It seems the most important thing for me to take away from the first section of the reading was that it was the people that shaped Christianity in America, not the institutions. This is unlike Britain, where freedom and religion were very different concepts.
Religion in America in the late 18th century came from the raw power of the common people, which formed the unstructured, passionate movement. Americans refused to look higher up for religious guidance, but insisted instead that leadership would come from the common people, and so leadership was redefined.
These ideas were met by resistance from the more elite. As the reading quotes, a writer from the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine said: "No person is warranted from the word of God to publish to the world the discoveries of heaven or hell which he supposes he has had in a dream, or trance, or vision." Despite the resistance, the Second Great Awakening was created by, and solely for, the common citizen in America.
Opal,
ReplyDeleteHow would you explain the fact of this difference? What about the American context contributed to the people having this influence?
LDL