Second Great Awakening

===Theology===
{{main|Postmillennialism}}
[[Postmillennialist]] theology dominated American Protestantism in the first half of the 19th century. Postmillennialists believed that Christ will return to earth after the "[[millennialism|Millennium]]", which could entail either a literal 1,000 years or a figurative "long period" of peace and happiness. Christians thus had a duty to purify society in preparation for that return. This duty extended beyond American borders to include [[Christian Restorationism]]. [[George M. Fredrickson|George Fredrickson]] argues that Postmillennial theology "was an impetus to the promotion of Progressive reforms, as historians have frequently pointed out."<ref name="Fredrickson">George M. Fredrickson, "The Coming of the Lord: The Northern Protestant Clergy and the Civil War Crisis," in {{cite book|editor1-first=Randall M. |editor1-last=Miller |editor2-first=Harry S. |editor2-last=Stout |editor3-first=Charles Reagan |editor3-last=Wilson |title=Religion and the American Civil War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y3NZ6LvDfikC&pg=PA115 |year=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=110–30 |isbn=9780198028345}}</ref> During the Second Great Awakening of the 1830s, some [[Divination|diviners]] expected the Millennium to arrive in a few years. By the late 1840s, however, the great day had receded to the distant future, and postmillennialism became a more passive religious dimension of the wider [[middle-class]] pursuit of reform and progress.<ref name="Fredrickson"/>