Great Awakening]** The second great awakening in America is in some ways a difficult subject to get your head around And what gets complicated about it is that there gradually begins to be a mixture of good and not so good, and even bad, when it comes to what is called the second great awakening The three main protestant groups in America during the first great awakening were Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists... All three of which held to a reformed and Calvinistic understanding of grace And these churches were greatly revived during the second great awakening And with it a creeping Arminianism And then also, perhaps, the most striking example of doctrinal deviation will be the ministry of Charles Finney which began in the 1820's And he was not just an Arminian, he was basically Pelagian in his theology One way we can describe it is that there gradually begins to be a moving away from revival, true revival, to what has been called revivalism Revival is a sovereign and extraordinary work of God's Spirit It's not the norm, it's something extraordinary and God is sovereign in the sending of revival But even if we are, that doesn't guarantee revival That doesn't guarantee we will experience a great spiritual awakening We can't artificially produce revival But "revivalism" is the attempt to do just that So, revivalism is this imbalanced emphasis upon revival or bust... Methods and means that actually result in the multiplication of "decisions" we might call it that often prove to be bogus and deceiving So, we eventually begin to see this transition, as it were Or what at times is a parallel strand of revivalism begin to develop in America alongside true revival that was also happening Now I mentioned in earlier lectures that the first Great Awakening was at its peak in the northeast between 1739-1742 There was also a revival that occurred at Princeton, New Jersey, and in other places in New Jersey and New York in the 1760's You'll read about that in one of your assigned readings Also, in western Pennsylvania, even during the revolutionary war, there are accounts of remarkable outpourings of the Spirit, with large numbers of people being converted Again, you'll be reading about that You'll also be reading about revivals that occurred in Virginia in the 1760's and 70's... Which especially led to tremendous growth among Calvinistic Baptists However, it was also in the 1770's that a new evangelical and protestant group began to enter the picture, the Methodists (Wesleyan) In 1771 Francis Asbury arrived from England, the first Methodist bishop in America And his leadership in the work of evangelism and church organization did more than anyone else to establish Arminian Methodism in America In May of 1774 society membership in Virginia had risen to 218, and a year later to 800, and 811 more were added before the May conference in 1776 In 1780 Arminian Methodist membership in America stood at 8,540 with 7,808 found in the South By 1784 Methodist membership was at 14,988 This was an increase of approximately 1,400 percent in the span of ten years Now Wesleyan Methodism at this point was still by far a minority in America, but it had gained a strong foothold by the time the Revolutionary War had ended The public attention was largely fixed on the political and military events of that time What was called the Great Revival, beginning first among the Baptists, then spreading to the Methodists and the Presbyterians in the region The reason I mention all of this, or the point I'm wanting to make, is that there continued to be periodic revivals and awakenings that were more or less local, or regional, leading up to the Revolutionary War And even in some cases in the 1780's Nothing as widespread as the Great Awakening in the late 1730's and early 1740's, but powerful regional revivals nonetheless The American and French revolutions, though not entirely the same.... Yet at the same time, though not entirely the same, there were similarities Both also emphasized the right of the individual to think for himself and the right of self-determination There began to be a growing body of anti-Christian literature in America, including the popular writings of the American, Thomas Paine And his book *Age of Reason*, which argued for deism may have been even more popular One contemporary pastor wrote, "Every educated young man in Virginia whom I met I expected to find a sceptic, if not an avowed unbeliever" Another man writing about the conditions in Kentucky had similar memories of the years after the revolution Now we have to be careful because this was not the whole picture While there was a revival that happened in Western Pennsylvania *during* the war.... One writing about the conditions then wrote, "While the form of godliness remained there was little of its power" Among the Methodists there was great debate and controversy over church government which saw the Episcopal Methodist church lose 24 percent of its membership He disagreed with Francis Asbury by advocating for the right of individual minsters to have a voice in their placement by the bishop In 1794 he and his followers broke with the Methodist body and organized their own body The infant Presbyterian church in Kentucky was also torn by controversy Now it's easy to exaggerate the spiritual decline of healthy Christianity before a revival, in order to highlight the