305: A Christian Nation? - The Awakenings

WEBVTT

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Christian nationalism is a totality of national

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action consisting of civil laws and social customs

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conducted by a Christian nation as a Christian

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nation in order to procure for itself both earthly

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and heavenly good in Christ. It's a quote from

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Stephen Wolfe, who is the author of The Case

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for Christian Nationalism. Welcome to the United

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States of Amnesia. the podcast that reminds us

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of what we have forgotten. History doesn't just

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tell us where we've been, it shapes how we understand

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the present. Yet the past is never as simple

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as we remember it. Over time, history becomes

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filtered through politics, ideology, and popular

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myth until the original story can be hard to

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recognize. History may not repeat itself, per

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se, but it often rhymes, as Mark Twain once remarked.

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Join Marshall Newman, Mike Mendenhall, and Blake

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Hinckley as we explore history, politics, religion,

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and the connections between them. By understanding

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the past more clearly, we can better understand

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the present and prepare for history's next rhyme.

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Our major thesis with this series is, is the

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United States a Christian nation? Was it founded

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as such? Was it intended to be such? Now, we've

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covered the founding intent in episode 301. We've

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covered the colonies and their histories in episode

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302. We've covered the founding fathers and their

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beliefs in episodes 303 and 4. Now we're going

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to look at the period after the founding, after

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the Revolutionary War, after all the Constitution.

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Everything's been in place for a while. And in

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this episode, we're going to cover the second

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and third great awakenings. These were religious

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movements. In order to do that, I want to start

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with the idea of mythos and logos. Mythos and

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logos are two ancient Greek modes of understanding

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and explaining the world. Mythos refers to story,

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myth, narrative. The symbolic, emotional, and

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imaginative way humans make sense of existence.

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So Joseph Campbell, then. Joseph Campbell. Yes.

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Hero of a Thousand Faces. Yes. Yes. Hero's Journey.

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It deals with meaning, origins, and the sacred

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through allegory and tradition rather than literal

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fact. Myths weren't meant to be true in a historical

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sense, but rather to convey deeper truths about

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human condition. To be instructive. To be instructive.

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Aesop's fables. Yeah. Yeah. Examples might include

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the creation story in the Bible, the flood story,

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stories about Satan, Armageddon. Saints' lives

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for a while. In the ancient times, history was

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thought to be a tale of edifying stories, not

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necessarily literal truth, but a sort of like

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transcendental truth that talks about here are

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things that you should always keep in mind here,

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not necessarily here are things that happened

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exactly as they did. Right. And I would bind

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that up with the liturgy and the... what I call

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smells and bells, the incense and the bells in

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church, and you've got the communion ceremony,

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the ritual. You could throw in relics and quests,

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saints and martyrs. The singing. The singing.

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The singing of hymns. Sure. Logos, on the other

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hand, refers to reason, logic, and rational discourse,

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the analytical mode of thinking that seeks to

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explain reality through evidence, argument, and

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cause and effect. It's the root of words like

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logic and biology, and it became the foundation

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of philosophy and science. And I would argue

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that it was the main driver for the Age of Enlightenment,

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at least Age of Enlightenment thinking and philosophy.

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And definitely this was a reaction to what had

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happened before. in terms of people spending

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a lot of time on the mythos aspect of religion

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in the 17th century and having all these religious

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wars and people being burned at the stake as

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witches and all of that kind of stuff. It got

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incredibly messy. At some point, people started

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thinking there has to be a better way than this.

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You're right on because it's a pendulum. It does

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tend to swing. And also, I think you have to

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acknowledge that in the 17th century was a time

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of advances in science. The modern scientific

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method was coming to the fore at that time. And

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the more you discovered scientifically, the less

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you had to rely on superstition and myth to explain

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the world around you. And that started to undermine...

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at least some of the mythos, didn't it? Yeah.

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So the logos started to become more important

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in human thinking. And certainly, it would seem

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that the logos side of this is what was affecting

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the founding fathers to a great extent. Deist

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thinking, Christian rationalist thinking, as

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we talked about, or Christian deism, as we talked

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about in George Washington's case in a previous

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episode, right? That very much falls in the logos

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side of it. even if it doesn't completely discard

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some of the mythology. Right. Now, in ancient

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Greek thought, both mythos and logos were seen

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as complementary. The tension between them, story

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versus reason, feeling versus analysis, has shaped

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Western intellectual history ever since, from

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the pre -Socratics through the Enlightenment

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to today's debates about science and religion.

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So how did they square, though, the telling of

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stories which they knew were mythical? with the

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use of reason. If those two are in... Who is

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they? Well, the ancient Greeks who thought of

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this, right? I mean, in their time, you were

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saying that they saw value in both. Yes, but

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there was... But the one could contradict the

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other, so you do have to come up with some kind

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of way of saying that both have validity without

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contradicting each other directly. So what was

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that? Well, I mean, the thing is, we have to

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be... careful about making broad sweeping statements

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about whole cultures adhering and walking lockstep.

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So it sort of depends on the Greeks that you're

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talking to. But I would say in general, the edifying

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tales that exist were thought to convey a higher

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truth than simply factual information. There

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is a part about reason with things, but if you

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go through and look at Plato's dialogues, there's

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all sorts of myths that they keep talking about

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that are just complete nonsense, but they're

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a way of explaining certain things. I mean, the

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whole idea that you have like round humanoid

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figures that are male, female, and bisexual,

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and basically this is The gods get jealous of

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these round humanoid figures and they shatter

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them into different with bolts of lightning.

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And so people have to go seeking their other

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self over and over again. I don't think anybody

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would have thought of that as being logical.

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But I think they would have sought it as a higher

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truth where you're looking for the right person.

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I mean, this is a notion that we see, even though

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this is something that we see in Plato in one

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of the dialogues there, that it's something the

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Greeks would say, yeah, that's kind of how life

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works, as opposed to like, that's a historical

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truth. And in ancient Greece, philosophy and

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science weren't two distinct disciplines yet.

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I guess they became that. You know, over the

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centuries in ancient Greece, but they actually

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originated as the same discipline. They separated

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later. And math, too, you know, with Pythagoras.

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So math was considered to be part of that and

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particularly geometry and what we would call

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philosophy. Now, they were all kind of seen as

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interlinked and part of the sort of like awakened

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mind. But all part of the Logos side. All part

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of the Logos side. But Logos didn't necessarily.

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give up on mythos, though. It's not like they're

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in opposition. They incorporated it very nicely.

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Yeah. The Greeks thought of them as complementary.

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Yeah. Yeah. So this tension between mythos and

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logos, I would argue, helps spur the various

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great awakenings here in this country over the

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last two centuries, with mythos being the dominant

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element during those great awakenings. We will

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get into this later, but I would argue that with

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a lot of the mythos, they are looking to find

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some sort of logos to justify the mythos. They're

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seeking the logos. Well, they are inventing the

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logos. Well, that's what I was going to say.

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They're making it up in a lot of cases, unfortunately.

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They are making stuff up, and we will save that

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towards the end of the discussion here, but there

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is definitely a lot of mendacity that's involved

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with this mythos -logos thing. I think so, too.

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Before we go into the Second and Third Great

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Awakenings, I want to take one step back to the

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First Great Awakening. Just to recap, we covered

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this in an earlier episode. But the First Great

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Awakening occurred in the 1730s and 1740s and

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a little bit later. It was a massive transatlantic

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religious revival that swept through Britain

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and the American colonies. It emphasized a personal,

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emotional connection with God over strict church

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hierarchy, dramatically reshaping Protestantism

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and planting early seeds for American democratic

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ideals. And the people that are just, just to

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put them into some context, I heard somebody

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compare them. In religious circles, when we're

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seeing all this happen in the 18th century, they

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were kind of regarded as radicals like akin to

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Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Not Bolsheviks. Yes,

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Bolsheviks. Marshall, you're exactly right. The

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Bolsheviks clearly came later in history, but

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at the time, the leaders of the First Great Awakening

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were viewed as radicals. Preachers during the

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First Great Awakening encouraged followers to

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experience their faith. Passionately and personally.

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And we're going to hear this in the second and

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third awakenings as well. The movement democratized

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religion by promoting the idea that all individuals,

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regardless of class or education, could achieve

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salvation through faith. Again, we're going to

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hear this theme over and over again. Ministers

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would travel from town to town to deliver powerful

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theatrical sermons to massive open -air crowds

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rather than just speaking to a single parish.

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Again, we're going to hear this over and over

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in the Second and Third Great Awakenings. The

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First Great Awakening led to the rapid growth

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of evangelical denominations like Baptists and

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Methodists, breaking the monopoly of established

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state -supported churches. In order to train

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clergy for these new denominations, revivalists

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established several prestigious universities,

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including Princeton, Rutgers, and Dartmouth.

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And so this is all happening in the United States

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because there are dissenters over in Britain,

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but they're not necessarily having the kind of

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power to found universities over there. They're

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actually more empowered over here. I would guess,

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just based on what you're telling us, they're

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more powerful, they have more opportunities to

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spread the word than, say, over in Britain, where

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some of this stuff is kind of looked at as spooky

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or bizarre and not necessarily... the sort of

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things that respectable people would be indulging

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in. And at this time, I mean, we in this country,

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what wasn't even, it was colonies at the time.

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We had a blanker campus, a canvas, sorry, a blanker

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canvas. A tableau rosa. Yes, to draw on. It must

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have differed among the colonies too. You know,

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Virginia had an established church. Massachusetts

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was a pretty intolerant place. Connecticut. maybe

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not so tolerant either. New Jersey. Other places

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were very tolerant. It was much more tolerant

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as we covered. And New York. And New York. So

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you must have had different experiences. Dartmouth

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was in New Hampshire. Yeah. You must have had

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different experiences in the different colonies

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of this. But yes, the colleges you mentioned

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were all founded in non -sectarian colonies that

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were founded for business reasons, essentially,

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commercial reasons. Rutgers, by the way, was

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founded as... Queens College originally. It became

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Rutgers later. Okay. And Princeton was the College

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of New Jersey originally. I did not know that.

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And it was renamed Princeton later, just for

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anybody that wants to know details like that.

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Details, yes. Now, wrapping up the First Great

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Awakening. Okay, by encouraging people to question

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traditional religious authority and to make their

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own choices, the First Great Awakening laid crucial

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psychological groundwork for questioning of British

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political authority during the lead -up to the

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American Revolution. So then you have the Revolutionary

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Period and the founding of the United States,

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and that, you know, will... roughly 1750s to

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90s. That's what's going on in the real world.

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The Second Great Awakening is a period from the

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1790s to the 1840s. It was also a Protestant

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revival movement that swept across the young

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United States, again, reshaping American religion

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and society in profound ways. And we're going

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to hear some of the same themes again. The idea

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that anyone could be saved through faith and

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effort recurs in this one. There are camp meetings,

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there are tent revivals that are very, very popular,

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including the famous... Cane Ridge Revival of

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1801 in Kentucky, which drew tens of thousands.

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That sounds like a rather small town. Is this

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indicative of other aspects of the Second Great

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Awakening? Are we looking at an urban movement?

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Are we looking at something that's maybe more

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rural? I would say it was more or less a frontier

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movement. Not exclusively, but there was a...

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A big component of it was on the frontier where

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you get Methodist and Baptist preachers moving

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from place to place doing their sermons. So there's

00:14:49.610 --> 00:14:51.669
less of an established church there to kind of

00:14:51.669 --> 00:14:55.009
act as a counterbalance to this. There's no established

00:14:55.009 --> 00:14:56.710
church. There's no established church. Well,

00:14:56.769 --> 00:14:59.409
I won't say none. I mean, you can't say that

00:14:59.409 --> 00:15:01.190
because I don't know for sure. But you don't

00:15:01.190 --> 00:15:03.710
know for everywhere. But a lot of places, probably

00:15:03.710 --> 00:15:06.909
not much of one. We're looking at... isolated

00:15:06.909 --> 00:15:12.190
areas recently occupied by settlers from out,

00:15:12.429 --> 00:15:15.250
you know, from the eastern colonies moving west.

00:15:15.610 --> 00:15:18.830
And so I don't know that they're necessarily,

00:15:18.990 --> 00:15:21.490
you know, Washington had this problem of being

00:15:21.490 --> 00:15:23.210
able to attend church because it's like three

00:15:23.210 --> 00:15:26.850
and four hours, and he's living over in Mount

00:15:26.850 --> 00:15:29.870
Vernon, not too far from Alexandria now. I would

00:15:29.870 --> 00:15:33.590
imagine that there would be an equally difficult

00:15:33.590 --> 00:15:37.029
road for people living on the frontier, if not

00:15:37.029 --> 00:15:39.230
worse, for them to be able to attend church.

