The Methodist Church
The Lee family arrived in the United States approximately around 1748 or 1750. The Lee family would play significant role in the transformation of this country as time went on. During the Second Great Awaking there were many social issues that developed during this era. One of the social issues that resulted from the Second Great Awakening was arrival of the Methodist Church to the United States in 1768 and the rapid growth of the Methodist church. This became a problem for the Methodist Church due to the fact that there were not enough preachers to meet the demand. The Methodist Church began to use circuit preachers. Unfortunately, the circuit preachers did not have a formal education before they were sent out to spread the gospel.
As Luther Lee grew up so did his desire to preach the gospel. Lee fell into the category of the uneducated circuit preachers. However, Lee was more fortunate than some of the other preachers. He received assistance from his older brother, and later he met and married a woman by the name of Mary Miller. She was a school teacher and assisted in his education. She unknowingly helped prepare her husband for the role he would assume in the reform that would impact their life and this country.
Luther Lee would apply the education that he had received by addressing the social/spiritual issues of heresy, which was being planted in the minds and hearts of the people by the Universalist. He would accept his first challenge to a public debate with a Universalist preacher. According to the Universalist belief all men would go to heaven when they die. Luther was simply honing the debating skills that he had acquired, in his attempt to protect the people from the spread of further here...
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...tionist the smaller churches began to disappear. The people began to attend larger churches. The Methodist Church had taken on a new name, but maintained their position on the issue of human slavery. During Luther Lee’s latter years he made a decision to return to Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1878 Lee would move his family back to Flint. He had previously been a pastor in this church for ten years. Upon his return he did not assume a position, but would deliver a sermon occasionally.
Luther Lee remained faithful to his call, and maintained a servant’s heart, and fought for social reform, and he preached is final sermon as though he knew it would be his last time to serve. He made is final journey on December 13, 1889. Because of the relationships that he had maintained there were nine hundred people in attendance to his funeral. He had fulfilled his purpose.
In the essay, “The Second Great Awakening” by Sean Wilentz explains the simultaneous events at the Cane Ridge and Yale which their inequality was one-sided origins, worship, and social surroundings exceeded more through their connections that was called The Second Great Awakening also these revivals were omen that lasted in the 1840s a movement that influences the impulsive and doctrines to hold any management. Wilentz wraps up of the politics and the evangelizing that come from proceeding from the start, but had astounding momentum during 1825.The advantage of the Americans was churched as the evangelizing Methodists or Baptists from the South called the New School revivalist and the Presbyterians or Congregationalists from the North that had a nation of theoretical Christians in a mutual culture created more of the Enlightenment rationalism than the Protestant nation on the world. The northerners focused more on the Second Great Awakening than the South on the main plan of the organization.
Lee was born in Stratford, Virginia. Lee was the fourth child of General Henry Lee III, Governor of Virginia, and his mother, Anne Hill Carter, Lee was raised by his mother who taught him about authority, tolerance, and order. Lee was exposed to Christianity at an early age and devoted his life to god. In 1825, Lee was accepted into West Point. There he learned about warfare and how to fight. In 1829, Lee graduated 2nd of 46 in his class, but even more surprising is that he didn’t get a single demerit while attending West Point. Afterward, Lee was appointed as Superintendent of West Point from 1852 to 1855. After he served his term, Lee left West Point to become a Lieutenant Colonel in the 2nd Cavalry of Texas.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born at noon on January 15, 1929 in Memphis, Tennessee to the Reverend Martin Luther King and Alberta Williams King. Martin Luther King Jr. spent the first twelve years in the Auburn Avenue home that his parents shared with his maternal grandparents, the Reverend Adam Daniel Williams and Jennie Celeste Williams. When Reverend Williams passed away in 1931, Martin Luther King Sr. became the new pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church and established himself as a major figure in both state and national Baptist groups. Martin Luther King Jr. later attended Atlanta’s Morehouse College from 1944 to 1948 during his undergraduate years. During this time, Morehouse College President Benjamin E. Mays had convinced Martin Luther King Jr. to accept his calling and to view Christianity as a “potential force for progressive social change. Martin Luther King Jr. was ordained during his last semester in Morehouse.” It was also around this time that Martin Luther King Jr. had begun his first steps towards political activism. In 1951, King Jr. began his doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University’s School of Theology. In 1953, Martin Luther King Jr. married Coretta Scott on June 18 in a ceremony that took place i...
