Frontier Revivalism
Religion (or utopian Community) Topics
Background Information and origin
Important leaders and contributons
-Dwight L Moody created a school called the Northfield schools in Massachusetts for the children of his home town after a fire burned them down. Moody also built Moody church and Moody Bible institute in Chicago. Later he became president of the YMCA for 4 years in order to help spread the faith and religion that was spreading.
-Charles Grandson Finney also made a difference during this time. He was a minister at first congressional church and shared his views on religion with the community. Many people called him the father of modern revivalism. Charles Finney believed in abolition of slavery, equal rights for women and African Americans. One other thing that Charles Finney supported was highly emotional responses to situations.
The basics, major beliefs and practices
The Protestant revivalism movement happened during the 19th century. "The first emerged with the idea that every individual has the ability to hear the gospel and then accept or reject it of his or her own free will rather than according to the predetermined plan of God." This was a completely new concept. The spread of this religious freedom was totally new to almost everyone. many people converted religions because of this. With all of the freedom came many new religions. Frontier revivalism is seen mainly as a Christian belief. Camp meetings were held to help spread the word of this new religion but also to practice their faith. At these camp meetings communion was given and often strangers would join in and practice their faith together. These gatherings were called camp meetings because everyone who was staying at the camp would gather around and they would all preach their faith. They were staying in camps in order to travel around the country.
Other Details
~Sometimes camp meeting could take all day
~Sermons of welcome followed by a prayer of peace and community were preached at these meetings
~Some camp meetings lasted up to the whole day
~Began around the 1790s and became popular around the 1800s
~The peak was around 1840
~People believed that this was the beginning of the new millennium