00:15:39.490 --> 00:15:42.549
And so these itinerant ministers, if they're

00:15:42.549 --> 00:15:46.429
going through, they are probably finding people

00:15:46.429 --> 00:15:49.389
who are very much appreciative for them being

00:15:49.389 --> 00:15:52.330
there. They probably don't have a sophisticated

00:15:52.330 --> 00:15:55.409
theological understanding of the world. And so

00:15:55.409 --> 00:15:59.090
this guy comes in with very theatrical, brings

00:15:59.090 --> 00:16:02.250
a little color into their lives. Which, you know,

00:16:02.309 --> 00:16:05.769
they're just sitting around trying to clear land

00:16:05.769 --> 00:16:08.830
and survive. They're surviving. Yeah. And this

00:16:08.830 --> 00:16:12.090
is something extra added to it, and it also helps

00:16:12.090 --> 00:16:14.769
them. And it may not just be a Western phenomenon,

00:16:14.870 --> 00:16:17.570
because what I mean when I say that is, you'll

00:16:17.570 --> 00:16:20.830
remember in the colonies episode, I kind of foreshadowed

00:16:20.830 --> 00:16:22.389
this, right? And I mentioned that in Delaware.

00:16:23.009 --> 00:16:26.230
How in Southern Delaware in the 1790s, as the

00:16:26.230 --> 00:16:27.870
Second World Awakening was starting to catch

00:16:27.870 --> 00:16:30.720
on. and Methodist, itinerant Methodist preachers

00:16:30.720 --> 00:16:32.179
had gone there and brought a lot of converts

00:16:32.179 --> 00:16:35.320
among both white settlers and African Americans

00:16:35.320 --> 00:16:38.980
amongst people held in slavery there. And Southern

00:16:38.980 --> 00:16:41.379
Delaware is a very rural part, you know, more

00:16:41.379 --> 00:16:43.519
rural part of the state. The population was up

00:16:43.519 --> 00:16:44.960
in the north, up toward Pennsylvania, up toward

00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:47.559
Wilmington. So in a way, it's not frontier meaning

00:16:47.559 --> 00:16:49.419
in the west, but it was a less settled rural

00:16:49.419 --> 00:16:52.860
area. So you kind of had, I guess what I'm trying

00:16:52.860 --> 00:16:55.379
to get at here is kind of was filling in. In

00:16:55.379 --> 00:16:57.659
the East as well. Some areas which were less

00:16:57.659 --> 00:17:00.539
settled, more rural, certainly less urban, if

00:17:00.539 --> 00:17:02.100
that's even a word you can use in those days.

00:17:02.200 --> 00:17:05.539
Little footnote here, too, is that there was

00:17:05.539 --> 00:17:08.880
a fellow named Black Harry Hosier. Oh. He was

00:17:08.880 --> 00:17:13.759
an illiterate freedman, a free black man. And

00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:17.880
he was active in Delaware. And in Chapelton,

00:17:17.960 --> 00:17:21.059
Delaware, he gave a sermon at Thomas Chapel in

00:17:21.059 --> 00:17:24.740
1784. So this is in between the First and Second

00:17:24.740 --> 00:17:26.299
Great Awakenings, but the Second Great Awakening

00:17:26.299 --> 00:17:29.259
is about to begin. He gave this sermon, which

00:17:29.259 --> 00:17:31.140
apparently is quite famous. It was the first

00:17:31.140 --> 00:17:33.539
sermon ever to be delivered by a black preacher

00:17:33.539 --> 00:17:36.539
directly to a white congregation. Wow. And I

00:17:36.539 --> 00:17:37.759
think it's worth mentioning, because I know we're

00:17:37.759 --> 00:17:39.380
going to talk about how there was a democratization

00:17:39.380 --> 00:17:42.400
aspect to all of this. There's an example, a

00:17:42.400 --> 00:17:44.140
very early example, of how that was already starting

00:17:44.140 --> 00:17:46.779
to happen, at least among African Americans in

00:17:46.779 --> 00:17:49.279
places like Southern Delaware, or that's actually

00:17:49.279 --> 00:17:52.809
Central Delaware. Rural areas. Rural areas, certainly.

00:17:52.910 --> 00:17:54.289
Rural areas, for sure. More and more of this

00:17:54.289 --> 00:17:57.470
was happening. Now, Charles Finney became a very

00:17:57.470 --> 00:18:00.230
influential preacher in this period, especially

00:18:00.230 --> 00:18:04.470
in the 1820s and 30s. And he pioneered new measures

00:18:04.470 --> 00:18:08.190
like the anxious bench and protracted meetings.

00:18:08.390 --> 00:18:10.329
Now, I did look these up. What is an anxious

00:18:10.329 --> 00:18:14.529
bench? The anxious bench and anyone who's been

00:18:14.529 --> 00:18:17.930
to a... evangelical service will know what this

00:18:17.930 --> 00:18:21.950
is, but he actually had a pew in the front where

00:18:21.950 --> 00:18:24.710
he would bring people who were either known to

00:18:24.710 --> 00:18:27.309
be or thought to be sinners or people who...

00:18:27.309 --> 00:18:30.609
Sinner's corner. Might be questioning their faith,

00:18:30.769 --> 00:18:34.769
and he would put them in this pew and use the

00:18:34.769 --> 00:18:38.690
kind of peer pressure to get them to have an

00:18:38.690 --> 00:18:41.329
emotional conversion in front of everybody. So

00:18:41.329 --> 00:18:43.210
you might have the town drunk brought in and...

00:18:43.210 --> 00:18:47.339
Perhaps. Yeah. It had to have worked because

00:18:47.339 --> 00:18:50.839
it continued to prevail as a practice. Well,

00:18:50.920 --> 00:18:53.519
it would certainly be, okay, just in terms of,

00:18:53.519 --> 00:18:55.019
let's just think about this as entertainment

00:18:55.019 --> 00:18:58.619
here. As entertainment, there's this huge dramatic

00:18:58.619 --> 00:19:00.839
element that's being introduced with something

00:19:00.839 --> 00:19:04.569
like this. Right. Again, you don't have people

00:19:04.569 --> 00:19:06.930
sitting around watching House of Dragon on HBO.

00:19:07.609 --> 00:19:11.009
This is almost like reality TV or something.

00:19:11.309 --> 00:19:13.690
Well, that's the whole point of protracted meetings,

00:19:13.809 --> 00:19:15.789
which would be many weeks long, potentially,

00:19:15.849 --> 00:19:20.289
or at least many days in a row. So you'd have

00:19:20.289 --> 00:19:24.609
continued. Entertainment, I suppose. Well, I

00:19:24.609 --> 00:19:26.789
mean, it is. Well, it is entertainment. It's

00:19:26.789 --> 00:19:29.009
going to be a form. It's got to have. It was

00:19:29.009 --> 00:19:31.410
an emotional catharsis for a lot of these people.

00:19:31.450 --> 00:19:33.930
Which, again, think about what happens when you

00:19:33.930 --> 00:19:36.690
go and see a play or watch something dramatic.

00:19:37.269 --> 00:19:41.829
That's what happens. You're looking to see what

00:19:41.829 --> 00:19:43.829
happens to poor Hamlet. Is he going to live?

00:19:43.869 --> 00:19:46.190
Is he going to die? And who else is going to

00:19:46.190 --> 00:20:04.029
live and who else is going to die? The Second

00:20:04.029 --> 00:20:08.750
Great Awakening had a large social impact. It

00:20:08.750 --> 00:20:14.190
fueled a wave of reform movements such as abolitionism,

00:20:14.289 --> 00:20:17.930
temperance, women's rights, which ultimately

00:20:17.930 --> 00:20:22.690
led to women's suffrage, and prison reform. All

00:20:22.690 --> 00:20:26.089
drew energy from the era's evangelical fervor.

00:20:26.210 --> 00:20:29.470
And these movements, though, it should be, we

00:20:29.470 --> 00:20:33.740
should note, there's a lot of crossover amongst

00:20:33.740 --> 00:20:38.599
them. Temperance and women's suffrage, they went

00:20:38.599 --> 00:20:41.779
together hand in glove. And then before the Civil

00:20:41.779 --> 00:20:44.640
War, you know, a lot of the women that were at

00:20:44.640 --> 00:20:47.019
Seneca Falls, where the women's suffrage movement

00:20:47.019 --> 00:20:51.000
began. 1848. 1848. These women were involved

00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:53.440
in the anti -slavery movement as well. Lucretia

00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:57.880
Mott, Susan B. Anthony. They were all friends,

00:20:58.359 --> 00:21:02.019
you know, with Frederick Douglass, Was definitely

00:21:02.019 --> 00:21:05.000
in favor of abolition. Apparently the majority

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:07.279
of converts during the Second Great Awakening

00:21:07.279 --> 00:21:09.980
were women. I did not know that. I'm just looking

00:21:09.980 --> 00:21:12.359
at an article here about that. It's not clear

00:21:12.359 --> 00:21:15.500
why that was the case. It seems reasonable, though,

00:21:15.539 --> 00:21:17.980
that because women lived in such a patriarchal

00:21:17.980 --> 00:21:20.720
society then, some would say they still do now,

00:21:20.900 --> 00:21:23.759
but let's leave it at back then. They certainly

00:21:23.759 --> 00:21:26.359
were in a very patriarchal society. Yes. That

00:21:26.359 --> 00:21:29.839
there was a democratizing aspect to this for

00:21:29.839 --> 00:21:33.759
women. in that it offered the idea of some kind

00:21:33.759 --> 00:21:37.799
of greater self -agency or agency for women,

00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:40.500
for herself, to be able to function at her own

00:21:40.500 --> 00:21:43.680
beliefs, not be subordinate to beliefs imposed

00:21:43.680 --> 00:21:46.599
on her by men and that kind of thing. There were

00:21:46.599 --> 00:21:48.779
apparently some husbands who disapproved of this.

00:21:48.859 --> 00:21:51.339
I'm sure there were, yeah. In those days, apparently,

00:21:51.420 --> 00:21:53.940
especially in the South, that happened. But it

00:21:53.940 --> 00:21:56.839
was appealing to women for not particularly...

00:21:58.500 --> 00:22:00.299
provable reasons, but it seems that probably

00:22:00.299 --> 00:22:02.579
that had a lot to do with it. Well, in the period

00:22:02.579 --> 00:22:06.640
which is called the Age of Jackson, you know,

00:22:06.680 --> 00:22:10.319
the sort of period of roughly, let's just say

00:22:10.319 --> 00:22:15.000
1812 to the beginning of the Civil War in 1860.

00:22:15.880 --> 00:22:18.319
Historians have characterized this period as

00:22:18.319 --> 00:22:20.859
being dominantly, one of the characteristics

00:22:20.859 --> 00:22:24.839
is patriarchal, but more patriarchal than we

00:22:24.839 --> 00:22:27.940
saw before or after. This was kind of a central

00:22:27.940 --> 00:22:31.940
guiding idea of the period. So women might see

00:22:31.940 --> 00:22:35.299
this as, like you said, agency and a way of kind

00:22:35.299 --> 00:22:39.119
of overcoming the prevailing dogma that's kind

00:22:39.119 --> 00:22:41.640
of limiting their options. It also increased

00:22:41.640 --> 00:22:45.670
the... spiritual status of women, if that's the

00:22:45.670 --> 00:22:49.250
right term. It started to make them be seen,

00:22:49.390 --> 00:22:53.890
especially as mothers, as a moral, spiritual

00:22:53.890 --> 00:22:55.789
foundation of society, like the mother became

00:22:55.789 --> 00:22:59.670
the center of the family, the parent who really

00:22:59.670 --> 00:23:02.950
gave the children their... They're moral underpinnings.

00:23:03.289 --> 00:23:05.269
And you can see this in different ways, too.

00:23:05.369 --> 00:23:06.869
You know, temperance came out of this because

00:23:06.869 --> 00:23:09.109
so many of the men were drunk all the time. That'll

00:23:09.109 --> 00:23:11.950
lead to eventually to prohibition in the 20th

00:23:11.950 --> 00:23:14.769
century, right? You can see that happening. Abolition,

00:23:14.869 --> 00:23:16.630
you know, abolitionism was coming out of this

00:23:16.630 --> 00:23:19.849
as well. You know, that was a related thing.

00:23:20.509 --> 00:23:22.670
And apparently another thing that appealed to

00:23:22.670 --> 00:23:26.509
women more than men, I guess, is that a lot of

00:23:26.509 --> 00:23:29.549
the ministers who were preaching these various...

00:23:30.140 --> 00:23:33.460
fairly new faith traditions at the time, did

00:23:33.460 --> 00:23:36.059
things like stress Christ's humility and forgiveness.

00:23:36.319 --> 00:23:38.619
And these are values that were more appreciated

00:23:38.619 --> 00:23:41.019
by women. than they were by men at the time.

00:23:41.099 --> 00:23:44.339
The men had a more macho attitude toward things,

00:23:44.539 --> 00:23:48.440
and forgiveness, and charity, and humility. Not

00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:50.579
so much a male thing, I guess. It appealed more

00:23:50.579 --> 00:23:52.640
to women, and women became greater champions

00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:54.359
of this. They found the message more appealing,

00:23:54.500 --> 00:23:56.240
and so that was part of the reason probably more

00:23:56.240 --> 00:23:57.839
of them converted than men. It's probably something

00:23:57.839 --> 00:24:01.220
that they had to consider if you're dealing with

00:24:01.220 --> 00:24:05.920
a patriarchal society. It's something that's

00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:07.980
very much a part of their existence in life.

00:24:08.910 --> 00:24:11.329
forgiveness and humility and things, these are

00:24:11.329 --> 00:24:15.829
things that they had to kind of deal with on

00:24:15.829 --> 00:24:18.210
a daily basis just because of the prevailing

00:24:18.210 --> 00:24:21.990
notions of society kind of insisted upon it.

