“A good in depth look at that period and the religious changes can be found in Richard Bushman’s From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765”
Thanks for your interesting response. I have heard of this book and will see if my library carries it. I recommend two books very highly for a study of AMerican religious movements that possibly you already know: The Democratization of American Christianity by Nathan Hatch, and America’ God by Mark Noll. Both are invaluable resources. It is remarkable that there was ever a time in our history that common man was so invested in his faith. I pray for another revival!
Revivals come and they go. The generation after the Great Awaking, perhaps in rebellion against the zeal of their parents and older brothers, was more secular. But two generation later, as awareness of the atheism of the French Revolution began to penetrate our upper classes, the “Second”Awakening had tremendous effect. In 1789, most Americans did not belong to a church community. By 1860, the vast majority did. But the period afterwards, with Darwin as a marker, the upper classes began to separate God from their lives, although they still paid homage to the Christian morality. Carleton J.H.Hayes, the Catholic historian, has a good survey of the period, “A Generation of Materialism,” It all led to a day of the Lord in August, 1914, when all the sins of Europe came crashing down their heads. I fear the same turning away from God may lead our nation to like disaster. Despite the long prosperity the Europeans have enjoyed, their societies are decadent. literally dying out.