The Benevolent Empire was the result of the fusion of religion and reform.
The religious side of this movement was fueled by the Second Great Awakening, which began around 1790 and continued into the early 1800s. Some key religious leaders involved in the movement were Charles Grandison Finney (a Presbyterian minister) and Samuel Hopkins (a Congregationalist minister). Hopkins advocated the idea of "disinterested benevolence" by Christians -- in other words, that godly people show kindness equally toward everyone without thinking about who should get their benevolence, because the whole community was their concern. These movements in religion also coincided with social reform movements that were occurring in the American political landscape during the same time frame.