00:24:22.029 --> 00:24:24.930
And this is a sort of like, I don't want to say

00:24:24.930 --> 00:24:28.940
reinforcement, but it kind of like... gives dignity

00:24:28.940 --> 00:24:33.259
to their existence. It gives a sort of like religious

00:24:33.259 --> 00:24:35.400
dignity to the things that they're going through

00:24:35.400 --> 00:24:39.740
and an appreciation for their experiences there.

00:24:39.900 --> 00:24:43.079
And by the 1830s, there were moral reform societies

00:24:43.079 --> 00:24:46.000
springing up, and these were dominated by women.

00:24:46.380 --> 00:24:50.680
And it gave them a... a power base they had lacked

00:24:50.680 --> 00:24:52.799
before. It was something that was predominantly

00:24:52.799 --> 00:24:55.440
female, which actually could have greater input

00:24:55.440 --> 00:24:58.279
into social issues, into governance. That makes

00:24:58.279 --> 00:25:00.099
a lot of sense. Lawmaking, all sorts of things,

00:25:00.140 --> 00:25:02.180
right? This is something that women, a power

00:25:02.180 --> 00:25:05.039
that women had mostly not had much prior to that.

00:25:05.579 --> 00:25:08.240
So there were a lot of reasons why we were appealing

00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:11.099
to women and motivated them more. The women,

00:25:11.140 --> 00:25:12.779
though, that are going to be doing these sort

00:25:12.779 --> 00:25:14.940
of things, we're not talking pioneer women. We're

00:25:14.940 --> 00:25:17.819
generally talking women of means who have servants

00:25:17.819 --> 00:25:21.299
and the ability to do things. They can write

00:25:21.299 --> 00:25:23.759
letters. They can attend meetings. They can influence

00:25:23.759 --> 00:25:28.599
their politicians. Yes. But these would have

00:25:28.599 --> 00:25:31.839
appealed to other women who are not necessarily

00:25:31.839 --> 00:25:36.220
as affluent to sort of like, support in some

00:25:36.220 --> 00:25:38.839
way, maybe go to a meeting, not necessarily organize

00:25:38.839 --> 00:25:42.920
a meeting. So this kind of trickles through society.

00:25:59.470 --> 00:26:01.609
Now, the Second Great Awakening, again, we're

00:26:01.609 --> 00:26:06.029
talking in the 1790s to 1840s, also spawned new

00:26:06.029 --> 00:26:09.509
American religious movements, including the Mormons,

00:26:09.509 --> 00:26:13.049
that we're going to cover briefly, Adventists,

00:26:13.170 --> 00:26:16.569
like the Seventh -day Adventists, and the Restoration

00:26:16.569 --> 00:26:20.529
Movement. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter

00:26:20.529 --> 00:26:23.650
-day Saints, Mormonism, was founded by Joseph

00:26:23.650 --> 00:26:27.960
Smith in 1830 in upstate New York. And it was

00:26:27.960 --> 00:26:30.240
one of the most significant new religions born

00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:34.000
in this era. So let's at least describe the movement.

00:26:34.299 --> 00:26:37.859
All right. So it's a very interesting movement

00:26:37.859 --> 00:26:40.819
and has a great deal to do with the settling

00:26:40.819 --> 00:26:43.700
of the West, because eventually the Mormons are

00:26:43.700 --> 00:26:46.960
going to end up in Utah. But Joseph Smith will

00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:49.940
have his revelations, and this is their belief

00:26:49.940 --> 00:26:53.789
system of the Mormon church, that he... received

00:26:53.789 --> 00:26:59.490
these golden tablets, and he was able to interpret

00:26:59.490 --> 00:27:02.509
them. And this forms the basis for the Book of

00:27:02.509 --> 00:27:05.650
Mormon, which is the basis for the Church of

00:27:05.650 --> 00:27:08.210
Latter -day Saints. Golden plates. Golden plates,

00:27:08.269 --> 00:27:12.059
golden plates. The movement... existed in an

00:27:12.059 --> 00:27:15.480
area that what we've described, what's been described

00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:18.839
as the burnt over area, where a lot of social

00:27:18.839 --> 00:27:20.779
reforms and religious reforms are occurring.

00:27:21.079 --> 00:27:23.059
That's in Western New York. In Western New York.

00:27:23.180 --> 00:27:27.819
And nobody seems to know why this area was particularly...

00:27:28.480 --> 00:27:30.960
Fertile. Fertile for this. And I'll just challenge

00:27:30.960 --> 00:27:34.599
our listeners, if anybody has any ideas or knows

00:27:34.599 --> 00:27:37.660
of any sort of writings that can offer an explanation

00:27:37.660 --> 00:27:39.480
for this, I would be very interested to hear

00:27:39.480 --> 00:27:43.099
back on that point. In any event, the Mormons

00:27:43.099 --> 00:27:47.940
were kind of prescribed by society for one big

00:27:47.940 --> 00:27:51.420
reason, and this was the idea of polygamy. And

00:27:51.420 --> 00:27:53.460
this was something Joseph Smith felt that he

00:27:53.460 --> 00:27:58.759
was able to do according to the biblical revelations

00:27:58.759 --> 00:28:01.740
or the religious revelations that he had received.

00:28:01.920 --> 00:28:06.720
And the Mormons had a tendency to have to move

00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:10.539
west because other elements of society... did

00:28:10.539 --> 00:28:13.079
not like this idea of polygamy. They started

00:28:13.079 --> 00:28:15.140
in western New York. I think they were in Ohio

00:28:15.140 --> 00:28:17.880
for a period. And then they were in Missouri.

00:28:18.200 --> 00:28:21.579
Yes. Naboo was the name of the place. That's

00:28:21.579 --> 00:28:26.099
it. Yes. And then basically it is at that point

00:28:26.099 --> 00:28:30.700
Joseph Smith is lynched by an angry mob and Brigham

00:28:30.700 --> 00:28:33.660
Young takes over the church and they go west.

00:28:33.980 --> 00:28:36.180
They were persecuted at each stop along the way,

00:28:36.200 --> 00:28:37.660
weren't they? That's why they kept moving. Yes.

00:28:37.660 --> 00:28:39.859
Correct. Yes. Yes. I mean, there were a lot of

00:28:39.859 --> 00:28:44.200
people. I think the polygamy aspect was something

00:28:44.200 --> 00:28:47.940
that was always something that was like a cloud

00:28:47.940 --> 00:28:51.900
over the church itself. And this was not something

00:28:51.900 --> 00:28:55.099
everybody did. This was something mainly restricted

00:28:55.099 --> 00:28:58.099
to people who could afford it. And that's like

00:28:58.099 --> 00:29:00.799
the leadership in the Mormon church at the time.

00:29:00.900 --> 00:29:03.140
But I mean, this is kind of part of the environment

00:29:03.140 --> 00:29:06.059
that we've seen has been fostered by not having

00:29:06.059 --> 00:29:08.599
an established church. You can come up with something

00:29:08.599 --> 00:29:12.680
like this where you have reports of revelations

00:29:12.680 --> 00:29:18.720
in the modern era where God speaks directly to

00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:24.400
a prophet and people will believe this. Which

00:29:24.400 --> 00:29:28.960
is what? some Christians will argue mean indicate

00:29:28.960 --> 00:29:31.500
that Mormonism is not Christianity, because you're

00:29:31.500 --> 00:29:33.940
accepting a prophet after Christ, and you're

00:29:33.940 --> 00:29:37.799
accepting biblical style, anyway, revelations

00:29:37.799 --> 00:29:41.039
that were written after the Bible. So you'll

00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:42.980
have people argue that they are not Christians,

00:29:43.160 --> 00:29:45.380
but they would argue that, well, we are. We're

00:29:45.380 --> 00:29:47.220
the Church of Jesus Christ, but of Latter -day

00:29:47.220 --> 00:29:48.920
Saints. There are additional revelations that

00:29:48.920 --> 00:29:51.720
have come since then. There's actually a modern

00:29:51.720 --> 00:29:56.160
echo in this, because according to... Our Secretary

00:29:56.160 --> 00:29:58.240
of Defense, because that's his real name, his

00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:01.579
real title, not his made up title. Mormons aren't

00:30:01.579 --> 00:30:04.519
Christians. And they basically came up, they

00:30:04.519 --> 00:30:08.460
came up with a whole hierarchy of people that

00:30:08.460 --> 00:30:11.079
would, religious groups that would be allocated

00:30:11.079 --> 00:30:13.819
chaplains. And representatives from Utah were

00:30:13.819 --> 00:30:17.900
very upset about this. Like one of the senators

00:30:17.900 --> 00:30:21.559
was angry about saying that, yes, we are Christians.

00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:25.940
Unitarians also, Hexup said. aren't even worthy

00:30:25.940 --> 00:30:28.440
of having any sort of like clerics. So they were

00:30:28.440 --> 00:30:32.319
written off as a kind of illegal religion, I

00:30:32.319 --> 00:30:34.660
suppose. But in Mormonism, my understanding too

00:30:34.660 --> 00:30:36.619
is, and tell me where I've gotten this wrong,

00:30:36.839 --> 00:30:40.079
but they claim, the Mormons claim that the lost

00:30:40.079 --> 00:30:43.599
tribes of Israel were in North America and the

00:30:43.599 --> 00:30:45.839
Pacific Islands as well. I don't know about Pacific

00:30:45.839 --> 00:30:47.720
Islands, but definitely North. Pacific Islands

00:30:47.720 --> 00:30:50.279
as well. Long before Columbus. Yeah. And so they

00:30:50.279 --> 00:30:55.549
are, they have a mission of, educating, supporting

00:30:55.549 --> 00:30:58.970
these lost tribes. So I know it was in North

00:30:58.970 --> 00:31:01.769
America, but it also goes into Polynesia specifically.

00:31:02.230 --> 00:31:04.710
There is actually a branch of Brigham Young University

00:31:04.710 --> 00:31:08.690
on the island of Oahu in Laie. And when I was

00:31:08.690 --> 00:31:10.390
growing up, it was called Church College, but

00:31:10.390 --> 00:31:12.970
it was Mormon. It became affiliated with BYU,

00:31:13.049 --> 00:31:16.819
now it's called BYU Hawaii. believe that among

00:31:16.819 --> 00:31:18.819
the lost tribes are the different Polynesian

00:31:18.819 --> 00:31:21.259
peoples, the seven Polynesian cultures. And so

00:31:21.259 --> 00:31:23.380
they, in Hawaii, you can go to something called

00:31:23.380 --> 00:31:25.059
the Polynesian Cultural Center, which is right

00:31:25.059 --> 00:31:28.059
adjacent to the campus up there. And the Polynesian

00:31:28.059 --> 00:31:30.480
young people who work there and put on shows

00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:34.400
for you are there on scholarship at BYU Hawaii.

00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:36.259
They're learning to be accountants and whatever.

00:31:37.059 --> 00:31:40.819
But they make money off of putting on these shows

00:31:40.819 --> 00:31:43.579
for tourists up there. Anyway, it's part of their

00:31:43.579 --> 00:31:45.940
mission. And so they've carried on the idea of

00:31:45.940 --> 00:31:48.420
what was happening in the Middle East. They've

00:31:48.420 --> 00:31:50.140
carried it on into North America and then into

00:31:50.140 --> 00:31:52.500
Polynesia. So it's just kind of an interesting

00:31:52.500 --> 00:32:00.839
aspect of their religious belief system. In addition,

00:32:01.039 --> 00:32:04.599
we had the beginning of Seventh -day Adventism.

00:32:05.200 --> 00:32:09.000
which grew out of the Millerite movement. And

00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:12.920
the Millerite movement was a 19th century Protestant

00:32:12.920 --> 00:32:15.819
revival led by William Miller, who predicted

00:32:15.819 --> 00:32:19.420
the literal return or advent of Jesus Christ

00:32:19.420 --> 00:32:24.519
in 1843 to 44, which did not happen. It was an

00:32:24.519 --> 00:32:28.099
annual event for them. But the followers of this

00:32:28.099 --> 00:32:31.559
movement reorganized into the Adventist church.

00:32:32.220 --> 00:32:34.279
Yes. And I mean, you know, this into the world

00:32:34.279 --> 00:32:37.559
stuff that he's preaching there. I mean, as I

00:32:37.559 --> 00:32:39.440
recall, they ended up going up to some mountain

00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:42.039
and they're like standing around waiting for

00:32:42.039 --> 00:32:45.440
Jesus to show up and he never did. And eventually

00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:47.960
people got tired and they went home and then...

00:32:47.960 --> 00:32:50.279
That was called the great disappointment. Yes.

00:32:50.700 --> 00:32:55.420
And I'm sure many were. Yes. We also have the,

00:32:55.519 --> 00:33:00.240
in this period, the restoration movement. in

00:33:00.240 --> 00:33:03.380
which Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone sought

00:33:03.380 --> 00:33:07.099
to strip away denominationalism and restore,

00:33:07.359 --> 00:33:11.099
quote, primitive Christianity, end quote, producing

00:33:11.099 --> 00:33:14.299
the Churches of Christ, Christian Church, and

00:33:14.299 --> 00:33:19.339
Disciples of Christ. And just again, this is...

