Analysis Of The First Great Awakening

Nathan Hatch compares the Second Great Awakening to the Jacksonian era. He states that the men trying to persuade other people to join their religion was like tyrants trying to get people to follow them. That just like the beginning stages of the revolution, this was a time of power struggle for religious leaders. Hatch writes ‘These movements

The Second Great Awakening laid the foundations of the development of present-day religious beliefs and establishments, moral views, and democratic ideals in the United States. Beginning back in late eighteenth century and lasting until the middle of the nineteenth century,1 this Protestant awakening sought to reach out the un-churched and bring people to a much more personal and vivid experience of Christianity. Starting on the Southern frontier and soon spreading to the Northeast, the Second Great Awakening has also been associated as a response against the growing liberalism in religion - skepticism, deism, and rational Christianity.2 Although the movement is well-known to be

To begin, the Great Awakening took place during the early 1730’s. It was a period where religious revivals were spreading along the Atlantic coast. Preachers such as Jonathan Edwards would go around and try to get people back into Christianity. One reason why colonist turned away from Christianity was because of the Enlightenment. He would describe hell and heaven trying to convince colonist to rejoin christianity.

The First Awakening began in New England where John Edwards was a new light minister known for Sinners in the “Hand of an Angry God.” Many new light ministers saw state supported churches as obstacles to expressing faith. It is said that the First Awakening spurred the American Revolution. Edward’s emotional sermon caused people to leave state churches in large quantities. As the number of church memberships dwindled, people began to question aspects of their daily lives such as religion and the government.

As the Age of Enlightenment gradually came to an end, the British American colonists were ready to progress beyond the ideology of human reason and depend solely on biblical revelation. During the eighteenth century, a great movement known as the First Great Awakening swept through Protestant Europe and America, leaving a permanent impact on

The First Great Awakening was a religious revival that swept across Colonial America in the 18th century. The First Great Awakening changed the colonists attitudes toward religion and helped pave the way for the American Revolution. It impacted the way colonists worshipped and gave them a sense of independence. This paper will look at the cause and effect of the First Great Awakening.

By the 18th century, there were concerns about the declining religious devotion and the increase of secularism emerging in the United States. The result of these changes was the Great Awakening, the first major american revival. There were many preachers that were outspoken from their religion. George Whitefield was one of many of those preachers. Whitefield was very compassionate during his speeches, preaching the words of God, weeping with sorrow, spreading the word of God, and hitting people on an emotional standpoint. He made numerous evangelizing tours through the colonies and attracted large crowds. Nathan Cole, like thousands of others, came to see George Whitefield. Nathan Cole wrote in “The Spiritual Travels of Nathan Cole” and said, “When I saw Mr. Whitefield come upon the Scaffold he lookt almost angelical; a young, Slim, slender, youth before some thousands of people with a bold undaunted Countenance, and my hearing how God was with him every where he came along it Solemnized my mind; and put me into a trembling fear before he began to preach; for he looked as if he was Cloathed with authority from the Great God; and a sweet sollume solemnity sat upon his brow And my hearing him preach, gave me a heart wound…” Cole had just described that hundreds upon hundreds of people came to see Whitefield and speakers like him. This greatly revived religion in many peoples’ lives. Cole said that the speech given touched him in the heart as it did with thousands of others.

Over time people felt that religion was dying, and not many people really had one or practiced one, people felt that they needed to revive religion and this was known as the Great Awakening. This Great Awakening started with the fundamentals of religion, and tried to bring people back to christianity. John Edwards was like the leader, he was the head preacher and explained that good salvation game from God and not from doing good. During this Great Awakening, there was another preacher who soon came along, his name was George Whitefield. George Whitefield brought emotion out of people, he was a great speaker, but

of religon. More people came to church for the worship of god from their heart.

The Great Awakening occurred in the middle of the eighteenth century and brought along a series of revivals through North America. This movement created several new religious denominations, including the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the Baptists. This event would have a great impact on the colonial North American Society. One of the Great Awakening’s key leaders was an English minister, named George Whitefield. As a popular religious figure, George Whitefield had a central message of “What must I do to be saved.”

The First Great Awakening, was a religious revitalization movement that came through the Atlantic region, and even more so in the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, forever impacting American religion & is widely known as the most important event for American religion during the eighteenth century. The First Great Awakening was inspired by an English Methodist known as George Whitefield along with other ministers, when many people in the rural areas rejected the Enlighted and rational religion that came from the Cosmopolitan pulpits and port cities. George Whitefield began this movement with speaking tours through the colonies (“The Great Awakening”).

The First Great Awakening was a religious revival that was associated with Jonathan Edwards an American evangelical preacher and Methodist evangelist George Whitfield. The revivals renewed interest in the Christian faith. During the revivals, it was believed that people experienced conversions, salvation, regeneration or spiritual rebirth. It was a time of restructuring and re-evaluating political social and religions ideas. The movement sparked the American Revolution with was fueled by the growing religious alienation between the Revivalist and the established religion of England. According to Alister E. McGrath, “The dominant theme was the desire to break free from the oppressive and exploitative influence of England”. Gusto L. Gonzalez noted that, “The Great Awakening was the first movement to unite the thirteen colonies, which would become the United States”. Moreover, the independence of the thirteen colonies and the wealth created by the industrial revolution inspired new religious, political and social ideas. The Great Awakening of the 18th century was the start of the Evangelical movement that paved the way for the Second Great

Between 1730-1740, The Great Awakening was religious revival, and it gave the colonists a shared national religious experience. It created a greater religious and political freedom in the colonies. The church leaders have taught the people that anyone can be a church leader and if you can be a church leader, then you can also be a government leader; since the leaders of the church are the leaders of the government at that time. In late 1600’s and early 1700’s, a movement looked into more scientific and rational way to explain the world we live in. It transformed majority of Europe causing dramatic changes in the church as well as new developments in science technology.

The Great Awakening, was a succession of religious revivals spanning from the 1720s to the 1760s, that swept across the thirteen colonies, and with it its ideals and doctrines. A theorized reason for the appeal of these revivalist principles was because it cut across lines of class, race, gender, occupation, and education (Press). This would further unite the colonies into a more common understanding of shared values, which introduced the spread of mass communication in America as revivalists travelled the colonies preaching to all. The thirteen colonies spread across a vast canvas of land, and each with their own unique state, but the religious revivals of the eighteenth century consolidated them with its reach of a lasting legacy that tolerated divergent ideas, promoted religious pluralism, and the separation of the church and the state (Press). These were all new concepts that were

John Winthrop and Jonathan Edwards were both religious leaders that lived centuries before the present time. They shared the same goal in persuading people into Christianity, yet differed greatly in the way they chose to develop their sermons. Winthrop, a Puritan who wrote based on new religious and social ideals, composed the famous sermon “A Model of Christian Charity.”