The Fourth Great Awakening is a possible example of a Great Awakening, or a period of revolution in American religious thought. If there is a pattern in the occurrence of Great Awakenings, one was due in the mid-20th Century. The most likely candidate is during the 1960s and early 1970s: the hippie, or counterculture movement(s).
The course of the Fourth Great Awakening.
By the 1940s and early 1950s, most of the progressive ideals of the Third Great Awakening had already been put into place. There was a general social consensus among the G.I. generation regarding the social and religious values of the day. However, movements such as the Beatniks were a precursor movement to the later main front of the Fourth Great Awakening, and were a reaction against the restrictive mores of the 1950s.
In the years following the 1940s, values had been slowly changing, particularly among the younger generation. For instance, in the area of civil rights, a National Opinion Research Center study determined that among whites, the number who approved neighborhood integration had risen from 42% in 1943 to 72% in 1963, and the proportion favoring school integration had risen even more impressively to 75%. Blacks had also begun to mobilize regarding civil rights, in the form of 1,000 civil rights demonstrations in 209 cities during a three-month period beginning May 1963. As a result of these changes in public opinion, the House kicked off the Fourth Great Awakening by passing the Civil Rights act of 1964, with a vote of 290:130, Republicans favoring the bill 138 to 34, Democrats supported it 152-96, 92 of whom were from the South.[1]
The Vietnam Conflict was to play a major role in the course of the Fourth Great Awakening, as it led a great number of people to question the values of the older "technocrat" generations, and seek to develop new and better avenues of spiritual and ethical thought.
The New Sects of the Fourth Great Awakening
The sects created or made popular during the First and Second Great Awakenings, while heretical in their day, were still covered under the umbrella term "Christianity". (Although the more radical sects of the Second Great Awakening are considered "slightly weird" by more mainstream denominations to this day.) The Third Great Awakening has seen the birth of the Bible Belt and Christian socialism, and widespread missionary movements around the world, as well as exploring atheism and agnosticism.
Due to increased contact with other cultures in the 20th century, The Fourth Great Awakening was the first to look entirely outside the Judeo-Christian world view for inspiration. Some of these sects include (or revived, according to their adherents) include New Age, Wiccan, and Neo-Pagan. Eastern Philosophy, such as Buddhism and Hinduism also influenced the new theology, although in a form so modified by Western thought as to be almost unrecognizable by their native practitioners. "Parody" religions, such as Discordianism, became somewhat popular.
Christianity also saw a great deal of change during this period, particularly new forms of Evangelical Christianity which emphasized a "Personal Relationship with Jesus" and formed into a number of newly styled "non-denominational" churches and "community faith centers." in 1963, Oral Roberts University was founded by Faith Healer Oral Roberts and grew to become the largest Christian Charismatic university in the world.
Some reactionary sects that oppose the ideas of the Fourth Great Awakening are Fundamentalist sects that are largely unchanged from their formation in reaction to the Third Great Awakening.
The Fourth Great Awakening saw enormous decline in mainstream Christian sects such as the Lutheran and Episcopalian churches.
Sources
- Robert William Fogel; The Fourth Great Awakening & the Future of Egalitarianism; 2000, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226256626
- William Strauss and Neil Howe, The Fourth Turning, New York: Broadway Books, 1997.
See also
Last updated: 09-12-2005 02:39:13
