The Awakening and New Religious Societies for Evangelism

Abstract

This chapter examines how the Awakening became a modern, popular religious movement through the foundation of hundreds of new religious voluntary societies to support evangelistic initiatives. Awakened Protestants throughout Germany envisioned these new organizations as the means to join with like-minded Christians in working for shared evangelistic goals. They were motivated by concern over theological rationalism within their churches, indifference toward religion in their society, and the spiritual condition of non-Christian peoples. Awakened Protestants founded four main types of extra-ecclesial organizations: voluntary societies for the distribution of Bibles and religious literature in Germany and voluntary societies for sending missionaries to non-Christian regions and Jewish communities in Europe. Their presence established a new sphere of religious activity between the individual Christian and the institutional churches. In establishing these new religious societies, awakened Protestants rationalized the task of evangelism through their creation of administrative bureaucracies to operate their religious societies.