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- Title
Transatlantic Delusions and Pro-slavery Religion: Isaac Nelson's Evangelical Abolitionist Critique of Revivalism in America and Ulster.
- Authors
RITCHIE, DANIEL
- Abstract
This article considers the arguments of one evangelical anti-slavery advocate in order to freshly examine the relationship between abolitionism and religious revivalism. Although it has often been thought that evangelicals were wholly supportive of revivals, the Reverend Isaac Nelson rejected the 1857–58 revival in the United States and the 1859 revival in Ulster partly owing to the link between these movements and pro-slavery religion. Nelson was no insignificant figure in Irish abolitionism, as his earlier efforts to promote emancipation through the Belfast Anti-Slavery Society, and in opposition to compromise in the Free Church of Scotland and at the Evangelical Alliance, received the approbation of various high-profile American abolitionists. Unlike other opponents of revivals, Nelson was not attacking them from a perspective which was heterodox or anti-evangelical. Hence his critique of revivalism is highly significant from both an evangelical and an abolitionist point of view. The article surveys Nelson's assessment of the link between revivalism and pro-slavery religion in America, before considering his specific complaints against the revival which occurred in 1857–58 and its Ulster counterpart the following year.
- Subjects
IRELAND; ULSTER (Northern Ireland &; Ireland); UNITED States; NELSON, Isaac; SLAVERY &; religion; ANTISLAVERY movements; EVANGELICALISM -- History; REVIVALS (Religion); NINETEENTH century; INTERNATIONAL relations
- Publication
Journal of American Studies, 2014, Vol 48, Issue 3, p757
- ISSN
0021-8758
- Publication type
Essay
- DOI
10.1017/S0021875814000036