American Radical Religion: revolution as revivalism
The last year or two I have been doing research into the many Christian and Pseudo-Christian religions that have arisen in the United States, particularly those that had their birth in the first part of the 19th century—the so-called “Great Awakening.” This includes the ancestors of the modern-day Mormon churches, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, along with the many variants of Charismatic and Pentecostal Protestant Christianity. I’ve noticed a few patterns, though these are not universal, nor has my study been exhaustive. Generally, I see a sequence that goes something like this: A charismatic leader preaches novel heresy as a…