The Great Awakenings: Rural Conversions or Evangelical Burning-Man Festivals?

PLUS: WHICH RELIGIOUS PROSELYTIZERS SHOULD YOU NOT SIC YOUR DOG UPON? This is an investigation into the various American Great Awakenings, and the origins of Evangelicalism. The Evangelicals have become the dominant American religion, even though they are a relative late-comer and not-exactly Christian canon. Along the way, we will attempt to score the various American religions by their correlations to the beliefs of Jesus (or not).

Religious Camp Meeting, 1839 during the “Third Great Awakening”.

THE PURITANS: In this corner, we have the Puritans, the first-families of 1600s New England (cheers) and in that corner, the Anglican Cavaliers, the original 1600s Virginia settlers (more cheers). This would be the backdrop of religion in America circa 1630. Soon, there would be a war in England between these two factions (English Civil War 1642–1651). The Anglicans were separated from the Catholics via King Henry VIII (1534), while the Puritans were an Anglican offshoot. The Catholics would not arrive in the British colonies en-masse for another 50–100 years or so (mostly Maryland). The Puritans tended to draw from the emerging farmer middle class from the Midlands (recently freed from feudalism by the Magna Carta, Reformation, printing press, better farming, shipping, and trading tech). The Anglican Cavaliers tended to be aristocrats. Religiously, both were inclined towards “good…