Cane Ridge Revival

 
The Cane Ridge Camp Meeting quickly spread throughout the entire frontier, igniting the Second Great Awakening.

Church historian Paul Conkin called Cane Ridge, “… the most important religious gathering in all of American history. It ignited the explosion of evangelical religion, which soon reached into nearly every corner of American life. For decades the prayer of camp meetings and revivals across the land was ‘Lord, make it like Cane Ridge.’”[1] 

The camp meeting revivals at Cane Ridge and other locations eventually birthed revivalist Methodist and Baptist churches and eventually led to Finney-style Congregationalism, the Holiness movement, Pentecostalism, and the modern Evangelical movement.[2]

The following are excerpts from reports on the Cane Ridge Camp Meeting.

“At a meeting, two young ladies fell with a shriek of distress and lay for more than an hour apparently in a lifeless state. At length they began to exhibit symptoms of life by crying fervently for mercy, and then they relapsed into the same death-like state with an awful gloom on their countenances. After awhile, the gloom on the face of one was succeeded by a heavenly smile, and she cried out, “Precious Jesus!” and rose up and spoke of the love of God.” Conversion stories like this were common during the Cane Ridge Revival.”[3]

“The noise was like the roar of Niagara. Sinners shrieking, groaning, crying for mercy; believers praying, agonizing, fainting, falling down in distress for sinners, or in raptures of joy! Some were singing, some shouting, some clapping their hands, or hugging, kissing and laughing.” Very many fell down, as men slain in battle, and continued for hours in an apparently breathless and motionless state –sometimes for a few moments reviving, and exhibiting symptoms of life by a deep groan, or piercing shriek, or by a prayer for mercy most fervently uttered. … With astonishment did I hear men, women, and children declaring the wonderful works of God.”[4]

 

[2] Robert Longman Jr., Pre-Pentecostalist History, www.spirithome.com

[3] Barton Stone, Autobiography, Christian History Interactive

[4] Mark Galli, Revival at Cane Ridge, Christian History Interactive