Talk:Great Awakening

Not everyone sees these Great Awakenings as Hagelian cycles of thesis and antithesis -- we need to make this clear, and cite our sources better. So, cleanup until this is done. --Zantastik 08:07, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And the "Fourth" Awakening mentioned is no given, either. Looks like a book plug to me.

I agree, Zantastik. This reads like a freshman paper in a history of philosophy course: and Hegel would have blushed to see his dialectical method used in such a ham-handed way, not to mention the idea that American history is locked into "cycles" endlessly repeating themselves. Moreover, the description of what actually happened during our Great Awakenings is simplistic, to say the least. Sure, "new sects" arose, but historic churches were also transformed, and the so-called "contradiction" between revivalist and fundamentalist "sects" (as the writer puts it) was often played out within existing faith traditions. This happened over and over again in the 19th century. And what's a "sect?" The First Great Awakening was inspired by Jonathan Edwards, possibly the greatest theologian America ever produced, and had a profound impact on the long-established Congregational and Presbyterian churches in the Northeast.

America remains "largely Protestant?" How "large" is "large?" The percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Protestant is constantly shrinking, now down to 52 percent (2001 ARIS study). Nearly 25 percent are Roman Catholic, the rest followers of other religions or none.

"Some scholars" means one scholar, Robert William Fogal, who's a brilliant economist and won the Nobel Prize for economics (with Douglass C. North) in 1993 for developing "cliometrics," the application of statistical analysis to the study of economic history. But his book on the "Fourth Awakening" centers on the "democratization of self-realization" and describes a general cultural trend of which neo-pentecostal and charismatic religion is only one part: so is New Age religion, therapy, self-help movements, the individualization of spirituality, etc. The book is interesting but the use of the term in this article is reductionistic.

The Great Awakenings are extremely important for American political, social and religious history, and deserve a replacement article. --langohio 22:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I too am having heartburn regarding the Hegelian mumbo-jumbo and the wide-eyed assertion that Great Awakenings represent some sort of religious Kondratiev wave. I've edited out a good portion of the silliness, but that leaves the article short. I'm hoping a serious student of the religious history of America comes along and puts things in order (and maybe even cites his sources, that would be nice). --technopilgrim 21:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would not the increasing religiosity of the early '00s in America in terms of prevalence and influence be the 4th Great Awakening, not some hippie or new age spiritual movement? In the broader frame of history, religion entered politics when the previously non-political fundamentalists started backing candidates around 1980, and in addition with megachurches and fundamentalist religion trying to go mainstream, it would seem more fitting of a "Great Awakening". Though how much is true (media cites 25% of the US holds fundamentalist beliefs) and how much is hype (exposed when mainstream America disagreed strongly with how the Terri Schiavo event was handled, thinking Congress interfered in a personal matter when the fundamentalists were urging congress to intervene) is a worthwhile debate though. --Thirdmoon 03:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Someone deleted this page's info. Needs resurrection.