Most major religious movements reflect significant shifts in religious beliefs and produce important social changes. Apply this generalization to TWO of the following: 17th century Puritanism, the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, the Social Gospel Movement
The First and the Second Great Awakening reflected significant shifts in religious beliefs and produced social changes: both were responses to the weakening and liberalizing of the Calvinist teachings, and ministers of both awakenings preached different beliefs from the past and their liberal present; both awakenings increased religious fervor in the American society, which resulted in various social changes.
Both awakenings were responses to the weakening and liberalizing of religion of its time period. Before the First Great Awakening, people were becoming less enthusiastic and committed to religion, as to many, the sermons of the orthodox clergymen, also known as the “Old Lights,” who emphasized erudite preaching, were tedious. In addition, many moved farther away from the churches, which decreased church membership. The religious fervor decreased to the extent that the Puritan ministers relied on the Half-Way Covenant in order to attract people to the churches, and many, such as the Arminians, preached that individual free will and good works determined salvation, and challenged the Puritan idea of predestination. Similarly, before the Second Great Awakening, religion became more liberal: many people, such as Jefferson and Franklin supported Deism, which embraced rationalism, and thus supported science over the Bible and reason over revelation. Not only that, many rejected the Calvinist teachings of the original sin, and denied Christ’s divinity, such as the Unitarian Church. These time periods when the Calvinist fervor began to decrease, which reflected a shift in religious belief, were when the First and Second Great Awakening took place in response to such liberalization.