David Walker was “born a free black in late eighteenth century Wilmington,” however, not much more information is known about his early life. During his childhood years, Walker was likely exposed to the Methodist church. During the nineteenth century, the Methodist church appealed directly to blacks because they, in particular, “provided educational resources for blacks in the Wilmington region.” Because his education and religion is based in the Methodist theology, Methodism set the tone and helped to shape the messages Walker conveys through his Appeal to the black people of the United States of America. As evident in his book, Walker’s “later deep devotion to the African Methodist Episcopal faith could surely argue for an earlier exposure to a black-dominated church” because it was here he would have been exposed to blacks managing their own dealings, leading classes, and preaching. His respect and high opinion of the potential of the black community is made clear when Walker says, “Surely the Americans must think...
The Second Great Awakening was significant because reform movements were connected with religion. Most of reform movements were in fact influenced by the religious ideas expressed during the Great Awakening. Religious congregations and sermons challenged the true faith of people, and as a result different religious groups emerged in order to purify the society. With the ongoing religious revivals, different group of people also began to question the governing norms, which contradicted with religious teachings. In David Walker’s, “African American Abolitionist David Walker Castigates the United States for Its Slave System, 1829,” Walker also raised the question of African slavery, and how it did not agree with Christianity. Walker said:
Religion of the protestant church was an important factor in the pre-war timeline culture. The Second great awakening, which occurred in the 19th century, greatly impacted American society. This new point of view in terms and matters of faith led northerners to cherish the theory of Christian perfection, a theory that in fact was applied to society in an attempt to eliminate social imperfection. On the other hand, southerners reacted by cherishing a faith of personal piety, which focused mainly on a reading of the Bible; however, it expressed very little concern in addressing society’s problems.1
Luther Lee was a logical man. Attempting to capture and put into plain words the true fundamental nature of this great man was difficult due to all of his ideas and accomplishment. He was antislavery, pro women rights, and an excellent preacher. As a result of his lack of formal education he made strides to be the best at whatever he pursued. Luther believed that integrity was worth more than money. He was very proud of himself for not compromising his beliefs and maintaining his viewpoint. He marveled at the struggles of an honest man. Riches, material possessions, and luxuries did not impress him. Luther would have preferred a poor man’s life, die in a poor man house instead of selling his integrity throughout his life. Luther Lee made his transition from the physical world to the spiritual world at the age of eighty nine on December 13, 1889 in his home.
Many people who hear the name African Methodist Episcopal Church automatically make assumptions. These assumptions are based on the faulty premises that the name of the church denotes that the church is only meant for African-Americans or that it is filled with racist’s teachings. Neither of those assumptions is true. The Africans communities established their own churches and ordained their own preachers who could relate to the struggle of being a slave and the struggle of being a free African in a strange land that spoke freedom but their action said something different.
The Second Great Awakening resulted in a widening between classes and regions. The more prosperous and conservative denominations in the east changed little with the spread of revivalism. Due to change in slavery laws after the War of 1812, different, new churches had different beliefs on the ideas of slavery. This varied from church to church, but Northern Methodist and Baptist churches eventually separated from their sister churches in the South due to different ideals of slave owning. The succession of these southern churches made way for the succession of the Confederate States from the Union States, ultimately leading up to the Civil War.
