Great Awakening, First and Second well as his penchant for controversy, and carried them farther, sometimes to extremes, as Protestants divided into the pro-revival (“New Light”) and anti-revival (“Old Light”) camps New Lights sent missionaries to Indians, evangelists to work among slaves, and, most important, supported numerous educational initiatives, such as the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), which called Edwards as its first president Pastors and scholars, influenced by the revival and eager to see it replicated, filled pulpits and lecterns throughout the colonies and infused the American culture with New Light ideas THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING The Second Great Awakening (1790–1840) was characterized by emotional preaching, outdoor assemblies, and sophisticated (for their time) publicity efforts It spanned by some reckonings almost half a century, occurring in various regions and with a motley assemblage of leaders and participants The energies it unleashed left an even deeper impression on the United States than the first and is seen by some historians as the beginning of modern revivalism If the first was evangelical in the sense that it emphasized individual conversion over confessional loyalty or church membership, the second institutionalized almost all the themes that currently define evangelicalism: revivalism, publishing ventures (especially Bibles and tracts), moral crusades, and the use of political means to reform society according to a specific Protestant vision In addition, new religious groups, known as upstart sects of Baptists and Methodists, and distinctively American movements, such as Adventism and Mormonism, grew out of the awakening Slaves and free blacks converted in significant numbers for the first time, altering southern religious styles in the process The 1760s–90s were a low point in religious adherence and belief in the United States, with enlightened deism influential among elites; churches and personal morals disrupted by war; and politics, commerce, and westward migration competing with religion for popular interest In New England, Yale’s Timothy Dwight warned that the new nation was sliding toward infidelity Clergy in that region were generally Federalists, supporting the old, pre-Revolutionary hierarchies: Men of education, wealth, and character needed to control politics and culture The Revolution had turned those assumptions upside down, and, as power migrated into the hands of non-elites, conservatives feared for social order Revival, said Dwight, would instill virtues such as respect for authority in what otherwise might 167 become an unruly rabble Concerned that the French Enlightenment was in vogue among Yale’s students, Dwight’s chapel sermons eventually sparked a revival This phase of the awakening stressed the danger posed to youth by imported or innovative ideas and movements, offering revivals themselves as the antidote to the specter of national degeneration FRONTIER REVIVAL Similar concerns in the South led to small revivals at several colleges Graduates impressed by these events joined the swarm of migrants pouring onto the frontiers of Kentucky and Tennessee There, widely dispersed populations had run ahead of all institutions, including churches, and were living in moral chaos Evangelists found people starved both for the comforts of the Gospel as well as entertainment, and preachers determined to provide them with both It is here that the frontier camp-meeting had its start Meetings derived from Scottish Presbyterians, who gathered annually in multi-church outdoor communion services that lasted several days, involved a series of sermons, reflection, repentance, and finally a mass celebration of the Lord’s Supper This practice was carried to the frontier and evolved into something uniquely American Old World sacramental decorum was traded for the boisterous, uninhibited expressions of the frontier The result was the “Great Revival” of Cane Ridge, Kentucky, where thousands congregated in 1800–01 Cane Ridge was notorious for its bizarre phenomena: crying out, jerking, uncontrollable laughter, and swooning To many, these signified true supernatural work; many preachers encouraged them The active participation of marginalized segments of society—plain folk, blacks, and women—may have contributed to the uninhibited nature of these revivals The open market of religious choice that America now was meant that these groups had the power to affect, if not determine entirely, the style and the content of revival preaching Democratic appeal became an essential requirement for frontier religion Calvinism (predestination) was jettisoned to make room for more emphasis on individual ability Sermons had to be practical, simple, and entertaining The result was a religion that hewed close to the concerns, but also the prejudices, of the local community Once critics of slavery, evangelicals in the South found themselves accommodating the system to better attune the sermons to the local populace Previously marginal churches such as the Methodists and Baptists bested competitors in popular appeal and came to dominate