00:33:20.619 --> 00:33:24.140
In larger context, this is what everybody's trying

00:33:24.140 --> 00:33:27.539
to do here. So do away with the hierarchy and

00:33:27.539 --> 00:33:30.880
the structure. Yes, because there is a definite

00:33:30.880 --> 00:33:35.779
zeitgeist movement in, say, like roughly 17th

00:33:35.779 --> 00:33:39.240
century or even 16th century, you know, beginning

00:33:39.240 --> 00:33:42.200
with the Reformation, that somehow the other

00:33:42.200 --> 00:33:44.859
Christianity has gone down the wrong path. And

00:33:44.859 --> 00:33:48.119
we need to return to some sort of like... you

00:33:48.119 --> 00:33:51.400
know, original Christianity. And what original

00:33:51.400 --> 00:33:55.599
Christianity is, is kind of open to a lot of

00:33:55.599 --> 00:33:57.980
interpretations. And we get out of this, we get

00:33:57.980 --> 00:34:00.619
Lutheranism, we get most Protestant movements

00:34:00.619 --> 00:34:06.200
are basically the underpinning idea is that we

00:34:06.200 --> 00:34:09.239
need to get back to basics. We need to get back

00:34:09.239 --> 00:34:11.619
to sort of like what the original church was

00:34:11.619 --> 00:34:15.079
like. And we need to strip away all of the things

00:34:15.079 --> 00:34:19.719
that have come in that, act as impediments to

00:34:19.719 --> 00:34:22.079
man's relationship with Christ. Earlier, we talked

00:34:22.079 --> 00:34:23.960
about the Puritans, how they were against everything

00:34:23.960 --> 00:34:26.119
that had happened in Christianity since the fourth

00:34:26.119 --> 00:34:28.960
century. Yes. So that's another manifestation

00:34:28.960 --> 00:34:31.519
of that, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, it's almost

00:34:31.519 --> 00:34:33.480
like, all right, we can look at things either

00:34:33.480 --> 00:34:37.059
pre -Nicene Creed, where we established concepts

00:34:37.059 --> 00:34:41.360
like the Trinity, or we can go after and include

00:34:41.360 --> 00:34:44.860
that. But that's kind of what's informing these

00:34:44.860 --> 00:34:47.860
sorts of movements here. We also have the rise

00:34:47.860 --> 00:34:50.820
of something called spiritualism, which is not

00:34:50.820 --> 00:34:54.239
a formal church, but a widespread movement focused

00:34:54.239 --> 00:34:57.710
on communication with the dead. Yes. Sparked

00:34:57.710 --> 00:35:02.050
by the Fox sisters in 1848 in New York. Yes.

00:35:02.070 --> 00:35:06.030
And they had like incredible joints and they

00:35:06.030 --> 00:35:09.050
could make all sorts of noises that people, you

00:35:09.050 --> 00:35:11.329
know, like with their, I'm not kidding, with

00:35:11.329 --> 00:35:14.369
their feet, with their hands, that people would

00:35:14.369 --> 00:35:18.389
assume were actually like ghosts or spirits that

00:35:18.389 --> 00:35:21.829
were there. And apparently they needed to see

00:35:21.829 --> 00:35:24.929
somebody about, they were eventually revealed

00:35:24.929 --> 00:35:27.659
as frauds. But this got very popular with the

00:35:27.659 --> 00:35:31.079
Civil War, too, when people died. There was like

00:35:31.079 --> 00:35:34.000
any time that you have something like this where

00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:37.420
you have a lot of people getting caught up in

00:35:37.420 --> 00:35:40.079
a war or something, spiritualism comes up. I

00:35:40.079 --> 00:35:43.739
mean, Mary Todd Lincoln. Crazy Mary there. She

00:35:43.739 --> 00:35:47.599
didn't necessarily have like a soldier relative

00:35:47.599 --> 00:35:49.539
die, but she had one of her children die. I know.

00:35:49.679 --> 00:35:55.820
Very tragic. Yes. But she would have these spiritualists

00:35:55.820 --> 00:35:59.659
in the White House and sometimes on the quiet

00:35:59.659 --> 00:36:02.880
with Lincoln where she would like talk to her

00:36:02.880 --> 00:36:05.659
children. who were dead, because she had lost

00:36:05.659 --> 00:36:08.139
two by this point. And this was just like, she

00:36:08.139 --> 00:36:10.039
didn't really have much of a coping mechanism

00:36:10.039 --> 00:36:13.460
to deal with this. And so this acts as a coping

00:36:13.460 --> 00:36:17.579
mechanism. But previously, in earlier times,

00:36:17.639 --> 00:36:21.380
this would have been considered sorcery. Sure.

00:36:21.539 --> 00:36:23.960
Black magic. But it's like, again... Witchcraft.

00:36:24.119 --> 00:36:28.960
Witchcraft. But this is perfectly... acceptable

00:36:28.960 --> 00:36:31.579
in certain corners and nobody's going to be hauled

00:36:31.579 --> 00:36:34.559
off to be hung or burnt at the stake for going

00:36:34.559 --> 00:36:36.780
and seeing somebody who's doing table wrapping

00:36:36.780 --> 00:37:03.159
and stuff. Right. That pretty much summarizes

00:37:03.159 --> 00:37:06.679
the Second Great Awakening, and there's a brief

00:37:06.679 --> 00:37:09.900
interlude, and then we have the Third Great Awakening,

00:37:09.900 --> 00:37:12.579
which, again, I would argue is two peaks of the

00:37:12.579 --> 00:37:14.980
same wave, really. What are the dates on the

00:37:14.980 --> 00:37:17.500
Third Great Awakening? Historians debate the

00:37:17.500 --> 00:37:21.699
boundaries of this period, but roughly the 1850s

00:37:21.699 --> 00:37:25.860
to the early 1900s. Now, I'm just going to say

00:37:25.860 --> 00:37:29.320
that another... backdrop to consider, along with

00:37:29.320 --> 00:37:32.460
people being in isolated communities and places

00:37:32.460 --> 00:37:35.219
where they're not isolated, things are changing

00:37:35.219 --> 00:37:39.179
hugely during this period. And particularly in

00:37:39.179 --> 00:37:42.059
the period after the Civil War, you're seeing

00:37:42.059 --> 00:37:44.480
an uprooting of a lot of established notions

00:37:44.480 --> 00:37:48.500
about how society should work here. And I would

00:37:48.500 --> 00:37:51.719
argue people are confused and people are upset

00:37:51.719 --> 00:37:57.039
about the old truths and verities Disappearing

00:37:57.039 --> 00:38:00.179
and they're there. What are we supposed to believe

00:38:00.179 --> 00:38:02.860
now here? And I think that might be fueling some

00:38:02.860 --> 00:38:04.699
of these movements. Well, you certainly have

00:38:04.699 --> 00:38:07.099
science advancing Yes, we're finding out a lot

00:38:07.099 --> 00:38:08.539
more about the world. It doesn't really match

00:38:08.539 --> 00:38:13.460
Myths of the religious. Yes are incompatible

00:38:13.460 --> 00:38:15.579
with them. We have the Industrial Revolution

00:38:15.579 --> 00:38:18.800
creating a lot of social and economic upheaval

00:38:19.119 --> 00:38:21.420
It's no longer about body strength. It's no longer

00:38:21.420 --> 00:38:23.440
about upper body strength. It's like you are

00:38:23.440 --> 00:38:27.019
a woman. You can go to a New England mill and

00:38:27.019 --> 00:38:32.300
earn your living. And it's not the greatest existence

00:38:32.300 --> 00:38:34.280
on the planet, but neither is farming for that

00:38:34.280 --> 00:38:36.960
matter. And, you know, a lot of cultures, and

00:38:36.960 --> 00:38:39.320
I would say even our own has this to some extent,

00:38:39.360 --> 00:38:41.719
is this mystic connection to, you know, the land

00:38:41.719 --> 00:38:44.250
and a farm and that type of thing. That goes

00:38:44.250 --> 00:38:46.050
missing when you're working in some factory belching

00:38:46.050 --> 00:38:47.789
smoke out of the air all around you and, you

00:38:47.789 --> 00:38:49.110
know, all that, right? I mean, that's another

00:38:49.110 --> 00:38:53.210
social aspect of it, a cultural aspect of upheaval

00:38:53.210 --> 00:38:57.769
at this time. Also machinery. And so Henry Adams,

00:38:58.030 --> 00:39:04.409
the great historian in what is the best chapter

00:39:04.409 --> 00:39:06.429
in his autobiography, which is usually kind of

00:39:06.429 --> 00:39:09.530
jokey, but he goes to the Centennial Exhibition

00:39:09.530 --> 00:39:13.010
and he sees a dynamo in action. That's in 1876.

00:39:13.130 --> 00:39:18.429
1876 in Philadelphia. And he's been teaching

00:39:18.429 --> 00:39:21.590
medieval history at Harvard, and he says, in

00:39:21.590 --> 00:39:24.110
the Middle Ages, you had the Virgin, and the

00:39:24.110 --> 00:39:26.250
Virgin was a symbol of compassion and unity,

00:39:26.389 --> 00:39:30.170
because all could support the Virgin as an ideal

00:39:30.170 --> 00:39:33.869
here. And he said, in our time, we have disunity.

00:39:34.559 --> 00:39:38.340
We have fragmentation, but we have power beyond

00:39:38.340 --> 00:39:40.940
anybody's imagining. And that is the dynamo here.

00:39:41.139 --> 00:39:46.539
And so this analogy works very well when he's

00:39:46.539 --> 00:39:50.039
like contemplating going to the centennial exhibition.

00:39:50.380 --> 00:39:54.460
But it also pays, you know, we could say. it's

00:39:54.460 --> 00:39:56.860
the Virgin and the microchip, or it's the Virgin

00:39:56.860 --> 00:40:00.239
and AI. You have all this power that's unleashed,

00:40:00.260 --> 00:40:02.699
but this power has no conscience to guide it.

00:40:02.840 --> 00:40:06.119
And there is no way that we have of being able

00:40:06.119 --> 00:40:09.039
to control these vast forces that we've unleashed.

00:40:09.119 --> 00:40:11.840
What does that do for human beings? And so human

00:40:11.840 --> 00:40:13.860
beings will look for something. And I think this

00:40:13.860 --> 00:40:16.800
is where, this is fueling this second and third

00:40:16.800 --> 00:40:19.380
great awakening. And I think, you know, and let's

00:40:19.380 --> 00:40:21.409
not forget too, we talked about this at... Great

00:40:21.409 --> 00:40:22.949
length in the America First series. You don't

00:40:22.949 --> 00:40:25.070
need to repeat all of it. But remember that there's

00:40:25.070 --> 00:40:27.889
a huge influx of immigrants to the United States

00:40:27.889 --> 00:40:31.449
at this time of varying cultures and appearances

00:40:31.449 --> 00:40:33.550
and religions and everything else. And that was

00:40:33.550 --> 00:40:35.369
quite disruptive for a lot of people. America

00:40:35.369 --> 00:40:37.630
was changing tremendously in the second half

00:40:37.630 --> 00:40:39.909
of the 19th century because of all the new groups

00:40:39.909 --> 00:40:42.530
of people coming in and settling here. And how

00:40:42.530 --> 00:40:44.429
do you make sense of the change? This time gave

00:40:44.429 --> 00:40:48.230
rise to the social gospel movement, which argued

00:40:48.230 --> 00:40:51.090
that Christian ethics demanded addressing poverty,

00:40:51.429 --> 00:40:55.190
child labor, inequality, and urban squalor, not

00:40:55.190 --> 00:40:57.849
just individual salvation. So you've got these

00:40:57.849 --> 00:41:01.530
bigger picture, I think, coming out of the Gilded

00:41:01.530 --> 00:41:04.150
Age. It's works. It's basically all about the

00:41:04.150 --> 00:41:08.409
importance of works as a demonstration of having

00:41:08.409 --> 00:41:11.170
a relationship with God there. And also there

00:41:11.170 --> 00:41:13.250
was more to work on. Because of all the changes

00:41:13.250 --> 00:41:15.489
you're discussing. There's more work to do. There's

00:41:15.489 --> 00:41:23.190
more work to do. The period saw continued mass

00:41:23.190 --> 00:41:27.150
evangelism, with Dwight L. Moody emerging as

00:41:27.150 --> 00:41:29.989
the defining revivalist figure, drawing enormous

00:41:29.989 --> 00:41:33.690
urban crowds in the 1870s and 80s. So it's kind

00:41:33.690 --> 00:41:36.809
of transitioning from a kind of rural movement

00:41:36.809 --> 00:41:41.800
to more urban. You're right. Yeah. We also saw

00:41:41.800 --> 00:41:44.960
the growth of new denominations like the YMCA

00:41:44.960 --> 00:41:48.519
and the YWCA. And they're more social reform,

00:41:48.840 --> 00:41:51.000
though. I mean, they're like a place for people

00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:53.519
to gather that, you know, wholesome activities

00:41:53.519 --> 00:41:56.739
are going to be indulged in there and so forth.

00:41:57.199 --> 00:42:00.179
Holiness and early Pentecostal movements began

00:42:00.179 --> 00:42:02.280
taking root toward the end of this period. And

00:42:02.280 --> 00:42:04.800
we're going to talk about some of that in a moment.