greatness of the revival And I don't want to do that But there is no disputing the fact, that around the turn of the century a tremendous transformation began to occur Murray writes, "Voltaire is said to have claimed that by the early nineteenth century the Bible will have passed, 'into the limbo of forgotten literature'" "The annual report for 1816 of the Fairfield County Bible Society in Connecticut, went on to say, 'The atheism of Voltaire and his associates is gone down, almost to their dust to the grave. The blasphemies of Paine are remembered only to be abhorred'" He tells us that a Mrs. Mary Winslow, visiting New York from England in 1833, wrote, "There is not a country in the world where religion and religious intelligence are so constantly and prominently brought before the attention as this. In fact, it is, at least at the present time, one continued, interesting topic of conversation." Here were their observations, "Allowing, as I did, for the difficulties of a newly settled country, and for the disadvantages of emigrants; the state of education, morals and religion, was decidedly better than I expected to find it. Indeed, I have never visited a country in which I have seen them equalled. England herself painfully suffers in comparison....appearances in favour of religion are to their advantage. They have no law for the regulation or observation of the Sabbath, but public sentiment secures its sanctification better with them than with us. I have never seen that day observed in Bristol or Bath as it is in Boston and Philadelphia. In the large town, the people attend in larger numbers at their respective places of worship; there are more places for their accommodation; and the average size is greater with them than with us. The communicants are far more numerous than us in this; and you will regard this as important evidence on the subject, especially when it is known that the principle of strict communion prevails....I regard the entire exigencies of this great country with the assurance of hope" He noted with surprise in 1831, "There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America" In 1790 there were 712 Methodist churches, by 1860 there were 19,883 In 1790 there 858 Baptist churches, by 1860 12,150 In 1790 there were 858 Presbyterian churches, by 1860 there were 6,406 Comparing cities with similar populations he found, that while Liverpool with a population of 210,00 had 57 ministers, 67 churches and 18,000 communicants He made these same comparisons with a number of other cities There had literally been an explosion of Evangelical Christianity in America in the early decades of the 19^th^ century That's a very broad answer because the Second Great Awakening is a very broad subject Murray argues that, "the Second Great Awakening has to be one of the most significant turning-points in church history" Gardiner Spring, one the great pastors and preachers in New England Writing about the situation in the Northeast he said this... The other man was a contemporary of Spring, the great preacher Edward Dorr Griffin.... He was a congregationalist pastor He dated the beginning of the general awakening in Connecticut to 1798 and he could write in January of 1832, "Since that time revivals have never ceased." It lasted for a much longer time It's been described as "universal, if not simultaneous, from Maine to Tennessee, from Georgia to Canada" It's the scale of it that makes it so difficult to trace out It was happening all over, and all we have are various accounts by this pastor or that pastor or this person or that person For example, Congregational pastors in Connecticut in 1800 put together a forty page monthly magazine with news of the revivals It contained reports from Vermont, Connecticutt, Western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and other places Remember, that was written in 1802 very early in this period In fact, this was only near the beginning of this awakening We are mostly left to sketches, and letters and short accounts and regional accounts and summaries In some cases and regions we also have records of the numbers added to the churches during this period and the numbers are mind-boggling First, he points out that there were no special means used to promote these revivals[^5^](#fn5){#fnref5.footnote-ref} But for the most part the only means used were the simple means of preaching and prayer They were preaching the same message, with the same gifts and abilities but with very little effect comparatively What changed after 1798 cannot be explained in terms of the means used It was the extraordinary blessing of God A sovereign work of grace Pastors were simply continuing to do what they had always done for many years But now with unusual and extraordinary results *Something else* about the second great awakening God was blessing the ministries of multitudes of ordinary pastors The second great awakening was not characterized or dominated by the ministry of some unusually gifted preacher A George Whitefield or a Daniel Rowland or someone like that No, there was no great evangelist traveling throughout the country Edward Dorr Griffin, reviewing what he had seen in 1832 in the northeast wrote, "The means employed in these revivals have been but two,\-\--the clear presentation of divine truth and prayer: nothing to work upon the passions but sober, solemn truth, presented, as far as