Between the late 1600s and 1700s a movement began in Europe called the Enlightenment and later another movement was started by the colonist called the Great Awakening. The Enlightenment movement focused on science, reason, observation, and many natural laws were discovered during this time by people like Newton, Franklin, Galileo, and many more. Many went from a God centered way of life to a man centered view on life; science and reason was used to answer the questions when it came to the various mysteries of life. The Enlightment movement caused people to think differently about religion and people began to question the church when it came to their right to rule over the people (Schultz, 2013). One philosophy that came out of this time …show more content…
Ministers did all they could to stir up the emotions of the colonists and taught that the individual was important to the whole group. They also preached about how a person should live a godly life and perform good works in order to receive salvation. A few of the things that came from the Great Awakening was that the colonist became deeply religious and many new churches were built since attendance increased. Colleges were built that did nothing but train new ministers; some of the colleges built were Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Kings College of New York, Princeton, and many others. Many of these ministers taught that all men were equal and that authority should be challenged along with they started charities and organizations that did charitable deeds. The Great Awakening was incredibly different from Puritanism that emphasized a calm and virtuous life with emphasis on reason whereas after the Great Awakening a person becoming emotional was a sign of faith as was expressing their feelings, along with the teaching that salvation was not earned by performing good deeds but by faith. Another outcome was that people were encouraged to find a church that suited their needs, to question the leadership of their pastor, and encouraged to allow their religious beliefs to influence
The Great Awakening was a superior event in American history. The Great Awakening was a time of revivalism that expanded throughout the colonies of New England in the 1730’s through the 1740’s. It reduced the importance of church doctrine and put a larger significance on the individuals and their spiritual encounters. The core outcome of the Great Awakening was a revolt against controlling religious rule which transferred over into other areas of American life. The Great Awakening changed American life on how they thought about and praised the divine, it changed the way people viewed authority, the society, decision making, and it also the way they expressed themselves. Before the Great Awakening life was very strict and people’s minds were
A time period known as The Age of Reason or The Enlightenment was when philosophy, politics, science and social communications changed drastically. It helped shape the ideas of capitalism and democracy, which is the world we live in today. People joined together to discuss areas of high intellect and creative thoughts. The Enlightenment was a time period in which people discussed new ideas, and educated people, known as philosophers, all had a central idea of freedom of choice and the natural right of individuals. These philosophers include John Locke, Voltaire, Adam Smith, and Mary Wollstonecraft.
In the essay, “The Second Great Awakening” by Sean Wilentz explains the simultaneous events at the Cane Ridge and Yale which their inequality was one-sided origins, worship, and social surroundings exceeded more through their connections that was called The Second Great Awakening also these revivals were omen that lasted in the 1840s a movement that influences the impulsive and doctrines to hold any management. Wilentz wraps up of the politics and the evangelizing that come from proceeding from the start, but had astounding momentum during 1825.The advantage of the Americans was churched as the evangelizing Methodists or Baptists from the South called the New School revivalist and the Presbyterians or Congregationalists from the North that had a nation of theoretical Christians in a mutual culture created more of the Enlightenment rationalism than the Protestant nation on the world. The northerners focused more on the Second Great Awakening than the South on the main plan of the organization.
Although the Great Awakening did have a great influence on the development of a democratic society, that influence does not outweigh the even greater influence the Enlightenment had. The Great Awakening increased religious diversity and led to the Enlightenment. However, it also preached a stricter form of spirituality, which is not what the colonies needed. The logic and reason the Enlightenment emphasized and encouraged throughout the colonies helped them prosper and
The Great Awakening resulted in the growing of the Baptist and Presbyterian churches. In revivalist services music played a very important role in getting people to accept Jesus. Preachers used the singing of hymns, psalms, and spirituals as a form of emotionally connecting and bonding with their congregation. The results in America were astounding, at least 50,000 souls were added to the churches of New England out of a population of amazingly only 250,000 people. The Great Awakening also affected over one hundred towns in the middles states. Biblically based schools and bible based colleges also multiplied during this time.
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.
