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The Great Awakening And Second Great Awakening

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Many colonists came to America in order to escape the constraints of the Church of England, but continued to establish colonies that were built on Biblical principles. Due in part to the strictness and intolerance of the Puritan religion and differing beliefs among other religions, church membership began to dwindle and many people in later generations were either excluded from or decided against, joining the church. The Great Awakening and Second Great Awakening, as described by Butler, Wacker, and Stout (2003), were religious movements that emphasized Biblical teachings and the importance of a life changing experience through belief in Jesus Christ as well as the importance of spreading that message to others. Through large camp meetings like the Cane Ridge Revival, charismatic preachers brought the good news of salvation through Christ to a multitude of people, many of whom were disillusioned with the social and political climate of the times. This message of hope and morality is needed even more so today, in a world filled with hopelessness, crime, hate and drugs. Of course caution has to be taken to ensure that the emotionalism of present day religion is based on the model of Jesus, who taught sinners in a spirit of love, and not in the method of the religious leaders of Biblical times, who were self-righteous and condemning.
Revivals in America, known as the Great Awakening and Second Great Awakening, began with George Whitefield in the 1730’s and continued on and

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