Protestantism

===Post-Reformation===
{{See also|Great Awakening|Azusa Street Revival}}
[[File:1839-meth.jpg|thumb|An 1839 [[Methodism|Methodist]] camp meeting during the [[Second Great Awakening]] in the U.S.]]

The Great Awakenings were periods of rapid and dramatic religious revival in Anglo-American religious history.

The [[First Great Awakening]] was an evangelical and revitalization movement that swept through Protestant Europe and [[British America]], especially the [[Thirteen Colonies|American colonies]] in the 1730s and 1740s, leaving a permanent impact on [[Protestantism in the United States|American Protestantism]]. It resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of deep personal revelation of their need of salvation by Jesus Christ. Pulling away from ritual, ceremony, sacramentalism and hierarchy, it made Christianity intensely personal to the average person by fostering a deep sense of spiritual conviction and redemption, and by encouraging introspection and a commitment to a new standard of personal morality.<ref>Thomas S. Kidd, ''The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America'' (2009)</ref>

The [[Second Great Awakening]] began around 1790. It gained momentum by 1800. After 1820, membership rose rapidly among [[Baptist]] and [[Methodism|Methodist]] congregations, whose preachers led the movement. It was past its peak by the late 1840s. It has been described as a reaction against skepticism, [[deism]], and [[rationalism]], although why those forces became pressing enough at the time to spark revivals is not fully understood.<ref>[[Nancy Cott]], "Young Women in the Great Awakening in New England", Feminist Studies 3, no. 1/2 (Autumn 1975): 15.</ref> It enrolled millions of new members in existing [[evangelical]] denominations and led to the formation of new denominations.

The [[Third Great Awakening]] refers to a hypothetical historical period that was marked by religious activism in [[American history]] and spans the late 1850s to the early 20th century.<ref>William G. McLoughlin, ''Revivals Awakenings and Reform'' (1980)</ref> It affected [[pietistic]] Protestant denominations and had a strong element of social activism.<ref>[[Mark A. Noll]], ''A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada'' (1992) pp. 286–310</ref> It gathered strength from the [[postmillennial]] belief that the [[Second Coming]] of Christ would occur after mankind had reformed the entire earth. It was affiliated with the [[Social Gospel]] Movement, which applied Christianity to social issues and gained its force from the Awakening, as did the worldwide missionary movement. New groupings emerged, such as the [[Holiness movement|Holiness]], [[Church of the Nazarene|Nazarene]], and [[Christian Science]] movements.<ref name=Fogel>Robert William Fogel, ''The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism'' (2000)</ref>

The [[Fourth Great Awakening]] was a Christian religious awakening that some scholars—most notably, [[Robert Fogel]]—say took place in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, while others look at the era following [[World War II]]. The terminology is controversial. Thus, the idea of a Fourth Great Awakening itself has not been generally accepted.<ref>Robert William Fogel (2000), ''The Fourth Great Awakening & the Future of Egalitarianism''; see the review by Randall Balmer, ''Journal of Interdisciplinary History'' 2002 33(2): 322–325</ref>

In 1814, [[Réveil|Le Réveil]] swept through Calvinist regions in Switzerland and France.

In 1904, a [[1904–1905 Welsh revival|Protestant revival in Wales]] had a tremendous impact on the local population. A part of British modernization, it drew many people to churches, especially Methodist and Baptist ones.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gibbard |first1=Noel |title=Fire on the Altar: A History and Evaluation of the 1904–05 Welsh Revival |date=2005 |publisher=[[Bryntirion Press]] |location=Bridgend |isbn=978-1850492115}}</ref>

A noteworthy development in 20th-century Protestant Christianity was the rise of the modern [[Pentecostalism|Pentecostal movement]]. Sprung from Methodist and [[John Wesley|Wesleyan]] roots, it arose out of meetings at an urban mission on [[Azusa Street]] in Los Angeles. From there it spread around the world, carried by those who experienced what they believed to be miraculous moves of God there. These Pentecost-like manifestations have steadily been in evidence throughout history, such as seen in the two Great Awakenings. Pentecostalism, which in turn birthed the [[Charismatic movement]] within already established denominations, continues to be an important force in [[Western Christianity]].

In the United States and elsewhere in the world, there has been a marked rise in the [[Evangelicalism|evangelical wing]] of Protestant denominations, especially those that are more exclusively evangelical, and a corresponding decline in the [[Mainline Protestant|mainstream liberal churches]]. In the post–[[World War I]] era, [[Liberal Christianity]] was on the rise, and a considerable number of seminaries held and taught from a liberal perspective as well. In the post–[[World War II]] era, the trend began to swing back towards the conservative camp in America's seminaries and church structures.

In Europe, there has been a general move away from religious observance and belief in Christian teachings and a move towards [[secularism]]. The [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] is largely responsible for the spread of secularism. 
Some scholars debate the link between Protestantism and the rise of secularism, and take as argument the wide-ranging freedom in Protestant-majority countries.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2012/03/has-lutheranism-caused-secularism/|title=Has Lutheranism caused secularism?|last=Cranach|date=22 March 2012|access-date=28 June 2015|archive-date=30 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150630182929/http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2012/03/has-lutheranism-caused-secularism/|url-status=live}}</ref> However, the sole example of France demonstrates that even in Catholic-majority countries, the overwhelming impact of the Enlightenment has brought even stronger secularism and freedom of thought five centuries later. It is more reliable to consider that the Reformation influenced the critical thinkers of the subsequent centuries, providing intellectual, religious, and philosophical ground on which future philosophers could extend their criticism of the church, of its theological, philosophical, social assumptions of the time. One should be reminded though that initial philosophers of the Enlightenment were defending a Christian conception of the world, but it was developed together with a fierce and decisive criticism of the Church, its politics, its ethics, its worldview, its scientific and cultural assumptions, leading to the devaluation of all forms of institutionalized Christianity, which extended over the centuries.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.cairn.info/pouvoir-et-religion-en-europe--9782200272135-page-209.htm |title=Chapitre 6 – Les Lumières, ou la sécularisation de l'État |publisher=Cairn.info |date=2016|isbn=978-2200272135 |accessdate=2022-09-22}}</ref>