The Great Awakening

The Second Great Awakening has had a major impact on the history of the United States. At the start of the 19th century religion and church attendance among Americans was rapidly declining, but with the population growth religious fervor quickly grew. In the Second Great Awakening, emphasis was put on personal spirituality more than schooling and theology. Revolutionary ideas were spread, such as ordinary people having as much authority as the elites.
During the Great Awakening new religious denominations sprung up and quickly gained members. The top two fastest growing religions were the evangelical Methodism and Baptists. A way that preachers got people to convert was through camp meetings. These camp meetings were marked by very enthusiastic preaching and involvement with the audience. These kind of meetings had never before been seen in America. The denominations that grew out of the Great Awakening are still alive and flourishing today. The church membership during the Great Awakening skyrocketed. Suddenly people were excited about religion again.
Another way the Great Awakening impacted the history of the United States was that it spawned social activism. As part of this social activism abolition groups, temperance, and suffrage groups came together to demand more rights. Prison reform and care for the handicapped was also improved with led to the betterment of life.
The Great Awakening did not only change the religious and moral landscape of America, it also changed the secular landscape too. The middle class that grew with the population developed a very strong work ethic, as well as the values of frugality and temperance. The 2nd Great Awakening also emphasized that individuals can fix their lives and alleviate their suffering by themselves, they didn’t need priests. This democratized the whole landscape.
The Great Awakening also had a huge impact on the slave population. Many congregations of the Baptist church especially were formed among slaves and free blacks. They soon numbered in the hundreds, and the concentration of black Baptists in the South is still very highly concentrated today.
From a gospel standpoint as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Great Awakening had monumental impacts. It was the religious fervor happening in New York that caused 14-year-old Joseph Smith to go pray in the words, and receive his answer about which of all the choices he should join. This single event brought about the restoration of God’s true church once again to the earth, and impacted generations of Americans who joined the church.
The 2nd Great Awakening is one of the most important, yet overlooked, events in American history. It’s affects caused the religious, moral, and secular worlds in America to completely change. New religious denominations sprang up, church membership skyrocketed, social reforms took place, and positive values were reinforced. It was also one of the catalysts that allowed the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to occur, which will forever change the United States, and the world. The Great Awakening took America in a new positive direction, which impacts the United States even today.