The Awakening-Cycle Controversy

Participants in a 1983 symposium in Sociological Analysis debated the existence of periodic “awakenings” in American society. The precise issues in dispute were often blurred by a tendency to equate awakenings with peaks in revival activity, at best an imperfect measure. The awakening-cycle construct may be further clarified by comparing it with related cyclical models: Whitney Cross's linkage of revivals and economic downturns; E.P. Thompson's “chiliasm of despair” thesis; Anthony F.C. Wallace's model of “revitalization”: and Thomas Kuhn's model of scientific revolutions. An examination of these approaches suggests that the awakening-cycle theory remains promising but requires modification, principally by assigning greater significance to outbursts of millennialism as a key indicator.