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American Church Architecture During The Second Great Awakening

298 Words2 Pages
In the nineteenth century, American church architecture only began to realize the implications of Protestantism’s stress on the priesthood of all believers, and on the primary importance of hearing the word. In the prevailing "federal style," the minister preached from an elevated pulpit to an audience seated with little regard to sight or hearing. During the Second Great Awakening, revivalists like Charles Grandison Finney experimented with churches—or "tabernacles"—that placed the minister on a stage lower than the congregation, who were seated in rows of seats so curving that each person could see and hear. Although these innovations were by no means universally admired, they remained within the inventory of possibilities for the evangelical
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