possible, in its most interesting attitudes, and closely applied to the conscience. The meetings have been still and orderly, with no other sign of emotion in the hearers than the solemn look and the silent tear"[^6^](#fn6){#fnref6.footnote-ref} "The solemnity of this season cannot be communicated. It can only be known by experience....The work was by no means noisy, but rational, deep, and still. Poor sinners began to see that every thing in the Bible was true, that they were wholly sinful and in the hand of a sovereign God. The first you would know of persons under awakening was, that they would be at all the religious meetings, and manifest a silent and eager attention"[^7^](#fn7){#fnref7.footnote-ref} The Rev. John Preston of Ruper, Vermont, wrote... "Our Prayer-meetings were crowded, and solemn to an amazing degree. No emotions more violent than shedding of tears, and no appearance of wildness and disorder occurred. Nothing appeared but a silent, fixed attention, and profound solemnity, the most resembling my idea of the day of judgment of any scene I ever witnessed. Infidelity retired, or was overcome by the bright manifestation of divine power and grace."[^8^](#fn8){#fnref8.footnote-ref} But this whole period is dealt with in much greater detail in Murray's book which is part of your required reading **[Take a Break]** **[Lecture 79]** Well after this general overview of the second great awakening, I want to focus our attention now, secondly, to.... II. **[Various Unhealthy Influences that Began to Infiltrate and to Negatively Impact the Awakening (especially in the latter part of it)]** Or another way of describing it, using Murray's language, is the emergence of revivalism I think these influences can be summarized under three major headings First, influences that began to creep into the revival as it occurred in Kentucky Second, the influence of what was called "the New Divinity" And then, thirdly, the ministry and teaching and popularity of Charles Finney Now we could devote a lot of time to this, many lessons But all I can hope to do right now is to give an overview So let's begin, first of all, with... A. **[Influences that Began to Creep Into the Awakening as It Happened in the Frontier of Kentucky]** In 1790 when the first census was taken of the population of the United States, only five percent were living west of the Appalachian mountains Of that minority the fastest growing area was Kentucky There were 179 settlers in Kentucky in 1779 By 1800 that number had grown to 220,955 By 1785 there were somewhere in the area of 12 Presbyterian churches and 18 Baptist churches in Kentucky At the same time, as in most of the country, the 1790's were marked by general spiritual decline This began to change, as it did in most of the country, in the last years of the 18^th^ century and into the early part of the 19^th^ James M'Gready a leading Presbyterian pastor of the time who served three congregations in Logan county, writes about the first signs of a different spirit among the people in one of the congregations in 1797 Others argue that the revival had its origins among the Baptists But, however it began it eventually influenced both Presbyterians and Baptists and the Methodists as well By 1801 the revival had spread northwards in Kentucky, and southward into Tennessee What eventually came to be called "the camp meeting" Much like is found in the Scottish tradition, the Lord's Supper was administered infrequently in the churches Hospitality would be offered for the four or five days of the meetings And the numbers attending were too many to be provided for by local hospitality So the visitors would come and camp on the grounds Some would travel distances of forty and even a hundred miles to attend these communion occasions In the camp meeting at Cane Ridge, in Bourbon County in August of 1801, in addition to 18 Presbyterian ministers, Baptist and Methodist preachers also took part in the week-long services Here's an account from a man who attended writing to his sister about what he saw.... There are many eyewitness accounts confirming the large number of people who attended these open-air services... McGready alone reported that 330 persons known to him in various areas had professed conversion in 1800, and 144 in first ten months of 1801 There are similar reports of tremendous growth in the churches The impact was also striking among the Methodists And Francis Asbury noted that in the Western conference of the Methodists in 1803 and 1804 there was an increase of 1,500 in 1803 and 2,400 in 1804 All of this resulted in the transformation of entire communities, and there is every evidence that for the most part this was a genuine work of God Murray gives an interesting quote quote He could say this in a sermon preached before the Synod of Kentucky in 1803... So I give all of that to underscore, that there was a true work of God that occurred in Kentucky A revival by its very nature is often accompanied by emotional excitement If the idea gets into people's heads that the true measure and evidence of the Spirit's work is the strength of emotion displayed, or that physical agitations or effects are an infallible proof of the work of God.... If that idea is accepted trouble will follow It can lead to a kind of fanaticism and extremes that give place to the devil Well this kind of thing began to happen There were three