In particular, narrative accounts of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah emphasise periods of national decline and revival associated with the rule of respectively wicked or righteous kings.
Many Christian revivals drew inspiration from the missionary work of early monks, from the 16th-century Protestant Reformation (and Catholic Counter-Reformation) and from the uncompromising stance of the Covenanters in 17th-century Scotland and Ulster that came to Virginia and Pennsylvania with Presbyterians and other non-conformists.
It resulted from powerful preaching that deeply affected listeners (already church members) with a deep sense of personal guilt and salvation by Christ.
Pulling away from ancient ritual and ceremony, the Great Awakening made religion intensely emotive to the average person by creating a deep sense of spiritual guilt and redemption.
Historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom sees it as part of a "great international Protestant upheaval" that also created Pietism in Germany, the Evangelical Revival and Methodism in England.
[4] During the 18th century, England saw a series of Methodist revivalist campaigns that stressed the tenets of faith set forth by John Wesley and that were conducted in accordance with a careful strategy.
In addition to stressing the evangelist combination of "Bible, cross, conversion, and activism," the revivalist movement of the 19th century made efforts toward a universal appeal – rich and poor, urban and rural, and men and women.
Halévy suggested that a politically conservative Methodism forestalled revolution among the largely uneducated working class by redirecting its energies toward spiritual rather than temporal affairs.
During the winter of 1803–04, he presented a series of lectures that outlined a reconciliation of the apparent incompatibility between the Genesis account of creation and the findings of the developing science of geology.
Evangelical fervor was its height during the 1920s with visiting evangelists, R. A. Torrey, Wilbur J. Chapman, Charles M. Alexander and others winning many converts in their Crusades.
Evangelicalism arrived from Britain as an already mature movement characterized by commonly shared attitudes toward doctrine, spiritual life, and sacred history.
Any attempt to periodize the history of the movement in Australia should examine the role of revivalism and the oscillations between emphases on personal holiness and social concerns.
[13] The second wave of revivals, called the Johnsonian Revivals, largely expanded the pietistic emphases of Hauge via the Inner Mission Society as spearheaded by Gisle Johnson, which revolved around lay preaching and Bible study, increased spiritual literacy via the distribution of Christian literature, and the alleviation of the impoverished conditions of the quickly-industrializing Norway of the nineteenth century.
[14] The Johnsonian Revivals would go on to influence the Norwegian church mission societies abroad, spanning Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
His revival meetings created anxiety in a penitent's mind that their soul could only be saved by submission to the will of God, as illustrated by Finney's quotations from the Bible.
[15] Le Réveil was a revival of Protestant Christianity along conservative evangelical lines at a time when rationalism had taken a strong hold in the churches on the continent of Europe.
In German-speaking Europe, Lutheran Johann Georg Hamann (1730–88) was a leader in the new wave of evangelicalism, the Erweckung, which spread across the land, cross-fertilizing with British movements.
The movement began in the Francophone world in connection with a circle of pastors and seminarians at French-speaking Protestant theological seminaries in Geneva, Switzerland and Montauban, France, influenced inter alia by the visit of Scottish Christian Robert Haldane in 1816–17.
[16] As well as supporting existing Protestant denominations, in France and Germany the movement led to the creation of Free Evangelical Church groupings: the Union des Églises évangéliques libres and Bund Freier evangelischer Gemeinden in Deutschland.
The movement was politically influential and actively involved in improving society, and – at the end of the 19th century – brought about anti-revolutionary and Christian historical parties.
[17] At the same time in Britain figures such as William Wilberforce and Thomas Chalmers were active, although they are not considered to be part of the Le Reveil movement.
His technique combined restrained emotionalism with a clear call for personal commitment, coupled with follow-up action to organize support from converts.
Caughey successfully bridged the gap between the style of earlier camp meetings and the needs of more sophisticated Methodist congregations in the emerging cities.
So great was the interest in the American movement that in 1858 the Presbyterian General Assembly meeting in Derry appointed two of their ministers, Dr. William Gibson and Rev.
Upon their return the two deputies had many public opportunities to bear testimony to what they had witnessed of the remarkable outpouring of the Spirit across the Atlantic, and to fan the flames in their homeland yet further.
In 1902 the American evangelists Reuben Archer Torrey and Charles McCallon Alexander conducted meetings in Melbourne, Australia, resulting in more than 8,000 converts.
Begun as an effort to kindle nondenominational, nonsectarian spirituality, the Welsh revival of 1904–05 coincided with the rise of the labor movement, socialism, and a general disaffection with religion among the working class and youths.
The structure and content of the visions not only repeated those of Scripture and earlier Christian mystical tradition but also illuminated the personal and social tensions that the revival addressed by juxtaposing biblical images with scenes familiar to contemporary Welsh believers.
[24] Work ceased, and drinking houses closed as "men who until then had no thought of seeking after God, were suddenly arrested and became deeply concerned about their soul’s salvation.