Experience at the Heart of Revival

This week’s reading gave a different perspective on the revivals of the early 19^th century than those we have read thus far; a female perspective.  As the revivalist movements saw greater female numbers than male and – as we saw in A Shopkeeper’s Millennium – women played an important role in the growth of the revival and revivalist social policies, reading female accounts of the revivals provide an additional critical element to the conversation.

Most of what I heard in the female account was not surprising.  These women were independent, dedicated to their evangelical faith, and willing to step out of social and cultural norms for the furtherance of the revival.  Religion for these evangelicals was as much about experience as it was about orthodoxy.  The experiential nature of evangelical faith is what stood out to me most in these readings.  The words of Foote, Lee, and Stearns were raw and full of emotion.  They had experienced religion and they were not afraid to place their most personal moments into the public – at least Christian public – sphere.  Foote and Lee especially lean heavily – almost solely – on experience in their arguments for female preaching.

At times in this week’s readings it seemed that experience was all that mattered in these revivals.  In modern evangelicalism Biblicism is a key element and check against experience.  What were the checks against experience in the 19^th century evangelical church?  Did Foote and Lee’s contemporaries also use theological and Biblical arguments for female ministry in addition to experience?