Jesse Greer, Sr's. Great Awakening
Gordon A. Wood in his epic Empire of Liberty (see below) describes in vibrant terms the Second Great Awakening, an evangelical Protestant religious revival that swept the American frontier and rural areas of the new country in the early 1800s.
The radical expansion of religious fervor 'transformed the entire religious culture of American and laid the foundations for the development of an evangelical religious world of competing denominations unique to Christendom.' There were few trained clergy to minister to the yearnings of religiously 'under fed' men and women. The Baptists and the Methodists became effective in reaching out extravagantly and emotionally to persons offering solace, reassurance and God's forgiveness of sins.
The Cane Ridge, Kentucky summer revival in which 15,000 to 20,000 persons gathered for several weeks in 1801 is the most famous and perhaps earliest of revivals that were reproduced thousands of times, even to this generation in parts of America.
Heat, noise, confusion, and exhortations of preaching by a dozen ministers at the same time led to an 'intoxication' of the spirits, with holy dances, shouting, and the 'jerks'. Critics have said more souls were made in the evening shadows of the camp revival than were saved. Be that as it may, Cane Ridge immediately 'became the symbol of the promises and extravagance of the new kind of Evangelical Protestantism spreading through out the west.'
Above an 1819 Methodist camp meeting. In the middle 1850s in Sutherland, North Carolina, Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson would convert to Methodist as a result of a revival of this type in the Western North Carolina mountains. Caroline Greer Wilson is a grand daughter of Jesse Greer, Sr. Engraving reproduction for educational purposes only.
No doubt, the new religion offered a steadying influence to a rough and often physically violent society. Whether tucked in the hollows of Watauga County, North Carolina, the blue grass of Kentucky or in the Tennessee Valley, church communities stood for morality (although perhaps thought excessive in the 21st Century such as 'not wearing extravagant clothing or working on Sunday'. Excessive alcohol consumption was a major problem in early 19th Century America with subsequent child and spouse abuse. Later church denominations would bring to the Southwest academies, seminaries and colleges, all to the good for an ill-educated, often socially and culturally isolated peoples.
Jesse Greer, Sr. (1778 - 1869) responded to this religious call, but he did not rush to 'redemption' as his own words so indicate. In another article I have posted the 'testimony' of Jesse Greer Sr. as copied by Jesse's son, Jesse Greer, Jr. (1806 - 1892), my 3rd great grandfather.
Heat, noise, confusion, and exhortations of preaching by a dozen ministers at the same time led to an 'intoxication' of the spirits, with holy dances, shouting, and the 'jerks'. Critics have said more souls were made in the evening shadows of the camp revival than were saved. Be that as it may, Cane Ridge immediately 'became the symbol of the promises and extravagance of the new kind of Evangelical Protestantism spreading through out the west.'
No doubt, the new religion offered a steadying influence to a rough and often physically violent society. Whether tucked in the hollows of Watauga County, North Carolina, the blue grass of Kentucky or in the Tennessee Valley, church communities stood for morality (although perhaps thought excessive in the 21st Century such as 'not wearing extravagant clothing or working on Sunday'. Excessive alcohol consumption was a major problem in early 19th Century America with subsequent child and spouse abuse. Later church denominations would bring to the Southwest academies, seminaries and colleges, all to the good for an ill-educated, often socially and culturally isolated peoples.
Jesse Greer, Sr. (1778 - 1869) responded to this religious call, but he did not rush to 'redemption' as his own words so indicate. In another article I have posted the 'testimony' of Jesse Greer Sr. as copied by Jesse's son, Jesse Greer, Jr. (1806 - 1892), my 3rd great grandfather.
No comments:
Post a Comment