This book is concerned with religious revivalism in the United States since 1825. It attempts to explain the part which revivalism has played, and is playing today, in the social, intellectual, and religious life of America. The aim has been, in describing the development of modern revivalism and the men who devoted their lives to it, to look below the surface phenomenon in an effort to discover why revivals have constantly recurred, what their effects have been, and what they meant not only to those directly concerned but to all Americans. If the revivals of the past century and a quarter have not always been the crucial factors in the course of American history that their devout exponents claimed, they have nevertheless been more significant than the social historians have yet acknowledged. from the Preface

Murray analyses a crucial period in American religious history,with particular attention to the major theme of the nature ofreligious revival. He rejects the common identification of revival & revivalism, showing that the latter differed from the former both in its origins & in its implications. Whereas in the earlier period, revival was understood as supernatural & heaven-sent, in the later period the ethos was much more man-centred & the methods employed much closer to the manipulative. The change in perspective can be summed up by saying that revival was first viewed as OEsent down, but later seen as OEworked up. A pivotal figure in the change & a major promoter of the new methods, was Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875). Murray traces developments from the time of Samuel Davies (1763-61), through the age of the Second Great Awakening, to the New York Awakening of 1857-8. In addition to Davies & Finney, major leaders whose names recur in these pages include Archibald Alexander (1772-1851) of Princeton Theological Seminary, Edward D. Griffin (1770-1837) & Asahel Nettleton (1783-1844).Arnold DallimoreAn outstanding biography, scholarly, yet popularly written, of theleading preacher of the eighteenth-century evangelical revival.Whitefield (1714-70) is acknowledged to have made a greaterimpact on evangelical Christianity on both sides of the Atlanticthan any other preacher of the eighteenth century. The firstvolume traces the early career of Whitefield to the end of 1740, atwhich point the twenty-six-year-old was already the most brilliantand popular preacher of the time, and had already, at age 24,commanded the largest congregations yet seen in America. Thesecond volume traces the doctrinal conflict with John and CharlesWesley, Whitefield?s visits to Scotland and Wales, as well as theAmerican colonies, and the emergence of a Calvinistic branch ofMethodism. Also provided are details of Whitefield?s marriage,friendships, ceaseless labours and early death aged 55. The two-volume set casts new light on Whitefield?s early life in Gloucester,religious conditions in England at the commencement of hispreaching ministry, his influence on the Great Awakening of 1739-40 in America, his relationships with the Wesleys, hisphilanthropic endeavours and his impact on all classes of Englishsociety including the aristocracy.

The influence of revivalism is writ large in the history of modern Ireland, particularly as we commemorate a 'decade of centenaries'. Yet, whether in Ireland or elsewhere, no study of revivalism as a critical cultural practice exists, rather one tends to speak of specific revivals such as the Gothic Revival, the Gaelic Revival and so on. Surely, beyond the specific circumstances of these revivals, lies a set of fundamental concerns which arise from our experience of time, cultural memory and the quest for continuity? This book seeks to address this question by firstly locating revivalism within the broader history of ideas and, secondly, undertaking a conceptual case study of revivalism within Modern Irish literature. The conceptual development of revivalist discourse is explored here from the Counter-Reformationists of the seventeenth century, to the guardians of the scribal tradition in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Protestant evangelicals and Irish nationalists and Gaelic League in the nineteenth century, the Easter Rising and the challenges of independence in the twentieth century through to the concerns of contemporary literature in Irish. While literature in Irish has encountered a steady degree of adversity over the course of the last four centuries this itself has led to a consciousness of it own medium. With this has come an awareness of the precariousness of continuity on the one hand and a glimpse of the transformative potential of renewal on the other. Revivalism emerges as a response to a crisis of continuity and a means to realise our own agency.

"This book will appeal to scholars and students of popular religion as well as to general readers interested in the subject."--BOOK JACKET.

One of the most enduring images from the early years of American history is that of a preacher on horseback, slogging through mud and rain to bring folks in the backwoods the message of God and glory. Such religious revivals not only became the defining mark of American religion but also played a central role in the nation's developing identity, independence, and democratic principles. But revivalism has always generated opposition, too, even in its century of glory. In Anti-Revivalism in Antebellum America, James D. Bratt offers extensive introductions to primary anti-revivalist documents. These works range from the Philadelphia Methodist John F. Watson's protests against camp meetings in 1819, to Elizabeth Cady Stanton's "Eighty Years and More," written in 1898, in which she recalls her youthful encounter with revival preaching and her rebound into political activism and religious agnosticism. Through the recovered voices of antebellum religious critics, Bratt shows how American culture was already being reshaped a generation before the Civil War and how evangelical religion stood at the center of a "culture war." If revivals typified the era when Americans launched and defined their new nation, then objections to these revivals embodied the growing discontent at what the nation had become. An important and long overdue collection, this book urges an understanding of anti-revival literature both in the context of the era when it emerged as well as in terms of the broader dynamic of American life. Includes selections from Orestes Brownson, Horace Bushnell, Calvin Colton, Orville Dewey, Albert Baldwin Dod, George Elley, Charles G. Finney, John Williamson Nevin, Stephen Olin, Phoebe Palmer, Daniel Alexander Payne, Ephraim Perkins, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Joseph Smith, Harriet Beecher Stowe, La Roy Sunderland, John Fanning Watson, Ellen G. White, and Friedrich C. D. Wyneken.

This study explores the reappearance of Gnostic themes across the landscape of European literature and thought and in major works by Thomas Mann