The Second Great Awakening

I want to “clear the air” a bit here before I narrate the wonderful movement of the Spirit in The Second Great Awakening. I am going to describe some things that will probably make you uncomfortable; they made me uncomfortable in reading them. Emotion carried forward from the first awakening and into the second awakening, and if anything, became much more of a part of the awakening. I am so glad God gave us Jonathan Edwards, for it was his solemn counsel as to the validity of the first awakening that gave me much heart as I read of it.

In beginning this study of American awakenings, I wondered at first why I had not found much information on them in my four decades of being a Christian. When I became aware of the emotionalism that accompanies them I did not have to wonder any more. People are afraid of losing control, and that seems to make them respond in two ways. First, they avoid situations all together that seem to be emotionally charged, and second, they seem to charge all such exhibitions of emotion as being wrong. Neither course is the rational one; if we are to learn of God in studying awakenings, then we must be open to what he has done, and I believe looking for his fruit means that we need to be willing to look past the emotions towards the changes that were permanent in their lives. Edwards did an outstanding job of this in the first awakening changes taking place in the lives of many.

As I was thinking of gathering an outline for this chapter, I felt the need to go to one of my favorite pastors, A. W. Tozer. To my amazement, I found some timely remarks on this very subject of emotionalism. “It is entirely possible to get emotional experiences that are not of God. But I believe that true experiences carry an emotional overtone, and for that reason, I have no objection whatever to emotions.”¹ I think that is exactly the attitude that we need to have as we go forward in examining this awakening. In the end, The Second Great Awakening was to have a powerful impact upon our nation that I do not think is adequately appreciated. Religion, including Christianity with all its multiplicity of denominations, was to forever become a mainstay of American life.

Indeed, as Tozer eloquently says, we cannot separate emotion from experiences, nor do I think we should try. People are emotional beings that are sometimes also rational, and never the other way around. If my guess about why we do not teach much about revivals is correct—that they are too emotionally messy—then the only winner from our lack of teaching is the enemy. Americans would profit much from a study of revival, and the way God has worked in the past. Our expectations from God might change drastically if we understood what God has done in the life of so many in the building of this nation. William Carey adjures us to attempt great things for God because we expect great things from God—but if we have no expectations surely we will attempt but little things, and remain but a shadow of what we might be under God’s mighty hand.

Not to say too much in this direction; I know and believe in a sovereign God, but is he not also the God that chose frail men to carry forward his gospel? We cannot carry it ourselves. We are weak. We are sinful, boastful, arrogant, and all the other things that we should not be, even after receiving Christ as our Lord. Our only hope is that Holy Spirit whom he gave us, might power us to live the life he has called us to live. Indeed our only hope for a lost nation, as desperate and wicked as it has ever been, is that the mighty hand of God, through his Holy Spirit, should effect another great revival. If the price of such a revival is too much emotion, then I say, bring it on, that we might be transformed into his good and perfect image. Perhaps we all might be a bit better if we could shed some tears at the altar.

As for The Second Great Awakening, it began with an emotional bang, but after a period of spiritual aridity in our history. I liken it to the story of Elijah facing 800 prophets of Baal without fear, but in the next scene running for his life Our nation had won its independence, in no small part because of the church’s influence and leading. That victory tasted sweet to Americans, even as Elijah’s victory must have tasted. But in the next years the churches seemed to gasp for life itself. There were several reasons for this deadening.

France had done a great thing in helping America achieve its independence. All of America was turned toward viewing France and appreciating its culture. Unfortunately for America, that meant copying their culture, and their culture was a godless one. Thomas Jefferson famously believed in the French Revolution, but was proved to be wrong with all the horrid excesses and the huge amount of blood that was spilled. I do wonder if Jefferson, not being a Christian, seriously undervalued the effect of Christianity on the American Revolution. At any rate, it become fashionable to imitate France in every particular. “To complete the moral degradation of the infant republic, a wave of French infidelity swept over the land.”²

