How do hymns such as “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” and the fear-provoking sermon “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God” correlate? The two both belong to the period of religious revival in Early America known as the Great Awakening that occurred from the 1730s-1750s. The transition from the religious doctrine of the Puritans to the newfound teachings of the main evangelists Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield changed the religious beliefs of the colonies in many different ways, from encounters with Native Americans to the introduction of hymns. With the new ideals of Christianity, newly composed hymns and Great Awakening tenets commonly shared themes of emotion, conversion experiences, signs from God, union, and acts in the community or pilgrimage.
Before addressing the correlation between
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hymns and teachings of the Great Awakening, the history should be assessed to determine the musical transition that occurred during the Great Awakening. According to Paul E. Beaudoin and Judith Tick in Music in the USA: A Documentary Companion, before the Great Awakening, the use of common hymnals did not exist within congregations (p. 25). All congregations sang directly from the Psalm Bay Book, with Isaac Watts changing some of the references to God to Jesus, in order to “Christianize” the Psalms (p. 19). According to John Ogosapian in Church Music in America, the singing of the Psalms often consisted of a monotone chant similar to Catholic Latinate chants (19). Upon the arrival of the Great Awakening, religious fervor replaced the typical doctrinal complacency of the colonial Puritans provoking the change from the monotonic chants to the increased musical freedom that hymns provided (19). The first hymnal in America originates from on Great Awakening evangelist. After visiting England, George Whitfield brought back the first hymnal from Isaac Watts to America; the first hymnal highly contrasts the modern hymnal as it consisted of lyrics and possibly a lead sheet (Beaudoin and Ticker 14). Since the hymns did not contain a 4-part composition like in hymnals today, differences in musical score differed throughout various demographics. Therefore, I argue that only the lyrics can be assessed to perceive hymns’ correlation between Great Awakening ideals. In disregards to the musical scores of these hymns, commonalities such as emotional appeal, conversion feelings, signs from God, union, and community acts, are still prevalent between the religious ideals and the hymns of the Great Awakening. The first and arguably most prominent characteristic of the religious teachings and hymns during the Great Awakening is the emotional appeal made to congregations. Utilizing a plethora of emotions from admiration to fear to guilt, pastors of the Great Awakening often appealed to the audience’s pathos. For example, Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hand of An Angry God” sought to provoke listeners to repentance through fear: Yea God is a great deal more angry with great Numbers that are now on Earth… than he is with many of those that are now in the flames of Hell… The Wrath of God burns against them, their Damnation don’t slumber, the Pit is prepared, the Fire is made ready, the Furnace is now hot, ready to receive them, the Flames do now rage and glow. The glittering Sword is whet, and held over them, and the Pit hath opened her Mouth under them. (391). In his sermon, Jonathan Edwards appeals to the congregation’s fear in order to convince them to convert.
As Marini explains in “Hymnody as History: Early Evangelical Hymns as Sacred Music,” emotional appeals to congregations not only remained in Edwards’s sermons of fear, but they also ranged in other sermons with appeals to guilt and obligation as well (134). Similarly, hymns also appealed to the emotional side of the singers and listeners. For example, in the hymn “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed” by Watts, emotionally provokes the singer and listener to feel obligated to repent from causing Jesus to die on the cross for their sins (250,). In the song, the reoccurring theme of redemptive love that should be followed with action prevails throughout all verses: “But drops of grief can ne’er repay / The debt of love I owe;/ Here Lord, I give myself away: / ‘Tis all that I can do” (228). The hymns throughout the Great Awakening provoked the audience members emotionally whether through explaining redeeming love or the desolate situation that Christ saved them from. Overall, both the hymns and religious texts of the Great Awakening utilize pathos to provoke the
congregation. In addition to emotion, Great Awakening texts and hymns also focused on a conversion experience as evidence of salvation; this importance of a conversion experience manifested from originally in the teachings of Great Awakening preachers to the hymns. Jonathan Yeager in “Finding God in Solitude: The Personal Piety of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) and Its influence of Pastoral Ministry” explains how Edwards believed a person did not have salvation if they could not identify a specific moment in which they felt an immediate change caused by a new presence of the Holy Spirit (440). The idea of instant conversion is also prevalent in Jonathan Edwards’s essay “A Divine and Supernatural Light” in which he describes his own immediate conversion experience: A spiritual and saving Conviction of the truth and reality of these things, arises from such a sight of their divine Excellency and Glory; so that this Conviction of their truth is an effect and natural consequence of this sight of their divine Glory. (381). As Edward notes, a true Christian would feel a conviction from the Holy Spirit as an assurance of their salvation. Edwards along with many other Great Awakening Evangelists did not considered a person’s faith genuine without the identification of an immediate conversion feeling. Furthermore, hymns also portray the same idea of a conversion experience. For example, the hymn “And Can It Be” exemplifies the experience of feeling immediately changed: Long my imprisoned spirit lay Fast bound in sin and nature’s night: Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chanis fell off, my heart was free; (250) In the hymn, Wesley portrays a visible representation of the supernatural feeling Edward describes. The “quick.ning ray” from Wesley’s hymn directly represents the “divine and supernatural light” from Edwards’s essay. As exhibited in the hymn, The Awakening ideal that one can only know they are God’s chosen if they felt acceptance from the Spirit during their conversion manifested in both the writings and the music. The conversion experience heavily influenced the music and the teachings of the Great Awakening.
