The Second Great Awakening

The movements and awakenings have effected the current landscape of religious beliefs in that it has morphed and transformed into an entirely new religion, despite still going under the names of their original beliefs. Many of these religious values have become intertwined with civic and social values, thus straying from the original word of God. In the beginning it was believed that God knew who would be saved and who wouldn’t, and many Christians believed that they could not change God’s mind; however, with the Second Great Awakening it was believed that God’s mind could be changed. This is to say that people could determine whether or not they could be saved by “repenting” their sinful ways and choosing to walk the path of God. You would

have to choose a spot in heaven, rather than having it bestowed upon you by renouncing your sin which could be done multiple times after committing multiple sins. These also changed how people viewed preachers. Originally preachers were of the chosen few, but through the awakenings anyone off the streets (with the exception of women) could claim to be a prophet of God and they should preach his word. We can speculate that people came to these conclusions in order to justify their leaving of the original church, which would be defying God, but by making a new church and these rules they could repent and be forgiven. Oddly enough, though, even with these changes and awakenings many Christian Denominations still hold the values of their parent religion, such as what constitutes as a sin and what doesn’t, and how the Bible should be interpreted.