It filled our culture, from the rich imitating French fashion to the intellectual avowing skepticism. “It soon became fashionable to adopt views which avowed a disbelief in the Bible, scoffed at the divinity of Christ, and looked upon religion as a superstition of the past Especially was this true of scholars, men who had traveled abroad, and those who had embraced extreme republican views.”³ Even the colleges, though many were started as centers of training of men for the ministry, became faithless and empty shells of the Christianity they were supposed to represent. “The colleges of the land became infected with the deadly contagion of unbelief. Lyman Beecher, in describing the condition of Yale College prior to the presidency of Dr. Dwight, said: "Before he came, the college was in a most ungodly state. The college church was almost extinct. Most of the students were skeptical and rowdies were plenty. Wines and liquors were kept in many rooms ; intemperance, profanity, gambling and licentiousness were common. . . .”⁴

I had assumed that the First Great Awakening just naturally flowed to the Second Great Awakening, but not so. There was a period in our history when God was shunned, and the churches seemed devoid of vitality. But there came little springs, if you will, breaking through the dry crust of unbelief here and there. A few churches, here and there, began to revive, and clusters of churches sometimes were holding meetings and beginning to see fruit. “From 1798-1800 there were extensive revivals in the western portion of New York. Palmyra, Canandaigua and other towns in that portion of the State were visited, the revival extending throughout the counties of Delaware, Otsego, Oneida and elsewhere. The Presbyterian churches shared chiefly in this work.”⁵
But it was the emotional-trodden camp meetings which really started the Second Great Awakening. When I think about camp meetings, I think of disorder, disarray, and almost a disintegration of unity, but to my surprise I found that camp meetings were actually well-planned. They eventually were to become the Methodist place of great success, but they were always well planned. Pastors and speakers would get together far in advance, and plan out the different sites, often having several speakers going on at the same time, with benches constructed, and advance notices sent throughout all the land. They seemed to be masterpieces of organization. “Like Whitefield and Finney's urban meetings, the meeting at Cane Ridge was carefully planned: "The grounds were prepared for the vast throng. For several hundred yards an oblong square with [a] temporary pulpit in the center made of split boards with [a] handrail for its protection, and rough hewn logs at regular intervals for seats. The surrounding grounds were filled with tents in regular street order. From five to seven ministers were speaking at one time. The church-building was set apart as a lodging place for the preachers. Every obstacle seems to have been surmounted, that all might be present" (Rogers, 1910, p. 56).”⁶
However well-planned they were, they became lightning bolts for criticism, though the criticism did not seem to matter to these rural folk. They came from miles around with high expectations, and many rural churches were started after people finished at these meetings. “Both Whitefield and Finney held their revivals in towns and cities, and revivals remain primarily an urban phenomenon. But at the turn of the nineteenth century, rural America developed an equally potent counterpart, the camp meeting.”⁷

Listen to a description of the camp meeting: ” Many, very many, fell down as men slain in battle, and continued for hours together in an apparently breathless and motionless state, sometimes for a few moments reviving and exhibiting symptoms of life by a deep groan or piercing shriek, or by a prayer for mercy fervently uttered. After lying for hours they obtained deliverance. The gloomy cloud that had covered their faces seemed gradually and visibly to disappear, and hope, in smiles, brightened into joy. They would rise, shouting deliverance, and then would address the surrounding multitude in language truly eloquent and impressive.”⁸ It was not a model that was copied in the cities, but it worked rather well for those in the country.

Remember the ruler that Edwards gave us to measure by; the revival may produce excess emotions, but the proof of God’s working lies in the changed lives. Many people were profoundly changed. Listen to the testimony of one pastor who had been skeptical: “After attending to many such cases, my conviction was complete that it was a good work -- the work of God; nor has my mind wavered since on the subject. Much did I see then, and much have I seen since, that I consider to be fanaticism; but this should not condemn the work.”⁹ Beardsley goes on to note that this work was almost as if God was tailoring his movement to the needs of those in attendance. Rural folk, uneducated, and perhaps largely illiterate. To them was given a movement of God that they would understand and be attracted to. “These strange features did not produce the disastrous results that they would have produced in more cultured communities. Instead of hindering the revival they seemed to aid it, for in the regions where such manifestations took place they were looked upon as the undoubted works of God.”¹⁰

