Honestly, "itinerant preacher" brings up wonderful images in my mind. Could you possibly be projecting a bit? You understand that itinerant just mean they had an itinerary, a list of places to go. And they did preach. So there's no factual flaw to the designation.
The “Second Great Awakening” was an American version of this. We have a disparate assortment of individuals with no common credo at the forefront of a movement that mixed a Protestant reformation ideal with political issues like seeking temperance reforms and abolitionists who strived for the downfall of slavery.
Wheats and tares, to be sure. But God knows His own, and many were gathered into the family of Jesus Christ in those days. Only God can give a proper accounting.
As for the so-called political issues, when men and women repent of sin in large numbers, God can heal their land of great evils. Is that a bad thing? It was good to abolish slavery. Just as now we seek to extend those victories into the saving of unborn children. The principle is the same. We valued the slave then and value the unborn child now because they and we are all made in the image of God, and have an intrinsic right to live and be free and to be valued by each other as God values each of us. Would you distain the aid of Baptists in the fight to stop abortion, simply because we do not agree with you on every point? If not, then why complain of the good that was done by repentant men and women of that long past generation?
As for Petrine authority, there is no Scriptural case for it surviving into the Roman See, or even being defined as Rome now defines it. Indeed, there is no credible record of any chain of monarchical control for the first 160 or so years of the Christian church. What was distinctively Catholic didn't manifest itself until many years after the beginning of the Christian era, and when it did, it was schismatic, and is to this day, as this forum demonstrates day in and day out.
Peace,
SR
Interesting that Petrine authority has been discussed, debated, researched, taught and to say nothing of the libraries of books on the subject over a 1000 years, accepted by a constellation of some of the most brilliant thinkers of theology both Catholic, and from Protestant converts, to say nothing of the stellar group of scientists, astronomers, even chief rabbis, who after years of study converted to Catholicism. This does not include the long list of atheists, saints, and martyrs. Yet you flippantly conclude “there is no Scriptural case for it surviving into the Roman See...: So it once existed and suddenly evaporated!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_converts_to_Catholicism