Confessional Protest

Abstract

The term “confessional protest” originates in Michael P. Young's work on the rise of national social movements in the US in the 1830s. Young argues that the first sustained and interregional social movements in US history were shaped by a particular form of protest that called on Americans to bear witness against the sins of slavery and intemperance. He terms this form of religious and political dissent confessional protest. Young's research demonstrates how the temperance and abolitionist movements emerged as evangelicals joined together in this form of protest, fusing intensive projects of personal redemption with extensive projects of national reform. This interlacing of intimate responsibility and far‐flung social problems fueled the first national wave of social movements in the United States. These confessional protests emerged as two religious movements driving the Second Great Awakening started to interact: the “new measure” religious revivals associated with Charles Grandison Finney and a network of national benevolent societies including the American Tract Society and the American Home Missionary Society. The combination of popular revival and organized benevolence proved radical. As public confessions, the dramatic centerpiece of revivals, became central to the specialized campaigns of benevolence, a wave of social movements broke across the nation.