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Spiritual Awakening During The Great Awakening

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Spiritual vs Political
When people think of the Great Awakening they think of an animated spiritual uprising in the 1700s. Is the spiritual awakening of America the most significant part of the Great Awakening? The Great Awakening was a spiritual awakening during the 1730s through the 1770s, reaching its height in the 1740s. Taking place in both England and the colonies, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Theodore Frelinghuysen, and Gilbert Tennent were the distinguished preachers. Although these men preached to thousands, the main way people heard about Christianity was through their friends. Whitefield and his fellow preachers taught about a new concept: faith which was not solely based on works. Before the Great Awakening, a spiritual …show more content…

The colonists may not have actually been converted. Charles Chauncy, a minister of the First Baptist Church in Boston expressed, "I deny not but there might be here and there a person stopped from going on in a course of sin; and some might be made really better. But so far as I could judge upon the nicest observation, the town, in general, was not much mended in those things wherein a reformation was greatly needed. I could not discern myself, nor many others whom I have talked with and challenged on this head, but that there was the same pride and vanity, the same luxury and intemperance, the same lying and tricking and cheating as before this gentleman came among us.” Even Edwards spoke, “emotional displays did not prove that someone was a convert.” The churches became overly concerned about the different beliefs of the people instead of uniting through their similarities which led to the division of the churches into multiple …show more content…

They argue that the spiritual impact was momentous because church membership increased during the Great Awakening. “Between 25,000 and 50,000 new Christians were added to the churches in [New England] whose total population was then about 300,000.” (Clouse 92) However, this idea is invalid because church membership returned to its previous numbers after the Great Awakening. The gain in church membership was not significant in the long term as “there were many false conversions during the Great Awakening which diminished its [spiritual] influence.” (Clouse 93)
Additionally, people argue that, as a result of newfound religious freedom, the government no longer mandated personal beliefs. This is also untrue. Even today, the courts establish laws that govern moral issues. Recent examples of this are the recent passage of a federal law that allows homosexual marriage and the resulting incarceration of Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, who opposed the law.
Neither of these arguments are sufficient to prove that spiritual is greater than

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