00:42:04.820 --> 00:42:07.300
I'm sure we are. Another thing I think that's

00:42:07.300 --> 00:42:08.940
kind of interesting, too, though, is before we

00:42:08.940 --> 00:42:12.250
go into more of the specific. There was another

00:42:12.250 --> 00:42:15.070
thing called the Chautauqua movement. Yes. It

00:42:15.070 --> 00:42:18.710
wasn't explicitly religious, but it was kind

00:42:18.710 --> 00:42:21.849
of a, it was sort of the TED talk of its day.

00:42:22.150 --> 00:42:24.610
Yes, it was. You would set up a tent, but it

00:42:24.610 --> 00:42:27.969
was a distinctly rural, nature -oriented kind

00:42:27.969 --> 00:42:30.050
of a movement. You'd set up a tent somewhere.

00:42:30.170 --> 00:42:31.989
People would come, put their money down, and

00:42:31.989 --> 00:42:35.070
you could see talks on all sorts of subjects.

00:42:35.369 --> 00:42:38.610
There was entertainment. It varied by which show

00:42:38.610 --> 00:42:43.239
you were going to. But then a lot of them became

00:42:43.239 --> 00:42:45.840
quite religious, explicitly religious in character.

00:42:45.920 --> 00:42:47.820
Not all of them. It wasn't explicitly a religious

00:42:47.820 --> 00:42:50.519
movement, but it accommodated that. And you sort

00:42:50.519 --> 00:42:53.139
of had a tent revival kind of atmosphere in some

00:42:53.139 --> 00:42:54.900
of these chautauquas, as they called them, that

00:42:54.900 --> 00:42:58.219
happened. And they were quite popular from the

00:42:58.219 --> 00:43:01.039
late 19th century on into the early 20th century.

00:43:01.960 --> 00:43:04.239
In the rural United States, it was a rural phenomenon.

00:43:05.099 --> 00:43:08.199
So it had an issue of like getting into nature,

00:43:08.280 --> 00:43:10.739
but then doing things in nature. It was kind

00:43:10.739 --> 00:43:12.679
of what it had to do with. But then there became

00:43:12.679 --> 00:43:16.059
a religious aspect to it. And Methodists in particular,

00:43:16.119 --> 00:43:17.780
I think, were involved in the Chautauqua movement.

00:43:17.780 --> 00:43:21.039
Well, the guy that I'm named after, he did some

00:43:21.039 --> 00:43:25.179
early exploration of the Great Plains. And so

00:43:25.179 --> 00:43:27.659
he would participate in the Chautauqua movement.

00:43:28.059 --> 00:43:30.360
But he wasn't talking so much about religion

00:43:30.360 --> 00:43:33.880
as he was talking about, you know, Mesa Verde.

00:43:34.559 --> 00:43:36.539
This is what I discovered at Mesa Verde, and

00:43:36.539 --> 00:43:38.239
he had some artifacts that he would bring along

00:43:38.239 --> 00:43:40.480
for his talks and things. But it was an outlet

00:43:40.480 --> 00:43:43.139
for religious expression of some kind, or religious

00:43:43.139 --> 00:43:45.500
conversion, all sorts of... There was a religious

00:43:45.500 --> 00:43:48.559
aspect to some of the Chautauqua events. And

00:43:48.559 --> 00:43:50.059
it's significant enough to note that this was

00:43:50.059 --> 00:43:53.480
a vehicle for further religious evangelization

00:43:53.480 --> 00:44:11.300
and communication and those kind of things. In

00:44:11.300 --> 00:44:13.599
short, the second Great Awakening, I'm taking

00:44:13.599 --> 00:44:16.500
a step back, democratized American religion and

00:44:16.500 --> 00:44:20.039
energized 19th century reform causes. The third

00:44:20.039 --> 00:44:22.599
Great Awakening deepened the connection between

00:44:22.599 --> 00:44:25.519
faith and social justice, as we've been covering.

00:44:25.519 --> 00:44:28.380
And it's more urban, isn't it? Laying the groundwork

00:44:28.380 --> 00:44:30.659
for the progressive era. Yes, it's definitely

00:44:30.659 --> 00:44:35.360
more urban and less frontier -ish, rural -centered.

00:44:35.639 --> 00:44:39.179
So it moves from faith into civil society, into

00:44:39.179 --> 00:44:42.539
public policy. into social issues. I'm not saying

00:44:42.539 --> 00:44:45.159
it's not faith -based, but it moves into that.

00:44:45.320 --> 00:44:46.699
You're going to continue to see temperance. You're

00:44:46.699 --> 00:44:49.460
going to continue to see the women's suffrage,

00:44:49.519 --> 00:44:53.039
some of these more rights -oriented, but you

00:44:53.039 --> 00:44:56.239
also see the poverty, child labor, inequality,

00:44:56.780 --> 00:44:59.760
urban squalor being... wanted to be addressed

00:44:59.760 --> 00:45:02.519
in society. And I'd still say, okay, this is,

00:45:02.539 --> 00:45:06.199
you know, you have faith as an element, but you

00:45:06.199 --> 00:45:08.219
also have works as well. And so this is works.

00:45:08.260 --> 00:45:11.320
This is basically people who are opting for that

00:45:11.320 --> 00:45:15.639
in an urban setting, more so than what we're

00:45:15.639 --> 00:45:19.099
seeing in people who are having, you know, transcendental

00:45:19.099 --> 00:45:21.980
religious experiences where... God is talking

00:45:21.980 --> 00:45:25.780
to them or they are experiencing. I think there's

00:45:25.780 --> 00:45:28.059
still some of that. There is some of that, but

00:45:28.059 --> 00:45:30.780
I'd say that you have kind of like, do you have

00:45:30.780 --> 00:45:33.480
a lot of that in the social gospel tradition?

00:45:34.199 --> 00:45:38.480
I would think not, just because of its orientation.

00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:41.139
Maybe they could have revelations, but people

00:45:41.139 --> 00:45:43.639
are not going to be speaking in tongues about

00:45:43.639 --> 00:45:46.920
slum clearance. That comes a little later. Okay.

00:45:47.119 --> 00:45:50.139
We have some of that. The third great awakening,

00:45:50.860 --> 00:45:53.679
was very fertile ground for new religious movements,

00:45:53.860 --> 00:45:56.260
including Pentecostalism. I was going to get

00:45:56.260 --> 00:45:58.719
to that. Well, yes, yes. Where you do have speaking

00:45:58.719 --> 00:46:01.739
in tongues. So at this time, we have the social

00:46:01.739 --> 00:46:06.079
gospel movement, which is probably more big picture

00:46:06.079 --> 00:46:10.679
societal reforms. And then you also have Pentecostalism,

00:46:10.840 --> 00:46:13.820
which was perhaps the most consequential development

00:46:13.820 --> 00:46:18.380
in the Third Great Awakening. But there's relationship

00:46:18.380 --> 00:46:20.360
between the two. Because they're both third.

00:46:20.639 --> 00:46:22.880
Third Great Awakening, but they seem to have

00:46:22.880 --> 00:46:25.079
different priorities there. Different priorities.

00:46:25.300 --> 00:46:28.840
Whereas you've got social gospel is about maybe

00:46:28.840 --> 00:46:32.139
fixing the world, and Pentecostal... Create the

00:46:32.139 --> 00:46:34.820
kingdom of God on earth. Yes. By fixing social

00:46:34.820 --> 00:46:38.079
problems, perform, you know, work for the public

00:46:38.079 --> 00:46:41.320
good, create institutional change. Yeah. And

00:46:41.320 --> 00:46:44.789
then for Pentecostal, it's more like... Things

00:46:44.789 --> 00:46:47.989
like speaking in tongues and healing and having

00:46:47.989 --> 00:46:52.150
these profound spiritual experiences. The social

00:46:52.150 --> 00:46:55.130
gospel wanted to focus on solving, on applying

00:46:55.130 --> 00:46:58.010
Christian ethics to social problems. So they

00:46:58.010 --> 00:46:59.550
would be concerned about things like poverty,

00:46:59.710 --> 00:47:04.289
alcoholism, crime, racial inequality. Child labor.

00:47:04.449 --> 00:47:06.769
Poor working conditions, things like child labor.

00:47:06.909 --> 00:47:09.849
So they were focused on social reform, the public

00:47:09.849 --> 00:47:12.989
good, whereas the Pentecostals criticized that.

00:47:13.710 --> 00:47:16.250
they thought that a focus on good works, like

00:47:16.250 --> 00:47:19.110
the social gospel preached, and a focus on systemic

00:47:19.110 --> 00:47:21.210
reform would distract from the core mission.

00:47:21.929 --> 00:47:23.949
And the core mission of Christianity for them

00:47:23.949 --> 00:47:26.329
was preaching personal salvation and preparing

00:47:26.329 --> 00:47:29.030
for Christ's imminent return. So the social gospel

00:47:29.030 --> 00:47:31.059
wanted to fix things in the here and now. The

00:47:31.059 --> 00:47:32.940
way I would summarize it. The Pentecostals were

00:47:32.940 --> 00:47:34.639
saying the here and now is a transitory thing.

00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:38.119
We need to focus on the afterlife and eternity.

00:47:38.340 --> 00:47:40.460
We have to prepare for that. The end times are

00:47:40.460 --> 00:47:42.360
coming. The end times are coming. The Pentecostals

00:47:42.360 --> 00:47:44.039
are highly supernatural. They're a very conservative

00:47:44.039 --> 00:47:47.039
movement. Yeah. They emphasize speaking in tongues,

00:47:47.260 --> 00:47:51.360
faith healing, altar calls, laying on of hands,

00:47:51.579 --> 00:47:54.860
that kind of thing. Individual salvation. Very

00:47:54.860 --> 00:47:57.480
emotional approach to worship. Direct experience

00:47:57.480 --> 00:48:01.960
of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, and that, again, I

00:48:01.960 --> 00:48:04.820
would say, to get back to my original point,

00:48:04.980 --> 00:48:07.179
I would imagine if you were living somewhere

00:48:07.179 --> 00:48:09.980
and your life is rather drab, a trip to church

00:48:09.980 --> 00:48:12.980
is probably going to be better than Star Wars

00:48:12.980 --> 00:48:17.559
at this point. Right. Now, we also have the rise

00:48:17.559 --> 00:48:21.800
of the Holiness Movement, which was a break from

00:48:21.800 --> 00:48:25.260
Methodism, emphasizing John Wesley's doctrine

00:48:25.260 --> 00:48:29.050
of entire sanctification. A second blessing of

00:48:29.050 --> 00:48:32.670
grace. It produced denominations like the Church

00:48:32.670 --> 00:48:36.070
of the Nazarene and the Wesleyan Church. So what

00:48:36.070 --> 00:48:40.010
are they getting at then in those? I guess what

00:48:40.010 --> 00:48:42.530
I'm asking is, what does that mean? What do those

00:48:42.530 --> 00:48:44.409
terms mean? What is it that they're preaching

00:48:44.409 --> 00:48:46.289
that's opposed to something else we've discussed?

00:48:46.610 --> 00:48:49.889
The holiness movement emphasized what's called

00:48:49.889 --> 00:48:53.719
entire sanctification, or... Christian perfection,

00:48:54.039 --> 00:48:56.719
the belief that a born -again Christian can experience

00:48:56.719 --> 00:48:59.219
a second blessing where they are cleansed of

00:48:59.219 --> 00:49:02.480
original sin and empowered to live a holy life.

