Are there Second Great Awakening dynamics in 20th century new religious movements?
This week we considered the ways that non-Protestant religious communities responded to impacts of the Second Great Awakening. Today, several Protestant communities are forming that cross boundaries between Judaism and Christianity. Do these new religious movements reflect beliefs, practices, goals from the Second Great Awakening (restorationism, perfectionism, evangelizing, proselytizing, etc…)?
1) Choose at least one of the following three new religious movements from the 20th century.
2) You can work with the video provided or conduct a brief internet search to choose your own media item to focus on or combine with a media item from here.
3) Pose your question to open discussion with references to the patterns we have studied in class and with McLoughlin's book. Some starting points include but are not limited to:
- Are these movements totally new phenomena, unrelated to prior issues?
- OR, are there impacts from the Second Great Awakening at work in these movements?
- Are there factors at work that are outside the dynamics of the Second Great Awakening, either older or newer?
4) While discussing your peer's questions, refer to both the lectures and readings on the Second Great Awakening and the lecture on its impacts on minority communities.
Understand Jews for Jesus in 60 seconds (1:10)
Jews for Jesus: a network of programs and communities that seek to convert Jews to a form of Evangelical Christianity that incorporates modern Jewish practices into Christianity.
Meet the Noahides (4:42)
The Noahide Movement: Potential and Challenge s (text of a sermon aka "Dvar Torah")
Noahides are a Baptist-originating group who reject several major Christian concepts in favor of Jewish ones.
Hashivenu Messianic Judaism (website)
- Messianic Judaism: includes proselytizing groups similar to Jews for Jesus but also sub-group Hashivenu Messianic Judaism who are more like Noahides, trying to fuse Christianity and Judaism. Hashivenu Messianism wrestles with the theological challenges of fusing both Judaism and Christianity.
Three paragraphs for the main post and each response. using APA style and refrences
