I thought this was a particularly good piece.
A few of the points that stand out to me.
4. Issues of spiritual discernment. Religious revivals almost always force participants to distinguish between nature and grace, between human initiative and divine influence. They may also stimulate discussion regarding God and Satan, or angelic versus diabolical manifestations. Critics of revivals often utter charges of manipulation by leaders, mass hysteria, or emotionalism. Defenders, though they see the revival overall as a divine work, usually acknowledge that at least some participants in the movement are carried away by their own emotions and thus are not being “led by God.”
And there is this to ponder from the end of the article.6. Conflict and division in church and community. Religious revivals are almost always controversial, causing deep disagreements between the participants and the nonparticipants, and/or among participants themselves. These conflicts usually center on the characteristics already mentioned—intensified experience, bodily manifestations, extraordinary occurrences, and issues of discernment and authority. Since different people assess the revival phenomena in different ways, disagreements are bound to arise. Often the participants in a revival stigmatize the nonparticipants as unspiritual, while nonparticipants regard the participants as fanatical. While these disagreements may occur during the period of a religious revival, they typically take place later. Much of the controversy concerning the Great Awakening, for example, did not take place in the heat of the revival in 1740–1741, but rather in 1743–1745.
Sometimes disagreements over revivals lead to permanent organizational and institutional divisions (e.g., “New Light” vs. “Old Light” Congregationalism, the Methodist churches vs. the Holiness churches, the Holiness churches vs. Pentecostalism).
I'm interested in your thoughts.One enduring—and notoriously complex—issue pertains to the social effects of religious revivals. Was the 1740s Great Awakening—in stressing the religious identity, value, and dignity of ordinary people—a kind of inadvertent preparation for the American Revolution in 1776? Was the Second Great Awakening of the early 1800s a key factor in promoting opposition to slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War? Some scholars say yes in both cases.