Presbyterian ministers present and a Methodist named John McGee who was a brother of one of the Presbyterians After the service, while some were preparing to go home, the majority remained in silence But he assured everyone that one much greater than him was already preaching in their midst While the other ministers were uncertain what to do, McGee came down from the pulpit to exhort among the people He went through the meeting place, in his own words, "shouting and exhorting with all possible ecstasy and energy, and the floor was soon covered with the slain" What does he mean by the slain? He's talking about people who had collapsed For him this was a great sign of the Spirit's work This began to be common, what was called, "falling" People would fall down as dead, sometimes for an hour or longer The potential for wildness and fanaticism and unbridled emotionalism was only increased when the numbers were so great, they had to meet in open-air gathers Ministers were divided in their response to these things Some cautioned and warned against the danger of encouraging false excitements and spurious religious experience It almost seemed that for M'Nemar the more wild and crazy the better The people themselves were now endowed with visions and dreams and prophecies and could all minister to one another And this is just one example of how the Presbyterians began to be shattered by divisions And with the Methodists also came their Arminian theology, with its emphasis on human decision as the determining factor in conversion... Rather than the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit How did the Methodists get a foothold, They were congenial to having Methodist preachers participate in the communion services Also, while some Presbyterians and Baptists were more wary of excesses and false experiences, the Methodists were more accepting of these things as genuine marks the Spirit's work By 1812 it was estimated that at least 400 Methodist camp meetings were held annually in the United States Methodists, as they thought, had learned from the Kentucky communion gatherings that the organization of mass meetings was an "effective" means of evangelism Something that was carefully avoided by the older evangelicalism, even by John Wesley himself, and by those at this time who were more biblical and balanced Jesse Lee, one of the best known of the Methodist itinerant preachers, spoke of men stationed in the congregation to keep an accounting (Murray, 185) It also became common among the Methodists to count the number of those who "fell" during the services And some took this to be an indication of permanent and genuine results Furthermore, this attempt to have a speedy knowledge of the number of conversions led to something else What came to be known as "the invitation to the altar" There's uncertainty about the exact origin of this practice Quoting now from Iain Murray writing about this, "As early examples of this new procedure the following can be noted. Jesse Lee recorded in his journal for 31 October 1798: 'At Paup's meeting house Mr. Asbury preaching on Eph. 5:25,26,27....I exhorted, and the power of the Lord was among us...John Easter proclaimed aloud, 'I have not a doubt but God will convert a soul today'....The preachers then request all that were under conviction to come together. Several men and women came and fell upon their knees, and the preachers for some time kept singing and exhorting the mourners...two or three found peace'. It's important to point out that there were no "altar-calls" in the earliest days of the revival in Kentucky, and in the early communion services and camp meetings Quoting Murray again, "When they (the Methodists) began to organize their own camp meetings an area was railed off to serve as the altar and to this the mourners were summoned. The initial justification for the practice was that by bringing individuals to identify themselves publicly it was possible for them to be prayed with and to be giving instruction. Nobody, at first, claimed to regard it as a means of conversion. But very soon, and inevitably, answering the call to the altar came to be confused with being converted. People heard preachers plead for them to come forward with the same urgency with which they pleaded for them to repent and believe" (Murray, 186) Murray then quotes from certain statements (187) This will give you an idea of the thinking that developed in these Methodists "The enclosure was so much crowded that its inmates had not the liberty of lateral motion, but were literally hobbling *en masse*" "Five hundred persons pressed forward" "Exhortation and singing were renewed; and it was proposed that \[visiting preachers on the platform\] should go down and pass among the people for the purpose of conversing with them and inducing the to come forward" Murray gives an example from Francis Asbury's journal Murray says, "From then on these assessments of numbers commonly became related to the altar call and in 1810 Asbury, not surprisingly, required that in the building of new meeting houses there should be 'as much as one seat left before the pulpit for mourners.'" (187) And these had a lot to do with the Arminian theology of Methodism.... Methodism and its rejection of the historical *reformed* confessions also meshed well with the mood of the country after the Revolutionary war And also by a populist concept of