People of all groups, social status, and gender realized that they all had voice and they can speak out through their emotional feels of religion. Johnathan Edwards was the first one to initiate this new level of religion tolerance and he states that, “Our people do not so much need to have their heads filled than, as much as have their hearts touched.” Johnathan Edwards first preach led to more individuals to come together and listen. Than after that individual got a sense that you do not need to be a preacher to preach nor you do not need to preach in a church, you can preach wherever you want to. For the first time, you have different people coming together to preach the gospel. You had African American preaching on the roads, Indian preachers preaching and you had women who began to preach. The Great Awakening challenged individuals to find what church meets their needs spiritually and it also let them know about optional choices instead of one. The Great Awakening helped the American colonies come together in growth of a democratic
The Enlightenment is the era were the intellectual, scientific and individual freedom, centered upon the 18th Century; there were many important people of this time that brought forth many new concepts. For example, Benjamin Franklin, he brought many new inventions to this era, such as the Poor Richards’ Almanac, lightening rod, harmonica, and his own thought on the Christian outlook. Secondly, Sir Isaac Newton discovered the laws of nature such as, gravitation. Third, the most well known religious revival was brought forth, The Great Awakening, which put a fire in many people during the 18th Century. During the 18th Century, Benjamin Franklin, Sir Isaac Newton, and The Great Awakening goes to show the intellectual, scientific and individual
...ing shattered denominational loyalties and allowed Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists to leap ahead of all other Protestant rivals after 1780. It also destroyed the systems of established churches and recognized hierarchies, and replaced them with Evangelicalism, which mainly consisted of missionary work and reporting conversion experiences to others. The Great Awakening and westward expansion provided the American colonies with a few characteristics that led to the development of an American culture that distinguished it from British culture.
In the early 1700's spiritual revivalism spread rapidly through the colonies. This led to colonists changing their beliefs on religion. The great awakening was the level to which the revivalism spread through the colonists. Even with this, there was still religious revivalism in the colonies. One major reason for the Great Awakening was that it was not too long before the revolution. The great awakening is reason to believe that William G Mcloughlin's opinion and this shows that there was a cause to the American Revolution.
In the beginning of the Second Great Awakening, preachers brought their message to the people with great fanfare and excitement in the form of a traveling revivals. In the beginning, these focused on the Appalachian frontier. However, they quickly moved into the area of the original colonies. These revivals were looked upon as a social event where faith was renewed. The Baptists and Methodists often worked together in these revivals. Both religions believed in free will with
In essence, the Great Awakening was a religious awakening. It started in the South. Tent camps were set up that revolve around high spirited meetings that would last for days. These camp meetings were highly emotional and multitudes of people were filled with the Spirit of God. These meeting, were sponsored mainly by Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterians, and met social needs as well as spiritual needs on the frontier. Since it was hard for the Baptist and Methodist to sustain local churches, they solved the problem by recruiting the non educated to spread the word of God to their neighbors. The camp meetings eventually favored "protracted meetings" in local churches.
Even though the First and Second Great Awakenings focused its attention on other matters of life later on, religion was the theme upon which they were built. The First Great Awakening started among the American colonial Protestants during the early 1700s, mainly due to the weakening of the strict Puritan tradition of religious doctrine, and in part, the religious decline caused by negative publicity from the Salem witch trials and the Enlightenment (www.wikipedia.org). The movement to correct these problems began with Jonathan Edwards, a strictly Puritan, orthodox theologian from Massachusetts who dedicated his time to bringing the people back to the strict Calvinist roots, and to reawaken the fear of God' (www.wikipedia.org). He was a powerful speaker, and preached to his large followings that it was to simply come to church was not enough to be saved, but they must also acknowledge their grievances in the heart, and feel God's love for them (Danzer, 38). He set off the wave of religious revival, as preachers traveled all across the colonies, attracted thousands of people to revival meetings of spiritual rebirth, gave impassioned sermons, and encouraged people to rededicate themselves to God (Danzer, 38). Although after the First Great Awakening America's religious zeal faded, its influence in religion was the beginning step (www.wikipedia.org). The Second Great Awakening's religious cycle took a bigger step in trying to turn the religious tide. Starting in New York during the early 1800s, the movement spread north, south, and west before ending during the 1840s (Klepp, 2). The Second Great Awakening's religious portion came about through the replacement of the predestination doctrine with the belief that anyone, whether they be sinners or not, can achieve salvation through the internal and external struggle against sin.
During the Age of enlightenment people began to reform society using reason, challenge ideas of tyranny and of the Roman Catholic Curch. People for the first time started advancing knowledge through the use of the scientific method. Enlightenment type thinking has had a huge impact on the culture, politics, and g...
The Enlightenment period, also known as The Age of Reason, was a period of social, religious, and political revolution throughout the 18th century which changed the thoughts of man during this “awakening” time. It was a liberation of ignorant thoughts, ideas, and actions that had broken away from the ignorant perception of how society was to be kept and obeyed thus giving little room for new ideas about the world. Puritan society found these new ideas of thought to be extremely radical in comparison to what they believed which was a belief of strong rational religion and morality. Enlightened society believed that the use of reason would be a catalyst of social change and had a demand of political representation thus resulting in a time in history where individualism was widely accepted amongst the new world. Puritan society believed strongly in myth, magic, and religious superstitions that was immensely used by the Puritans before democracy, capitalism, and the scientific revolution gave rise from the Enlightenment period.