The People Of The Church

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is widely recognized as one of America’s most profound Theologians. Some might even consider him the master of Puritan revival, since he was the leader of the Great Awakening. During his time he was a devout Calvinist who had the power of single-handedly keeping the Puritan faith strong for over twenty-five years, by using vivid imagery to provoke his audience. Edward's dialect was exquisitely influential and yet wielded with class and ease. This essay argues that Edwards was a prestigious theologian in his time that helped shape modern religious culture.

Jonathan Edwards's sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is moving and powerful. His effectiveness as an eighteenth century New England religious leader is rooted in his expansive knowledge of the Bible and human nature, as well as a genuine desire to "awaken" and save as many souls as possible. This sermon, delivered in 1741, exhibits Edwards's skillful use of these tools to persuade his congregation to join him in his Christian beliefs.

Later on, Professor Lambert mentioned a revival in Freehold, New Jersey that occurred at a similar time as the Northampton revival. Once again, the revival was never referenced by newspapers during the revival; however, this awakening became well-known among evangelicals in 1736, when Jonathan Edwards heard about it from a man named William Tennent. Although these two revivals were never mentioned during the actual event, Lambert ironically noted, “ By 1739, however, Northampton and Freehold had become linked in the minds of evangelicals as sites in a great and general awakening, in large measure because the Faithful Narrative, first to memorialize the event, had quickly emerged as a model for revival accounts elsewhere.” Jonathan Edwards’s ingenious Faithful Narrative on the Northampton awakening became a template for other evangelicals to copy for their individual town’s revival.

In the book Shopkeeper’s millennium by Paul E. Johnson, it’s a new explanation of the relationships between the economy ,religion and politics during the Second Great awakening. Revivals mostly seemed as a spiritual disorder. This all happened among the working class. Johnson talks about the political practices in the beginning between the elites and the reform movements until the revival evened up in the Rochester community. Charles Finney studied the law practice first but them in 1821 he got in a religious conversation. After that he dropped his law practice and went to become an evangelist , he then was licensed by the Presbyterians.

Jonathan Edwards was a Puritan minister who sparked the era of the Great Awakening with his most famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The Great Awakening was an era in the 18th

During the early eighteenth century between 1730 and 1750, a resurgence in religious fervor known as the First Great Awakening developed throughout the thirteen British Colonies. As the European Enlightenment ideas of reason and logic in all things began to grow in Europe and the colonies, the First Great Awakening derived from an attempt to restore the predominance of emotion and spiritual piety in religion. Likewise, throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the Second Great Awakening again invigorated religious zeal in the United States in response to the growing secularism in America and complacency of religious believers. The First Great Awakening’s prominent figures, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, discredited the socially stratified religious ideology of established churches such as the Christ Church and popularized the religious ideology of fervent personal connections with God and the principles of spiritual guilt and Calvinist predestination, or the selective and predetermined salvation and damnation of people. From the First Great Awakening also arose the decrease in traditional church parish worship and the appearance of emotionally impassioned itinerant preachers in the thirteen colonies and the mass preaching to emotional crowds outside. The Second Great Awakening eroded Calvinist predestination, and instead religions such as Methodists and Baptists professed the equality of all before God and salvation for all who repent for their sins and

The fighting conflicts between religious and political groups, which resulted from the Glorious Revolution during 1688 to 1689, caused a significant event the “Great Awakening” in 1730s and 1740s. It was a religious movement that swept through settled North America, including British Americans and American colonists, with a spiritual revivalism. It led the ministers explored all people, including all statuses, occupations, levels of education, and region, to reject the emptiness of material goods and allow their emotions and beliefs in God from the heart. Therefore, the Great Awakening had caused some divisions within society and had impacted on religion in the Americas, especially colonists.

The main dominations of most of the colonies of New England in 1680 to 1760 were Anglicanism and Congregationalism. However, new church movements were created such as Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, and much more. These religions were sometimes called “Dissenters” because they were descendants of Protestantism. There were very many complications within Christianity and an interesting one happened in Salem, Massachusetts.

Jonathan Edwards was one of the sparks of the first Great Awakening. A Calvinist, he believed that mortal men and woman completely depended on the salvation of God (The Great Awakening). As a believer in the evangelical method, he would not simply preach in one place. He would travel from church to church, any that would welcome him, to spread his message. His sermons were not theatrical. He would not excessively gesture or feel a need to act along with his sermons. His sermons were filled with emotion that was evident through his voice.

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

One of the many famous revivalists, Jonathan Edwards is credited with sparking the Great Awakening in the colonies through his famous sermons such as Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and leading one of the very first revivals in Massachusetts. Edwards’ use of vivid descriptions of Hell successfully reinstated the colonists’ need for salvation and assured good works and dependence on God’s grace would help earn it. Edwards played a critical role in the Great Awakening in which he was able to spread the ideals of the Awakening like wildfire and help the colonists bring religion back into their lives.

Edwards’s intense, persuasive technique was very effective in guiding non-believers back into religion. It also helped the Puritans that were not swayed by the reform advancements to stay engaged in God and willing to spread His word. His persuasive technique proves to be effective when his audience, authority and reason are considered. Puritans were “member[s] of a group of Protestants that arose in the sixteenth century within the Church of England, demanding the simplification of doctrine and worship, and greater strictness in religious discipline” (Collins English Dictionary). Because of their adamancy about reforms, Puritans were more likely to be open to new ideas. Subsequently, Edwards’ directed the sermon

Both The First Great Awakening and The Enlightenment generated an instant trend in the revival of religious influences. Started by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, the Great Awakening was most commonly understood to have its greatest religious impact between the 1730s and 1740s. American colonists had begun to become more devoted to various religions, which resulted in the toleration of many of them. Another cause of this revival dated back to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries when a German movement, called Pietism, emphasized closely distinct personal connections with God (Gullotta, 2016). This movement spread as a result British, German, Scottish, Scotch-Irish immigration that then influenced British and Dutch religion (Gullotta, 2016). As a consequence, American colonists had begun to become more devoted to various religions, which resulted in the toleration of many of them.

The most important shift that Edwards created was served to be towards the ending of his sermon, he introduces Christ, “And now you have an extra ordinary opportunity, a day wherein

Over the past years of my life I have seen many changes, some for the good and others not as good. Change can be demanding and also crucial. The early believers would encounter this. One can see that significant change happened, when reading through the gospels and the book of acts it is obvious to the reader that the believers who followed Jesus would never be the same again.