In: Psychology
During the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century more Americans than ever embraced organized religious activities. Evaluate how this came about. Was more religious choice developing? Was it in some ways parallel to what was happening politically during the same period?
The Second Great Awakening, which spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching, sparked a number of reform movements. Revivals became a key part of the movement and attracted hundreds of converts to new Protestant denominations. ... Newer denominations, such as Methodists and Baptists, grew quickly.
Social reform prior to the Civil War came largely out of this new devotion to religion. Efforts to apply Christian teaching to the resolution of social problems presaged the social gospel of the late nineteenth century. Converts were taught that to achieve salvation, they needed not only to repent for personal sin but also work for the moral perfection of society, which meant eradicating sin in all its forms. Thus, evangelical converts were leading figures in a variety of nineteenth-century reform movements.
Reforms took the shape of social movements for temperance, women’s rights, and the abolition of slavery. Social activists began efforts to reform prisons and care for the handicapped and mentally ill. They believed in the perfectibility of people and were highly moralistic in their endeavors. Many participants in the revival meetings believed that reform was a part of God’s plan. As a result, local churches saw their role in society as purifying the world through the individuals to whom they could bring salvation, as well as through changes in the law and the creation of institutions. Interest in transforming the world was applied to political action, as temperance activists, antislavery advocates, and proponents of other variations of reform sought to implement their beliefs into national politics. While religion had previously played an important role on the American political scene, the Second Great Awakening highlighted the important role which individual beliefs would play.