The Third Great Awakening & Protestant Reform

The Third Great Awakening

The rise of the Social Gospel and protestants seeking a different theological path. 

Have you walked "In His Steps"? This popular book was written by Charles Sheldon in 1896. The book is about following Jesus Christ's example and then applying Jesus Christ's example to practical social outcomes. If the Second Great Awakening was about reconciling emotional revival meetings with a reasonable faith, then the Third Great Awakening ushered in the idea of the social gospel.  The social gospel was a call to social reform, and not just a personal faith. In this, The Third Great Awakening emotionalism become institutionalized into groups like the Relief Society of the Mormon church, The Salvation Army, the Y.M.C.A, N.A.A.C.P., The American Protective Association, and The National Woman Suffrage Association. Some of these organizations were uncomfortably nativist and anti-catholic, but all of them had a goal to reform social problems. 

Seventy percent of the unchurched converted from the Second Great Awakening were women. They took up causes, like temperance, abolition, relief for the poor, and suffrage. This happened in the context of the Benevolent Empire. Various protestant churches formed missionary organizations to create a Christian nation. Dwight Moody a Chicago evangelist, preacher and publisher in the holiness movement was at the center of much of the missionary activity at the time. The government was not providing for the needs of the poor, addicted, and needy. If male leaders like Moody were the head of directing these efforts, then ladies were the hands that opened soup kitchens, protested alcohol, and attended religious gatherings in the church and non-profit organizations. As ladies got a taste for activism, they also became interested in equal rights for suffrage and political activism. Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton all started off as abolition reformers. Anthony founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association in 1869.  

People responded differently to the efforts of these reformers. This awakening was happening with the expanding industry and manufacturing of the Industrial Revolution. More and more men in New York City were getting desk jobs. Men felt the need to defend their masculinity. Steve Brodie, a  saloon owner, had formerly saved someone's life in New York's East River. He was known for yelling, "Go Chase yourself" to resist the women street evangelists of the Salvation Army as they marched up and down the New York Bowery. Many of the saloon owners and patrons agreed with Brodie. He was a hero and known for the masculine act of jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge and surviving. People would say, "I am going to do 'a Brodie' when they would attempt a manly feat. The women at that time were the ones stuck with caring for the children while their husbands ended up drunk in the saloons. They responded by joining "The Army" and temperance organizations. "The Salvation Army succeeded, in part, because it managed to bridge an emerging divide between Social Gospel reformers and Protestants who were taking a different theological path. Disturbed by what they saw as rising secularism, conservative ministers and their allies held a series of Bible Conferences at Niagara Falls between 1876 and 1897. The resulting “Niagara Creed” reaffirmed the literal truth of the Bible and the certain damnation of those not born again in Christ" (from my AP textbook). 

Billy Sunday was a former White Sox baseball player who became converted at the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. Sunday and his manly style of revivals won many converts. He would organize a baseball game before he would preach and then play on both sides. The open fields and anxious benches of the Second Great Awakening were replaced by stadiums and altar calls. Billy was thought to have reached more than one hundred million people. He dined with Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and considered Herbert Hoover and John Rockefeller his friends. Men and women were attracted to this masculine message of Christianity best institutionalized in the Young Men's Christian Organization (YMCA). 

There was a powerful revival that took place at this time in Los Angeles. It happened at the Azusa Street Mission. In 1906, an African American minister named William J. Seymour led a Pentecostal revival in an old African Methodist Episcopal church. His meetings were known for integrated worship and speaking in foreign tongues as was exemplified in the second chapter of Acts in the Bible. Seymour emphasized holiness in his teaching, much like Charles Finney. Holiness meant separating yourself from worldly desires like adultery, drunkenness and dishonesty. The African American community has contributed greatly to U.S. church history. Richard Allen founded the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in my home city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Now William Seymour had established the Pentecostal Movement in the midst of The Third Great Awakening. His original Apostolic Faith Movement still has churches worshiping together with diverse congregations all over the world. The revival of spiritual gifts was a notable distinction of this movement. Other protestant faiths had believed that gifts like prophecy, tongues, healing, and miracles had ceased. However, the growth of charismatic churches today has validated the work of Mr. Seymour and the contributions of the African American Church.

Most people studying U.S. History would consider the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, healthy lifestyles, and general welfare important developments. These developments happened in our history in the context of a Great Awakening. Would they have developed anyway? Perhaps, but they would not look like the government and nonprofit institutions that currently serve us. This great resurgence of religious revivals in our country stimulated these developments. Manumission is a good example. Many Virginia planters freed their slaves voluntarily in 1782. The ladies who volunteered for temperance and abolition movements also became active suffrage reformers. These ladies also fed the hungry in soup kitchens and made clothing for the poor in sewing circles. The African Americans who worshiped during this movement also integrated their churches. Churches became the main institution where volunteers were organized. Sabbatarian values embrace by a majority of our population shut down most stores and banks on Sundays. This trend lasted until the 1960's The Benevolent Empire was a volunteer movement which cared for needy immigrants in the Second Great Awakening, but these volunteer organizations were not institutionalized until the Third Great Awakening.