If camp meetings was all The Second Great Awakening had to offer, then perhaps its history would be mostly hidden, as people seem to flee from displays of heavy emotion. But that is not the case; the awakening was just beginning. By 1800, the churches across America were beginning to get revival. “But during a period of four or five years , commencing with 1798, not less than one hundred and fifty churches in New England , were favored with the special effusions of the Holy Spirit; and thousands of souls, in the judgment of charity, were translated from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God’s dear Son.”¹¹

That there were excesses, there is little doubt. Just as Whitefield tended to accuse all who disagreed with him of being unregenerate, so some of the evangelists probably were not careful. Just as Davenport so famously erred in his evangelistic efforts in the First Awakening, there probably were others in his mode during the Second Awakening. As I told last chapter, Davenport came to his senses after a year, and famously repented of many of his actions.
The problem with accurately knowing what went on back then is made much more difficult because there were many church leaders who were biased so much toward the “regular” churches that they discounted any good news of the newer and less accepted churches. In other words, those leaders from Presbyterian or more particularly Congregation backgrounds would routinely disparage anything that smacked of Methodists or Baptists. It was the Methodists and Baptists that were the most successful in the camp meetings, but they also were known to come into villages and start a new work, which the regular churches felt was in direct competition. Often these leaders coming in had little or no education, which probably made them despised. But on the other side, we have already seen that at least some of the leaders of the regular churches had little spiritual light, and may have been unregenerate themselves. It all made for a rather confusing mess.

But allow me to tell you briefly of one evangelist who was careful to offend no one, but still managed to powerfully succeed. “Asahel Nettleton was born in North Killingworth , Connecticut, April 21, 1783.”¹² Nettleton was a strong Calvinist, and indeed, seemed to have great difficulty finding assurance of salvation, probably because he could not see past the condemnation of God to the grace of God. Trained at Yale, President Dwight, of Yale, spoke well of him. “As a student he never evinced any special brilliancy of mind, but such was his devout spirit and such was his devotion to duty that President Dwight said of him: "He will make one of the most useful men this country has ever seen."¹³ Indeed, Nettleton started out for the missionary field, but found that God was using him graciously to stir up revival throughout Connecticut, and thus never fulfilled his intentions to be a missionary. At one point, Dr. Beecher and other church leaders offered him a job as an evangelist, but he refused, stating that he did not want to take their money. Said Dr. Beecher of him, “Mr. Nettleton has served God and his generation with more self-denial, and constancy, and wisdom, and success, than any man living.”¹⁴ Because he went out of his way to respect the churches, and their ministers, he was able to go into the established churches, and was used to reach perhaps thousands. Some of those churches were pastorless, which was a constant problem, especially for the established churches, but Nettleton would move on in his work whenever he felt the people were getting too used to them. In this manner, it is easy to see why Nettleton was so greatly appreciated. He both honored the leaders who were there, and made no attempt to take over; in fact, when the area churches tried to hire him as an evangelist, he turned them down, pleading that he had to depend on God to continue his work. Asahel Nettleton was truly a great evangelist!

I do not believe it easy to understand the awakening except that one understand the doctrine that was permeating the churches. The Halfway Covenant was still being followed, though you may remember that Jonathan Edwards quit his church because he did not support it. People were required to have a testimony of faith in Christ in order to be members; in this halfway promise, the children of church members were allowed to baptize their children, and also to participate in communion. In some circles, the participation in communion came to be thought of as a saving ordinance. New England still had established churches, and that meant that taxpayers all were forced to support the church. Hence, it came to be thought of as an entitlement to participate in communion, and pastors were severely censured in their attempts to keep the church in any sense pure. The pastorate was assigned as a job to men, and those men could refuse to come and fill a church that they might feel is beneath their station. In many churches, there was not a pastor to be found, and the neglect of men and women’s souls must have been terrible.

