Posted by I stand in awe of your works, O Lord. Revive them in our time, make them known. (Habakkuk 3:2)
I have argued in a past post that the Christian Church in America is facing an existential threat. As I wrote then, “To summarize, the Christian Church is in retreat in 21st century America. If current trends continue, it may become completely irrelevant by mid-century.” I identified the reasons for this decline as being 1) the flaws of the church, 2) the belief that religion is not rational, 3) the difficulty of living a Christian life-style in 21st century America, and 4) the difficulty of believing in a just God in an unjust world. While there are reforms within the church that may helpful in making the Church more relevant, it requires a sea change in belief to reverse the trend. In the face of this truth it may be useful to examine the history of when such a major turnaround has occurred –the history of revivals.
First Great Awakening (1730s-40s)
Across Western Europe and America, Christianity in the mid-eighteenth century was in retreat in the face of the new rationalism emerging from the Enlightenment. Most church services were formal and impersonal. Among the important preachers who helped spur the Great Awakening in the British colonies, was George Whitfield, an Anglican minister who was endeavoring to reform the Anglican Church. As Christine Leigh Herman has written, “During his several trips across the Atlantic after 1739, Whitefield preached everywhere in the American colonies, often drawing audiences so large that he was obliged to preach outdoors. What Whitefield preached was nothing more than what other Calvinists such as Jonathan Edwards, had been proclaiming for centuries—that sinful men and women were totally dependent for salvation on the mercy of a pure, all-powerful God. But Whitefield—and many American preachers who eagerly imitated his style—presented that message in novel ways. Gesturing dramatically, sometimes weeping openly or thundering out threats of hellfire-and-brimstone, they turned the sermon into a gripping theatrical performance.”
Many churches disapproved of this type of preaching, which aimed at the “heart” over the “head” (a division which continues in our present church between Pentecostals and charismatics on the one hand, and those who oppose this Holy Spirit centered Christianity). Although the enthusiasm waned after 1750, the Great Awakening gave birth to new Methodist and Baptist congregations across the colonies.
Second Great Awakening (1820s -1850s) According to an American History web-site, “the Second Great Awakening was perhaps more revolutionary than the first. The American Revolution was largely secular. But it was also disestablishmentarian. The roles of the major pre-Revolution churches in America (Anglican, Quaker and Congregational) were diminished, while Methodists and Baptists flourished, especially away from the major East Coast centers. The Second Great Awakening is best known for its large camp meetings that led extraordinary numbers of people to convert 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, captures the spirit of these camp meetings activity:
‘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.’”
Also important were novel organizational ideas suited to the frontier such as circuit riders. For example, Bishop Francis Asbury, the founding bishop of American Methodism, traveled 27,000 miles and preached 16,000 sermons.
The average lifespan of circuit riders in 19th century America (thirty years) was similar to that of missionaries to Africa later in the century. Carrying only what could fit in their saddlebags, they traveled through wilderness and villages, preaching every day at any place available (peoples’ cabins, courthouses, fields, meeting houses, even basements and street corners).
“The Second Great Awakening marked a fundamental transition in American religious life. Many early American religious groups in the Calvinist tradition had emphasized the deep depravity of human beings and believed they could only be saved through the grace of God. The new evangelical movement, however, placed greater emphasis on humans’ ability to change their situation for the better. By stressing that individuals could assert their ‘free will’ in choosing to be saved and by suggesting that salvation was open to all human beings, the Second Great Awakening embraced a more optimistic view of the human condition. Finally, the Second Great Awakening also included greater public roles for white women and much higher African-American participation in Christianity than ever before.”
Third Great Awakening (1855-1899).
It is easier to date the beginning of the third Great Awakening than to determine an end date. Religious life in America was on the wane during the 1850s. Yet, as the historian Timothy Smith showed in his book Revivalism and Social Reform, there was an earnest expectation of awakening, and much prayer in many places for this awakening in 1857. ln cities large and small, there were inter-denominational prayer meetings. One prayer meeting, held daily at 4 p.m. in Bethel, Connecticut, was attended by “farmers, mechanics, and storekeepers,” and claimed 400 conversions. Many smaller towns had similar daily or weekly prayer sessions.
The Third Great Awakening seemed to begin from earnest prayer rather than charismatic preaching. According to Christianity Today “There was nothing unique about the weekly prayer meeting that Jeremiah Lanphier began on 23 September 1857 on Fulton Street in New York City. Two days after Lanphier’s prayer meeting began, the Bank of Pennsylvania failed in Philadelphia, sending shock waves through America’s financial community. In a few days’ time, enough people were attending Lanphier’s meeting that it began to meet daily.
“On October 10 the New York stock market crashed, putting many stockbrokers and clerks out of work, and shutting down businesses everywhere. Many people went into bankruptcy; the panic shattered the previous complacency. Soon the crowds attending the Fulton Street laymen’s gathering overflowed into the nearby John Street Methodist Church. Charles Finney had declared that before this, New York ‘seemed to be on such a wave of prosperity as to be the death of revival effort.’ This attitude changed dramatically. The financial panic, it seems, was the catalyst that triggered the awakening. Within six months 10,000 people were gathering daily for prayer in numerous places throughout New York.”
“Other major cities also developed prayer meetings. The form of worship was always the same: any person might pray, give a testimony or an exhortation, or lead in singing as he or she “felt led.” Although pastors such as Beecher often attended and lent their enthusiastic support, laypeople provided the leadership. Little planning was done for the meetings, the chief rules were that a meeting should begin and end punctually, and that no one should speak or pray for very long. In Chicago, the Metropolitan Theater was filled every day with 2,000 people. In Louisville, Kentucky, several thousand crowded each morning into the Masonic Temple, and overflow meetings were held around the city. In Cleveland, the attendance was about 2,000 each day, and in St. Louis all the churches were filled for months on end.”
My next post will continue this wonderful story of revival with a discussion of Dwight Moody and the YMCA, the birth of holiness movements and Pentecostalism, and the crusades of Billy Sunday and Billy Graham.
