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| Great Awakenings in America |
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 The Salvation of Boston (1877). Featuring a cartoon of evangelistDwight Lyman Moody preaching |
TheThird Great Awakening refers to a historical period proposed byWilliam G. McLoughlin that was marked by religious activism in American history and spans the late 1850s to the early 20th century.[1][page needed] It influencedpietisticProtestantdenominations and had a strong element of social activism.[2] It gathered strength from thepostmillennial belief that theSecond Coming of Christ would occur after mankind had reformed the entire Earth. It was affiliated with theSocial Gospel movement, which appliedChristianity to social issues and gained its force from the awakening, as did the worldwidemissionary movement. New groupings emerged, such as theHoliness movement andNazarene andPentecostal movements, and alsoJehovah's Witnesses,Spiritualism,Theosophy,Thelema, andChristian Science.[3] The era saw the adoption of a number of moral causes, such as theabolition of slavery andprohibition.
This article focuses on theawakening that took place during the 19th century in America and Korea. A similar awakeningtook place in Britain, identified byJ. Edwin Orr as starting in 1859 with its influence continuing through to the end of the 19th century, impacting church growth, overseas mission, and social action.[4] Significant names includeDwight L. Moody,Ira D. Sankey,William Booth andCatherine Booth (founders ofThe Salvation Army),Charles Spurgeon andJames Caughey.Hudson Taylor began theChina Inland Mission, andThomas John Barnardo founded his famous orphanages.
The American Protestantmainline churches were growing rapidly in numbers, wealth and educational levels, throwing off theirfrontier beginnings and becoming centered in towns and cities. Intellectuals and writers such asJosiah Strong advocated amuscular Christianity with systematic outreach to theunchurched in America and around the globe. Others built colleges and universities to train the next generation. Each denomination supported activemissionary societies and made the role of missionary one of high prestige.[5]
The great majority ofpietistic mainline Protestants (in the North) supported theRepublican Party and urged it toendorse prohibition and social reforms.[6] Theawakening in numerous cities in 1858 was interrupted by theAmerican Civil War. In theSouth, on the other hand, the Civil War stimulated revivals, especially theConfederate States Army revival in GeneralRobert E. Lee's army.[7] After the war, Moody made revivalism the centerpiece of his activities inChicago and founded theMoody Bible Institute. Thehymns ofIra Sankey were especially influential.[8]
Across the nation,drys crusaded in the name of religion for theprohibition of alcohol. TheWoman's Christian Temperance Union mobilized Protestant women for social crusades against liquor, pornography and prostitution, and sparked the demand forwomen's suffrage.[9] TheGilded Ageplutocracy came under sharp attack fromSocial Gospelpreachers andreformers in theProgressive Era. The historianRobert Fogel identifies numerous reforms, especially the battles involvingchild labor, compulsoryelementary education, and the protection of women from exploitation in factories.[10] WithJane Addams'sHull House in Chicago as its center, the settlement house movement and the vocation of social work were deeply influenced by the Social Gospel.[11]
In 1880, theSalvation Army denomination arrived in America. Although its theology was based on ideals expressed during theSecond Great Awakening, its focus on poverty was of the Third. All the major denominations sponsored growing missionary activities, both inside the United States and around the world.[12] Colleges associated with churches rapidly expanded in number, size and quality of curriculum. The promotion of "muscular Christianity" became popular among young men on campus and in urbanYMCAs, as well as in such denominational youth groups such as theEpworth League forMethodists and theWalther League forLutherans.[13] Professional baseball playerBilly Sunday converted as a young man in the 1880s, became anevangelist, and is widely considered America's most influential evangelist of the first two decades in the 20th century. In 1891, basketball was invented at theInternational Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) Training School inSpringfield, Massachusetts.
In 1879Mary Baker Eddy founded theChurch of Christ, Scientist, which gained a national following.[14] TheSociety for Ethical Culture was established in New York in 1876 byFelix Adler and attracted a Reform Jewish clientele.Charles Taze Russell founded theBible Student movement. In July 1879, Russell began publishing a monthly religious journal,Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence. He and his group of fellow students first identified themselves as The People's Pulpit Association, then in 1910 as The International Bible Students Association. In 1931, after schisms within the Bible Students and gaining control of the legal entity Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Joseph Franklin Rutherford along with former members of the Bible Student movement would go on to adopt the nameJehovah's Witnesses. TheNew Thought movement, which began in the 1830s, expanded asUnity andChurch of Divine Science were founded.
The goal of theHoliness movement in the Methodist church was to move beyond the one-time conversion experience that the revivals produced and reachentire sanctification.[15] ThePentecostals went one step further, seeking what they called a "baptism in the spirit" or "baptism of the Holy Ghost" that enabled those with this special gift to heal the sick, perform miracles, prophesy, andspeak in tongues.[16]
The re-discovered Pentecostal movement can be traced to the Ocoee mountains ofEast Tennessee in the upperTennessee River valley, when a group led by Methodist ministerRichard Spurling met in 1886-1896 and called for holy living. At that time they experienced what is known as the baptism of the Holy Spirit, empowering Christians to live in holiness. Little is known of this movement because it happened in the mountains, compared to theAzusa Street Revival which happened in Los Angeles, California. However, the organization born from that group led by Spurling has grown to an international presence in over 200 countries around the world with a church membership of over 7 million Christians; it is known as theChurch of God, with headquarters inCleveland, Tennessee. The organization ownsLee University andPentecostal Theological Seminary.
Charles Parham inTopeka, Kansas, who was a Methodist minister, resigned his ordination as a minister and began preaching about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. During a service on December 31, 1899, Parham laid hands on a woman namedAgnes Ozman; she is supposed to have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and to have begun speaking in tongues and prophesying. This is the root of the better known "Azusa Street Revival" inLos Angeles, California (1906) led byWilliam J. Seymour, anAfrican American student of Parham's.
Chun Beh Im compared the evangelistic method and results of the Third Great Awakening in America with the Korean revivals of 1884–1910. Many techniques of the Second and Third Great Awakenings were transposed from America to Korea, including the circuit-riding system of the Methodists, the Baptist farmer preachers, the campus revivals of the eastern seaboard, the camp meetings in the West, the new measures ofCharles G. Finney, the Layman's Prayer Revival, urban mass revivalism of Moody, and theStudent Volunteer Movement. Im discovered four areas of influence from a comparison and analysis of the two countries' revivals: the establishment of tradition, the adoption of similar emphases, the incorporation of evangelistic methodologies, and the observation of the results of the revivals. The American revivals had a major influence on the Korean revivals, and the American revival tradition and enthusiasm toward missions helped Korean Christians develop their own religious experience and tradition. This tradition has influenced Korean churches even into the 21st century.[17]