Also the kind of Calvinism that was believed in was a horrible fatalistic derivation in which people were discouraged from seeking God; rather, they were told, God would seek them, if indeed they were part of the elect. “With an insistence upon man's absolute inability to do anything towards securing salvation, there is small cause for wonder that conversions were few, and that men were coming to look upon themselves as in no wise responsible for their impenitence and rebellion towards God.”¹⁵

Indeed, New England pastors, at least many of them were not willing to entertain the idea of a free gospel at all. Those who did not believe in this severe gospel were subject to being censured. “Several years after the Cane Ridge meeting, the Presbyterian Synod of Lexington, Kentucky, suspended Barton Stone and four of his friends for "insubordination" because they refused to affirm their commitment to strict Calvinist doctrines. For Stone and his associates, these doctrines were at odds with the fundamental theological basis of camp meeting revivals: that all could be saved. He later complained: "Calvinism is among the heaviest clogs on Christianity ... discouraging... sinners from seeking the kingdom of God" (1910, p. 153). Stone observed that the strict Calvinist doctrines (reserving salvation for the elect few) could not cause the kind of fervent faith and changed life that Methodists and Baptists sought from their hearers. Hence, Stone offered pragmatic as well as theological grounds for preaching that all could be saved, and that salvation goes to all who "believe in Jesus and come to him."¹⁶

When Charles Finney came upon the scene with his declaration of a gospel offered to all who would seek God, people in the churches were the first to respond. For too long they had been directed to wait upon the call of God; now they were told to respond to the gospel and respond they did! Revivals were all the more miraculous when one realizes just how small the communities were, and a church writing of a revival might tell of 80 new souls that had become “hopefully converted” as they were wont to say, might also had that they only had 120 souls in their community. Fairly often, I read accounts of 50% and more of communities becoming “hopefully converted”. The awakening was to last for decades, and America came out utterly transformed. “On the eve of the Revolution only about 17 percent of Americans were churched. By the start of the Civil War this proportion had risen dramatically, to 37 percent.”¹⁷ Do you see how amazing these figures are? Though we of course cannot see inwardly to the hearts, yet the growth of churches during this time period indicates that Christian regeneration was taking place at an astounding pace.

Interestingly I found that some of the pastors changed their minds, rejecting the outlandish behavior of the revivals, but then coming to realize that God was working in their midst, in a powerful way that had no parallel in our history. The most famous case of this is perhaps found in Lyman Beecher. Beecher, a Congregationalist, was a man who left us with many of his writings, including an autobiography. Beecher, locked into his own congregational views (Congregationalists did not do well in this era), gave us a gloomy report which has confused historians for years. “Having noted the common language, Sweet traced it to a common source-Lyman Beecher's autobiography. Sweet shows that Beecher's gloomy description of the period was at best reflective of the hard time on which Congregationalism had fallen.”¹⁸ Beecher himself was rather an enigma, coming out first stridently against Charles Finney, “Lyman Beecher boldly predicted that this "mode" of revivalism "threatens to become one of the greatest evils which is likely to befall the cause of Christ" and threatens the new nation by throwing it "back in civilization, science, and religion, at least a whole century" (Beecher and Nettleton, 1828, pp. 80, 99). Beecher was appalled that Finney and his followers displayed little respect for the settled and learned ministry, allowed "female prayer" in mixed assemblies, and used a "language of unbecoming familiarity with God" (p. 91).”¹⁹ Perhaps this rejection by Beecher explains why the revival seemed to course strongly through the Methodists and Baptists, rather than the Congregationalists, as many were apt to follow the leading of Beecher.

But Beecher was to eventually change his mind, “It is interesting to note that Lyman Beecher who four years before had said: "Finney, I know your plan, and you know I do; you mean to come to Connecticut and carry a streak of fire to Boston. But if you attempt it, as the Lord liveth, I'll meet you at the state line, and call out all the artillerymen, and fight every inch of the way to Boston, and then I'll fight you there" now received him with great cordiality.”²⁰ Beecher became a stalwart supporter of Finney in the end, though he was something of a stalwart fighter against him to begin with. I like to think that God changed his mind; Beecher saw the good work Finney was doing in reaching the lost, and chose to overlook the excesses which seemed to accompany The Second Great Awakening. “Beecher's greatest legacy may be the family he produced. He was said to be the “father of more brains than any man in America,” for among his children were Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Henry Ward Beecher, the most famous American preacher of his day.”²¹

