Aether and The Field: The Great Awakening (Episode 2)

The rise of expectations and challenges to religious belief.

Photo by Vishal Shah from Pexels

What Emerson was probably sensitive to but is little known today, was that in the late 18th and early 19th century, this expectation grew very acute when a renaissance of messianic expectations erupted all over the Christian and Islamic world. In the Christian world these expectations were known as the Great Awakenings. During the so-called 2nd Great Awakening, many Christians were awaiting a great change in human affairs. A large number of them were convinced that this would occur around the middle of the 19th century. In 1818 William Miller, a lay Baptist minister from Massachusetts after careful study of the book of Daniel in the Bible, had determined that “in about twenty-five years (1843) … all the affairs of our present state would be wound up.” He would later become one of the more well-known and famous advocates for the impending return of Christ, attracting many followers who waited for Christ’s return in 1843 and later in 1844. A similar sort of expectation even led a group of Protestant Germans, known as the Templars, to move to present day Israel to await the descent of Christ. In Haifa in 1868 they established a significant colony at the base of Mount Carmel. Of course, when the followers of these movements did not observe him physically descend from the Heavens as expected most abandoned these beliefs. To this day the non-fulfillment of Miller’s prophecy in 1844 is known as the “Great Disappointment”. However, remnants of the effect of this expectation remain to the present day in churches and religions like the Seventh Day Adventist, Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormon Church.

Rise of Science and Rejection of Religion

And yet with each step in the explosive growth in scientific and technological knowledge, serious doubt was created in the nature of the traditional religious understandings of Heaven, Hell, angels and even the origin of humans and the world. Further the major religions appeared incapable of explaining or coming to terms with the tremendous changes occurring. This of course seemed particularly strange however for those who subscribed to the point of view that the Divine has guided humanity in the past. Thus, they were faced with an…