the equality of all and kind of freedom that downplayed any distinctions of rank and office, even in the church Quoting Murray again, "Early nineteenth-century Methodism contained within it much that was scriptural. And Steven's claim for its leaders is largely true: they 'were mighty in the scriptures; they preached and loved and lived holy'. As models of prayerfulness, self-denial and compassion for souls, many Methodist itinerants were an example to any age. But while their establishment of camp meetings and of altar calls arose from the best of motives, it was the result of an erroneous theology, and it lead to a system with consequences they failed to see..'The seemingly miraculous new revival technique was disseminated throughout the length and breadth of the southern states.' Revivalism had been born. We shall meet it again.." It was a genuine work of the Spirit and the communion seasons were so well attended that they sometimes required open air meetings and for good reasons A failure to guard against extremes and a tendency to encourage emotionalism as an infallible sign of the Spirit's work Now having laid this out, we're not to think that all of this was happening at the same time or in the same degree throughout the entire country True revival was happening at the same time throughout the country There were the ministries of powerful, faithful, Calvinistic pastors and preachers, that were unusually blessed of God in this period And many other lesser known men throughout the country who experienced a time of unusual blessing upon the preaching of the gospel in the early decades of that century So this is the first of these unhealthy influences that began to infiltrate and to negatively impact the awakening And now let's consider a second one.... B. **[What's Been Called the New Divinity that Arose our Yale Divinity School Through the Teaching of Nathaniel]** When we get to Finney, we might think that many of his ideas came from Methodism He was actually an ordained Presbyterian minister The center of this influence was at New Haven, Connecticutt He became the minister of the First Church of New Haven in 1812 He was a firm believer in revival and apparently an effective preacher Taylor also concerned to see the church have credibility in society He became convinced that in the interest of evangelism and in the interest of commending the Christian faith to the nation aspects of the Old Calvinism needed to be modified Now sound Calvinistic preachers like Asahel Nettleton agreed with him that there had been a tendency in some in New England to distort the biblical balance between divine sovereignty and human responsibility But biblical Calvinism also emphasized the bondage of the unregenerate man to his sinful nature... And that apart from the grace of God no man will repent and believe In other words, the old Calvinism held to the tension between human responsibility and divine sovereignty without trying to reconcile them He believed this tension must be resolved So what kind of theology did he develop? And he taught that sin and guilt can only be attributed to men's voluntary choices Taylor's views on this and other related topics came to be known as New Haven Theology And it's believed that Finney was influenced by them The New Haven theology also promoted an unorthodox doctrine of the atonement, elements of which will also be found in Finney And they advocated what has been called the governmental view of the atonement Rather the atonement was simply a public action by which God showed his displeasure against sin in general... Thus making it safe for God to forgive those who repent and believe The atonement did not secure the salvation of anyone It simply provided a demonstration of God hatred of sin, which allows God to forgive sinners without damaging his moral government of the world Finney will also be influenced by this understanding of the atonement So New Haven theology was beginning to circulate in America by the early 1820's None of this is to say that in 1826 these ideas were dominant in America No, but they were beginning to have an influence These views were opposed by many And Mark Noll in his book, *America's God: Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln*, argues that the list is, in fact, a rough summary of what N.W. Taylor had advocated in his *Concio ad Clerum* (Speech to the Clergy) Again, some of these views will begin to be popularized by Charles Finney ::: {.section.footnotes} ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. ::: {#fn1} Ian Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 72.[↩](#fnref1){.footnote-back} ::: 2. ::: {#fn2} I draw a lot in what follows on the Second Great Awakening from Murry, Revival and Revivalism, 113-142.[↩](#fnref2){.footnote-back} ::: 3. ::: {#fn3} Revival and Revivalism, 116.[↩](#fnref3){.footnote-back} ::: 4. ::: {#fn4} Ibid. See page 117.[↩](#fnref4){.footnote-back} ::: 5. ::: {#fn5} 126-130[↩](#fnref5){.footnote-back} ::: 6. ::: {#fn6} Quoted by Murray, 138[↩](#fnref6){.footnote-back} ::: 7. ::: {#fn7} Ibid.[↩](#fnref7){.footnote-back} ::: 8. ::: {#fn8} Ibid. 138-139.[↩](#fnref8){.footnote-back} ::: 9. ::: {#fn9} Noll, American's God, 301. He is quoting Hodge from "Retrospect of the History of the Princeton Review," in *Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review* 37 (1865): 657.[↩](#fnref9){.footnote-back} ::: :::