But what of Charles Finney? What Whitefield was to the first awakening, Finney was to the second awakening. Finney, born August 29, 1792. He was beginning a practice of law, and started searching, as he thought, through the Bible for Moses law examples which he might use one day in court. But he soon became under conviction because of the words which he was reading. “So on October 10, 1821, he headed out into the woods near his Adams, New York, home to find God. "I will give my heart to God, or I never will come down from there," he said.”²²

Reading the conversions of men of that time is difficult for me to understand. Jonathan Edwards waited until his third year at seminary, and was still unsure about his conversion. He had to struggle mightily with the question of his salvation until he found grace. Similarly, Finney had an epic struggle, trying to find out how to come to God. Part of the problem may have been that both of those times seemed to have a higher view of God, and a lessor view of mankind. I think both men struggled in their difficulty of understanding how to come to God. Looking at their struggles to be saved, I cannot help but wonder if their terrific struggle did not make men in the end with a mightier conviction, a deeper peace, and voices that were able to sharply cut through to the hearts of other men.

At any rate, Finney was afraid to tell of his conviction to anyone. He feared a wrong answer, and he correctly saw that the Word of God was the place to have this battle. But he did not want other people seeing him struggle, so he determined to go to a private place out in the woods and he says such, “But I found, when I came to face the question, that I was very unwilling to have anyone know that I was seeking the salvation of my soul.”²³ He tells of wrestling and reaching some sort of peace, but without much understanding, so he continues to seek God. Eventually the emotional roller coaster that he must have been on becomes obvious to those around him. One elder in the church laughed at his difficulty, and did not seem at all helpful. Says Finney, “I saw that His work was a finished work; and that instead of having, or needing, any righteousness of my own to recommend me to God, I had to submit myself to the righteousness of God through Christ.”²⁴ Thus far, Charles Finney’s conversion seems like it might be yours or mine. I can recall several people who have struggled mightily before giving in to God.

But now Finney says something which is doctrinally wrong, and we need to see it through eyes of love for a fellow brother, but as well, to see it as doctrinal corruption. “But as I turned and was about to take a seat by the fire, I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost.”²⁵ The Bible teaches that at the point of conversion, all of us are automatically baptized into the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). However, what Finney experienced may have been likened to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which came upon the church so wonderfully in the second chapter of Acts. I would judge that what he experienced was a mighty filling of the Spirit, equipping him already for the task which God intended to call him to. During this early period there were two skeptical men who scoffed at Finney, and were rebuked. Both men subsequently went off and found their peace with God. It seems as if God was already marking Finney out to be an evangelist. Says Finney of his state of mind at this time, “My whole mind was taken up with Jesus and His salvation; and the world seemed to me of very little consequence. Nothing, it seemed to me, could be put in competition with the worth of souls; and no labor, I thought, could be so sweet, and no employment so exalted, as that of holding up Christ to a dying world.”²⁶

And hold up Christ to a dying world is what Charles Finney did. Sometimes whole towns, nearly, were converted, and there is a famous story about the revival of Rochester in which all the taverns were permanently closed, the crime rate dropped, and all of this even while the population was growing immensely. Thousands came to Christ. Finney was controversial in his day, for he believed in the doctrine of perfection, and also fought the deviant brand of Calvinism that he found locking everyone’s souls out of heaven. “Traditional Calvinists taught that a person would only come to believe the gospel if God had elected them to salvation. Finney stated that unbelief was a “will not,” instead of a “cannot,” and could be remedied if a person willed to become a Christian.”²⁷

In 1831, there was a great work of revival in Rochester, New York. It may have been, and probably was, the greatest revival New England had ever seen, reaching an estimated one hundred thousand souls. Bars were closed, lawyers were converted, and a mass movement occurred in that city which may be unparalleled. “Years after this, in conversing with Dr. Beecher about this powerful revival and its results, he remarked: "That was the greatest work of God, and the greatest revival of religion, that the world has ever seen, in so short a time. One hundred thousand," he remarked, "were reported as having connected themselves with churches, as the results of that great revival. This," he said, "is unparalleled in the history of the church, and of the progress of religion." He spoke of this having been done in one year; and said that in no year during the Christian era, had we any account of so great a revival of religion.”²⁸

