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Essay about the great awakening transformed american religious institutions and culture
Essay about the great awakening transformed american religious institutions and culture
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Religious Awakenings
Charles G. Finney, born in 1792 in the state of Connecticut made a lasting impact on the new, young, America. Finney went to law school and was a practicing lawyer when he had a life changing conversion. He found himself unsatisfied with his life, he repented of his sins, and turned his life in a different direction to follow after God. While Finney left his law practice to become a preacher and evangelist his sermons are laced with reasonable arguments and examples from the court rooms he was familiar with. “Sinners Bound to Change Their own Hearts” is not only a sermon but a very logical argument for a case Finney believed in fully.
One of Finney’s famous sermons written in 1831 was titled “Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts”. In this sermon he breaks from the widely accepted Calvinistic way of thinking and expounds on the ability of man to choose to turn away from sin and to turn toward God. Finney believed that faith was necessary but that salvation was not passive as the Calvinists had commonly taught. This sermon was first preached in his church in...
In Martin Luther’s Freedom of a Christian Man, Luther describes what he believes should be the relationship between faith and good works in the life of Christian people. His beliefs became integral to the Protestant and Lutheran ideologies. The basis of Luther’s pamphlet was “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” (31) This central thought provides readers dialogue on what is truly a selfless, act and if these acts do in fact have an effect on one’s
In the 1700’s the Puritans left England for the fear of being persecuted. They moved to America for religious freedom. The Puritans lived from God’s laws. They did not depend as much on material things, and they had a simpler and conservative life. More than a hundred years later, the Puritan’s belief toward their church started to fade away. Some Puritans were not able to recognize their religion any longer, they felt that their congregations had grown too self-satisfied. They left their congregations, and their devotion to God gradually faded away. To rekindle the fervor that the early Puritans had, Jonathan Edwards and other Puritan ministers led a religious revival through New England. Edwards preached intense sermons that awakened his congregation to an awareness of their sins. With Edwards’ sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” he persuades the Puritans to convert back to Puritanism, by utilizing rhetorical strategies such as, imagery, loaded diction, and a threatening and fearful tone.
The “Awakening”, part of the “Eyes on the Prize” series, addresses civil rights, or lack thereof, in the 1950’s. The film highlights two individual’s choices to take a stand against the white supremacy, and the ripple effect that acts cause. The first person featured was Mose Wright. His nephew, Emmett Till, was murdered by two white men. They were angered over the fact that Emmett had spoken to two white women in a flirtatious manner. Mose Wright made the decision to testify in court against the white men. This was a very dangerous act on Mose’s behalf. Speaking to, let alone, against the other race could easily cost him his life. At the end of a very long and public trial, the men were found not guilty.
The Second Great Awakening was extremely influential in sparking the idea of reform in the minds of people across America. Most people in America just accepted things the way they were until this time. Reforms took place due to the increase of industrial growth, increasing immigration, and new ways of communication throughout the United States. Charles Grandison Finney was one of the main reasons the Second Great Awakening was such a great success. “Much of the impulse towards reform was rooted in the revivals of the broad religious movement that swept the Untied State after 1790” (Danzer, Klor de Alva, Krieger, Wilson, and Woloch 240). Revivals during the Second Great Awakening awakened the faith of people during the 1790s with emotional preaching from Charles Finney and many other influential preachers, which later helped influence the reforms of the mid-1800s throughout America.
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.
He was a man whose very words struck fear into the hearts of his listeners. Acknowledged as one of the most powerful religious speakers of the era, he spearheaded the Great Awakening. “This was a time when the intense fervor of the first Puritans had subsided somewhat” (Heyrmen 1) due to a resurgence of religious zeal (Stein 1) in colonists through faith rather than predestination. Jonathan Edwards however sought to arouse the religious intensity of the colonists (Edwards 1) through his preaching. But how and why was Edwards so successful? What influenced him? How did he use diction and symbolism to persuade his listener, and what was the reaction to his teachings? In order to understand these questions one must look at his life and works to understand how he was successful. In his most influential sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, Jonathan Edwards’ persuasive language awakened the religious fervor that lay dormant in colonial Americans and made him the most famous puritan minister of the Great Awakening in North America.
