The Encyclopedia of World Religions

revivalism S 389

The intensity and fervor with which the Puritans had once pursued their faith had diminished. They had been forced to take various measures, such as the “half-way COVENANT ,” to keep family members in the church who could not testify to personal experiences of conversion. In this context, an itinerant (wandering) preacher from England, George Whitefield (1714– 70), toured the colonies, drawing large crowds and instilling religious excitement. Local preachers, such as Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), also con tributed to the movement. The Great Awakening was part of a broader movement in European Prot estantism that emphasized “heart-felt” religion. It produced M ETHODISM in England and America and a movement known as Pietism in the Protestant regions of the European continent. The enthusiasm of the Great Awakening eventually died down, but a succession of other movements followed. The Second Great Awaken ing began shortly after the United States achieved independence. It addressed the situation of people living on the frontier, far away from urban life and any established churches. Wandering preachers visited these people from time to time and held “camp meetings.” These meetings were enthusias tic affairs with catchy songs, bodily gestures such as clapping, and an emphasis on accepting J ESUS and joining the church. Successive waves of revivalism adapted their techniques and messages to the changing situa tion of the American population. In the 1830s Charles G. Finney and other revivalists dealt with urgent moral issues of the day, such as slavery and women’s rights. A revival in the late 1850s also helped people in cities deal with strain caused by a financial crash. In the decades around and after 1900 revivalists such as Dwight L. Moody and Billy Sunday adapted emerging techniques of business and advertising for spreading the mes sage of Christianity in a revival setting. In the years after the Second World War, Billy Graham’s crusades, as his revivals were called, presented revivalism in a form that respectable, middle-class Americans could appreciate. A couple of decades later, televangelists adapted revival forms to the

graphic terms that what the churches experience is not the ultimate reality. In the end, their tormentors will be defeated by much greater forces. Throughout history Christians have tried to read Revelation in terms of the events of their own time. Some still do. In the last half of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries some Christians in the United States saw political enemies such as Muammer El-Qaddafi of Libya, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Osama bin Laden, the Soviet Union, and even such an apparent friend of the United States as Mikhail Gorbachev as the figures behind the book’s symbols. Many also expected the “millen nium,” a thousand-year period in which Jesus will reign with the martyrs (20.1–6). These interpretations may strike some as unfounded and even bizarre. For those who culti vate them, however, they define the shape of con temporary history. revivalism A form of religious practice typical of P ROTESTANTISM in the United States. Characteris tics of revivalism include an emphasis on powerful religious emotions; large, infrequent meetings led by visiting ministers rather than ministers residing where the meetings are held; and an emphasis on conversion, rededicating oneself to moral behav ior, and sometimes healing. Religions often experience movements of renewal and revitalization. Examples include H IN DUISM in the mid-19th century, B UDDHISM at the end of the 19th century, and I SLAM toward the end of the 20th century. In R OMAN C ATHOLICISM a period of increased religious excitement often follows spe cial occurrences such as Marian apparitions ( see M ARY , APPARITIONS OF ). Among people in Melanesia, millenarian movements such as CARGO CULTS can count as revival movements ( see O CEANIC RELIGIONS and MILLENARIANISM ). Protestantism in the United States has a long tradition of renewal movements in the form of revivalism. This tradition extends back to the First Great Awakening before independence. By the first half of the 18th century, American Protestantism had come to seem stale and routine.