THE FIRST GREAT AWAKENING The First Great Awakening was an extremely important religious revival that moved through the American colonies. This spiritual revival took place in the American colonies around 1730 to 1760. The First Great Awakening was able to gain a lot of momentum because of the influential preaching that taught the citizens of these colonies that the only way to salvation was by accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior. Many of the colonists believed that they lived proper and just lives by attending church and doing good deeds. It was by the strong influential preaching that took place during the Great Awakening that preachers informed these believers that their works and good deeds would not save them; only salvation through …show more content…
Jonathan Edwards was known as a “nurturing pastor, frontier missionary, and bold revivalist preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Edwards exemplifies a man who integrated reason (the mind) and personal devotion (the heart) in unwavering dedication to the sovereign God revealed in creation and Scripture.” Jonathan Edwards spent much of his young life trying time to live and serve God through his works and deeds. He finally realized that it was impossible to earn his own salvation through his works and he accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior. Jonathan Edwards helped propel the First Great Awakening around 1733-1735, by directing some of the very first revivals from his Northampton, Massachusetts church. During some of these revivals Edwards preached sermons about salvation to his Puritan congregation. When these sermons were conducted amazing outbreaks of the Holy Spirit took place and people started recognizing their need for Jesus. This awesome move of God helped communities, households, and individuals to bond together in unity. These events continued to spread throughout the communities and most of the American colonies. Jonathan Edwards successful revivals were not without opposition. Edwards was drawing opposition and criticism from more traditional and strict Puritan leaders who were more concerned with religion. Jonathan Edwards then relocated to Stockbridge, …show more content…
I totally understand from reading and my research that these die-hard supporters of the First Great Awakening were trying to draw people out of the depressing tenets of Puritan religion. These preachers realized that people throughout the American colonies were in utter darkness believing that their good deeds and works would provide them an eternal life in Heaven. However; these great ministers wanted people throughout the colonies to understand and realize that the only way to have eternity in Heaven was through salvation in Jesus Christ. “The Great Awakening was said to be so effective because it sparked spiritual renewal by suggesting that redemption was available to everyone who would accept it, not just those that were the privileged ones in society.” It is good to see that these men totally understood the heartbeat of God; that the gospel is meant for all people. I also believe that the unity and shaping that came from the Great Awakening is what helped bring the American colonies together to fight and gain its freedom from England. These believers came to the New World seeking and desiring freedom from England and they gained it; while at the same time coming into a deeper relationship with Jesus
The movement was tremendously influential in the way American colonists thought about religion and politics. The people of the revival thought, and knew, that they could interpret God so the chain no long ran from God to ruler to people, but from God to people to ruler, thus creating a sense of independence; moreover, lack of dependence on a ruler or governing body. This self-assertion was later echoed in the War of Independence or Revolutionary way, against King George III and his oppressive and tyrannical ways. The Great Awakening had profound impacts in preparing new Americans for the War of Independence. Although the movement did not unite all the colonists theologically, it did unite them in the school of thought that political power was in their hands rather than in the hands of the British government. This common belief, after a generation or more, would lead a burning desire: to be free from the British government. This desire would turn to action which; in turn, would lead to an American Revolution that would leave an everlasting effect of the
Jonathan Edwards said, “True liberty consists only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will.” Edwards played a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening and administered some of the first enthusiasms of revivals in 1730. The First Great Awakening occurred around 1730 to 1760 and its significance has had a great impact on the course of the United States. It was a major influence on what caused and led up to the American Revolution. The First Great Awakening was a movement that was engrained in spiritual growth and also ended up bringing a national identity to Colonial America and preparing colonists for what was to come about forty years later. The awakening had a dramatic
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.
Ultimately, the Great Awakening was a period for religious revival for the faith of many Puritans. Through Edward’s sermon, he paves a road to salvation through the use of variation in tone and figurative language/diction. Edwards shrewdly shifts from a cynical tone to
Edwards died roughly 20 years before the American Revolution, which means he was a British subject at birth and death. Edwards believed that religion is tied to nations and empires, and that revivals were necessary in history. Edwards’ belief in revivals began what is known as The Great Awakening. Edwards’ purpose in ministry was the preaching that God is sovereign, but also loving towards his creation. Since God is sovereign, Edwards claimed that God worked through revolutions and wars to bring the message of the gospel (Marsden, Jonathon Edwards, 4, 9, 197). Edwards’ most known sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was preached to revive the demoralized congregations. The congregations of New England had low memberships within different churches, and competition from denominational pluralism was stagnant (Lukasik, 231). Getting the colonists to return back to God was the mission and purpose of The Great Awakening. Through this, Edwards hoped that this movement will foster a great increase in learning about God (Marsden, Jonathon Edwards,
1) Jonathan Edwards delivered this sermon during the first Great Awakening, a time of religious revival in Europe and America. During the Great Awakening, christianity shifted its focus from ceremonies and rituals, and began to realign itself with introspection to encourage fostering a deep sense of morality and redemption. Edwards was a key preacher and minister that delivered many sermons preaching about revival and reformed theology.
The Great Awakening was a spiritual movement that began in the 1730’s in the middle colonies. It was mostly led by these people; Jonathan Edwards, a congregational pastor in Massachusetts, Theodore J. Frelinghuysen, a Dutch Byterian Pastor in New Jersey; Gilbert Tennent, a Presbyterian Pastor in New Jersey; and George Whitefield, a traveling Methodist Preacher from New England. The most widely known leader was George Whitefield. At the beginning of the very first Great Awakening appeared mostly among Presbyterians in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey. The Presbyterians initiated religious revivals during these times. During this time, they also started a seminary to train clergyman. The seminary’s original name was Log College, now it is known as Princeton University. In the 1740s the clergymen of these churches were conducting revivals throughout that area. The Great Awakening spread from the Presbyterians of the middle colonies to the Congregationalist (puritans) and Baptist of New England.
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 swept through the United States during the end of the 18th Century. Charles Grandson Finney was one of the major reasons the Second Great Awakening was such a success. Finney and his contemporaries rejected the Calvinistic belief that one was predetermined by go God to go to heaven or hell, and rather preached to people that they need to seek salvation from God themselves, which will eventually improve society has a whole. Finney would preach at Revivals, which were emotional religious meetings constructed to awaken the religious faith of people. These meetings were very emotional and lasted upwards of five days. Revivalism had swept through most of the United States by the beginning of the 19th Century. One of the most profound revivals took place in New York. After the great revival in New York Charles Finney was known ...
During the Second Great Awakening, a mass revival of American society took place. Reformers of every kind emerged to ameliorate women’s rights, education and religious righteousness. At the forefront of the movement were the temperance reformers who fought for a change in alcoholism, and abolitionist who strived for the downfall of slavery.
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.
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.
It created an attitude that went against the intensely contrasting thinking that was deep rooted within English politics and religion. Instead of believing that God’s will was somewhat interpreted by the monarch, the colonists thought it would be more efficient to view themselves as being capable of performing the task themselves. According to an article titled, The Significance of the Great Awakening, “The youth of revivalism later echoed this radicalism and popular self-righteousness in the American Revolution.” It was through the revivalism of the very beginning of the Eighteenth Century that colonists were finally able to free themselves from the rules of the Christian churches and begin to confidently state their own religious control over the destiny of their
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.
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