Studying the Bible for themselves and taking personal responsibility for their own spiritual relationship with God.
In the history of religious life in America, we refer to "the Second Great Awakening" when talking about the revival of energy in Protestantism that began around 1790 and continued into the first decades of the 1800s. (The First Great Awakening had occurred some decades earlier, in the 1730s and 1740s.) The Second Great Awakening focused on each individual sinner coming to grips with their own unworthy condition before God and making a decision to give their lives over to the Lord in the name of Jesus Christ. They needed to be "born again," to experience personally a change of heart and move in the direction of Christ. The emphasis on personal salvation was a rejection of older Protestant concepts of predestination (the original Calvinist model). It also coincided with the mood in the country at the time that emphasized individualism and personal responsibility.
Along with outdoor revival meetings that were part of the Second Great Awakening, there was an emphasis on personal Bible reading and study. The American Bible Society was founded in 1816 as part of this movement, to make sure every Christian home had a Bible for reading and studying at home.