00:49:03.179 --> 00:49:08.769
The believers would hold that conversion is the

00:49:08.769 --> 00:49:11.429
first step. Following this, a believer can experience

00:49:11.429 --> 00:49:15.289
an instantaneous or gradual second work of grace,

00:49:15.409 --> 00:49:18.690
which is called sanctification, to purify the

00:49:18.690 --> 00:49:22.150
heart. And once they have received the Holy Spirit

00:49:22.150 --> 00:49:25.449
in this way, they are enabled to stop willfully

00:49:25.449 --> 00:49:30.440
sinning. it advocated a very conservative lifestyle

00:49:30.440 --> 00:49:34.500
which would prohibit worldly practices such as

00:49:34.500 --> 00:49:37.900
drinking gambling dancing using makeup and wearing

00:49:37.900 --> 00:49:42.199
ostentatious jewelry now this movement the holiness

00:49:42.199 --> 00:49:45.260
movement was was very foundational in the rise

00:49:45.260 --> 00:49:52.329
of pentecostalism The Third Great Awakening gave

00:49:52.329 --> 00:49:55.570
rise to new denominations and movements, including

00:49:55.570 --> 00:49:57.909
Pentecostalism, which we've talked about and

00:49:57.909 --> 00:50:00.670
we're going to circle back to, the Holiness Movement,

00:50:01.070 --> 00:50:05.449
the Salvation Army, Christian Science, Jehovah's

00:50:05.449 --> 00:50:07.809
Witnesses, and even the New Thought Movement,

00:50:07.909 --> 00:50:11.409
which was a loosely organized spiritual movement

00:50:11.409 --> 00:50:14.789
emphasizing the power of positive thinking and

00:50:14.789 --> 00:50:17.050
mind over matter, influencing later movements

00:50:17.050 --> 00:50:20.519
like the Unity Church. And again, all of these

00:50:20.519 --> 00:50:25.659
are kind of responding to the historical circumstances

00:50:25.659 --> 00:50:28.239
that we're seeing, the kind of changing world,

00:50:28.360 --> 00:50:32.559
which is kind of the Industrial Revolution and

00:50:32.559 --> 00:50:35.760
the United States during the Gilded Age. And

00:50:35.760 --> 00:50:38.400
some of them say, like the social gospel movement,

00:50:38.639 --> 00:50:43.369
they're focusing on... making the world a better

00:50:43.369 --> 00:50:47.110
place, correcting ills, salvation through works,

00:50:47.210 --> 00:50:50.170
so to speak. Right. And then you have groups

00:50:50.170 --> 00:50:53.670
like the Pentecostals and others who are more

00:50:53.670 --> 00:50:57.710
focused inwardly about achieving some sort of

00:50:57.710 --> 00:51:01.030
spiritual perfection in preparation for the coming

00:51:01.030 --> 00:51:05.659
end of days and the afterlife. which is their

00:51:05.659 --> 00:51:08.440
focus. I mean, it's kind of interesting. I'm

00:51:08.440 --> 00:51:10.460
just going to go off a little bit on the tangent

00:51:10.460 --> 00:51:14.639
with the social gospels. In the 30s, a lot of

00:51:14.639 --> 00:51:16.340
people would accuse Roosevelt's administration

00:51:16.340 --> 00:51:20.800
of being informed by Marxists. Most of the people

00:51:20.800 --> 00:51:24.039
that are big -time players in the New Deal are

00:51:24.039 --> 00:51:27.619
going to be people who are adherents or familiar

00:51:27.619 --> 00:51:31.980
with the social gospel movement. I went down

00:51:41.649 --> 00:51:45.849
Both the Second and Third Great Awakenings followed

00:51:45.849 --> 00:51:50.309
a similar logic. Intense revivalism created spiritual

00:51:50.309 --> 00:51:54.010
energy that sometimes flowed outside mainline

00:51:54.010 --> 00:51:56.570
Protestant channels, producing groups that pushed

00:51:56.570 --> 00:51:59.909
beyond Orthodox Christianity in distinctive directions.

00:52:00.760 --> 00:52:03.599
whether towards new prophecies such as the Mormons,

00:52:03.659 --> 00:52:07.840
divine healing, Pentecostals, or metaphysical

00:52:07.840 --> 00:52:10.840
reinterpretation such as Christian science and

00:52:10.840 --> 00:52:14.239
New Thought Movement. As an outgrowth of the

00:52:14.239 --> 00:52:17.300
Second and Third Great Awakenings, there began

00:52:17.300 --> 00:52:20.719
to be debates among Christian communities over

00:52:20.719 --> 00:52:24.230
what we call eschatology. which would be the

00:52:24.230 --> 00:52:26.889
Christian end times, how they would happen and

00:52:26.889 --> 00:52:29.409
when they would happen. And there were some who

00:52:29.409 --> 00:52:34.269
thought that those end time descriptions in Revelation

00:52:34.269 --> 00:52:37.250
had already happened, and others that thought

00:52:37.250 --> 00:52:41.809
they were yet to come. Some people will look

00:52:41.809 --> 00:52:46.010
at Revelation as a kind of metaphor for the times

00:52:46.010 --> 00:52:52.440
of, say, Nero. And say amongst people like Elaine

00:52:52.440 --> 00:52:55.340
Pagels, who has written on Revelation, she will

00:52:55.340 --> 00:52:59.500
say, this is all meant to be a portrait of the

00:52:59.500 --> 00:53:02.940
world at the time of Nero. And there's various

00:53:02.940 --> 00:53:05.400
references in there which people have interpreted.

00:53:05.820 --> 00:53:08.820
You know, the whore of Babylon, a beast with

00:53:08.820 --> 00:53:11.880
seven backs. This is all Rome. This is the whore

00:53:11.880 --> 00:53:15.579
of Babylon is basically Nero's crazy nymphomaniacal

00:53:15.579 --> 00:53:17.840
wife. This would be first century? Yeah, this

00:53:17.840 --> 00:53:23.139
is like in the 60s. So just for context, Nero

00:53:23.139 --> 00:53:28.400
ruled Rome from 54 to 68 of the Common Era. And

00:53:28.400 --> 00:53:32.239
this was a very tumultuous time for both early

00:53:32.239 --> 00:53:37.739
Christians and Jews. The Great Fire of Rome occurred

00:53:37.739 --> 00:53:43.340
in 64, and Nero was widely blamed for that. And

00:53:43.340 --> 00:53:45.940
in the aftermath of the fire, he scapegoated

00:53:45.940 --> 00:53:49.980
the Christians and began to persecute them. And

00:53:49.980 --> 00:53:55.280
both the apostle Peter and Paul, both of them

00:53:55.280 --> 00:54:00.400
were executed in Rome in the latter four years

00:54:00.400 --> 00:54:03.699
of Nero's reign. We don't have exact dates, but

00:54:03.699 --> 00:54:09.519
Peter was crucified upside down in Rome. somewhere

00:54:09.519 --> 00:54:12.880
between 64 and 68, and Paul is believed to have

00:54:12.880 --> 00:54:17.900
been beheaded in 67 or 68. This was a very, very

00:54:17.900 --> 00:54:21.239
fraught time for the early Christians, who were

00:54:21.239 --> 00:54:24.900
largely Jews at the time. They were known as

00:54:24.900 --> 00:54:28.019
followers of the way, and they were followers

00:54:28.019 --> 00:54:32.559
of Jesus, but again, mostly Jews. At the same

00:54:32.559 --> 00:54:36.550
time, or two years later, in 70, Rome engaged

00:54:36.550 --> 00:54:40.989
in a war with the Jews, which included a siege

00:54:40.989 --> 00:54:43.909
of Jerusalem, four or five months siege of Jerusalem,

00:54:44.030 --> 00:54:49.489
that ended with Jerusalem falling, and the Romans

00:54:49.489 --> 00:54:51.989
burned the temple and other elements of the city.

00:54:52.320 --> 00:54:55.980
And ultimately, a couple years later, in 73 or

00:54:55.980 --> 00:55:00.239
74, the last remaining holdouts of the Jews fell

00:55:00.239 --> 00:55:03.920
at Masada. They actually committed suicide rather

00:55:03.920 --> 00:55:07.460
than fall into the hands of the Romans. But that

00:55:07.460 --> 00:55:10.280
occurred in either 73 or 74. We're not exactly

00:55:10.280 --> 00:55:14.820
sure which. The point is that if the book of

00:55:14.820 --> 00:55:20.489
Revelation was written, in fact, to record these

00:55:20.489 --> 00:55:24.650
historical events in some manner, it is not surprising

00:55:24.650 --> 00:55:28.289
that the book was written in such allegorical,

00:55:28.309 --> 00:55:32.969
visionary terms and apocalyptic terms, because

00:55:32.969 --> 00:55:37.110
it was reflecting an enormously tumultuous time

00:55:37.110 --> 00:55:42.389
for early Christians and Jews. Well, Revelation

00:55:42.389 --> 00:55:49.239
was written in the early 100s. Late 90s, early

00:55:49.239 --> 00:55:52.300
100s. So one would think, and it was written

00:55:52.300 --> 00:55:55.659
by the author of John, one would think that these

00:55:55.659 --> 00:55:59.659
were revelations or visions of things that had

00:55:59.659 --> 00:56:01.920
already happened. One would think that. And again,

00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:05.099
when people write these things in the 100s for

00:56:05.099 --> 00:56:07.880
the Bible, the period that they're reflecting

00:56:07.880 --> 00:56:10.960
is not the period that they're written in. In

00:56:10.960 --> 00:56:13.760
the sense that they're written later. Right.

00:56:13.800 --> 00:56:17.840
Much later in some cases. Right. They're not.

00:56:18.219 --> 00:56:23.400
They're mythos as opposed to logos. This is definitely

00:56:23.400 --> 00:56:28.260
mythos taking dominance. If you take the Nero

00:56:28.260 --> 00:56:30.559
idea, right? So these things happen in Nero's

00:56:30.559 --> 00:56:32.840
times in the first century. I'm going to write

00:56:32.840 --> 00:56:36.340
a story about that, a legend. I'm going to create

00:56:36.340 --> 00:56:39.079
a myth, a legend about that, which is instructive.

00:56:39.079 --> 00:56:42.539
Yes. Which is more instructive or helps to instruct

00:56:42.539 --> 00:56:46.019
more than. The logo side of it alone, describing

00:56:46.019 --> 00:56:48.760
the actual history of it. Yes. And that would

00:56:48.760 --> 00:56:50.480
be maybe a way of looking at it. If you do look

00:56:50.480 --> 00:56:52.340
at it that way, then your eschatology would be

00:56:52.340 --> 00:56:53.659
that this is all stuff that's already happened.

00:56:54.159 --> 00:56:57.099
But for others, like you said, Blake, it's something

00:56:57.099 --> 00:56:58.460
that's going to happen often in the future. It's

00:56:58.460 --> 00:57:02.059
written in such a mythological language and visions

00:57:02.059 --> 00:57:07.469
that you can... Interpret it as things to come.

00:57:07.829 --> 00:57:11.449
Prophecy. Revelation almost didn't make it into

00:57:11.449 --> 00:57:14.710
the Bible. I was going to say that. But because

00:57:14.710 --> 00:57:16.369
you can interpret it either way, you can see

00:57:16.369 --> 00:57:19.409
where these different eschatological differences

00:57:19.409 --> 00:57:25.519
came from. And one idea came to... dominate,

00:57:25.559 --> 00:57:29.420
to take root in Pentecostal circles. And this

00:57:29.420 --> 00:57:32.820
was the idea of the rapture and the millennial

00:57:32.820 --> 00:57:39.340
year reign. And this actually was spread widely

00:57:39.340 --> 00:57:42.260
in America through the Schofield Reference Bible,

00:57:42.500 --> 00:57:46.579
which came out in 1909. And I have my mother's

00:57:46.579 --> 00:57:50.289
copy of it right here. It embedded notes directly

00:57:50.289 --> 00:57:52.590
into the biblical text that became enormously

00:57:52.590 --> 00:57:56.309
influential in evangelical and eventually Pentecostal

00:57:56.309 --> 00:58:00.510
circles. Now, the word rapture comes from the

00:58:00.510 --> 00:58:04.889
Latin rapturo, which was a translation of the

00:58:04.889 --> 00:58:11.489
Greek harpezo, which means caught up in 1 Thessalonians

00:58:11.489 --> 00:58:16.099
4 .17. The doctrine holds that before or during

00:58:16.099 --> 00:58:19.420
a seven -year period of global tribulation, Christ

00:58:19.420 --> 00:58:23.139
will secretly and suddenly remove all true believers

00:58:23.139 --> 00:58:26.639
from the earth. This is the rapture. The dead

00:58:26.639 --> 00:58:29.579
in Christ rise first, then living believers are

00:58:29.579 --> 00:58:33.320
caught up to meet him. Those left behind face

00:58:33.320 --> 00:58:35.880
the reign of the Antichrist. Now this is the...

00:58:36.570 --> 00:58:39.289
tribulation period yes which is not that long

00:58:39.289 --> 00:58:42.909
seven years yes but you would if you were left

00:58:42.909 --> 00:58:45.829
and you're not raptured out then you might you

00:58:45.829 --> 00:58:49.969
might be tortured or killed or both and this

00:58:49.969 --> 00:58:52.690
does have a you know if if you buy into that

00:58:52.690 --> 00:58:56.409
that's it's meant to be a powerful impact to

00:58:56.409 --> 00:58:59.730
be on the side of uh the of god's elect there

00:58:59.730 --> 00:59:01.949
so you're not being tortured and you're not being

00:59:01.949 --> 00:59:06.380
being uh It's an incentive. It provides the impetus

00:59:06.380 --> 00:59:10.159
to save souls. Yes. To go out and evangelize,

00:59:10.159 --> 00:59:13.559
to send missionaries, because you never know

00:59:13.559 --> 00:59:17.880
when that's going to happen. Yes. Now, the thousand

00:59:17.880 --> 00:59:21.639
-year reign is based primarily on Revelation

00:59:21.639 --> 00:59:26.500
20, verses 1 through 6. And after the seven -year

00:59:26.500 --> 00:59:29.440
tribulation, Christ physically returns to earth.

00:59:30.199 --> 00:59:33.159
Satan is then bound for 1 ,000 years, so you

00:59:33.159 --> 00:59:36.559
get the... the thousand -year reign. Christ then

00:59:36.559 --> 00:59:39.579
reigns on earth from Jerusalem with resurrected

00:59:39.579 --> 00:59:42.559
saints in a golden age of peace and justice.

