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Perfection Era

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Submitted By ducky35
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Perfection Era
Angela Hearn
HIS/115
September 25, 2011
Rona Gunter

Perfection Era
During the period of the 18th century the colonial expansion sent colonist to the west and south. This resulted in many of the people settling in the country side where there were no churches to attend meetings and no congregations unless they wanted to travel to the nearest town which could be miles away. Ideas coming from the Enlightenment began causing questions of religious truths that were long held. Because of this American clergymen started schools that were for preachers and that initiated revivals (Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, & Stoff, 2005). The Great Awakening was a revitalization of religious piety that flowed through each colony like a river, though this was not unanimous.
The Great Awakening movement was made up of people who had a democratic ideal; some believed that a valuable quality in a person was spiritual conversion. Perfectionism is what this was known as, it was the want to have a society that was equal and perfect. The position of women and African Americans who were second rate citizens, started to be questioned because of this belief. They were even able to, in some churches, gain the right to speak, preach, and vote on matters of the church (Davidson, et al., 2005). Though some of them were gaining rights within the church during this period not all the churches agreed with this change. Even though some of them gained their rights in the church, they had little to no rights once they left the church. During this time the abolitionist movement was trying to put a halt to slavery due to moral principles. Though little did anyone know that a second great awakening would be coming and bring about more changes to society.
The Second Great Awakening started roughly the same way as the Great Awakening did, another attempt to expand religious

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