In the New York Times today, there is an interesting article on the United States Christian Commission, an organization dedicated to ministering to the soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War.
Like the Y.M.C.A. movement in North America, the commission drew its force from the Second Great Awakening, a flowering of evangelicalism in the decades before the Civil War. As they offered religious services to soldiers, the commission’s staff also spread its version of Protestant Christianity, grounded in the doctrine of the Trinity, the authority of the Bible, the priesthood of all believers and justification by faith. The commission emphasized conversion, too, and excluded mainline Protestants from serving in its volunteer corps.
D. L. Moody served as a preacher in the work of the USCC.
The comments on revivalism in the article are much more positive than some bloggers offer lately!
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