Awakenings: Recommended resources


Books

To learn more about the English Puritans, look at John Coffey and Paul Lim, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism (2008); Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-revolutionary England (2018); Scott McGinnis, George Gifford and the Reformation of the Common Sort (2004); and Michael Winship, Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America (2019). You can read more on English monarchs and Puritanism with John Guy, ed., The Reign of Elizabeth I (1995); Norman Jones, Faith by Statute (1982); and Andrew Pettegree, Marian Protestantism (1996). 


Find out more about Catholic reform movements with Robert Birely, The Refashioning of Catholicism (1999); Shaun Blanchard, The Synod of Pistoia and Vatican II: Jansenism and the Struggle for Catholic Reform (2019); and Ulrich Lehner, The Catholic Enlightenment (2016). Learn about Alphonsus Liguori and the Redemptorists in Frederick Jones, Alphonsus de Liguori (1992) and D. F. Miller, Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1940). Finally, read about Cornelius Jansen and Jansenism in Nigel Abercrombie, The Origins of Jansenism (1936); William Doyle, Jansenism (2000); Daniella Kostroun, Feminism, Absolutism, and Jansenism (2011); Brian Strayer, Suffering Saints (2008); and Ellen Weaver, The Evolution of the Reform of Port Royal (1978). 


Read about the Pietists and the origins of Pietism in Carter Lindberg, The Pietist Theologians (2004); Robert Koester, The Spirit of Pietism (2020); Paul Peucker, A Time of Sifting (2015); and Ernest Stoeffler, German Pietism During the Eighteenth Century (1973) and The Rise of Evangelical Pietism (1971). 


Read about Herrnhut and Zinzendorf in Anthony Lewis, Zinzendorf, The Ecumenical Pioneer (1962); Paul Peucker, Herrnhut (2022); and John Weinlick, Count Zinzendorf (1956). More on the Moravians can be found in Joseph Hutton, A History of the Moravian Church (2014); and Paul Peucker, Self, Community, World (2010). You can learn more about the Children’s Prayer Revival in Silesia in Eric Jonas Swensson, Kinderbeten (2009).


A comprehensive look at American revival movements, including the First Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening, can be found in Richard Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism (1978); William McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform (1978); and Michael McClymond, ed., Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America (2006). 


Read about Great Awakening preaching and preachers in Earle Cairns, An Endless Line of Splendor (2015); Keith Hardman, The Spiritual Awakeners (1983); Thomas Kidd, The Great Awakening (2007); Harry Stout, The New England Soul (1986); and Bernard Weisberg, They Gathered at the River (1958). 

Dig deeper into Jonathan Edwards with John Lowe and Daniel Gullotta, eds., Jonathan Edwards within the Enlightenment (2020); George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (2003); Michael McClymond and Gerald McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (2011); and Iain Murray, Jonathan Edwards (1987). Find more on George Whitefield in Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield (1980); Thomas Kidd, George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding Father (2014); John Pollock, George Whitefield and the Great Awakening (1986); Harry Stout, The Divine Dramatist (1991). For a closer look at the friendship of Benjamin Franklin and Whitefield, read Randy Petersen, The Printer and the Preacher (2015). 


And, for further reading on John Wesley, start with Kenneth Collins, A Real Christian (1999); Henry Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast (1989); Stephen Tomkins, John Wesley: A Biography (2003); and Charles Yrigoyen, John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Mind (1996). More on Charles Wesley can be found in Charles Dallimore, A Heart Set Free (1988) and T. C. Mitchell, Charles Wesley (1994). 


For more on the Second Great Awakening, see Charles Hambrick-Stowe, Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism (1996); Keith Hardman, Charles Grandison Finney 1792–1875 (1987); Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (1989), Mary Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class (1981); Timothy Smith, Revivalism & Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of War (1980), and John Wolffe, The Expansion of Evangelicalism (2007). 


Past CH issues

Related past issues of Christian History can be read online; some hard copies are still available for purchase.

1: Zinzendorf and the Moravians

2: John Wesley: Revival and Revolution

8: Jonathan Edwards

9: Heritage of Freedom

10: Pietism

20: Charles Grandison Finney

23: Spiritual Awakenings in North America

25: Unconventional Dwight L. Moody

38: George Whitefield

41: The American Puritans

45: Camp Meetings and Circuit Riders

50: American Revolution

58: The Rise of Pentecostalism

69: The Wesleys: Charles and John 

77: Jonathan Edwards

89: Richard Baxter and the English Puritans

106: The Stone-Campbell Movement

114: Francis Asbury

122: Catholic Reformation 

128: George Muller

142: Divine Healing


Videos from Vision Video

Relevant videos include Penn’s Seed: The Awakening, Saints and Strangers, First Freedom, Gospel of Liberty, First Fruits, and Great Awakening—Spiritual Revival in Colonial America. A few videos that profile people covered in this issue include Born Again: George Whitefield, David Brainerd, Count Zinzendorf, An Uncommon Union: The Life and Love of Sarah and Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley: The Faith That Sparked the Methodist Movement, Wesley: A Heart Transformed, John Wesley: The Man and His Mission, and Hymns of Praise: Charles Wesley. Some of these titles are only available via digital download; you may access more content by streaming on Redeem TV


Websites 

As always many public-domain primary source documents referenced in this issue can be found at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library and at Gutenberg.org. (You will also find older secondary sources at Gutenberg.) Have a look at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook and the Internet Modern Sourcebook as well. Reformation-era sources in particular can be found at the Post-Reformation Digital Library and Project Wittenberg.

Some groups dedicated to the study of movements and people in this issue include the Redemptorists, the Moravian Church Archives, Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, and Cane Ridge Meeting House. CH 

By the editors

[Christian History originally published this article in Christian History Issue #151 in 2024]

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