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Matthias & The Second Great Awakening

Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz in their book The Kingdom of Matthias write about a historical event that may not be well-known to most Americans. They tell the story of the self-proclaimed prophet Matthias and the "kingdom" he created based on his religious beliefs, related to the Second Great Awakening of religious fervor in American history. This nineteenth-century movement had numerous effects, including the creation of a variety of new cults and movements, such as that of them Mormons. Matthias lived in the first half of the nineteenth century as the United States was beginning to move away culturally from European roots and to build a uniquely American society. The book by Johnson and Wilentz details the nature of the man who led the movement, the nature of his followers, and the reaction of American society to his attempts to create a kingdom of his own on American soil.

The authors note the nature of the religious atmosphere of the first half of the nineteenth century, the era that would become known as the Second Great Awakening, an era in which prophets such as Joseph Smith and Matthias would emerge and seek followers for their particular brand of Christian thought. The authors find that there was much activity developing not only in religious circles but in other areas of American life at this time as America began to assert herself as an independent and unique nation:

These were the peak years of the market revolution that took the country from the fringe of the world economy to the brink of commercial greatness. They were also (not coincidentally) years of intense religious excitement and sectarian invention, the culmination of what historians called the Second Great Awakening. While revivals reshaped the landscape of mainstream American Protestantism, smaller groups went beyond evangelical orthodoxy into direct and often heretical experience of the supernatural (6).

Seers like smith and Matthias claime...

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Matthias & The Second Great Awakening. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:54, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1692916.html