Reinvention In The Second Great Awakening

According to definition, reinvention is to invent again, remodel, or revive something that already exists. Between the 16th and 19th centuries Americans has embraced the idea of reinvention through their determination to change the religion and government of their time. Since the development of the American Colonies, Americans, or in this case colonist, embraced the character of reinvention and applied it to religion. They took the ideas from Martin Luther’s 1517 Protestant Reformation to shape the landscape which they lived in. Protestants and Catholics were constantly trying to reinvent to common social norms that were already in placed in order to please their denomination. In the 1630s the Puritans, led by John Winthrop, settled in Boston with hopes of reforming the Church of England and emplacing their religion and its social values with of those who are already there (primarily Native Americans). Around twelve years later some Puritans, such as Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and Thomas Hooker, tried to reinvent the morals and theology of the Puritan Community. Years later in the 1730s and 1740s there is a revival called the Great Awakening which focused on reinventing the way people conducted their life and a call for personal choice.

This awakening promised access to salvation through a person’s actions and declared the truth of personal salvation. The reformers of the era called for a recreation of the protestant faith something that had been set in place for over hundreds of years. Through this awakening church leaders wanted to reinvent the Christian faith and broke into groups such as the Mormons, Millerites, and the Shakers. This era proved the American characteristic of reinvention through the recreation of the Christian faith to the denominations likings, much similar to the