00:59:43.079 --> 00:59:46.380
After the millennium, Satan is released briefly

00:59:46.380 --> 00:59:50.000
and defeated finally at Armageddon, and the last

00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:54.159
judgment occurs. This is an example of mythos

00:59:54.159 --> 00:59:57.619
over logos, I would argue. But from a personal

00:59:57.619 --> 01:00:03.320
standpoint, when I was about 12, I began hearing

01:00:03.320 --> 01:00:07.360
these stories from my mother, that the end times

01:00:07.360 --> 01:00:11.880
were coming and she would point to events that

01:00:11.880 --> 01:00:14.300
were happening in the Middle East and Israel's

01:00:14.300 --> 01:00:18.760
at war and this is happening and that I wanted

01:00:18.760 --> 01:00:21.519
to be raptured out. And I was being asked at

01:00:21.519 --> 01:00:25.579
12, I didn't know any context for this. So it

01:00:25.579 --> 01:00:31.010
came rather abruptly to me. But I was explained

01:00:31.010 --> 01:00:34.110
all of this when I was a young man, so it kind

01:00:34.110 --> 01:00:37.949
of stuck with me. But one could argue that the

01:00:37.949 --> 01:00:41.820
events triggering the end times, I mean... You

01:00:41.820 --> 01:00:45.039
could pick any point in history just about and

01:00:45.039 --> 01:00:48.119
suggest that they're coming. I mean, I've been

01:00:48.119 --> 01:00:50.500
hearing this because I had more contact with

01:00:50.500 --> 01:00:53.380
more relatives than you did. But I have heard

01:00:53.380 --> 01:00:57.199
this since I was like five or six that any day

01:00:57.199 --> 01:01:01.239
now this is going to happen. And I feel like

01:01:01.239 --> 01:01:04.860
this is, you know, we go back to the time with

01:01:04.860 --> 01:01:09.090
the Seventh -day Adventist. And in the 1830s,

01:01:09.090 --> 01:01:10.929
and this is when this starts to become popular,

01:01:11.070 --> 01:01:16.269
this idea that the world is going to end. I mean,

01:01:16.289 --> 01:01:18.989
in some respects, this makes things very palatable

01:01:18.989 --> 01:01:21.940
to people. If they're disappointed in their lives,

01:01:22.219 --> 01:01:24.719
they at least have this to look forward to. And

01:01:24.719 --> 01:01:26.800
all those smarty people who are going around

01:01:26.800 --> 01:01:29.179
preaching things like the social gospel and other

01:01:29.179 --> 01:01:32.420
things equally disturbing, they're going to get

01:01:32.420 --> 01:01:35.420
theirs in the end. Now, to me, that does not

01:01:35.420 --> 01:01:38.260
sound Christian to me. That sounds sort of revenge

01:01:38.260 --> 01:01:40.840
-oriented and petty -minded and small -minded.

01:01:44.059 --> 01:01:46.420
And kind of at odds with the religion you claim

01:01:46.420 --> 01:01:49.320
that you support here. But this becomes very,

01:01:49.500 --> 01:01:51.980
you know, as people's lives are being changed

01:01:51.980 --> 01:01:55.579
by industrialization and post -industrialization

01:01:55.579 --> 01:01:59.320
and now artificial intelligence, people are going

01:01:59.320 --> 01:02:02.300
to find this idea, I would argue, very appealing

01:02:02.300 --> 01:02:06.550
because it, you know. In a life of confusion,

01:02:06.809 --> 01:02:10.170
this gives you some meaning. This gives your

01:02:10.170 --> 01:02:13.469
life dignity and meaning that it otherwise would

01:02:13.469 --> 01:02:18.210
not have by any other means. This is a way of

01:02:18.210 --> 01:02:21.530
making your life mean something and have significance

01:02:21.530 --> 01:02:25.989
that other people would not necessarily ascribe

01:02:25.989 --> 01:02:30.929
to what the events are. So if we're going to

01:02:30.929 --> 01:02:33.440
talk about this... Two, I think we need to talk

01:02:33.440 --> 01:02:36.139
about this from a political and how this impacts

01:02:36.139 --> 01:02:40.500
current day -to -day existence. The governor

01:02:40.500 --> 01:02:44.480
of Arkansas, who is now the ambassador to Israel,

01:02:44.679 --> 01:02:49.059
is a huge believer in this and a huge believer

01:02:49.059 --> 01:02:51.300
in Christian nationalism and a huge believer

01:02:51.300 --> 01:02:55.239
in the rapture and a huge believer in things

01:02:55.239 --> 01:02:58.659
of this ilk. I would say Christian nationalism

01:02:58.659 --> 01:03:02.440
arose out of the evangelical Pentecost. Yes.

01:03:02.880 --> 01:03:07.079
And again, their principles, even though they're

01:03:07.079 --> 01:03:09.480
claiming, and some people who don't even believe

01:03:09.480 --> 01:03:12.440
this think that they're tapping into something

01:03:12.440 --> 01:03:16.940
that goes back centuries. No, it does not. It's

01:03:16.940 --> 01:03:19.559
basically something that at best you can say

01:03:19.559 --> 01:03:22.440
1830, but more likely you're going to get it

01:03:22.440 --> 01:03:26.639
in the late 1800s. But I would say most of this

01:03:26.639 --> 01:03:31.630
stuff is like 60s. 1960s. 1960s. Yes. Because,

01:03:31.650 --> 01:03:36.510
I mean, people, you have evangelists who are

01:03:36.510 --> 01:03:37.989
really... Well, it's in the Schofield Bible.

01:03:38.190 --> 01:03:40.869
Yes. So that's 1909. But people are pulling it

01:03:40.869 --> 01:03:44.630
out in the Schofield Bible. It's just because

01:03:44.630 --> 01:03:49.199
there is a Schofield Bible in 1909. That's right.

01:03:49.280 --> 01:03:52.480
1909. 1909. It doesn't mean that everybody reads

01:03:52.480 --> 01:03:54.800
it and everybody gets it at that moment. It's

01:03:54.800 --> 01:03:57.960
a process. Ideas diffuse through the society.

01:03:57.980 --> 01:04:02.199
And I'd say in the 60s, when things really come

01:04:02.199 --> 01:04:07.639
unhinged socially. These sorts of ideas become

01:04:07.639 --> 01:04:09.980
more appealing to people who are not necessarily

01:04:09.980 --> 01:04:13.079
buying into how wonderful it is that society

01:04:13.079 --> 01:04:15.480
is changing for the better here. People who are

01:04:15.480 --> 01:04:17.380
kind of promoting this sort of social gospel

01:04:17.380 --> 01:04:22.179
vision, they're basically appalled by this, and

01:04:22.179 --> 01:04:26.719
they are seeking kind of a redress, and they

01:04:26.719 --> 01:04:28.760
find things very confusing. They're trying to

01:04:28.760 --> 01:04:32.250
fix society. The social gospel people are trying

01:04:32.250 --> 01:04:34.789
to do things to fix society, to improve society.

01:04:34.949 --> 01:04:36.789
Yes. The earthly world that we live in here.

01:04:36.849 --> 01:04:39.150
Yes. Trying to create heaven on earth. Trying

01:04:39.150 --> 01:04:41.530
to create heaven on earth. And this business

01:04:41.530 --> 01:04:44.929
about everybody being equal here, that sounds

01:04:44.929 --> 01:04:48.170
like something that's an easy thing for people

01:04:48.170 --> 01:04:51.130
to believe in, but it is difficult for certain

01:04:51.130 --> 01:04:53.690
people to believe in. And I would say that this

01:04:53.690 --> 01:04:58.000
approach to where you're looking for... The rapture

01:04:58.000 --> 01:05:01.019
and these bad people who are trying to make everybody

01:05:01.019 --> 01:05:05.139
equal, that is why this becomes more and more

01:05:05.139 --> 01:05:07.000
appealing as time progresses. Well, there is

01:05:07.000 --> 01:05:10.119
a strain of evangelical Christianity in the United

01:05:10.119 --> 01:05:13.019
States. Yes. Which holds that the United States

01:05:13.019 --> 01:05:17.800
is essentially God's chosen country. God made

01:05:17.800 --> 01:05:21.019
sure the United States was created to carry forward

01:05:21.019 --> 01:05:23.480
his will on earth. I mean, I suppose exactly

01:05:23.480 --> 01:05:25.179
what that means would depend on the person you're

01:05:25.179 --> 01:05:28.920
talking to. But that there is a, that the United

01:05:28.920 --> 01:05:32.019
States has a mission given to it by God, specifically

01:05:32.019 --> 01:05:35.059
a Christian mission given to it by God. By a

01:05:35.059 --> 01:05:37.320
Christian God. By a Christian God to carry out

01:05:37.320 --> 01:05:41.280
what he wants. And then there's a strain within

01:05:41.280 --> 01:05:46.480
that of evangelical Christianity. who believes

01:05:46.480 --> 01:05:49.179
that, and that's for European people, white people

01:05:49.179 --> 01:05:53.780
who came over here, not for anybody else, that

01:05:53.780 --> 01:05:56.079
it's supposed to be for white Christians. And

01:05:56.079 --> 01:05:57.599
that's where this Christian nationalist idea

01:05:57.599 --> 01:06:02.239
really comes from. Yes. These beliefs are supposedly,

01:06:02.320 --> 01:06:06.039
you know, biblical in nature. I guess God gave

01:06:06.039 --> 01:06:07.840
up on the old world, decided to create a new

01:06:07.840 --> 01:06:09.980
one over here, and chose the United States to

01:06:09.980 --> 01:06:13.260
be his agent for doing things the right way,

01:06:13.320 --> 01:06:15.360
finally, over in this part of the world. But

01:06:15.360 --> 01:06:17.460
only for us, and only for the Europeans that

01:06:17.460 --> 01:06:18.900
came over and founded the place. Only for the

01:06:18.900 --> 01:06:20.800
white folks that came over here, right? Not for

01:06:20.800 --> 01:06:23.739
anybody else. I mean, historically, what's wrong

01:06:23.739 --> 01:06:26.179
with this is that none of these people, as we

01:06:26.179 --> 01:06:29.860
saw, came and settled in the United States with

01:06:29.860 --> 01:06:33.039
a common series of beliefs. All of the belief

01:06:33.039 --> 01:06:35.460
systems that we're seeing coming over here, Quakers,

01:06:35.739 --> 01:06:39.280
Puritans, you know, even if we're talking Dutch

01:06:39.280 --> 01:06:41.940
Reformed, Episcopalian Catholics, they are all

01:06:41.940 --> 01:06:45.079
at odds with each other. So there is no consensus

01:06:45.079 --> 01:06:49.099
of belief system that comes with the settling

01:06:49.099 --> 01:06:52.300
of the United States by English colonists. Yeah,

01:06:52.300 --> 01:06:54.880
you made the point that Christianity isn't just

01:06:54.880 --> 01:06:58.599
a religion. It's a whole set of religious traditions

01:06:58.599 --> 01:07:00.059
that often are incompatible with one another.

01:07:00.440 --> 01:07:02.800
Yes. Faith traditions. There's not one Christianity.

01:07:02.960 --> 01:07:05.900
There's not one Christianity. You have to go

01:07:05.900 --> 01:07:08.480
back to the Middle Ages. And, of course, everybody

01:07:08.480 --> 01:07:10.360
that we're looking at from the Protestant side

01:07:10.360 --> 01:07:14.079
says that's wrong. They went on the wrong path

01:07:14.079 --> 01:07:18.059
when they came up with this one Catholic apostolic

01:07:18.059 --> 01:07:22.820
church. That is wrong. That was a step. With

01:07:22.820 --> 01:07:29.300
all the smells and bells and rituals and things,

01:07:29.380 --> 01:07:32.519
that was the wrong step. In the United States,

01:07:32.539 --> 01:07:36.059
we have the idea that there is no official church,

01:07:36.139 --> 01:07:38.900
and because there is no official church, and

01:07:38.900 --> 01:07:42.780
religion is supposed to remain behind this wall

01:07:42.780 --> 01:07:47.019
of separation, as Madison called it, from the

01:07:47.019 --> 01:07:51.230
civic life. You can have Pentecostals. You can

01:07:51.230 --> 01:07:54.730
have Wesleyans. That's why I think that that

01:07:54.730 --> 01:07:58.809
prevails so much in this country. that you have

01:07:58.809 --> 01:08:02.670
these different religious and faith allegiances

01:08:02.670 --> 01:08:06.750
to different ideas. But when you get to a lot

01:08:06.750 --> 01:08:09.369
of these things, it is the triumph of something

01:08:09.369 --> 01:08:12.030
like the rapture. That is the triumph of mythos

01:08:12.030 --> 01:08:14.610
over logos. And this idea of the United States

01:08:14.610 --> 01:08:18.430
being God's instrument, show me where that, you

01:08:18.430 --> 01:08:23.130
know, there is no doctrine. There is no moment.

01:08:24.029 --> 01:08:27.310
where we have God coming out of the sky and basically

01:08:27.310 --> 01:08:31.609
handing George Washington golden tablets here

01:08:31.609 --> 01:08:33.489
and saying, okay, this is your mission, George,

01:08:33.670 --> 01:08:36.489
and this is the mission. There is none of that.

01:08:36.569 --> 01:08:39.329
There is just people making assumptions and people

01:08:39.329 --> 01:08:42.810
saying things that maybe sound nice, but they're

01:08:42.810 --> 01:08:46.260
not necessarily. any way that you can, like,

01:08:46.260 --> 01:08:48.939
substantiate this with any sort of text or any

01:08:48.939 --> 01:08:52.359
sort of, like, basis for it. So when would we

01:08:52.359 --> 01:08:55.279
say that the idea that this is a Christian nation

01:08:55.279 --> 01:08:59.020
evolved? I think it happens, you know, when you

01:08:59.020 --> 01:09:01.979
were talking about, you know, like the moral

01:09:01.979 --> 01:09:04.659
majority earlier, when we were talking about

01:09:04.659 --> 01:09:15.399
that, I think that that's... You see, I don't

01:09:15.399 --> 01:09:18.460
remember this. I don't think I mentioned that

01:09:18.460 --> 01:09:21.880
on air. I think I was actually. That's what I

01:09:21.880 --> 01:09:23.880
meant when we were discussing this earlier. Yes.

