A New Great Awakening May Be Nigh

Listen to this episode from History Impossible on Spotify. After a slight delay, History Impossible is back with the newest installment of audio adaptations of previous writing and historical scholarship that I’ve done in the past several years or so. In this case, we are looking at a massively overhauled and updated audio version of an essay I wrote that was originally published by Areo Magazine in January of 2021, in which I made the case that the United States was undergoing something of a religious revival, which became particularly evident the previous year.This is a theme I’ve visited and revisited multiple times in the years since this essay was originally published and it has even become central to my scholarly pursuits in graduate school. This fact, along with the always-changing landscape of American culture and life required several updates, most of which on the fly, to be made to the core content of this essay, resulting in a new episode of the podcast in which about half of the material never existed before.In short, we will be looking at the phenomenon of religious revivals in the United States throughout its entire history and then some—from the aftermath of the Salem witchcraft crisis and lead-up to the First Great Awakening that occurred throughout New England in the mid-18th century, all the way to what I believe is the ongoing and forming Fifth Great Awakening that began in earnest in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. Perhaps foolishly, we even try to predict the future and where this all goes.Fraught, likely controversial stuff. But also deeply personal for me, as someone who thinks a lot about spirituality despite not being particularly spiritual or religious himself. Please enjoy.…History Impossible has been made possible by the following generous supporters on Patreon, Substack, and PayPal. Please consider donating today if you want to show some love for what I do and make and what to help keep the show and all my written content going:David AdamcikDavid AlsbachGregg AndersonRajan AthulRobert BabeonMichael BeachZazu BenbenBenjaminGreg BosaiJohannes BreitsameterCarol ABCCharles CCurtis ChristiansenJason ColemanClayton ConnellCliffydeuceCRB.CyrdaddygorgonDannyLynda DavisPaul DeCosterRegina Dick-EndrizziNeil DickensNathan DiehlBob DowningDramicasMartin E.EastoneGavin EdwardsHowie FeltersnatchPierre GhazarianJosh GoedertJayson GriesmeyerNathan GroteBenjamin HamiltonPeter HauckJack HennemanEric HodgesMike JarulicJoe6245Lionel JosephThomas JustesenMike KalninsBryn KaufmanLeah KodnerBenjamin LeeConstance LoucksMaddyMounty of MadnessJose MartinezMike MaylebenJudy McCoidKyle MohneyKostas MorosRyan MortensonCameron NeedhamShiranSkip PachecoMel PaddenDavid PageMolly PanSr. PowellBrian PritzlAnaR737PJ RaderGleb RadutskyAleksandr RakitinReptilycusMatthew M. RicePhillip RiceTerry RosenDan SJon Andre SaetherJake ScaliaEmily SchmidtJulian SchmidtAndrew SeeberJoshua SimpsonCameron SmithJerry Spanglertimetosuccedd1995Thomas SqueoAthal Krishna SundarrajanJared Cole TempleWard Van RoyPierre VorupuniRobert VSJonny WilkieChristian WilsonJanora WinsorF. YouBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/history-impossible--5634566/support.