This article deals with the paradoxical relationship between thenineteenth-century Evangelical Revival and secularization. It is arguedhere that the revival and its worldview played a role in increasingpluralism and choice in the nineteenth century – a process often relatedto secularization. The Evangelical movement both attempted to op-pose modernity and rationalism and emphasized religious freedom,voluntarism, and individualism. It therefore induced and popularizedself-reflection, doubt, and deconversion. It also favoured religiousdemocracy in opposition to a state-imposed religious monopoly (atleast in northern Europe). Furthermore, by dividing people into be-lievers and nonbelievers, it emphasized religious polarization. Thiscontributed to an undermining of established religious structures,fragmenting and pluralizing the religious landscape and giving peoplethe option to abstain completely from religious commitment. TheSwedish confessional (inner mission) revivalist denomination Evan-geliska Fosterlands-Stiftelsen (EFS – approx. the Swedish Evangeli-cal Mission Society), founded in 1856, is used as a case. The popularliterature they published and distributed manifested an evangelicalworldview. In this article four themes, based on the popular literature,are used to study empirically the changing role of religion in relationto nineteenth-century revivalism: ‘the dualistic worldview’; ‘conver-sion’; ‘activism’; and ‘self-reflection’.