Background
• Many Americans did not profess traditional Christian beliefs.
• The Adventists were getting ready for the second coming of Jesus.

Beginning
• Started in the late 1 700s, early 1800s.
• The revival began in the southern frontier.
• There were traveling “camp meetings”.
• The preachers would yell and scream the sermons.
• People became more active and less passive during church time.
• This included singing, which is still common today.

The Sermons
• The biggest thing that changed was the preacher’s attitudes during the
sermons.
• The would yell to the audience to repent for their sins.

Peter Cartwright
• The best known Methodist “circuit rider”.
• He had a bellowing voice and would flail his arms to get
his message of repentance across.
• He converted thousands.
• He would knock out “rowdies” who attempted to
disrupt his meetings.

Charles Grandison Finney
• The greatest of the revival preachers.
• He was trained as a lawyer, but left to become a
evangelist after he himself was converted by a
deeply moving experience.
• He was very articulate and used that to captivate
his audience.
• He held massive revivals in Rochester and New York City in 1830 and 1831.
• Denounced alcohol and slavery.
• Served as president of Oberlin College in Ohio.
• Helped to make it a place of revivalist activity and abolitionism.

Feminism
• Middle-class women made up the majority of the new church members.
• Women were some of the most passionate revivalists.
• Evangelicals preached a gospel of female spiritual worth.

The Rise of New Religions
• The Second Great Awakening created many new sects of Christianity.
• Millerites was a group, led by William Miller, which thought Christ would return on
October 22, 1844. This inaccurate interpretation of the Bible didn’t completely
destroy the movement.
• Methodists
• Baptists
• Many of these new sects came from less affluent and less learned
areas, compared to the already established sects such as
Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Unitarians.

Impact on Society
• Helped to refuel America’s Christian spirit.
• Created more sects of Christianity.
• Before the revolution, the largest denominations were Congregationalists and
Anglicans, but by the 1800s, Evangelical Methodism and Baptist were fast growing
religions.
• Promoted the Woman’s Movement.
• Supported the abolishment of slavery.