The Second Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening happened in the new American republic around 1790 and reached its height in the 1840s. The first great awakening was about reconciling the reason of the enlightenment with the faith of the established church in the colonies. In the Second Great Awakening there was tremendous growth in the Methodist and Baptist denominations. If the First Great Awakening had created a diversity of protestant beliefs, such as the separation of church and state , congregational sects based upon a democratic church government, and individual revelation, then the Second Great awakening represented an expansion of the congregational revivalist movement most represented by the these denominations. Rather than faith being reconciled with enlightened reason, emotion and personal revelation was being reconciled with a newly contextualized faith. The Methodist circuit riders used the worn paths of canal routes to spread their message of holiness to the unchurched. The Presbyte...