How Did The Great Awakening Influence American Culture

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In the 1730s, a movement of religious revival swept the American Colonies, the Great Awakening. The Great Awakening and its effect on early settlers in the Northeast impacted not only their religious and political lives, but also was a contributor to the successful settling of a rigorous terrain. The movement’s emphasis on spiritual equality changed not only religious practices, but the views of the citizens of a young country; both the free and the enslaved, and influenced the characteristics that would form the identity of this nation. The Great Awakening, occurring in 1730s American Colonies, was a religious movement that started a change in the way people in the colonies viewed religion. The movement started with fears of clergymen that western expansion, commercial development, and lack of …show more content…

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

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