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The impact of the great awakening
The impact of the great awakening
The impact of the great awakening
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Question: What was the Great Awakening? Why did the Great Awakening have such a pervasive impact and following in British American Colonies? What were the consequences of the Great Awakening?
The Great Awakening was a revival/ evangelical movement that swept through both England and the American Colonies within the early 18th century. During this revival Englishmen and American Colonists alike found themselves being swayed by the talk of such preachers as “ Jonathan Edwards” or “George Whitefield”, who were both noteworthy evangelists at the time. After hearing a sermon, audience members would be scared that if they died that day, they 100 percent would be going to the fiery depths of hell. In an essence, the Great Awakening was a point in time when people started getting serious about God/ being a christian.
Now when one looks at the Great Awakening, it is hard to tell at first glance why exactly the movement was; 1. Such a success and 2. What exactly the results were from this. To dive deeper
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First and foremost, the wild behavior of the young adults began to dwindle away and there was a resurgence of people coming back to the church. People now were not only church attenders but now they found themselves to be church members, finally connected with the church on an emotional level. Another consequence(that was stated before) is that local pastors and priests found themselves to be disliked by the public in comparison to the traveling pastors. Many priests attempted to copy their theatrical style but it was to no avail, it was too much of a change to suspect a upright pastor to condone his congregation from yelling out in church and wearing their emotions on their sleeves. The Great Awakening nevertheless changed Christianity as a whole for years to come and in turn, has a subtle yet monumental influence on the American
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,
The Second Great Awakening began in 1790, as numerous Americans experienced uncertainty as they confronted a rapidly changing society with increases in urbanization and technology. The movement focused on the ability of individuals to change their lives as a means of personal salvation and as a way to reform society as a whole, which opened the door for many reform movements. The Second Great Awakening shaped reform movements such as temperance, abolition, and women’s rights in the nineteenth century because of the increase in concern for the morality of the American people.
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
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.
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 Second Great Awakening started the was a religious revival movement during the early 19th century in the United States, it sparked the building and reform of the education system, women's rights and the mental health system. It was also the start of many different denominations of churches such as the, Churches of Christ, Seventh-day Adventist Church, and the Evangelical Christian.
The Awakening shaped the way we view religion today, it helped people to view society as a whole instead of the separate religious groups divided by different faiths and beliefs. But the Enlightenment shaped society as a whole by introducing the core values that today still serve as the foundation of the United States government. The belief that all people are created equal and have a right to be treated as such. Those rights not only serve to protect us, but the rights of our neighbors as well, by assuring that we are all in this together. It is our duty to serve ourselves, and our country.
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.
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.
New Essays on The Awakening. Ed. Wendy Martin. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988.
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 loss of power of the Ministers and clergy was an effect of the Great
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.