◄ Charles Grandison Finney
In the early 1800s, America experienced a second wave of religious enthusiasm. The famous preacher Charles Grandison Finney described the benefits of a religious revival:
“Christians will have their faith renewed. While they are in their backslidden state they are blind to the state of sinners…. But when they enter into a revival, … they see things in that strong light which will renew the love of God in their hearts. This will lead them to labor zealously to bring others to him.”
—Charles Grandison Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 1835
Reading Skill: Identify Main Ideas Note the main ideas under each blue heading in a chart.
Why It Matters By the early 1800s, the United States was well established as an independent, growing country. How their young country would develop was of keen interest to Americans. Many decided that the best future for the United States was one in which its citizens embraced religion. Section Focus Question: How did the Second Great Awakening affect life in the United States?
In the early 1700s, Americans had experienced a burst of religious energy known as the Great Awakening. Another revival of religious feeling called the Second Great Awakening swept the country beginning in the early 1800s and lasting for nearly half the century. Protestant preachers who believed that Americans had become immoral and that reviving religious participation was crucial to the country’s future started and led the Second Great Awakening. These preachers were known as revivalists, because they wanted to revive, or reenergize, the role of religion in America.
The Second Great Awakening profoundly influenced American life. Church membership skyrocketed. Moreover, reawakened religious feeling moved Americans to work for a wide variety of social reforms.
The Second Great Awakening began on the frontier in Kentucky and then spread north and south, reaching the cities of the Northeast in the 1820s.