In this book, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson invites “North American” Christians to explore both informative and transformative dialogues concerning the post-Christian West through the lens of 20th C. global Christianity. The general overtones, particularly in the first half of this book, are more informative as Granberg-Michaelson provides a brief history of 20th C. ecumenical movement, highlighting the major “spiritual” shifts taking place from the global North to the South, and from the Christian West to the ‘evangelized’ East. As an active insider, working closely with WCC and other ecumenical initiatives, Granberg-Michaelson provides invaluable reflections based on his personal experiences and factual data, which lead him to raise some critical assessments concerning the future of the church in America, at least from the ecumenical perspective. Some of his…
Chapter 13An American Renaissance: Religion, Romanticism, and Reform Rational religion 1. The concept of mission in the American character 2. The development of deism 1. Roots in rationalism and Calvinism 2.…
"Lyman Beecher: Revivalist who moved with the times." Christian History. 8 Aug. 2008. Christianity Today International. 4 Nov. 2008 .…
The influence of religion upon reformative groups during the years of 1825-1850 was a major proponent to said groups’ spreading of and high reverence for democratic ideology. As seen in document B, churches themselves, as influenced by the equalitarian unwritten doctrine of the Second Great Awakening, worked to accept and aid members of society who were previously untouched by the church. As listed in Doc. B, “harlots, drunkards, infidels, and all sorts of abandoned characters” were taken in by the church, “awakened” and converted. The spiritual and social aid of the church, the feelings comradery and love which came along with membership to the church, and the respect for and appreciation of all members of society (thanks to the Second Great Awakening) was anyone’s to claim, all they had to do was convert. These feelings of comradery and this notion of acceptance are two genuine democratic ideals, though there were countless more displayed and advocated by the church from 1825-1850.…
The end of the fifteenth century had left Christendom with a Church in great need of reform. The Church had been greatly weakened by the events of the past few centuries. The fourteenth century’s Great Famine and Black Death had battered the public’s trust in the Church, as had the Papal Schism spanning from 1378-1417. When the ideas of Martin Luther began to spread in the early 1500s, the Church became afraid for its power, its reputation, and its finances. Luther was promising people that they would be saved through their faith alone—what place did that leave for the Church and its teachings? In any other time in human history, Luther’s ideas likely would have been quietly beaten down and buried, but a very unique set of circumstances allowed the ideas of a small-town monk and professor to take on the immense power of the Catholic Church. While others’ ideas could be ignored, the Church was intensely threatened by Luther because his ideas questioned the role and necessity of their already-weakened institution, called for an end to indulgences, endangered social stability, and exposed the failings of the Church by returning to the Bible as the only source of God’s truth.…
Narrator: An epidemic has spread through the land, not one of disease and illness, but of religious, political, and social change. A Reformation was in place, a religious movement that resulted in the establishment of Protestant churches. Four men who contributed to this reform of the Catholic and Protestant churches were King Henry VIII, Martin Luther, Pope Leo X, and John Calvin, and they have gathered to discuss how this Reformation dramatically changed Christian unity in Europe.…
From 1942, “The National Association of Evangelicals” created four significant issues: unity/separation, social, scholarship/intellectualism, and evangelism. Ellingsen describe the unity/separation issue well, he says, “In many ways this desire to present the old fundamentals of the faith in a positive not merely defensive, way was to set the agenda and rationale for the emergence of Evangelicalism out of its original Fundamentalist heritage” (29).…
Many ministers in the Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches in the Middle Colonies and New England began preaching an “evangelical” message of rebirth and religious conversion. George Whitefield, the most famous minister in this time, preached with massive gestures, tears, and depictions of G-d’s amazing grace and the terrible depths of hell. The Great Awakening changed society by increasing churchgoing by thousands of people, uniting them through their prayer. These “awakened souls” joined old churches and formed new ones, which increased the morality and religiousness of society in both the mid-Atlantic colonies and New…
Out of these revivals, many new religions and denominations came about. The most prominent ones are Christians, Methodists, Baptists, the Black churches, and the Mormons. Prominent leaders of the Christian movement were Elias Smith, Barton Stone, James O’Kelly, and Alexander Campbell. These men radically changed norms and encouraged people to interpret the New Testament in their own way, as well as founded many Christian churches. The Christian revival was aided by superior communication methods, such as newspapers; Smith’s Herald of Gospel Liberty, Campbell’s The Christian Baptist and Abel M. Sargent’s The Halcyon Itinerary and True Millennium Messenger.…
According to Cairns, both name and definition given to the reformation depend on the outlook of the historians. For Roman Catholics it was a rebellion by Protestants against the universal Church, but Protestant historians looked at it as a reformation that brought the Church back to the pattern of the New Testament. This period of reformation was generally considered as 1517 AD to 1563 AD.1 Martin Luther started the open reformation against the theology of Roman Catholics by posting ninety five theses on the church of Wittenberg. Martin Luther in Germany, John Calvin in Geneva and Ulrich Zwingli in Switzerland, John Knox in Scotland, were called the great reformers of this period. This paper would focus on reformation and theological breakthrough and its contribution to mission.…
In this section of the book, Finkelman gathered four documents written by three representatives of the Baptist and Protestant religion and by an anonymous person and edited by De Bow’s Review, a well circulated magazine in the South part of America within 19th century.…
Revival history is an interesting topic and one that can be explored at great depths. Revivals of the past, if looked at through the right lens, can awaken hope and desire for God to move again, even in the darkest times. Revivals show us that God is still very much active and interested in His people. The Father desires that we would know Him as a real Person and who loves to make Himself known through His Son Jesus. I wrote my paper on the First Great Awakening mainly because I am from New England and I have a passion to see the church set ablaze again in that area. The heritage is so rich in that land and I believe that the Lord would love to encounter His people again with a great spiritual awakening. Below, I will go over the Great Awakening in detail discussing the dates, location, key leaders, scope of impact, main features, main message, controversial aspects, principles learned, and our application for today.…
While continuously more Christians of Europe were beginning to lose their faith in the church’s leadership and were developing a feeling of doubt or mistrust, it was the Reformation and Martin Luther who came in and gave the people a sense of direction and feeling of hope. This new Protestant tradition at the time lifted this overwhelming cloud of misused power over the Christian community and provided a time for change with new opportunities. The Protestant reformation ended the religious unity of Europe and the church and furthermore started a new era in the history of western…
The Second Great Awakening brought many social and political changes. It also initiated reform movements. Many of them were backed by religion as well as democracy. The churches have been revived and they called on people to show their faith by acting morally. They wanted to awaken and convert sinners so that they might receive salvation. Charles G. Finney believed that when the churches were reformed, sinners, harlots, drunkards and infidels would be awakened and inspired to act with moral correctness in society.…
I view Revivalists as highly religious people who are in tune with spirits with from various realms, known as Heaven, Earth and Ground spirit realms, I met with a lot of different Revivalists, but what I found rather interesting was the fact that the core of what they were saying were similar but they were also many subtle differences, For example I met with a man, whose name is Joseph Whitter, of the Olivette Seventh day church. and he seemed to be quite respected in the church community, he blatantly stated at the beginning of the conversation that, “Revivalism is the only way to be saved”, we had a long drawn out discussion on what are my personal views…