The Second Great Awakening was a religious revival. It influenced the entire country to do good things in society and do what was morally correct. The Second Great Awakening influenced the North more than it did the South and on a whole encouraged democratic ideas and a better standard for the common man and woman. The Second Great Awakening made people want to repent the sins they had made and find who they were. It influenced the end of slavery, abolitionism, and the ban of alcohol, temperance.
As a former preacher, a distinction he holds dear, Casy will make it very clear that he doesn’t believe in conventional ideas like sin, or even God and Jesus. Towards the beginning of the book, Casy remarks that “ 'Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe, ' I figgered, 'maybe it 's all men an ' all women we love; maybe that 's the Holy Sperit—the human sperit—the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever 'body 's a part of.” Jim Casy’s ideas on religion harken back to the beliefs of Ralph Waldo Emmerson when he discusses the “big soul”, or as Emmerson would have called it, the Oversoul. Casy also remarks on sin, that “Ever 'body got sins. A sin is somepin you ain 't sure about.” In his beliefs, Casy is a direct counter to the traditional view of religion, favoring a more holistic interpretation in which men can decide for themselves what is right is wrong.
In 1741, Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan preacher of that time, had one thing on his mind: to convert sinners, on the road to hell, to salvation. It just so happened to be, that his way of doing that was to preach the reality to them and scare them to the point of conversion. Sermons of this time were preached to persuade people to be converted and to me it seemed that Edwards just had a special way of doing it. Just as people are being influenced by rhetoric appeals today Edwards used the same method on his congregation. In “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Jonathan Edwards positively affected his readers using pathos, logos, and ethos, while trying to convince the unconverted members of his sermon to be born again.
In the 1830's, 1840's, and beyond, There is a Second Great Awakening. The Second Great Awakening had a decided impact on American society. In the following I will describe what the Great Awakening was and how it changed life in America.
Edwards’s grandfather, Reverend Solomon Stoddard, also greatly influenced him. Solomon was often referred to as the “Pope of the Connecticut Valley” . While Solomon was preaching in Northampton, Connecticut he helped liberalize church policy by broadening “the standards for full church membership to all adults who professed the doctrines of the church, submitted to its discipline, and promised to attempt to live morally” . These extended standards meant that almost, if not all members of the community could and wo...
By appealing to emotions, inspiring others to take action, addressing the needs and concerns of his audience, and including expressive and rhythmic language Edwards displays all of the elements of an oratory. Because of these techniques, Edwards’s emotional sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God remains to be his most famous work. It sparked curiosity in religion and contributed a great deal to the Great Awakening movement. Although the oratory is not as popular as it once was, traces of it can still be heard in courtrooms and churches. The oratory will always play an important role in America’s history and future.
Many ideals coming out of the Great Awakening had a significant amount of influence on the political literature and rhetoric of the American Revolution. The Great Awakening was started as a resistance to the growing formality of churches in America (The Great Awakening.”). The Great Awakening is commonly known for the “emotional enthusiasm of its participants” when referring to the mass crowds and people fainting frequently from overwhelming emotions (“Lesson 1”). More importantly, the Great Awakening gave American people an identity and a unity the country never before had (“The Great Awakening.”). The Great Awakening encouraged a negative attitude against the British Crown while also creating a moral and religious framework justifying resistance.
(pg 64). In the past, there had been puritan and separatist movements that were about being a light to the world, and Great Awakenings pertaining to moral reformation. However, this movement was based on the question, “what must I do to be saved? (pg 63).” With that being said, the real change in thinking comes in the answer to that question. Before this movement, a lot of what it meant to be saved was actions based, however, Finney’s movement was about inviting God into your life and listening to the Spirit of God to direct
LAP #2 Compare/Contrast Janie in Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” & Edna in Chopin’s “The Awakening” in terms of conformity within a male- dominated society.