A Little History: Evangelicalism in the 19th Century

American Evangelicalism, born and raised in a tumultuous time of revolutions, has retained the sense of urgency of its birth. Bivins suggests that early evangelicals weren’t fighting just for their religious values, but for social and political justification throughout the industrial revolution and the Civil War as well [2]. Bivins also suggests that evangelicals conflated their political enemies with enemies of God, or demons doing the Devil’s work on Earth [2]. For many Christians, the evil of Hell and the Devil seeps up into the Earth where it can possess, tempt, and taunt the living. This and the fact of eternal damnation, as opposed to its nature, seems to be the concern of modern evangelicals.

Turner suggests the 19^th century had a revisionary view of Hell, concerned with the sublime and the infinite [8]. Hell in 19^th century literature took an amoral turn in the rise of the gothic novel and an interest in Hell on Earth – it was more of a pop culture interest than a religious one [8]. Romanticism, specifically, saw Satan as a heroic rebel against an oppressive tyrant, reflective of slum life during the industrial revolution [8].

The 19^th century got a kick start in the evangelical world with the Second Great Awakening, when evangelicalism really started to grow [2]. In the late 19^th century, there was also a new fascination with death not seen since the 15^th century [8]. This could be that the newly industrialized world mirrored the troubles of the Dark Ages. In general, Bivins says that in times of crisis, a preoccupation with “darkness and demonology” emerges [2].