at New Salem, Farmington, Middlebury, and New Hartford . . . until, in 1799, I could stand at my door in New Hartford, Litchfield County, and number fifty or sixty contagious congregations laid down in one field of divine wonders, and as many more in different parts of New England.”25 Second, in 1797 the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian pastor James McGready led his church in Logan County, Kentucky to pray regularly “for the conversion of sinners in Logan County, and throughout the world.” On August 6, 1801 his efforts, along with those of others like Barton Stone (1772–1844), bore spectacular fruit. At that time a great “camp meeting” convened at Cane Ridge, KY. Somewhere between 10,000 and 25,000 attended while preachers from a variety of theological traditions delivered revivalistic sermons. The meeting continued for a week.26 Third, at Yale in 1802 revival followed the preaching of President Timothy Dwight (1752–1817), the grandson of Jonathan Edwards, as about one-third of the students professed conversion. Iain Murray notes, “The Yale revival was marked by a feature that became characteristic of the new era: the number of men coming forward for the gospel ministry was suddenly multiplied.”27 Lyman Beecher and Nathaniel Taylor, who would later become leaders of revivals, were among that number.
The Second Great Awakening included many revivals, the last of which took place in 1858.28 According to James I. Good, a wave of revival spread over the German Reformed Church from 1828 to 1844.29 The “Annual Report” of 1843, the year that Nevin wrote the first edition of his Anxious Bench, refers to revivals in many of the German Reformed congregations:
With a few exceptions, all of them have experienced to a greater or less extent seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord—in the Classis of Mercersburg, in the Charges of Greencastle, Schellsburg, Waterstreet, Waynesboro, Woodock Valley, and Chambersburg; likewise in the Classis of Maryland and of Lebanon, in congregations of Reading, Lancaster, and Harrisburg; never before were such outpourings of the Holy Spirit experienced. In Lebanon and Elizabethtown the Word of God has also been manifested.30
In response, German Reformed congregations “walked a difficult tightrope—on the one hand affirming the necessity of the individual spiritual rebirth found in revivalism and on the other hand upholding the centrality of the church and its sacraments as the primary setting where faith is nurtured.”31 The aforementioned “Annual Report” warned of two forms of false religion: formalism and fanaticism, reflecting concern that the “congregations were in danger of being swept into the current of revivalism of the emotional type.”32
Two individuals more than any other embody the major thrusts of what is now called the Second Great Awakening: the tireless itinerant Methodist Francis Asbury (1745–1816) and the lawyer turned revivalist Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875). In response to an invitation from John Wesley, Asbury arrived in Philadelphia from Birmingham, England in 1771.33 Shortly after his arrival, he became disturbed by the concentration of settled Methodist pastors in American cities. In response, Asbury successfully prodded them into circulation so that more people could be reached with the Methodist message of grace and perfection. His efforts gave rise to the Methodist circuit rider, the preacher on horseback who, following the advancing frontier, sought out potential converts in the most remote settlements. Asbury himself traveled for 45 years, covered 300,000 miles, preached 16,000 sermons, ordained 4,000 preachers, and encouraged local churches to establish Sunday schools. As an evangelist, he perfected the use of the protracted camp meetings—meetings outside of the regular weekly gatherings of the churches. These meetings took place for several days under a tent, some distance from the homes of those who traveled to attend.
In 1818 Charles Finney was practicing law in Adams, New York when he came under the influence of a young Presbyterian pastor named George Gale (1789–1861).34 Finney admired Gale but remained skeptical about the Christian faith until 1821 when, led by a personal reading of the Scriptures, he experienced a conversion which brought him a “retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead his cause.” Within days his career as a highly successful converter of souls began on the streets of Adams. Refusing formal theological training, but already exhibiting great power as a preacher, Finney was licensed to preach by the local Saint Lawrence Presbytery. Soon he was making news in the local papers. Before long he gained national attention by a series of spectacular evangelistic meetings in Rome, Utica, Troy, and other cities along the Erie Canal. This is where his “new measures” took form. They included direct and forceful speech, prayers for sinners by name, protracted meetings like those held decades earlier by Asbury, the testimonies of women in public meetings, marketing of upcoming meetings, and the “anxious bench,” a place in the gathering space or sanctuary for the almost-saved where, once seated, they become objects of special exhortation and prayer. Years later, in his Lectures on Revivals, Finney explained his rationale for the use of such measures: “It is not a miracle, or dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means—as much so as any other effect produced by the application of means.”35
We may identify several distinctive features of the Second Great Awakening which, in time, shaped answers to the Church Question. First, the revival preachers of the Second Great Awakening effectively utilized protracted camp or tent meetings. In time, the apparent success of these meetings encouraged local congregations to try similar tactics in their sanctuaries. Second, rather than waiting for the Lord to work in the hearts of those who heard their messages, as had been done by the preachers in the First Great Awakening, the preachers of the Second Great Awakening induced responses through specialized techniques. In time, the apparent success of new measures, like the “anxious bench,” encouraged settled pastors to add them to their evangelistic tool box and employ them in their sanctuaries. Third, the Second Great Awakening encouraged a national move from the Calvinism of Whitefield and Edwards to Arminianism. This move is most evident in the rise of Methodism in America, but is also evident in the number of notable individuals, such as Barton Stone and Charles Finney, who rejected their Calvinistic roots and embraced decisionist techniques. Fourth, the Second Great Awakening stirred up a vision for missionary work and social reform, each made possible by the rise of voluntary societies. These new endeavors organized the forces of like-minded individuals towards the accomplishment of specific goals—and did so outside of the jurisdiction of local congregations and national denominations. As Mark Noll catalogues, during this time period
. . . the country saw the founding of the American Board of for Foreign Missions (1810), The American Bible Society (1816), the Colonization Society for liberated slaves (1817), the American Sunday School Union (1824), the American Tract Society (1825), the American Education Society (1826), the American Home Missionary Society (1826), and many more organizations.36
Republicanism
The initial foundation of American theology came from Europe. Consequently, until about 1750, American Protestantism was “decisively stamped” by its “old-world origins;” this imprint was “instinctively traditional, habitually deferential to inherited authority, and suspicious of individual self-assertion.”37 But that type of old world faith faced great pressure in the new world from American republicanism. This unprecedented form of government, embodied in the Constitution of the United States and characterized by the principles of religious liberty, separation of church and state, voluntaryism, and the sovereignty of the people,
