Lesson 11

Question 1

Who are some of the key persons associated with the Second Great Awakening?

Answer 1

• William Carey
• Samuel Mills
• Charles Finney
• Timothy Dwight
• Phoebe Palmer

Question 2

How did the 19th C. missions movement change the church of its day?

Answer 2

• Lottie Moon
• Simonton
• “Benevolent Empire”
• Voluntary Societies
• Parachurch organizations
• Alter calls

Question 3

Describe the historic background of 19th C. liberal theology.

Answer 3

• Prayer meetings; Revival; Finney; 2nd Blessing;
• Holiness Movement;
• Unitarianism
• Congregationalism (Trinitarian vs. Unitarian)
• Darwin: Evolution
• Kant: Rationalism
• Schleiermacher: Religious experience
• David Strauss: Historical critical method

Question 4

describe the different phases of the Second Great Awakening

Answer 4

Eastern / College Phase
1. Revival at Yale under Timothy Dwight (1752-1817)
* Estimates only 10 Christian students
* Begins lecture series: “Are the Scriptures of the OT & NT the Word of God?” (1795)
* Another series: “The Nature & Danger of Infidel Philosophy” (1797)
* By 1802, 58 students join the church, 30 graduates enter pastoral ministry, including Lyman Beecher

2. Haystack Prayer Meeting at Williams College (1806)
   * Society of Breathern
   * Samuel Mills
3. Samuel John Mills Jr. – “Father of the Foreign Missions Movement in America”
   * American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1810)
   * Southwest Missions (1812-15)
   * American Bible Society (1816)
   * Printing and distribution of Bibles
   * United Foreign Missionary Society
   * Plan for educating blacks for mission work in Africa
   * By 1821 the ABCFM had sent out 81 missionaries
4. Adoniram and Ann Hasseltine Judson (1788-1850; 1789-1826)
   * 33 years in Burma doing Bible translation; 100 ministers, 7,000 believers
   * U.S. became the great power nation for mission and mission funding.

Frontier Phase (1790s)

1. Life on American Frontier
   * Vice, alcoholism, immorality
   * Profanity, mistreatment of slaves
   * Universalism, deism
   * Population of frontier Kentucky tripled, Methodist membership dropped
   * 1798 Presbyterian General Assembly called for a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer to redeem the frontier from the “Egyptian Darkness.”
2. Camp Meetings
   * James McGready (1798) preaching in Red River and Gasper River
   * Hundreds come for meeting and set up tents
   * Revival spreads
   * Revivals in Kentucky and Tennessee
   * End of 1800, 1000’s attending
   * Cane Ridge Revival (1801)
   * Barton Stone (1772-1844)
   * Cane Ridge Revivals – 25,000 attend (1801)
   * Presbytery of Springfield: Bible only, free offer of the Gospel (1803)
   * Referred to themselves as Christians only (1804)
   * Baptism by immersion
3. Alexander Campbell (1788-1866)
   * Father Thomas, Pres. Seceder
   * Joins his father in PA (1809)
   * Convinced of immersion
   * Itinerant preacher
   * “Disciples of Christ” (Campbellites)
   * NT led church, no creeds, ecumenical
   * Breaks with Baptist Association (1825)
   * Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell movements merge in 1830s (The Christian Church)

Upstate NY Phase

1. Charles G. Finney (1792-1875)
   * Converted in 1821
   * Practicing lawyer when converted
   * Ordained as Presbyterian Minister & commissioned as a missionary (1824)
   * Western revivals in NY
   * Objections to Finney’s Revivalism
   * Criticized for his “New Measures”
   * Inquiry meetings
   * Protracted meetings
   * Pulpit language
   * Hasty church members
   * Women praying in public meetings
   * Pastoral Letter
   * New Lebanon Convention (1827) to investigate
2. Charles Finney’s Theology
   * Denounces election and emphasizes human ability
   * Lectures on Revival (1835)
   * Oberlin College Professor and President
   * Lectures on Systematic Theology (1864)
   * Christian perfectionism