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.
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 foster a deep sense of morality and redemption. Edwards was a key preacher and minister that delivered many sermons preaching about revival and reformed theology. 2) Edwards sermon was directed towards non believers and those who have turned away from the light of God, and in his words “sinners.”
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.
He speaks with some allusions and phrases that show the audience that he is well educated in the subject that he is speaking on. He says that, "Who knows the power of God 's anger" (Edwards 43)? This is an allusion from Psalm 90:11 in the bible and he just assumes that his readers are aware of what he is referring to when he says this. Since Edwards was a respected preacher of that time the sermon meant more to the people because of his qualifications and his experience ("Using" 14). Also throughout his sermon he refers to a happening of that time which was known as the great awakening. When speaking of this Edwards stated "Many are daily coming from the east, west, north, and south; many that were lately in the same condition that you are in, are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him who has loved them" (Edwards 44). He told them about the others who have already came and been converted to Christianity and hopes that showing them the others that have came they would also change their ways and be converted. Also, this being the time of the great awakening he wants the unconverted of his congregation to become a part of it and referencing to this event helps contribute to their
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
The primary function of the Negro spirituals was to serve as communal song in a religious gathering, performed in a call and response pattern reminiscent of West African traditional religious practices. During these ceremonies, one person would begin to create a song by singing about his or her own sorrow or joy. That individual experience was brought to the community and through the call and response structure of the singing, that individual’s sorrow or joy became the sorrow or joy of the community. In this way, the spiritual became truly affirming, for it provided communal support for individual experiences. Slaves used the characters of the bible, particularly the Old Testament,...
Throughout her novel, The Awakening, Kate Chopin uses symbolism and imagery to portray the main character's emergence into a state of spiritual awareness. The image that appears the most throughout the novel is that of the sea. “Chopin uses the sea to symbolize freedom, freedom from others and freedom to be one's self” (Martin 58). The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, wants that freedom, and with images of the sea, Chopin shows Edna's awakening desire to be free and her ultimate achievement of that freedom.
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.
Social expectations of women affected Edna and other individuals in Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, struggles throughout the novel in order to become independent and avoid her roles as mother and housewife in American Victorian society in 1899. This was because women during the 19th century were limited by what society demanded of them, to be the ideal housewives who would take care of their families. However, Edna tries to overcome these obstacles by exploring other options, such as having secret relationships with Robert and Arobin. Although Edna seeks to be independent throughout the novel, in the end she has been awakened but has not achieved independence.
In comparison to other works such as Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn wherein the title succinctly tells what the story shall contain, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening represents a work whose title can only be fully understood after the incorporation of the themes and content into the reader’s mind, which can only be incorporated by reading the novel itself. The title, The Awakening, paints a vague mental picture for the reader at first and does not fully portray what content the novel will possess. After thorough reading of the novel, one can understand that the title represents the main character, Edna Pontellier’s, sexual awakening and metaphorical resurrection that takes place in the plot as opposed to not having a clue on what the plot will be about.