Martin Luther King Jr. born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, was a Civil Rights activist during the 1950’s until his death on April 4, 1968. He held many non-violent protests against segregation. He gave famous speeches, wrote books and also won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. In 1953 he married Coretta Scott. To them, four children were born. King was a part of many groups and organizations that dealt with segregation. On December 1, 1955 the bus boycott began. An African American woman named Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. After hearing of the situation, King decided to lead a bus boycott. During the spring of 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama M.L.K was arrested and sent to jail; from there he wrote a letter which he called his “Philosophy of Nonviolence” (“Martin Luther King, Jr.”1).
Martin Luther King Jr., was influenced by his father and followed in his footsteps to continue to have freedom for the colored race. Born on January 15, 1929, he had a lot to live up to. According to experts King “attended Atlanta public schools and graduated Morehouse College in 1948 and was ordained (make (someone) a priest or minister; confer holy orders on.) the previous year into the Ministry of Baptist Church.”(“Martin
Luther preaches grace and in so free choice is abolished, suggesting that divine grace and human freedom are contradictory concepts. Because reconciliation between God and humans is made possible through the death of Jesus, God’s gift, it is foolish to assume that the exercise of freedom could have any relevance to salvation. Human freedom in Luther’s eyes is derived from the notion that individual’s are already saved through God’s righteousness and confirmed with the works of Christ, you are saved because of your possession of faith. "We reach the conclusion that faith alone justifies us and fulfils the laws; and this because faith brings us the spirit gained by the merits of Christ. The spirit, in turn, gives us the happiness and freedom at which the law aims.
There are not many religious movements capable of claiming the social impact like the Methodist. Methodism was an evangelical regeneration movement within the Church of England in the early eighteenth century that extended to the American colonies in the 1760s. In both Britain and America, the original members came mostly from the poorest and most marginal social classes. By 1830 the Methodist Episcopal Church had become the largest religious denomination in the United States despite Methodism split into various denominational forms over the years, the Methodist Episcopal Church's most direct successor, the United Methodist Church, is currently the second largest of the Protestant churches in the United States. Taken together, the Methodist family of denominations remains a powerful influence on the nation's religious culture. The success and popularity of Methodism stems from two mutually reinforcing factors. First, Methodists learned to foster a range of powerful religious experiences that they put at the center of their worship. Second, they learned to channel the religious enthusiasm that came from these experiences into a tightly structured organization. This combination proved peculiarly well suited to reaching out to the newly rising class of British industrial workers, who had been largely ignored by the established church. It also proved effective in evangelizing America's expanding frontier population as well as attracting many people from the established churches in the colonies of the Atlantic seaboard.
Luther com-posed his “95 thesis” when he went to the university lecturer in Wittenberg. He was able to translate the bible to German because he wanted the people to really understand what was inside of it. The way they would understand it is if they would read it for themselves. Luther makes two claims, the first one is that we should rely on scripture alone. The second is our salvation depends not at all on our works but on our faith alone, Luther is saying that we depend on the grace given to us by god. With this it has changed the way some of the people has practiced their faith. Luther was a formidable writer. The Lu-theran Church had to take on many forms, and their loving mercy of the Divine Being. What Luther is saying could give the congregations a new way to practice their faith. In one of the many thesis Martin Luther states, one sticks out to me the most. Thesis 62 Luther states “The true treasure of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God”. This is very true to what he believed. That we are saved by grace and that is a key factor in the church. By the end of the Reformation, Lutheran-ism had become the state religion throughout much of
...ed he was a visionary leader when he challenged the status quo of the Roman Catholic Church attempting to use change management. Through diversity, individual consideration, and intellectual stimulation, he changed the simple minded that led to a reformation. Secondly, this essay described Martin Luther’s struggle with the ethical leadership and critical thinking traits of principle, intellectual humility, integrity, personal biases and prejudices, ethical trap of relativism, and worry over image.. Finally this essay described how Martin Luther’s example related to me and my own hindrance in the bandwagon fallacy. In conclusion, while the facts state that he was not an ethical leader, it did prove that he was a visionary leader. Perhaps that part of his legacy is what inspired the name change of MLK Jr, the pioneer of the African American Civil Rights Movement.