The First Vision in its Historical Context

Dear Reader--

Last week we discussed the Second Great Awakening and the First Vision. Naturally, the blog prompt was about these two events. Here are my thoughts.

One particular aspect of the Second Great Awakening that adds to my appreciation of the first vision (and the restoration as a whole), is the fervor—should I say craze?—that took place at the revivals. The list of exercises was especially amusing. I can’t imagine going to church (perhaps stake conference would be a more accurate analogy) and progressing sequentially through the falling exercise (collapsing into a semi-conscious state), the rolling exercise, the “jerks,” the barking exercise, the dancing exercise, and the laughing and singing exercise (performed with a countenance of joy and peace—a crucial clarification). One painting that Dr. Holzapfel included in the PowerPoint presentation really stood out. It depicted an outdoor sermon at a revival. The preacher was having a grand old time up on his platform, and the benches were full of frenzied members of the congregation exploding in hysterics or swooning and generally reacting violently to the sermon. It reminds me strikingly of the witchcraft practiced among the Bushmen of the Kalahari and other peoples in which medicine men or even ordinary people would work themselves into such a state during a ritual dance that they would pass out and have out of body experiences.

Well, whatever the nature of hysterics of the Second Great Awakening’s camp meetings, real or imagined, we as Latter-Day Saints know that they did not come from God. It is amazing to me that a fourteen year-old boy would be so honest with himself and so spiritually oriented that he would, one, see the hysteria happening around him and not fake the phenomenon in himself even for the sake of fitting in, two, realize that spirituality was so important even though he was not experiencing the same “spiritual manifestations” felt my so many of his neighbors, and three, have the courage and the persistence to actively seek out the truth. It is amazing and fitting and perfect that God would manifest himself to someone who someone who was not accustomed to such hysterics. That the Lord would visit one who sought the truth by study and by faith is a confirmation of my own testimony of the first vision and the Restoration.

--Christian