01:09:23.899 --> 01:09:25.680
When we were discussing it. But it's like you

01:09:25.680 --> 01:09:30.180
have these people evolve here with this notion,

01:09:30.520 --> 01:09:34.420
but I don't remember. Growing up in Louisiana,

01:09:34.859 --> 01:09:38.699
that is an idea that had a lot of currency. I

01:09:38.699 --> 01:09:41.239
didn't hear that one either. I just heard about

01:09:41.239 --> 01:09:43.500
the end times. Well, I heard about the end times

01:09:43.500 --> 01:09:49.880
too. The idea that I heard was that there were

01:09:49.880 --> 01:09:52.140
all sorts of different religions, some of them

01:09:52.140 --> 01:09:55.060
Christian, some of them not. And this is Louisiana,

01:09:55.100 --> 01:09:56.880
I'm going to say. It's not Greenwich Village.

01:09:57.159 --> 01:09:59.600
And that all of them are worthy of respect and

01:09:59.600 --> 01:10:03.699
all of them should be treated equally here. And

01:10:03.699 --> 01:10:06.420
the idea that God has this particular mission

01:10:06.420 --> 01:10:10.420
for us may be some of that when I was a child,

01:10:10.439 --> 01:10:14.479
but it kind of involved. Israel, you know, as

01:10:14.479 --> 01:10:17.640
sort of like the establishment of Israel as a

01:10:17.640 --> 01:10:22.579
precursor to the end times and such. But that's

01:10:22.579 --> 01:10:26.300
not necessarily a mainstream idea for everybody.

01:10:26.699 --> 01:10:29.539
I mean, that is definitely, you get more into

01:10:29.539 --> 01:10:33.619
Pentecostal, you get more into like extreme Protestant

01:10:33.619 --> 01:10:37.840
elements that believe this. I mean, what's interesting

01:10:37.840 --> 01:10:40.880
about this, if you look at the the sort of like

01:10:40.880 --> 01:10:47.140
interplay between, say, some of the more religious,

01:10:47.220 --> 01:10:51.500
less secular members of Israeli politics and

01:10:51.500 --> 01:10:56.380
the right -wing forces over here, there is stuff

01:10:56.380 --> 01:11:00.119
that the kind of Christian nationalists believe

01:11:00.119 --> 01:11:04.460
that one of the things that will happen if there

01:11:04.460 --> 01:11:08.510
is this apocalypse is that Judaism gets eliminated

01:11:08.510 --> 01:11:10.770
because they all convert at this point. That's

01:11:10.770 --> 01:11:13.670
part and parcel of this thousand years, that

01:11:13.670 --> 01:11:17.569
Judaism disappears after two -thirds of them

01:11:17.569 --> 01:11:21.229
are eliminated by the Antichrist, something that

01:11:21.229 --> 01:11:25.130
would make Hitler's mere six million seem like

01:11:25.130 --> 01:11:28.289
a drop in the bucket there, just to put some

01:11:28.289 --> 01:11:31.210
context into it. And so, in a sense, you have

01:11:31.210 --> 01:11:35.350
people who are Zionists who are supporting a

01:11:35.350 --> 01:11:39.789
movement that basically is looking for the elimination

01:11:39.789 --> 01:11:43.569
of Zionists and other people who are Jewish as

01:11:43.569 --> 01:11:46.649
part of their faith mission here. Again, that

01:11:46.649 --> 01:11:48.529
doesn't strike me as being terribly Christian.

01:11:49.149 --> 01:11:51.869
That strikes me as being kind of petty and revenge

01:11:51.869 --> 01:12:08.899
-minded, but that's just me. I think that we've

01:12:08.899 --> 01:12:10.979
gotten maybe ahead of ourselves a bit here, though,

01:12:11.060 --> 01:12:15.300
by focusing on that outcome now. Okay. And the

01:12:15.300 --> 01:12:17.979
reason I say that is, is I think if we rewind

01:12:17.979 --> 01:12:22.020
back now to, you know, the second and third great

01:12:22.020 --> 01:12:24.359
awakenings, you know, the events of the 19th

01:12:24.359 --> 01:12:25.859
century, as you must always see in the manifest

01:12:25.859 --> 01:12:28.239
in the 20th and 21st centuries, but in the 19th

01:12:28.239 --> 01:12:31.300
century, I think what we have to conclude is

01:12:31.300 --> 01:12:34.979
that the founders, with their age of enlightenment

01:12:34.979 --> 01:12:39.659
deist christian rationalist point of view gave

01:12:39.659 --> 01:12:44.600
us some aspects of the future america in the

01:12:44.600 --> 01:12:47.279
sense that they gave us the separation of church

01:12:47.279 --> 01:12:50.319
and state uh they allowed the freedom of religion

01:12:50.319 --> 01:12:52.600
that was very important to them they viewed it

01:12:52.600 --> 01:12:54.560
as important for civic tranquility they thought

01:12:54.560 --> 01:12:56.899
that a religious underpinning was important We

01:12:56.899 --> 01:12:59.539
went over that for moral teachings and that type

01:12:59.539 --> 01:13:02.060
of thing without getting involved too much in

01:13:02.060 --> 01:13:04.239
all the denominational aspects or disputes of

01:13:04.239 --> 01:13:06.560
it. It really didn't matter as long as you had

01:13:06.560 --> 01:13:09.199
a moral. They wanted people to have a moral basis.

01:13:09.319 --> 01:13:13.739
But what they gave us was a very hierarchical

01:13:13.739 --> 01:13:17.100
society in many ways, didn't they? Our government

01:13:17.100 --> 01:13:19.539
was structures that everybody could, well, originally

01:13:19.539 --> 01:13:21.840
only white men could vote, I guess. I mean, the

01:13:21.840 --> 01:13:23.720
idea eventually was that everybody could vote.

01:13:24.280 --> 01:13:27.260
Not all white men could vote. And not even all

01:13:27.260 --> 01:13:28.579
white men, right? You had to be property and

01:13:28.579 --> 01:13:31.560
those type of things. And vote for what, too?

01:13:32.020 --> 01:13:34.260
I know, but I'm just trying to say that there

01:13:34.260 --> 01:13:37.199
was an idea there of actually asking everyday

01:13:37.199 --> 01:13:39.779
people in the street what they thought about

01:13:39.779 --> 01:13:41.720
politics and giving them some kind of say in

01:13:41.720 --> 01:13:44.079
it. And it was only a fraction of what we would

01:13:44.079 --> 01:13:46.439
have today, but it was the start, okay? Yes.

01:13:46.579 --> 01:13:48.199
They gave us that, but then they had a lot of

01:13:48.199 --> 01:13:50.090
controls over it, didn't they? There was an electoral

01:13:50.090 --> 01:13:52.869
college to buffer the selection of the president

01:13:52.869 --> 01:13:55.210
from the average man in the street in case he

01:13:55.210 --> 01:13:58.170
acted like a rabble, right? The U .S. Senate

01:13:58.170 --> 01:14:03.569
was appointed by the states up until 1916. Because

01:14:03.569 --> 01:14:06.729
they wanted the Senate to represent the states,

01:14:06.850 --> 01:14:08.550
not the people. They wanted the House to represent

01:14:08.550 --> 01:14:10.890
the people. And on and on and on. There are a

01:14:10.890 --> 01:14:13.289
lot of things that they did. They allowed the

01:14:13.289 --> 01:14:16.140
retention of slavery. Yeah. They agreed that

01:14:16.140 --> 01:14:18.619
a black American was only three -fifths of a

01:14:18.619 --> 01:14:20.340
person. They agreed to that, right? And then

01:14:20.340 --> 01:14:23.500
they moved on. So that's the country that they

01:14:23.500 --> 01:14:27.520
gave us in their time. I think that what we have

01:14:27.520 --> 01:14:29.899
to say is the Second and Third Great Awakening

01:14:29.899 --> 01:14:36.000
then did much to democratize America in many

01:14:36.000 --> 01:14:42.119
ways. It brought to the fore social ills that

01:14:42.119 --> 01:14:43.659
needed to be fixed, you know, the plight of the

01:14:43.659 --> 01:14:46.100
average person. Again, we've talked about this,

01:14:46.199 --> 01:14:50.859
you know, the drunkenness, the child labor, the

01:14:50.859 --> 01:14:54.140
poor working conditions, abolition originally

01:14:54.140 --> 01:14:55.960
and then later, you know, what we would now call

01:14:55.960 --> 01:14:58.640
civil rights. Women's rights. Women's rights,

01:14:58.720 --> 01:15:01.020
all these kind of things. And it empowered the

01:15:01.020 --> 01:15:03.020
individual. And empowered the individual. So

01:15:03.020 --> 01:15:06.579
it had a leveling effect in many ways. Yes. And

01:15:06.579 --> 01:15:10.460
that also is a valuable contribution, a positive

01:15:10.460 --> 01:15:12.829
contribution. to how America came out in the

01:15:12.829 --> 01:15:14.630
future. Yes. And I think we have to acknowledge

01:15:14.630 --> 01:15:16.390
that, you know, that the second and third great

01:15:16.390 --> 01:15:19.449
awakenings, sure, they were emotionally based

01:15:19.449 --> 01:15:21.449
as opposed to the colder logic of the founders.

01:15:21.729 --> 01:15:24.470
They were more mythos than logos, but they actually

01:15:24.470 --> 01:15:28.329
had some, well, some logos, some positive things,

01:15:28.350 --> 01:15:30.310
some logos to it. Actually, you know, it shouldn't

01:15:30.310 --> 01:15:32.409
everybody be treated equally. Maybe they came

01:15:32.409 --> 01:15:33.949
to that through emotional means other than the

01:15:33.949 --> 01:15:35.609
colder, rational way that the founders would

01:15:35.609 --> 01:15:37.829
have, but they came to that conclusion. And I

01:15:37.829 --> 01:15:40.750
think that's a good thing. So. it did have a

01:15:40.750 --> 01:15:43.710
very positive impact in a lot of ways that helped

01:15:43.710 --> 01:15:45.329
create the America that we have today, the good

01:15:45.329 --> 01:15:46.250
parts of the America that we have today. The

01:15:46.250 --> 01:15:49.029
good parts, yes. Now, what we've already been

01:15:49.029 --> 01:15:51.569
talking about, though, is some people, people

01:15:51.569 --> 01:15:54.890
being people, took it and ran with far more negative

01:15:54.890 --> 01:15:58.069
interpretations of all of it, which were more

01:15:58.069 --> 01:16:00.210
exclusionary and those type of things in America.

01:16:00.710 --> 01:16:03.010
I mean, is that a fair way to kind of characterize

01:16:03.010 --> 01:16:04.390
those two? What do you guys think about those?

01:16:04.390 --> 01:16:07.189
I agree with you on that. Yeah, because it's

01:16:07.189 --> 01:16:10.140
just like, you know, When we're looking at things,

01:16:10.220 --> 01:16:13.399
there is a tendency to say something is all bad

01:16:13.399 --> 01:16:16.279
or all good. And in this case, we've got to look

01:16:16.279 --> 01:16:18.920
at that there are a lot of positive contributions

01:16:18.920 --> 01:16:21.479
to both the Second and Third Great Awakening

01:16:21.479 --> 01:16:24.560
to society. There are also some bad ones, some

01:16:24.560 --> 01:16:29.180
lingering aspects of this. But the point I think

01:16:29.180 --> 01:16:32.659
we should make is there's no single agreed -upon

01:16:32.659 --> 01:16:36.800
definition for how one responds to that historical

01:16:36.800 --> 01:16:43.039
event. That's it for this episode of the United

01:16:43.039 --> 01:16:46.239
States of Amnesia. Thank you for listening. We

01:16:46.239 --> 01:16:48.520
hope you learned something, and we hope you discovered

01:16:48.520 --> 01:16:50.779
new ways of looking at things you had already

01:16:50.779 --> 01:16:53.939
heard or thought about, or perhaps hadn't heard

01:16:53.939 --> 01:16:56.880
about. If you enjoyed it, that's great. If we

01:16:56.880 --> 01:17:00.420
made you mad, that's okay too. Either way. Email

01:17:00.420 --> 01:17:04.800
us at usa .amnesia at gmail .com and let us know

01:17:04.800 --> 01:17:07.300
what you think. Also, let us know about anything

01:17:07.300 --> 01:17:09.680
you think we missed or got wrong. We'd like to

01:17:09.680 --> 01:17:12.920
know about that too. And of course, please like

01:17:12.920 --> 01:17:15.020
and subscribe and let your friends and neighbors

01:17:15.020 --> 01:17:18.500
know about us. We also have a website. It's www

01:17:18.500 --> 01:17:25.220
.usofamnesia .com. For Marshall, Mike, and myself,

01:17:25.640 --> 01:17:27.500
Blake Henke. Till next time.