U.S. Church History Blog

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 prob...

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...