Book Description

This book addresses the religious life of Philadelphia, watches as revivalists come and go from 1828 to 1876, and examines the impact of revivals in the city. Mass revivalism was touted as the solution to cities' social problems, so the account of the close relationship between the YMCA movement and revivalism is appreciated. Meanwhile, America's middle-class evangelical majority, caught in the web of an individualistic ideology, persisted in ignoring the destruction of "community" as the cities grew in complexity, anonymity, and ethnic and class divisiveness. While depending rather too heavily on a "great man" approach to revivalism in Philadelphia, in confirming in a very specific, well-documented manner the inconsistencies in revivalistic preaching and the gap between goals, means, and ends in urban mass evangelism, this work is a significant contribution to the study of American religious history.