Finney still stands as the preeminent evangelist of America. Because he believed strongly that people, once saved, should get busy and change their world, America was greatly transformed during these decades. Finney also stood as a shining star against slavery in a time when it was very controversial. Oberlin College stood strongly in favor of freedom for all men, and practiced integration of both black males and females—and that was at least thirty years before the Civil War. “Finney is called the “father of modern revivalism” by some historians, and he paved the way for later mass-evangelists like Dwight L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and Billy Graham.”²⁹

What was the effect of The Second Great Awakening? Why am I so insistent on its great effect? We have already talked about the anti-slavery movement that got great impetus from the awakening, but there were also many other movements that got started during this period. “The American Bible Society was founded in New York City in 1816, chiefly through the efforts of Samuel J. Mills, the founder of the American Board. Since its organization the American Bible Society has sent out Bibles, literally by the millions, to all parts of the world. In 1814 the New England Tract Society was formed, and in 1823 changed its name to the American Tract Society of Boston, which afterward was amalgamated with the American Tract Society of New York, organized in 1825. During the eighty-six years of its history the American Tract Society has published 34,206,914 volumes, and 456,154,267 tracts in English and foreign languages, besides 287,341,468 copies of periodicals, making a grand total of 777,702,649 publications issued by this one Society.”³⁰ “By 1837 the Methodists and Baptists supported twelve independent black churches in Philadelphia, representing 86 percent of the membership.”³¹

I could go on and on, listing the societies that were started, with some of them continuing to this day. The church’s outlook of the period was important; they were preparing the world for the return of Christ. Charles Finney is the name that stands out the most during this wonderful awakening. “Dr. Cuyler said of him, that he probably led more souls to Jesus than any man of the nineteenth century. In round numbers it has been estimated that five hundred thousand persons were converted through his instrumentality.”³² Although Charles Finney stands out so incredibly in this awakening, he was by no means all of it. Evangelists all over were working together to awaken a nation to the coming of the King. And that is not bad! Would that we could see it’s like today.

What is the take-away from The Second Great Awakening? My deepest appreciation is of how God used them to transform a nation. Church attendance went dramatically up during this period, but that was not the only transformation. The outreaches to the poor and downtrodden increased significantly. Finney’s sermons, transcribed and sent to London, converted an unlikely soul who then started the Young Men’s Christian Association, the YMCA, which was to figure prominently in The Third Great Awakening. Churches increased everywhere, with the Congregationalists actually losing membership, the Presbertyrians holding their own as a measured percentage of society, and the Baptists growing significantly, and the Methodists showing overwhelming growth. Society was transformed for generations, and the American populace would henceforth show a hunger for movements of God. Eventually we would gain our mass evangelists like Moody and Graham, but for now, the people were awakened to a God who loved them.

I marvel at the ability of God to use frail men to bring glory to his name. Finney was not the best theologian, making many mistakes in developing a systematic theology. His theology reads more like it is based on Socrates and law, rather than on the Bible. But Finney did address the errors of his day—Calvinism was at its lowest ebb; it had possessed the country for a long time by degenerating into a fatalistic error that prohibited men from seeking God. Finney, even with his errant doctrine, brought in a new spring for American Christianity, by simply pointing out that whosoever “will” may come. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is that theologians do not necessarily make good evangelists, and knowing Bible truths may not be as important as recognizing the utter peril of your neighbor’s soul. Finney was not the only evangelist to be found lacking in theological truth. Later Moody was to come on the scene, and like Finney, was apparently a doctrinal babe in Christ. But, is it not marvelous that God was able to take such vessels, and pour out his Spirit upon society through them? Here I believe we see the love of God for the lost as supremely more important than theology. It is well that we have the centering theologians like Edwards, for they do remind us to stay the course, but—oh, how I pray for God to send us a man like Finney, that we might see America turned upside down for Christ once more!


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30. Beardsley, Frank G. (2012-07-26). A History of American Revivals (Kindle Locations 955-960). . Kindle Edition.
31. Roger Finke;Rodney Stark. The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (Kindle Locations 1296-1297). Kindle Edition. America was drastically changed during this period.
32. Beardsley, Frank G. (2012-07-26). A History of American Revivals (Kindle Locations 1370-1372). . Kindle Edition.