Saturday, February 11, 2017

The Second Great Awakening

The Second Great Awakening began in the late 1700s. However it reachits peak in the mid- 1800s. During the Second Great Awakening there was an increase in religious participation. The people started to reject old ideal that only certain preselected people are going to salvation (also know as predestination). 

Like the first Great Awakening, religious leaders went around the counties and gave sermons promoting their beliefs. These sermons were mostly held outdoors and were referred to as ten meetings or revivals. Upstate New York was a popular location for these revivals, which earned the region the nickname "the burned-over district". 
Charels Finney was an important Presbyterian minister at the time. Finney preached in both Upstate New York and Manhattan, and supported other reform movements such as the abolition of slavery and universal education. 
A few results of the Second Great Awakening were that many more people applied and received church memberships. As well as the surge in church memberships, many new religious dominations were formed. Two fairly successful dominations of religions was the Methodists and Unitarianism. The Methodists already had 70,000 following, but increased that number to over 1 million in 1844. the Unitarianism domination also formed, which was a separate division of the Protestant church. The  Unitarianist believed that Jesus was a human model for living a moral life, instead of a divine being.
In the 1820s and 1830s Joseph Smith founded founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormon church). The time period in which Smith grew there were many conflicting religions, and Smith often found himself confused as to what to believe. Smith claimed to be visited by an angel who lead him to a buried book of revelation. This book later became the Book of Mormon. The Mormons ideas were not accepted by many other religions, which forced them out further west. 

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