Cheap Made in America: The Shaping of Modern American Evangelicalism (Book) (Michael Scott Horton) Price

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The first awakening involved a focus on correct teaching. God was seen as the active party in Salvation creating faith in the hearts of belivers through the means of the preached Word. Worship, doctrine and life were all based upon the clear, consistent teaching of Christ as redeemer, living a life in obedience to God's requirements in the place of the sinner, and His sacrificial death in the place of the sinner. Christ was the active party bringing one to faith (throught the means of preaching Christ) and keeping them saved (through the same means.) The 1st awakening was a continuation of the Reformation that started in the 17th century.

The theology shifted drastically between the two awakenings. In reaction to the enlightenment, the ideas of a soveregn 'God who saves and sustains sinners' did not play well in the American Frontier. Rugged American individualism demanded a theological system with a much more optimistic view of mankind. Augustianian beliefs in mankind's total deprvity and inability to please God did not fit well with a lifestyle of people who had fought for independence and conquered a frontier. John Wesley had been preaching (in England) about mankind's ability to turn to God of his own volition, and this mixed much better with the optimistic view so common in America. This lead to the 2nd Awakening in which mankind was to turn to God on his own. The content of preaching shifted from Christ and Him crucified to Man needing to make himself Holy before God.

In this system, a large focus was placed on emotionalism. Emotional appeals were made to get a person to "make a decision for Christ". A new hymnody was developed which focus on mankind's feelings about God instead of God and his attributes. In many of these hymns, such as "In the Garden", Christ is almost seen as a lover of the singer. Sentimentalism about an "idea" of Christ, and of the day when one "made his decision" were severly stressed. One promoter of this viewpoint, Charles Finney, even viewed salvation as being completely the work of man, denying the supernatural in regeneration.

The focus of the preaching in the 2nd awakening was all "Do This" oriented. Christ's perfect obiedience in the place of the sinner was (and is ) absent. The sermon on each Sunday was 'doing better' or 'steps and principles to the victorious Christian Life'.

The Reformation understanding of "simultaneously justified and sinful" was dismissed. The church was not a collection of redeemed sinners, but of victorious people. The 10 commandments were replaced with extra-biblical taboos (such as smoking, drinking, dancing, seeing movies, etc.) that Christ himseld had no concern about. Sin was seen as something 'out there', not as something in each human heart.

Hence, the "outcomes based Christianity" that exists today. Most religous discouxse today is a product of this human centered focus. Evengelcalism has developed a Christian subculture with a "spirit-filled" equivolent of most secular activites.

I have a distinct bias in this. As a 'recovering fundementalist', I can state that confronting the history of the 'outcomes based faith' as profiled in this book, I was able to free myself of many man-centered, man-created false ideologies that had so warped my world-view. This text played a large part in leading me to reformation orthodoxy.

Soli Deo Gloria!!

John J. Lazarchi